SEO in 2026: what actually gets your products Found First

SEO has a reputation for being slow, technical, and, honestly, a bit tedious.

And when you compare it to paid ads or newsletters, I get why. You can press send on an email campaign or turn your ad campaign on and sales come in. SEO rarely gives you that instant payoff.

But it still matters.

In 2026, the brands that will win with SEO are the ones who approach it with a simple, effective and repeatable system. Not the ones that use a scattergun approach and guesswork.

In this post I’ll talk about 'What’s out for SEO in 2026’, ‘What’s in for SEO in 2026’ and the framework I use with every ecommerce client I work with to build long term visibility.

Why SEO feels so hard for eCommerce brands

Most eCommerce business owners didn’t start a business because they wanted to learn what a canonical tag is. You started it because you love what you sell, you care about your customers, and you want your products to be found by the right people.

SEO can feel like a headache you’d prefer to ignore. Especially when one person tells you to focus on keywords, another is saying keywords are dead, someone says you need to blog three times a week, and then AI turns up and suddenly everyone’s rewriting their entire site overnight.

It’s a lot. And it’s exactly why SEO ends up stuck on the to do list.

What’s out for SEO in 2026

If you’ve been feeling like SEO is all effort and no reward, there’s a good chance you’re spending time in the wrong places.

Here are the big ones I’d leave behind.

1. Chasing huge keywords without context

Ranking for a broad keyword sounds like the dream. Women’s jewellery. Men’s fashion. Homeware. All have huge traffic volume, meaning if you managed to rank for one of those terms, the number of visitors to your site will sky rocket.

However, broad searches usually mean broad intent. People are researching, browsing, comparing. There’s no way that someone searching for “women’s jewellery” is anywhere near ready to actually buy some!

In 2026, you’ll get better results by focusing on more specific, product led searches directly related to your niche or product range. There are the terms customers use when they have a clearer intent to buy.

Think:

✅ Gold plated hoop earrings
✅ Merino wool jumper for layering
✅ Gifts under £50 for her

Smaller search volume yes, but also lower competition, higher relevance, stronger conversion.

2. Expecting one blog post to save the day

Writing regular blog posts is still an extremely effective way of getting your website in front of brand new people.

But a blog post won’t compensate for weak product pages, neglected collection pages, or a website that doesn’t have any of the main SEO foundations in place.

If you have limited time, to focus on your SEO, you NEED to make sure the basics are in place first, and THEN you can use blogging as a supporting layer.

3. Making random SEO tweaks based on guesswork

Changing a page title, then changing it back. Then trying something else because you saw a tip online.

SEO needs consistency to show results. If you’re constantly tweaking, you’ll never know what actually worked.

You want a plan based on data, not vibes.

4. Overloading product pages with unnecessary content

More content is not automatically better.

Product pages need clarity. If you add text just to “bulk it out” or you repeat the same information in three different sections, you can end up doing more harm than good.

A simple check:

Is this helping a human make a buying decision?

If not, it probably doesn’t belong.

5. Copying and pasting AI content as your final website copy

AI is brilliant for getting started. It can help you beat the blank page and get ideas flowing.

But I don’t recommend using AI output as the final version of your website copy.

Two reasons.

1) It often sounds generic, which makes your brand voice disappear.

2) It can increase the risk of duplicated content, especially if competitors are using the same tools.

Use AI to support your thinking, not replace it.

What actually works for eCommerce SEO in 2026

Here’s what I’m seeing make the biggest difference to ecomm brands SEO, without turning SEO into a full time job:

1. Clear product information written for humans first

Your product pages should answer the questions your customers are already asking.

A simple way to do this is to build a repeatable checklist of prompts for every product description.

• Who is this product?

• When would they use it?

• What is it made from?

• What does it feel like or look like?

• What sizes or variations are available?

• What makes it different?

• What outcome does it create?

When you write like this, the language your customers use naturally shows up on the page, without you trying to awkwardly shoehorn keywords in.

