5 Category Page Retail Best Practices

On ecommerce websites, product category pages are where people pause to browse what may be a vast selection of items. They’re the virtual version of the cereal aisle in Target or the cell phone case in Best Buy—packed with options all in one place. 

Though category pages are limited to just one or two broad categories, they can be overwhelming for shoppers, particularly in online spaces where there’s an “endless aisle” phenomenon that may find shoppers scrolling through a dizzying list of choices. 

Like your homepage, your category pages need to be optimized. They ultimately do a lot of heavy lifting including: 

• Drawing in visitors from search engines—so they need to rank well
• Showcasing the items you offer for a given category—without overwhelming your visitors
• Moving a shopper closer to conversion—because they’re often deeper in the buying funnel than your homepage
• Driving sales—but only if they make it easy for shoppers to refine their search via facets, filtering, and personalized recommendations

Category pages are often more important than product detail pages when it comes to keeping people on your website and getting them closer to buying something. 

They’re considered an “upper funnel” tactic because they tend to rank for more keywords than product detail pages (PDPs). Per Search Engine Land, category pages can drive over 400% more estimated traffic than PDPs when optimized for SEO.

To capitalize on the potential of drawing in search traffic, while also appealing to shoppers further down the funnel, your category pages need to serve both first-time visitors who may just be discovering your site and customers who know more precisely what they want. Most importantly, they need to adapt to different shopping behaviors and preferences.

Optimizing Retail Category Pages: 5 Must-Know Tips

We’ve synthesized our category page best practices to five strategies focused on helping you optimize these important pages for search engines and shoppers. These tips will help you create more engaging, conversion-focused shopping experiences for humans, while keeping search engines happy.

1. Optimize for SEO and Keywords

As we touched on above, if your category pages rank well in search engines, they have the potential to drive a huge amount of traffic to your website. But just sprinkling keywords throughout your content won’t cut it as a search engine optimization (SEO) strategy. Start SEO process by doing some keyword research. Focus on broad category terms that shoppers use when they’re still exploring options and good tag etiquette, as follows:

• Title tags should lead with the primary category keyword and include your brand name
• Meta descriptions should naturally incorporate secondary keywords while clearly communicating value to shoppers. 
• Header tags (H1, H2, etc.) should include target keywords and be easily scannable for shoppers who want to quickly assess your subcategories

Example of a good title tag:  Women’s Maxi Dresses | Free Shipping | [Brand Name]

Example of a lackluster title tag: Shop Dresses Online 

Modern search engines—the kind that use machine learning and user data to refine search results, reward natural language over keyword density. This is why keyword stuffing isn’t a winning strategy anymore. Instead, focus on writing clear, helpful content like descriptive product names and meaningful category titles that make sense to shoppers. 

2. Enhance User Experience (UX) and Navigation

A well-designed category page should feel as intuitive as browsing within an aisle of your favorite store. Focus on creating a clear navigational hierarchy that brings shoppers to the product they want within a few clicks from the main page.  Facets and filters are an important way to achieve this. They reduce the number of items in the search results and help shoppers quickly narrow down their choices.

Filters are broad criteria that tend to be more static than facets. They focus on things like price, brand, or ratings. Facets are more dynamic. They change based on the filter applied and help shoppers refine search results by product attributes like color, size, gender or material. When used together, facets and filters help shoppers avoid overwhelm.

Even with great navigation and the right facets and filters in place, it’s impossible to build a static category page that resonates with every person. This is where AI can help. While traditional category pages remain static, personalized category pages use AI and machine learning to dynamically adjust product displays based on individual shopping behavior. What that means in jargon-free speak is that each visitor sees the most relevant products based on the context of who they are and where they are in their buying journey.  

3. Prioritize Mobile-First Category Pages

With mobile commerce projected to reach 59% of total retail ecommerce sales this year, optimizing category pages for smaller screens should be at the top of your to-do list. Mobile shoppers need thumb-friendly navigation and filters that don’t obstruct the view of products. 

Consider implementing a collapsible filter menu that appears when needed but stays hidden to maximize product visibility. Make sure your pages load fast. A few seconds makes a huge difference—aim for 1 second since every second added to load time increases the likelihood that a user will leave. Optimize images and implement “lazy loading” to reduce load time (a technique where non-essential items on a page aren’t immediately downloaded). 

4. High-Quality Visuals and Product Information

Clear, professional product images create a strong first impression. They add much-needed reassurance for digital shoppers who can’t physically handle your merchandise. Research shows that shoppers rely heavily on visual content when making purchase decisions. This makes sense in digital spaces where shoppers are unable to engage their other senses to evaluate a product. 

Keep image quality consistent across your entire catalog, but that doesn’t mean every product image needs to be perfect. Consider mixing professional shots with customer-submitted photos. This type of user generated content (USG) adds authenticity and helps shoppers visualize products in real-world settings. 

Each image should include descriptive alt text to support accessibility for visually impaired shoppers while improving your search visibility.

Good product information includes thorough and accurate product descriptions which work alongside visuals to give shoppers the details they need. As with image quality, descriptions should be uniform and, in the case of category pages, less is more. Focus on the headlines of a given product—product name, price, and a compelling bit of info if you have room (e.g., 2 for $75 deal today). This is also a great place to add social proof elements (e.g., 5 people currently have this in their cart). 

Make it easy for shoppers to assess an item so they can move on to the next stage of the journey—the product detail page. 

5. Internal Linking and Breadcrumbs

Breadcrumbs and internal links are two navigational elements that help your website visitors move around your site without getting lost. Breadcrumbs are a list of links that show shoppers exactly where they are and create clear (and clickable) paths back to previous sections. 

A typical breadcrumb trail might read: Home > Women’s Clothing > Dresses > Maxi Dresses. This simple navigation thread helps shoppers move confidently through your site. That makes them a great tool for usability, but breadcrumbs are also great for search engines who use these pathways to understand your site’s structure and the relationships between different pages. They help the search engine effectively crawl and index pages.

When creating URLs for category and product pages, maintain a consistent URL structure that reflects your site’s hierarchy—for example, yourstore.com/womens/dresses/maxi-dresses. This approach provides another navigational cue for shoppers, but it also serves as an important signal to search engines about your website structure.  

Consider adding relevant cross-category links where it makes sense. For example, if someone is browsing high-waisted jeans, you could list different categories of jeans at the top of the page (denim leggings, straight leg jeans, etc.) Don’t overdo it here. Suggestions should be helpful and relevant, but unobtrusive so the shopper’s focus remains on the main category.