Designing pages for SEO: beyond the catalogue

2 min readSEOAcquisitionProduct Design

An e-commerce catalogue is almost always structured by range: categories, sub-categories, products. That’s logical for browsing, but it’s an incomplete map of how people search. Many queries are about a precise attribute (a feature, a use, a constraint) rather than a whole range. If no page answers that phrasing, the corresponding traffic goes right past the site.

I approached this on the Richardson site redesign, B2C and B2B.

The problem: navigation structure isn’t search structure

The classic catalogue, organised by range, didn’t cover certain precise searches that users phrase around a product attribute or feature rather than a whole category. In other words, the way the site was arranged didn’t match the way demand expressed itself. An acquisition blind spot, invisible as long as you look at the site from the inside.

The decision: dedicated attribute pages

Rather than forcing those queries into generic category pages, I designed attribute pages: distinct pages built to target precise searches tied to a characteristic. I defined their structure and content hierarchy, consistent with the rest of the site and with the SEO constraints set with the marketing and SEO teams.

The design of these pages isn’t cosmetic: it’s what decides the information hierarchy, what’s brought forward, how the page answers the search intent. An SEO page that merely stacks keywords doesn’t convert; a well-structured page answers the question, then leads to the action.

Design in service of acquisition

It’s a product-designer role that’s rarely mentioned: designing pages whose primary function is to exist in search results, and to convert that traffic once captured. SEO isn’t only a content or technical job, it’s also a structure job, and therefore a design one. (The detail: Designing attribute pages for an SEO goal.)

In short

  • Navigation ≠ search. A catalogue arranged by range doesn’t cover queries phrased by attribute.
  • Dedicated pages capture the long tail. Attribute pages answer precise intents that generic pages miss.
  • An SEO page is first a structure. Answer the intent and guide to the action, don’t stack keywords.
  • Design is part of SEO. Information hierarchy is a design decision.

← Back to notes