Most web shops are found in Google by people who already know the shop or the product. To get more visitors to your web shop, you also need the buyers who don’t know you yet, and they search for their question first.
In short
- A web shop with only product pages only comes into view at the end of the search, when the buyer already has a shortlist.
- Google reads the internal links to decide which pages are important, not the structure of your URLs.
- At Snuuzu, the new articles went from 0 to 340 clicks in 90 days, and the click-through rate on the product pages rose from 5.25 to 6.75 per cent.
Buyers search for a solution first, and only later for a product
If you don’t know a product yet, you don’t type in its name. Someone who wants to sleep in their car first searches for how to do it, whether it is safe and what it involves. Only after that do they search for a mattress, and later still for a brand.
A web shop with only product pages only appears at step 4. The big players are already there.
A category page deserves more than a row of products
For many web shops, the category page is the strongest page in Google, because it targets a more general search term than a single product. So put more on it than products with filters:
- A short buying guide at the top: what to look out for, and which variant is for whom.
- A few questions at the bottom, with the answer in the first sentence.
- Links to the articles that go deeper into the choice.
Has a category become empty? Google recommends letting such a page return a 404, instead of leaving an empty page in place (Google Search Central, read on 5 October 2026).
Articles capture the questions before the purchase
An article answers one question that buyers ask before they choose. It doesn’t sell anything itself. It brings in people who don’t know the product yet, and sends them on to the category or product that fits their question.
One topic per article
Two articles on the same topic get in each other’s way in Google. Make a list in advance: each question gets one fixed page, and each article links to the product page or category that belongs to it.
Internal links tell Google which products matter most
Google barely uses the structure of your URLs to understand your site. It looks at the links between your pages.
“The more links within a site point to a page, the more important that page is relative to the other pages.”
Freely translated from Google Search Central, read on 5 October 2026. Google recommends linking to your bestseller from the homepage and from articles.
For most web shops, that is where the direct gain lies. Articles and category copy are the natural place for those links.
What this delivered for Snuuzu
Snuuzu makes a real mattress for the back of a Tesla Model Y or Model 3, with an air layer underneath that levels the floor. It sells through a European and an American web shop. The product pages were already in positions 5 to 6 in Google, but the questions from Tesla drivers who weren’t yet thinking about a mattress went unanswered: there was no blog.
From June 2026, each topic got one fixed page. 32 articles were added, with a separate version for the American web shop, and the number of internal links to commercial pages went from 16 to 48 per web shop.
The 90 days up to and including 16 September 2026
Compared with the previous 90 days, from Google Search Console.
Total non-brand clicks also rose, from 866 to 1,255. That includes the camping season and the growth of the brand itself, so that figure says less about the articles. How it went step by step is in the full Snuuzu case.
How to get started with your web shop’s SEO
- Find the questions. What questions do buyers ask before they search for a product like yours? Look in Search Console at queries without your brand name, and at the questions your customer service receives.
- Give each question one page. A category for the choice, an article for the question before it. Never two pages on the same topic.
- Write a buying guide on your most important categories. Start with the categories that already get impressions.
- Link from every article to the product or category that belongs to it. Put your bestsellers on the homepage too.
- Measure without your brand name. Clicks on your brand name say little about new buyers. Compare with the same period a year earlier, because the season plays a part for almost every web shop.
A web shop that is only found by its name grows as fast as its brand awareness. With good category copy, articles on the right questions and a logical internal link structure, you also reach the buyers who don’t know you yet. Want to outsource that? Then read how SEO for web shops works at RankPilot.
Frequently asked questions
Does a web shop need a blog for SEO?+
Not necessarily a blog, but it does need pages that answer the questions before the purchase. A blog is the easiest place for them. Without those pages, you are mainly found by people who already know your brand or product.
What do you put on a category page for SEO?+
A short buying guide at the top, the products, a few questions with a direct answer at the bottom, and links to articles that explain the choice further. Keep the copy short enough that the products stay in view.
How long does it take before SEO for a web shop pays off?+
At Snuuzu, the first clicks on the articles came in the month of publication. For a competitive keyword it often takes three to twelve months. So measure per month, and always without your brand name.
How many internal links does a product page need?+
There is no fixed number. What matters more is that your most important products are linked from more places than the rest: the homepage, the category and the articles about them.
Source of figures: Google Search Console for snuuzu.com, 19 June up to and including 16 September 2026, compared with the previous 90 days. Queries containing the brand name, including with a typo, do not count as non-brand. Shared with Snuuzu’s permission.
Kevin Boon
Team member
contact@brandmonks.nl
