Content & Strategy
E-commerce SEO
Faceted navigation, product schema, out-of-stock handling, and the AI Search work that gets your products recommended when shoppers ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Claude. From single-store sites to enterprise multi-region catalogues.
Deliverables
E-commerce SEO audit
Full audit covering faceted navigation, product schema, category pages, internal search handling, and crawl budget allocation. The diagnostic foundation specific to commerce.
Faceted navigation strategy
Which filter combinations to index, which to canonicalise, which to block. Built around what your shoppers actually search for, not what your filter UI allows.
Product schema implementation
Complete Product schema with Offer, AggregateRating, Review, availability, and pricing. The schema that gets you eligible for rich results and AI Search citations.
Out-of-stock and discontinued handling
Out-of-stock products that hold ranking until restock. Discontinued products with backlinks redirected to the right replacements. Zombie URLs cleaned up.
AI Search product visibility
The layer most e-commerce SEO services skip. Testing whether ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity cite your products when shoppers ask category questions. Validated per product line.
Documented runbook
Written guide for your team to maintain e-commerce SEO discipline as the catalogue evolves. Product launches, discontinuations, seasonal changes - all covered.
Process
Discovery call
Thirty minutes. We walk through your catalogue size, your platform (Shopify, Magento, custom, WooCommerce), your faceted navigation setup, and your current state. By the end I know whether the work is foundational (new platform) or remedial (existing issues).
E-commerce audit
Two to three weeks. Faceted navigation crawl mapping, product schema validation per product type, category page assessment, internal search exposure check, out-of-stock and discontinued URL patterns, AI Search citation testing per product line.
Strategy and architecture decisions
Faceted navigation rules per filter, schema rollout sequence, out-of-stock handling rules, internal linking strategy, and AI Search visibility targets per product category. Documented with reasoning for your team.
Implementation alongside engineering
Product schema templates shipped, faceted navigation rules deployed, out-of-stock handling rolled out, internal search indexation blocked where needed. I work directly in Shopify Liquid, Magento templates, or custom platform code where I can.
Validation and handover
Post-deploy validation across Google product results and AI Search citation testing per product category. Documented runbook so your team can maintain e-commerce SEO discipline through catalogue changes, seasonal launches, and discontinuations.
Packages
E-commerce Audit & Strategy
From £2,500
Find the leaks and plan the rebuild
3 to 4 weeks
- Full e-commerce SEO audit covering faceted navigation, schema, and category pages
- Faceted navigation strategy with indexation rules per filter
- Product schema audit with completeness check
- Out-of-stock and discontinued URL pattern analysis
- AI Search citation testing across your top product categories
Audit & Implementation
From £7,000
End-to-end e-commerce SEO work shipped alongside engineering
6 to 12 weeks
- Everything in the audit and strategy
- Product schema templates shipped (Offer, AggregateRating, Review)
- Faceted navigation rules deployed and validated
- Out-of-stock and discontinued product handling rolled out
- AI Search visibility validation per product line post-launch
- Documented runbook for your team
Ongoing Monitoring
From £800/month
E-commerce SEO that scales as your catalogue grows
Monthly cadence
- Monthly product schema validation across the catalogue
- Faceted navigation drift monitoring
- AI Search citation tracking for top product categories
- Quarterly strategy reviews around seasonal launches and discontinuations
- Direct email access for e-commerce SEO questions
Case Studies
Aldernode
Faceted navigation rebuild for an active brand
E-commerce brand with deep filtering across colour, size, material, and use case was generating tens of thousands of indexable filter combinations producing near-duplicate pages. Built selective indexation rules, canonical strategy, and crawl directives that recovered budget for revenue-driving product and category pages.
Outcome:
Brixley & Co
Product schema rollout for AI Search visibility
DTC lifestyle brand had basic Product schema but missing Offer, AggregateRating, and Review markup. Designed and shipped the complete schema layer across the catalogue, validated rich result eligibility, then tested AI Search citation behaviour per product line. Citations followed within 60 days.
Outcome:
Quillmark
Replatform from custom to Shopify Plus
DTC brand replatforming from a custom storefront to Shopify Plus needed the full e-commerce SEO stack rebuilt: URL structure preservation through redirects, product schema templates, category page handling, faceted navigation strategy. Live launch without organic revenue loss.
Outcome:
FAQs
How do you handle faceted navigation?
Selective indexation. Filters that match real shopper search intent (like a colour or a product type) get indexed with proper canonicals. Filter combinations that produce near-duplicate pages get blocked or canonicalised back to parent categories. The rules are decided based on what your shoppers actually search for, not what every possible filter combination produces.
We are on Shopify. Will faceted navigation work the same way?
Shopify has constraints. Default Shopify generates query-parameter URLs for filters which limits indexation control. Shopify Plus and custom storefront approaches give more flexibility. The strategy phase accounts for what your platform allows. Sometimes the answer involves middleware (Cloudflare Workers, custom routes); sometimes it is accepting platform limits and tightening canonicals.
How do you handle out-of-stock products?
It depends on the duration. Temporarily out-of-stock products (returning in weeks) stay indexed with availability schema showing OutOfStock. Long-term unavailable products get redirected to category or replacement products. Permanently discontinued products with backlinks get strategic redirects to recover the equity. The runbook documents which rules apply.
How do you handle discontinued products with backlinks?
Audit, evaluate, redirect strategically. Discontinued products with valuable backlinks get redirected to the closest replacement product or relevant category page. Discontinued products with no equity stay as 410s or get parked on category. We avoid the trap of redirecting everything to homepage, which signals soft 404 to Google.
Will my products actually be recommended in AI Search?
It depends on product schema completeness, entity recognition, content quality, and AI engine training data. The work makes you eligible. We test citations per product category to see what is working and what needs deeper entity or content work. AI Search product visibility is newer territory than rank tracking; we approach it with appropriate honesty.
What is the difference between e-commerce SEO and standard SEO?
Three things specific to commerce. First, the scale of crawl management (thousands or millions of indexable URLs through faceted navigation). Second, the schema complexity (Product, Offer, AggregateRating, Review all working together). Third, the lifecycle handling (out-of-stock, discontinued, seasonal). Standard SEO does not address these in the depth e-commerce needs.
We are on Magento or WooCommerce. Does that matter?
Yes, in detail. Each platform has its own schema implementation, faceted navigation patterns, and template structure. Magento gives the most flexibility but the most engineering overhead. WooCommerce is permissive but plugin-dependent. Shopify is fast to ship on but constrained. The audit accounts for platform specifics; the implementation uses each platform native patterns.
How long until I see results?
Faceted navigation crawl improvements show in Search Console within two to four weeks. Product schema rich results typically appear within three to six weeks. AI Search citations are slower, often 60 to 120 days as engines accumulate signals. Migration recoveries typically take 60 to 90 days. We set expectations realistically during scoping.