Shopify creates URLs for each variant of your product by default, allowing you to offer different versions of a product under one listing, like different colours, sizes or models.
At first glance, this sounds pretty straightforward.
However, if you’ve got a Shopify store, you’ll know that managing product variants can sometimes feel confusing, especially when it comes to SEO.
Our experts are here to demystify Shopify URL variants and give you tips on how to manage them as part of a successful SEO strategy.
The challenge
Native Shopify URLs have limitations that are difficult to break out of.
For example, you can’t remove /collections/ from category pages and you can’t remove /products/ from product pages.
However, the real issue comes when faced with Shopify’s random variant add-on:
https://randomshop.co.uk/products/random-product-here?variant=48547295428886
Optimising your Shopify variant URLs is a vital part of ensuring that your store performs well in search engine results, but relying on default variants can lead to complicated URL structures that make it difficult for search engines to crawl and index important pages, which can have a negative impact on search engine rankings.
If multiple URLs or similar URLs exist for the same product, there’s a risk that search engines could view these pages as duplicate content which can dilute your SEO efforts - and you certainly don’t want to use up crawl budget with duplicate pages.
For example, search engines may struggle to know which page to rank, leading to keyword cannibalisation and overall poor ranking performance as variant URLs compete against each other in an attempt to rank.
Complex or messy URL variants aren’t good for user experience either.
If a variant URL doesn’t offer a clear description, users are more likely to get confused trying to navigate your products, leading to a potential loss of sales and conversions, as well as increasing your website’s bounce rate.
How to optimise your Shopify URLs for SEO
If your product variants have search volume, the most effective solution to prevent messy URL variants is to break out your product variants into individual product pages.
Otherwise, optimising your main product URL could be the answer. Here’s a quick rundown on the easiest and most effective ways to optimise the Shopify URLs on your site:
Keyword mapping
By carrying out comprehensive keyword research, you can map your keywords against the most relevant product pages and their variants, as well as determine whether there is enough search volume to optimise specific variants.
This information will not only create a clear structure to follow for optimisation, it will help you decide whether to focus on optimising your main product URLs, or your variant URLs.
Option 1: Create custom URL structures with individual product pages
You can create custom URL structures by taking the products with variants and making them into individual product pages, giving each product an individual URL rather than having a default parameter in the URL.
Not only will individual product URLs make it easier for users to navigate, Google will immediately be able to identify what the page is about, and begin ranking it based on its content.
This method is especially effective if there is search volume around your product variants.
Having a URL that matches your product description allows you to further optimise each product for SEO by creating individual meta descriptions and crafting additional relevant content that answers questions users might have about the product.
However, while this method is especially effective for SEO purposes, especially if there is high search volume across the variants, it can be time consuming and will mean there are more products for your team to manage.
But it can be done - Gymshark products are a prime example of how creating individual product pages can get around those pesky product variant URLs.
And finally, make sure your new product URLs are SEO-friendly. They should be clear and concise and should include the main keyword that is most relevant to your product page, so it can be easily read by search engines and your users.
Option 2: Optimise your main product
If there is little search volume across your variants, or you have limited resources to create individual products, optimising your main product is a viable solution for SEO.
In these cases, it is easier to maximise your SEO efforts on a primary product or collections page, rather than diluting it across multiple variants.
This allows you to rank for your core product, but it is vital to check that Shopify's canonical tags are set correctly and no unwanted variant URLs are indexed to prevent duplicate content issues.
This will prevent search engines from getting confused by multiple URLs with similar content. To optimise your page, you will need to ensure you have unique meta descriptions that feature your keyword and headings, as well as a relevant and engaging product description.
Things to consider: canonical tags
Canonical tags tell search engines which version of a page is the preferred one to crawl, an important step in avoiding duplicate content issues and competing ranking positions.
Shopify already keeps SEO variants under a single canonical product page by default, so you don’t usually need to worry about adding separate canonical tags for each variant.
However, if you optimise each variant, or break each variant into individual product pages and, most importantly, these pages have unique content and meta descriptions, using custom canonical tags wil help show Google which page to index.
This only works if there is search volume around your individual product, though.
You don’t need to modify this unless your variants have significantly different content or need to rank separately.
When it comes to optimising your Shopify URL variants for SEO, the focus is always the same: it’s your goal to show search engines which is the preferred URL.
Need a hand with SEO? Struggling to optimise your Shopify site? Get in touch!