How to make your Shopware shop easier to find and generate more revenue

Three differences make Shopware SEO a topic of its own. First, URLs are generated automatically and in large numbers: In addition to products and categories, landing pages, filters and sorting options are added. Second, content often comes from external sources, such as manufacturer catalogs, and is therefore identical word for word across many shops. Third, the product range is constantly changing. Products are added, discontinued, moved to another category or renamed. Every change affects a URL that may already have built up visibility. Almost everything important in Shopware SEO follows from this structure.

When shop owners search for Shopware and SEO, they are particularly often looking for SEO URLs. Shopware generates descriptive addresses for products, categories and landing pages from templates. For products, a template could consist of the translated name and the product number, for example:

{{ product.translated.name }}/{{ product.productNumber }}

For categories, the path in the category tree is used:

{% for part in category.seoBreadcrumb %}{{ part }}/{% endfor %}

How Shopware generates URLs

The templates apply to each sales channel. They ensure consistent addresses, but a change affects all pages of this type. The pattern should therefore be decided carefully at the beginning and changed later only with a specific migration plan.

“No SEO URLs exist yet”

This message typically appears after imports, when creating a sales channel or after a system migration. Shopware stores SEO URLs in an index. If data is written past it, the descriptive addresses are missing. The SEO index must be rebuilt. In a self-hosted Shopware environment, the following command is documented for this purpose, among others:

php bin/console dal:refresh:index

Afterward, a sample check of products and categories should verify that the expected URLs are being delivered.

When the template changes

Changing the template creates new addresses. Whether old URLs redirect to the current address via HTTP 301 depends on the corresponding SEO setting and should be checked afterward. In established shops, however, this can result in redirect chains. Checking existing redirects should therefore be part of every audit.

Landing pages with URLs you assign yourself

Landing pages from Shopping Experiences are suitable for seasonal topics, brand pages and advice pages. They are where you determine the structure, content and address entirely yourself, especially when a relevant search query cuts across the category tree.

For general product searches, category pages are usually the right destination. In many shops, however, they consist only of a heading and product tiles. Shopping Experiences can provide additional content: differences between products, purchasing criteria and context for the product range. Not every category needs to be revised immediately. It makes sense to start with the categories that have revenue potential and are actually searched for.

Customers often search differently from the names used for products and categories in the catalog. They search by product type, use case or characteristic, not necessarily by internal manufacturer designations. Search intent is also decisive: A generic query leads to a category, a product number to a product, and a question often to an advice article. Search volume, search results and the shop's internal search show which terms and page types belong together. The same keyword research is the starting point for search engine optimization and for the content created from it. For us, both are part of online marketing.

A shop generates many addresses from filters, variants and page numbers. The question is not how to block all URLs, but which of them deserve their own page in the search results.

Filtered lists

Most filter combinations show the same products merely sorted differently and should not be indexed. If a combination is actually searched for, a separate landing page with its own address, heading and text is cleaner than a permanently indexed filter URL.

Variants

For variants with largely identical content, a shared canonical URL may make sense. Shopware provides a dedicated setting for this. Variants with distinct search intent or clearly independent content must be assessed separately.

Pagination

Products on later category pages must remain accessible. Very long categories are often a sign that more specific subcategories would help visitors and search engines more than further optimization of the pagination function.

Manufacturer texts are often identical word for word across many shops. It is then difficult for search engines to see why your page should rank at the top in particular. For large product ranges, not all texts need to be rewritten at once. Priority should be given to products with revenue and potential. Your own text primarily adds information the manufacturer does not know: specific use cases, limitations, frequently asked questions, scope of delivery and experience from customer interactions.

When a product is discontinued, its address often remains even though there is nothing behind it anymore. If there is a successor, the old URL should lead there. If there is no successor, a suitable category is better than an error message. If the product returns, the page can remain active and explain its unavailability. Only when nothing really fits is a helpful error page the right choice. A blanket redirect to the homepage is usually the worst solution.

Navigation, product tiles and pagination automatically link a shop. Deliberate decisions are still worthwhile for breadcrumbs, links from explanatory category texts and references between accessories, successors and alternatives. Link texts should describe the destination. Click depth is a useful countercheck: If a product is five or more clicks away from the homepage, the structure is probably too deep.

Category pages often load many product images at the same time. Shopware generates different image sizes, but the theme and output must also use these variants. Modern formats, suitable dimensions and a clean cache reduce loading time. Alternative texts are important first and foremost for accessibility and also help with image search. At a minimum, the homepage, a large category and a product page should be measured, ideally with PageSpeed Insights.

Reviews are unique content that belongs only to your shop. They distinguish product pages from the manufacturer texts used by other shops and can appear as stars in search results. They also show which questions are missing from product descriptions. A reminder after purchase helps collect them. Critical reviews are part of the picture too, because an exclusively perfect review profile can seem implausible.

Shopware does not need an SEO plugin for the basics: descriptive addresses, meta fields, sitemap, canonicals and redirects are available. A plugin becomes worthwhile as soon as many products need to be maintained. It can generate meta information in large numbers, make gaps visible and manage redirects. What matters is not the longest list of features, but how closely the developers keep up with Shopware and support major version changes.

During a relaunch, more URLs are affected in a shop than on a traditional website. When switching from Shopware 5 to 6, the rules for the URL structure also change. Before launch, a complete list of the old addresses should therefore be prepared, supplemented with clicks and impressions from Google Search Console. A new destination address is defined for important URLs. Products without a successor should lead to the appropriate category, not automatically to the homepage. After launch, error pages and index coverage must be monitored.

First, SEO URLs and redirects are checked. Then the categories and products that generate or should generate revenue are identified. Next, original content is created for important category pages and relevant products. At the same time, images, loading times, structured data, and filter and variant indexing are measured. Products that are no longer listed need an ongoing process so that dead addresses do not accumulate month after month. Ongoing SEO support can bring this technical and editorial work together.

If you operate a TYPO3 website instead of a shop, many of these points apply in principle, but the technology behind them is different. You can find more information in the TYPO3 SEO guide. If you are looking for support for your Shopware shop, you can find our Shopware services here.