Advice on best practice keyphrases for collection and product pages

SEO
1

Hi all

We are in the process of migrating our store from Woocommerce to shopify so now is the ideal time to look at some of the collections/products that are not perfoming as well as they should for SEO, but then saying that the areas that are performing ok could also be improved.

What are the best practices people use for this?

I have carried out extensive keyword research and this is how i have been contructing the pages with regards to SEO keywords in content.

Collections page - focus on the top level keyphrases for the product group

Product pages - Use different relevant keyphrases for each product that will not cannibalize the collections page.

And on top of that:

Blog articles - Including at least one top level keyphrase in the content which is used as an internal link to the collections page and then use longer tail keyphrases in the the rest of the blog copy again trying not to cannibalize the collections page.

Am i doing the right thing with this or do people use different methods.

2

You’re doing things the right way already :+1:

Your structure collections targeting top level commercial keywords, products targeting unique long tail terms, and blogs supporting collections via internal links is exactly how SEO should be handled, especially during a WooCommerce → Shopify migration.

A few short additions to strengthen it further:

  • Make sure collections have decent on page content (not thin pages)

  • Match pages to search intent, not just keywords

  • Prioritize blog → collection → product internal linking

  • Plan 301 redirects carefully before migrating to avoid traffic loss

Overall, solid approach just polish execution and migration details.

3

Thank you for the reply good to know i am on the right track.

We have just completed the migration with cart2cart which should have already created all the redirects, but as you say these will all be checked before we go live.

4

Just on the point about collection page content. I am planning to have a short block of content at the top of the collection page and then a collection specific FAQ section at the bottom of the collection page is this enough content?

What sort of word count is good for a collection page?

5

Good question. Here’s how I think about it:

For product pages, be specific. “Leather Oxford Shoes Men’s” beats just “Oxford Shoes.” You want to match what people are actually typing into Google.

Put your main keyword in:

- The meta title (most important)

- The URL/handle

- The product title (H1)

- First paragraph of your description

- Image alt text

For collections, same idea but slightly broader. “Women’s Summer Dresses” rather than just “Dresses.”

The key is don’t force it. Write naturally but be strategic about placement. And go long-tail when you can—“best running shoes for flat feet” is way easier to rank for than “running shoes.”

One thing that helped me: tools like Ubersuggest or even just Google’s autocomplete. Type your product category and see what suggestions come up. Those are real searches people are doing.

If you have a lot of products, doing this manually is brutal. I built an app that handles the keyword optimization automatically—analyzes your products and generates optimized meta titles, descriptions, handles, etc. Check it out: ObsessAI ‑ Retail Agent - Obsess AI - AI Blog Writer & SEO Tool for... | Shopify App Store

But the framework above works whether you do it manually or not.

6

Hi @Mungo2007 Overall, you’re on the right track and your thinking about search intent and internal competition is sound, but there are still a few shortcomings and risks to address in the transition from WooCommerce to Shopify.

The best practice is to let search intent and the role of the optimized page guide, not just keyword groups. Collection pages should target high-intent commercial terms and be built like true landing pages: strong introductory content, clear filters, internal linking, and indexable pagination.

Product pages should focus on very specific product intent (model, use case, attributes) and not try to compete on generic category terms, which you’ve already done right. Many stores fail because of inadequate collection optimization with thin content or relying solely on a product grid, something Shopify particularly needs to address.

Your blog strategy is largely correct, but the blog should primarily aim to provide information, not just exist to push top keywords. Use the blog to answer questions, make comparisons, discuss “best for” topics and problems, then naturally link to collections and products where relevant. Don’t force top-level keywords into every blog post if the purpose isn’t right; this often leads to cannibalism and weak rankings. Instead, let the blog support collections through topic authority, not keyword repetition.

During the transition, ensuring good SEO is just as important as keyword usage. Make sure all important WooCommerce URLs have clean 301 redirects to their Shopify equivalents, maintain URL structure if possible, and check internal links to ensure collections are clearly central pages.

In summary: your approach is good, but refine it by prioritizing intent, strengthening collection pages as key SEO assets, using the blog to build credibility (not just links), and treating post-conversion cleanup as part of an SEO strategy, rather than a technical issue to be resolved later.

Wishing you success on the Shopify platform :blush:

7

Thanks for this good to know we are on the right track - it is a good point on the blog we have noticed lots of keyword cannibalization on the blog articles and have been trying to address this on the woocommerce store, but now we are going to look at removing and redirecting a lot of the worst offending articles causing the cannibalization and have a bit of a clean slate for the shopify store .

