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In the competitive health and wellness industry, standing out in search results is increasingly challenging. Google’s evolving policies, strict Merchant Center guidelines, and the rise of product grids in SERPs have made it harder for traditional product detail pages (PDPs) to gain visibility and rank organically.
The Challenge: Navigating SEO & Google Merchant Center Barriers
PureFormulas was up against multiple obstacles that impacted organic visibility and conversions:
- Google Merchant Center Restrictions: Many products were being disapproved for alleged false claims, limiting visibility and exposure in Google Shopping and organic product feeds.
- Shifting search landscape: Google’s increasing use of product grids was dominating and deprioritizing traditional PDPs in organic search results.
- Scaling SEO for a Large Catalog: With thousands of SKUs, ensuring proper indexing and optimization for every product was a daunting task.
To overcome these issues, we implemented a multi-pronged SEO strategy that combined Google Merchant Center optimizations, technical SEO, and content enhancements.
Step 1: Optimizing Google Merchant Center Product Feeds
Since Google’s Merchant Center policies were restricting many of PureFormulas’ products, we took a proactive approach to improve the product feed:
- Enhanced Product Descriptions: We rewrote descriptions to be more detailed, factual, and fully compliant with Google’s guidelines.
- Keyword-Rich Product Titles: We’re testing category-level title adjustments, strategically incorporating primary keywords into feed titles to improve relevance.
🚀 Result: After optimizing product descriptions in GMC, clicks from Google merchant listings increased +130% in just three months, significantly increasing visibility and traffic.
Step 2: Improving Page Speed & Core Web Vitals
With Google prioritizing user experience and site speed, we optimized Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) scores for PureFormulas’ PDPs by:
- Lazy-loading embedded YouTube videos to minimize load times.
- Optimizing images and scripts to improve performance.
- Improving product description indexation to increase ranking potential.
🚀 Results:
- Faster load times created a smoother user experience and helped PDPs perform better in organic search.
- Enhanced product description indexation led to nearly double the number of top 3 ranking keywords in Q4 2024 / Q1 2025.
Step 3: Strengthening Internal Linking for Better Indexation
Managing a vast product catalog required ensuring Google could efficiently crawl and index PDPs. Our focus areas:
- Strengthening internal linking signals: We ensured PDPs were effectively linked within the raw HTML of related category pages, improving discoverability.
- Improve crawlability: By refining site structure, we enabled search engines to better prioritize and rank PDPs.
🚀 Result: 99% of product pages were successfully indexed, ensuring they were eligible to rank and drive organic traffic.
The Results: Major Wins in Organic Visibility & Clicks
The impact of our strategic SEO and Google Merchant Center optimizations was clear:
✅ 149% increase in total organic clicks to PDPs YoY (Mid-November to Mid-February).
✅ +21% increase in PDP clicks vs. the previous 3-month period after feed optimizations.
✅ 130% surge in clicks from organic product feed listings compared to the previous 3 months.
✅ 99% product page indexation, ensuring maximum ranking potential.
