Setting up an e-commerce store can prove to be a difficult undertaking, and a site’s search engine rankings are generally at the forefront of concern for most new entrepreneurs. No one wants to go to the trouble of creating an online store and website only to have it be ignored by Google, because after all, if Google can’t find it or doesn’t deem it worthwhile then customers can’t and won’t either. There are many important elements to consider when optimizing a website’s SEO, and one of the smaller, but still important, ones is whether to use filters or categories for your individual webpages. Is one better than the other when it comes to SEO?

An e-commerce website differs from a regular website in that “there are multiple versions of each page of content which can add hundreds, thousands, and even sometimes hundreds of thousands of pages from a single product or group of products.” A successful e-ccommerce site will feature tons of products in different colors, sizes, brands, and more, and all this product information will need to be organized in some way so that consumers (and search engines) aren’t overwhelmed by the choices.

This is where categories and filters come in handy. When presented with a large amount of information, or products, or choices, etc. it’s human nature to want to separate things into smaller groups and categories. Furthermore, it makes sense to group similar items together. Think about when you’re folding laundry, specifically socks- first I like to categorize them into piles of mine vs. my wife’s, and then I further separate each category into piles like “work socks”, “athletic socks”, “white socks”, etc. This helps to make the whole pile more manageable and the process of folding much quicker. It’s no different with an online website; you just have to how to best separate your socks, aka product information, and your choices are either with categories or filters.

So What’s the Difference Between a Category and a Filter?

In the above analogy about socks, a category would be the first form of separation, aka when I divide my wife’s socks from my own. A filter would be the next level of separation within a category, such as athletic socks within the larger category of my socks. Both are used to help improve user experience and site navigation, but sometimes it’s more appropriate to use one vs. the other.

Categories

Categories are what you use to break up your products into different web pages. See the example below of how Target uses categories to break up their merchandise. The URL of a category page will look something like this:

http://www.domainhere.com/category-keyword/subcategory-keyword.html

If you’re selling clothes, you’ll most likely have a category for shirts, another for pants, and possibly another for accessories depending on what you sell. These are all main categories that will make it easy for a consumer to navigate to the right product, and for a search engine to index your pages.

That being said, you’ll probably want to separate your products even more since most likely you have a wide variety of different kinds of pants, shirts, and accessories, and making a ton of different web pages probably isn’t the best way to go if you’re thinking about SEO. This is where filters can be helpful.

Filters

A filter is a category within a category, but it doesn’t require a completely separate web page be created. Here is another example from Target of how they’ve broken up their categories into filters:

The URL for a filter will most likely look like this:

http://www.yourdomain.com/category/subcategory.html?style=mens&color=brown

It’s not as pretty as a category URL, and believe it or not, Google takes notice of this and doesn’t give filters as much weight in terms of SEO. This doesn’t mean you should discount them completely though, as they are appropriate to use in some occasions. If you want to break down your products into smaller categories, such as sweaters, tanks, and T-Shirts within the larger category of shirts, it would be most appropriate to use a filter to do so. Otherwise you’ll overwhelm your customer with too many different web pages.

How Do You Know When to Use a Category vs. a Filter?

The best way to determine when to use a category vs. a filter is to use a tool like Google’s Keyword Planner to search for your products and see how others are naturally breaking up their websites. HigherVisibility suggests making whatever has the most search volume into a category on your website. That being said, you don’t want to have too many category pages, so they also suggest using the rule of “four,” meaning you shouldn’t have more than 4 clicks between your homepage and your product page. If you do, it might be time to turn some of those category pages into filters.

It’s also recommended that some categories be automatically viewed and created as filters, and these are: price, size, color, and sometimes brand. Think about the last time you did some online shopping; have you ever clicked on a webpage for size? Furthermore, when searching for a product, do you typically include your size in the search? Or do you search for something generic, like tennis shoes or dresses? Most likely it’s the latter, and that’s why most entrepreneurs choose to use filters for these smaller distinctions in products.

The Takeaway

While it’s true that search engines are more likely to index category pages over filter pages, you should still be including both in your e-commerce site. Do your keyword research to see how the competition is breaking up their webpages, and then take that information plus your knowledge of what is most often searched for in your industry in order to organize your site. Big differences in products should be shown by giving them their own category pages, whereas lesser variances like size and color (when applicable) should use broken down using filters. If you follow these guidelines, your site will rank high and your customers will easily be able to search for, and find, your products.

Do you own an e-commerce website? How did you determine when to use filters vs. categories? Comment in the section below!