2. Site structure and collections that make sense

Most eCommerce sites start with generic, auto created collections pages eg “Menswear”, “Womenswear”, “Accessories” etc

This is great as a foundation, but search behaviour is often more specific, more seasonal, and led by intent. This means that instead of creating collections based on product types, you need to be creating them based on the terms your customers are actually searching for.

eg:

“Gifts under £30” rather than “Gifts”
”Wedding guest edit” rather than “Long Dresses”
“Summer holiday wardrobe” rather than “shorts and tshirts”

These pages can perform really well in search and make it easier for customers to browse too.

3. Fixing technical issues before obsessing over your content

Technical SEO does not need to be scary, but it does need attention. Broken links, un-indexed pages, duplicate content, messy URLs and unhelpful image names are the things that quietly drag down visibility.

One of the biggest overlooked wins I see is image naming.

If your product images are called “image1234.jpg”, Google learns nothing from them. If they’re called “womens sparkly dress.jpg”, you’re giving Google context.

Not glamorous task, but a very effective one.

The simple SEO framework I use with every client

Whenever I work with a new client, whether helping them DIY their SEO, or carrying out a full ‘Done-For-You” SEO overhaul. I always use the same 4 step framework.

Audit > Plan > Optimise > Track

It keeps SEO calm, focused, and measurable, while tackling the most urgent issues first.

Step 1: Audit

Before you change anything, you need to understand what’s happening right now:
1) Make sure your sitemap is submitted in Google Search Console,

2) Check whether key pages are indexed

3) Run a site audit using a tool like Ahrefs

4) Review your main navigation pages for SEO essentials like Meta titles, Meta descriptions, Image file names, Alt text

This step gives you a clear picture of what’s missing, without guesswork.

Step 2: Plan

The plan stage is where you decide what matters most.

1) Choose a small number of priority pages. This could be your main navigation, bestsellers, or seasonal collections.

2) Define what success looks like for those pages, eg: Meta titles and meta descriptions written intentionally, product images renamed with SEO friendly file names, Alt text added, Product descriptions improved for clarity, Internal links added between relevant pages

Then put the work into a realistic order based on the time you actually have.

Step 3: Optimise

Only once you’ve successfully carried out your audit and completed the planning phase should you start to make changes to your website. That way, you know that the changes you’ll be making are the ones that will make the biggest impact and improve your site the most.

Make the changes. Avoid constantly tinketing. Give improvements time to settle.

Step 4: Track

Tracking is where confidence comes from as you start to learn exactly which optimisations are paying off and increasing your organic traffic.

The simplest metric to start tracking is organic traffic trend over time.

If you notice a change, whether that’s an increase in traffic or a decrease, go deeper.

Is the shift coming from one page, or is it across the site?
Did a product go out of stock?
Is a collection page suddenly performing better than before?

Digging into your metrics like that help you to get a really clear picture of what’s working and what isnt working.

Quick answers to common questions:

My blog posts perform better than my collection pages

This is common. Collection pages are often under optimised. Make simple imropovements by adding a short text section to your collections, improve internal linking, and make sure the page is genuinely useful, not just a grid of products.

Does a “you may also like” section count as internal linking?

Yes. It helps customers browse and helps Google understand the relationship between your pages.

Is alt text worth doing on Shopify?

Yes. Keep it descriptive. A sentence is fine.

If you’re renaming files properly, you can also use a variation of the image file name as a quick starting point.

Should stockists copy my product descriptions?

Ideally no. Duplicate descriptions across different sites can cause issues.

If you sell on platforms like Etsy or Not On The High Street, it’s worth using a different description there than the one on your own website too.

If SEO is on your 2026 list, start here

If you take one thing from this, let it be this:

Stop trying to do everything.

and instead follow this simple method.

1) Pick one clear priority

2) Fix the big blockers.

3)Make changes with intent.

4)Track what happens.

5) Repeat.

That’s how products get found, and it’s how SEO becomes something you can actually stick to.

If you want support implementing this step by step, this is exactly why I created Found First, my self paced SEO programme for independent eCommerce brands, with weekly office hours support, monthly workshops, and co working sessions so you can block out time and get it done.