8

Your setup makes sense, especially for Shopify. Collections usually do better with broader terms, while products work well for more specific searches, so separating intent like that is sensible.

Blog posts are often where keyword overlap causes problems, so cleaning those up during the migration is a smart time to do it. Consolidating or redirecting weaker articles can help avoid issues later.

As long as redirects are handled carefully, this approach should translate well to Shopify. Are you planning to merge many of the blog posts, or mainly remove the worst ones?

9

Hi thanks for the reply.

I have already merged a fair amount of blog posts on the woocommerce side so mainly planning to remove and redirect the worst offending articles now on the migration. After looking through the stats yesterday there are definately some articles still causing cannibalization so a good clearout i think will help a huge amount. And then have a better blog article strategy when the new site goes live.

10

So another question on the back of the above.

I have been looking through the stats on some of the blog articles and found that some articles are getting decent (not huge maybe 50-100 visits a month) traffic and plenty of keywords indexed on the articles however these articles are definately cannibalizing the main keyphrases on the product category/collection pages that i want to rank well for as these are the ‘money’ pages, how would you suggest i deal with this issue, i am not sure whether deleting and redirecting the article is the right thing to do due to the traffic they bring but if they are hurting the main product collection page ranking then would it be the right thing to do?

Any advice on this is welcome.

11

This is a really common situation, so you’re not alone :wink:.

If those blog posts are bringing in steady traffic but competing with your collection pages, deleting them outright usually isn’t the first thing I’d do. Instead, it’s often better to change their role rather than remove them.

A few things that tend to work:

Shift the blog article away from the main “money” keyword and make it clearly informational.

Tighten the internal linking so the article clearly points users (and search engines) to the collection page as the primary destination.

Adjust titles, headings, and intro copy so the collection page is the obvious page to rank for the core term.

If, after that, an article is still competing and not really adding value beyond traffic numbers, that’s usually when a merge + redirect makes sense.

In short: keep traffic-driving articles, but make sure they support the collection pages rather than fight them. Have you noticed whether the articles that cannibalize the most are older posts or ones targeting very broad terms?

12

A common failure point: add more keywords and phrases..

You really shouldn’t be doing too much on keywords. 3 or 4 choice words, one phrase. That’s all you should do. It’s not the more the merrier.

Search engines like Google have stepped away from owner-provided keywords for ranking, and instead focus on content.

You don’t get to force ranking. You either have good content, or you don’t. You shouldn’t overthink it, and you definitely shouldn’t have a gazillion keywords. That would most definitely rank lower.

13

Thanks for the replies guys really helpful.

@Maximus3 yes i think this is something we have got wrong having too many keywords in the blog articles trying to rank for as many Kw’s as possible in the articles.

@ericjackson11k yes i think i will look at these articles and try to de optimize and change the message of the article. Not sure on the older articles i will have a more indepth look at these.

So i know it is going a bit off the main topic but do you have any advice on best practice to construct blog content. This is how i have been doing it up to now:

2 -3 main top level keywords all internally linking back to the main collection page

2-3 lower level keywords linking to other relevant articles

I have been using some top level keywords in the H1’s, content etc which is clearly where some of the problem is coming from. So how would you advise i construct the articles to prevent the cannibalization with regards to KW’s ?

Basically as i said above what is best practice for constructing a blog article internal links, H1’s, content, meta info etc.

14

Good question, and you’ve already spotted the main cause of the issue.

For blog content, the biggest shift is to treat posts as supporting pages, not secondary collection pages. That usually means avoiding top-level commercial keywords altogether in H1s and metas.

What tends to work better:

H1 / page focus
Use a clearly informational angle in the H1 (how-to, comparison, buyer questions, use cases). Save the main commercial keyword for the collection page only.

Keyword usage
Instead of 2–3 top-level keywords, aim for one primary informational phrase and let the rest be natural variations and long-tail questions. Broad terms in body copy are fine, but they shouldn’t be emphasized.

Internal linking
One strong, contextual link to the collection page is usually enough. Treat it as the “next step” rather than repeating the same anchor text multiple times.
Links to other articles should be genuinely relevant, not forced for SEO.

Meta titles & descriptions
Keep these clearly informational. If the meta reads like a product or category page, that’s when overlap starts.

