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Areej AbuAli, profile picture
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[BrightonSEO 2022] Unlocking the Hidden Potential of Product Listing Pages

The document discusses optimizing product listing pages (PLPs) on ecommerce websites. It begins with the author describing their experience finding a website with little obvious "tech debt" issues to address. They then analyze which page templates drive the most revenue, finding PLPs account for 60% of organic revenue. The author breaks down PLPs into individual components and suggests prioritizing optimization of filters and internal linking. They argue for considering metrics beyond just search volume, like user behavior and conversion data, when deciding which page variants to focus on.

Marketing◦
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO Unlocking the hidden potential of product listing pages
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO In BrightonSEO 2019, I said: “Technical problems are People problems”
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO In BrightonSEO 2021, I said: “As SEOs, it’s fundamental that we don’t work in silos”
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO This year, I’m going to talk about a *very* specific approach to delivering value
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO But a story first, to set the scene!
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO During the pandemic, I started an in-house Head of SEO role for an e-commerce company
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO I applied because the SEO role sat in the Tech team
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO I’ll finally be in the driver’s seat and sit in the team that has the power to implement my recommendations
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO I come from the world of large aggregator websites, where I dealt with tech debt on 10M+ pages
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO But this e-commerce website was FRESH, it was only a few years old
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO & it was one of the cleanest I’d ever seen…
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO My first thought was:
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO My first thought was: “Oh no, where’s the tech debt?”
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO Where are the tech legacy issues?
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO Where are the tech legacy issues? The crawl budget issues?
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO Where are the tech legacy issues? The crawl budget issues? The indexability challenges?
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO Redirect chains… Javascript rendering issues… Broken internal links…
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO Where are my usual suspects?
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO The usual suspects are Tech SEO issues that we’re used to finding
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO The usual suspects are Tech SEO issues that we’re used to finding …that make us feel like we know what we’re doing
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO If the usual suspects are missing, then… What do we recommend?
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO “ Is there anything scarier than a Tech SEO human not finding Tech SEO issues on the website they’re working on?
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO The thing is, of course the website had some issues, but they weren’t big enough to make an impact
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO As SEOs, we love talking about identifying quick wins
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO Or that term everyone hates but still insists on using: low-hanging fruit
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO But we never talk about what we should do if there are none…
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO At this point, I was thinking: “How do I prove my worth?”
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO So, I decided to spend some time on where I’m most comfortable…
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO The Data AKA: My comfort zone 1
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO The first thing I did was dissect the website and split it into templates
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO Category Pages (CPs)
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO Product Listing Pages (PLPs)
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO Product Detail Pages (PDPs)
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO Other
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO ◉ Category pages (CPs) ◉ Product listing pages (PLPs) ◉ Product detail pages (PDPs) ◉ Other (Homepage, blog, etc…) Core templates
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO I needed to figure out which templates provided the most value
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO How do we define value?
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO How do we does the business define value?
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO What’s the high level KPI that we’re being measured against?
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO No, it isn’t visibility, rankings or even sessions…
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO Organic Revenue
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO So let’s see which one of our templates drives the most organic revenue
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO This is fictional data
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO This is fictional data Organic Revenue Product Listing Pages (PLPs) 60% Category Pages (CPs) 20% Product Detail Pages (PDPs) 10% Other 10%
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO If PLPs are driving 60% of our revenue, then let’s focus our effort and energy in optimising them
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO As SEOs, we tend to focus our recommendations on site-wide issues
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO But the more we dice and slice our data, the more informed decisions we can make
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO There’s no reason to put forward recommendations that would impact such a small portion of our revenue
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO Instead, we can focus our efforts on *the* template that drives the highest revenue
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO All websites have that ONE template that makes the most difference
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO In our example’s case, it’s product listing pages (PLPs)
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO “ Define your one template that’s worth optimising
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO Okay, let’s keep going!
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO The Discovery AKA: My brainstorming 2
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO We know we want to focus on our product listing pages, but what should we do about them?
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO A few examples of PLPs
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO It’s important to break a template down into its building blocks
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO There are our consistent site-wide building blocks such as navigation & footer
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO But there are also building blocks that are unique to each template
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO Product Name
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO Product Name Product Description
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO Product Name Breadcrumbs Product Description
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO Product Name Breadcrumbs Relevant Links Product Description
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO Product Name Breadcrumbs Relevant Links Filters Product Description
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO I’m trying to define our template’s building blocks
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO PLP building blocks Content Internal Linking Tech Product name Breadcrumbs Filters Product description Relevant Links
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO PLP building blocks Content Internal Linking Tech Product name Breadcrumbs Filters Product description Relevant Links
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO Let’s dive in
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO PLP building blocks Content Tech Internal Linking Product name Filters Breadcrumbs Product description Sort Relevant links
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO Content
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO ◉ Heading markup Content
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO ◉ Heading markup ◉ Description optimisation Content
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO ◉ Heading markup ◉ Description optimisation ◉ Mobile parity Content
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO ◉ Heading markup ◉ Description optimisation ◉ Mobile parity ◉ Hidden content Content
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO ◉ Heading markup ◉ Description optimisation ◉ Mobile parity ◉ Hidden content ◉ Thin content Content
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO PLP building blocks Content Internal Linking Tech Product name Breadcrumbs Filters Product description Relevant Links Sort
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO Internal linking
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO ◉ Breadcrumbs Internal linking
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO ◉ Breadcrumbs ◉ Relevant Links Internal linking
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO ◉ Content block Internal linking
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO PLP building blocks Content Internal Linking Tech Product name Breadcrumbs Filters Product description Relevant Links
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO Filters can make or break an e-commerce website
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO Websites tend to have filters set up in one of two ways…
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO They either attempt to…
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO They either attempt to… ◉ Index everything to capture as much ranking opportunity as possible
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO ◉ Index everything to capture as much ranking opportunity as possible ◉ Noindex a huge chunk to avoid suffering from index bloat They either attempt to…
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO If we attempt to index everything…
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO ◉ Google might not crawl all our pages If we attempt to index everything…
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO ◉ Google might not crawl all our pages ◉ Google might not index all our pages If we attempt to index everything…
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO ◉ Google might not crawl all our pages ◉ Google might not index all our pages ◉ Our valuable pages might not be crawled and/or indexed If we attempt to index everything…
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO ◉ Google might not crawl all our pages ◉ Google might not index all our pages ◉ Our valuable pages might not be crawled and/or indexed ◉ Our valuable pages might not rank If we attempt to index everything…
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO ◉ Index everything to capture as much ranking opportunity as possible ◉ Noindex a huge chunk to avoid suffering from index bloat They either attempt to…
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO If we noindex a huge chunk, we’d miss out on their ranking potential
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO ◉ Index everything to capture as much ranking opportunity as possible ◉ Noindex a huge chunk to avoid suffering from index bloat So, neither option works…
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO So, how and where, do we
@areej_abuali #BrightonSEO Where’s the opportunity?