Question - for those that started or helped a company from the ground up; what did you notice had the bigger impact from an SEO perspective? Prioritizing on improving the category pages or product pages first? Or both? Assuming you had to pick one, which one would it be? Granted - I'm sure this could also depend on the niche.
Add schema and richt images. Add specs and reviews. Add categories, with the breadcrumb linking to (even unoptimized) category pages, which gives you naturally a navigation tree (depending on industry and type of product).
My reasoning, the UX improves, which serves the right audience.
Make sure faceted search is kept out of Google's index.
I haven't started a business from the ground up, but I would vote product pages. That will help you become eligible to shopping results, better product snippets, as well as have you ready for a PPC campaign if you choose.
So until @Paul Baterina gets back to us, let's consider whether this is niched DTC or a larger eCom.
If niche DTC I would be focusing on the home page first to try and get them ranked for a primary term. Not saying I'd ignore the rest, but that's probably the easiest to move the needle on immediately.
I'm also leaning way more into brand for everything. Get the word out in Reddit and socials (non -spammy methods) create interest/curiosity/conversation.
I also feel that many eCom are completely missing opportunities to leverage SME knowledge. Best X / review articles and YT video for reviews come to mind. Would start long tail on those.
Doing your own product reviews is going to the next big thing since listicles. AIO will dominate seed ecomm queries and they will be giving content based on scraped reviews. Control your brands narrative. OK, I will take off my tin foil hate now...
That was literally "your own product" but if this, for example REI, they have so much expertise they can tap into but haven't. And it's not their own products per se (other than their private brand ones)
@Mika Lepistö not complete ground up. Let's just say site is setup, there's traffic going to it. About 20 organic visitors a day more or less, the same from other channels.
DTC. About 100 products total.
Yeah homepage - trying to get that branded term up up up up in searches.
I mean, there's only so much you can do from an SEO perspective. Add more descriptions based on the attributes. Other than that, I feel like to make it more unique are either UGC with reviews, or pictures of how the item looks on users etc. Video perhaps. Until then, it's just going to be some cookie cutter PDP with a stock image, 2-3 sentences, some bullet points, and accordian tabs with about the brand, and perhaps a pop up on size guide etc.
PDPs. I think you could start longer tail where PLPs are probably higher competition. But as you noted the content on those PDPs can be a challenge. I'd focus on their highest margin / converting ones to start, keeping in mind what is realistically achievable.
On a newish site, I have always found that adding 4-5 paragraphs of content to the PLPs and also to the 20-30 main PDPs.
Also, testing different title tags on these main pages especially focusing on mid to low volume keywords at this early stage can get you some quick top ten ranking wins.
But now a days, in addition to the above, with all the Product Packs showing up in the SERPs, I’d submit a detailed product listing file to Google Merchant Center.
For a brand experience, involve the store associates (if there are any) and the customer support (returns) department. They have stories to tell and feedback how the people perceive the brand.
Try to follow up with customers on how they like the product.
Use this to create content in social media and be authentic.
And use this information to inform the PDPs what people care about to know to become happy customers. Use it to see what info is missing on the PDP to set expectations right (size and fit info, true color, etc.)