Content structure
Answer the question fully, then guide users toward the collection naturally at the end or where it makes sense, rather than trying to rank the article itself for commercial intent.

When blogs are built this way, they still pull traffic, but they stop competing with the pages that actually convert.

Out of curiosity, are most of your blog posts written around buyer questions, or were some originally created to target the same phrases as collections?

15

@ericjackson11k thanks for the detailed reply really helps.

Based on what you have said we definately have it totally wrong on a big chunk of our blog articles for example this one below on our existing woocommerce store is def causing issues even though it brings traffic. Outdoor wall lights is the main keyphrase that we want the collection to rank for and we have it in the H1, H2, url, copy (outdoor wall lights mentioned 18 times!) and meta tags.

I know it is going a bit off the main topic again but the replies given on this thread have been so useful.

How would you deal with this article? i could rewrite or deoptimize but i would also want to change the URL structure to remove the keyword from the URL, so this still involves a 301 to the new blog article.

I am tending towards delete and redirect to main collection page when we get everything set up on Shopify.

16

@Mungo2007 That example is a classic case, so you’re right to question it.

If “outdoor wall lights” is the core term you want the collection to win on, then having a blog article built around that exact phrase in the H1, URL, headings, copy, and meta is almost guaranteed to cause overlap, even if the article brings traffic.

In this situation, I’d usually choose between two paths:

Option 1 – Keep the article, but change its job
Rewrite it so it’s clearly informational and remove the core term from the H1, URL, and meta. For example, focus it around things like choosing the right style, placement, brightness, or IP ratings for outdoor lighting, then link to the collection as the “shop options” step. This keeps the traffic but stops it competing directly.

Option 2 – Delete and redirect (often the cleaner option)
If the article doesn’t offer much beyond what the collection already covers, redirecting it straight to the collection is usually fine especially since that’s the page you actually want ranking and converting. In many cases, that traffic and relevance consolidates rather than disappears.

Given you’re already migrating and resetting things on Shopify, I’d lean the same way you are: simplify, redirect, and let the collection own the keyword, then rebuild future blog content around supporting topics instead of core terms.

If you kept it, would you want the article to exist for education only, or is its main purpose to drive people into the collection anyway?

17

@ericjackson11k thanks for the reply.

Having looked deeper at this and other articles i think the delete and redirect option will be best for this and some other articles we have.

As you say let the collection be the star for the top level keywords and then work on a new blog strategy when the site goes live. Ideal time to have a clearout and refocus.

Thanks for the detailed reply on this it really really has helped.

18

@Mungo2007 Glad it helped. sounds like a solid plan, especially doing the cleanup during the migration.

If you don’t mind sharing, what’s the site URL? I’d be interested to take a look once things start coming together on Shopify and see how the new structure lands.

19

@ericjackson11k Don’t mind at all the URL is ultrabeamlighting.co.uk - it is still on the woocommerce site at the moment i don’t want to complete the full migration to shopify until i am totally happy with the setup and layout of the shopify store, the overall migration is taking a lot longer than i anticipated but the extra work i am putting in now before we migrate i think will be worth it, hopefully be live in a month or so, fingers crossed!

I do have one other question with regard to future blog posts if that is ok, i know siloing the blog articles is important so i have been trying to keep internal links within the product collection silos for the relevant articles for example interior lighting and outdoor lighting and trying not to let any links ‘leak’ into other collection silos.

But what would you do if i have for example an article that has a title ‘what are LED lights’ this is quite a general article does not really come into any of the main product collection silos for internal linking, how would you structure the internal linking on this type of general article?

20

@Mungo2007 That all makes sense :slightly_smiling_face:, and you’re right the extra work now usually pays off once the site is live.

For more general articles like “What are LED lights”, I wouldn’t force them into a single product silo. These work better as top-of-funnel, educational content. In cases like that, I usually:

Keep the article mostly informational and neutral.

Link out to relevant collections only where it genuinely fits (for example, one contextual link to indoor lighting and one to outdoor lighting, rather than trying to keep it locked into a single silo).

Use softer, descriptive anchor text rather than commercial phrases, so it supports discovery rather than ranking.

Think of those articles as entry points that help users understand the topic first, then guide them toward the right category once they know what they’re looking for. As long as the main collection pages remain the strongest, most focused pages, a small amount of cross-linking like this usually doesn’t cause issues.

Out of interest, are you handling the Shopify build and layout yourself, or working with a designer on that side? It sounds like you’re being very hands-on with the structure.