/seo-content-collection-page

name: seo-content-collection-page
description: "Optimize e-commerce collection, category, and product listing pages (PLPs) for Google and AI assistants. Input: a collection or category page (Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento, BigCommerce, PrestaShop, or custom). Output: a bottom-of-page SEO text block, faceted-navigation and filter URL control, pagination canonicals, thin or empty collection cleanup, internal links, and CollectionPage schema. Use to create, write, or audit a category page or PLP, or to handle filtered URLs, pagination, duplicate or empty categories, and store crawl budget."
license: MIT
metadata:
  author: "Sorank (https://sorank.com)"
  version: "1.0.0"

Collection Page SEO and GEO

This skill optimizes e-commerce collection and category pages (PLPs), the page type that wins category-level money queries yet ships with no editorial content on most stores (field observation from 115+ agency audits), using placement, faceting, and pagination rules that protect both rankings and conversion.

Company knowledge first (Obsidian)

If the working environment contains an Obsidian vault or any local knowledge base (a folder of .md notes, often with a .obsidian directory), read the relevant notes before acting: brand and product facts, target keywords, competitors, and the SEO action log of what was already tried. Ground every recommendation in that context instead of asking the user for facts the vault already holds. At the end of the session, append the actions taken to the vault's SEO action log so the next session starts informed. Vault structure, read-first and write-back protocols: the obsidian-brain skill.

When to use

Use this skill when the user:

• Creates or rewrites a collection, category, shop, or product archive page
• Asks where category text should go, how long it should be, or what it should contain
• Faces filter or parameter URLs flooding Google Search Console ("Discovered, currently not indexed", crawl spikes)
• Configures pagination, canonicals, or indexing rules for listing pages
• Cleans up empty, thin, or duplicate collections
• Wants category pages cited in AI answers such as "best X" or "where to buy Y"
• Works on Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento, BigCommerce, PrestaShop, or a custom storefront

Hand off neighboring cases:

| Case | Skill | |---|---| | Individual product pages (PDPs) | seo-content-product-page | | Sitewide link architecture and anchors | seo-internal-linking | | JSON-LD implementation details | seo-schema-markup | | Rendering, robots.txt, crawl budget mechanics | seo-technical | | Validating search demand for a facet | seo-keyword-research | | Supporting buying guides on the blog | seo-content-blog | | Whole-site audit | seo-geo-audit | | Passage-level citability writing | geo-visibility | | Measuring AI citations and referrals | geo-tracking |

Workflow

1. Identify the target query for the collection (the category keyword) and confirm it is commercial: check what page types rank. Validate facet-level demand with the seo-keyword-research skill before creating any facet landing page. 2. Fetch the raw server HTML with curl and compare with the rendered page. A product grid or text block that only appears after JavaScript runs is invisible to AI assistants and unreliable for Google. For an automated full check, run the bundled audit script from the seo-geo-audit skill (scripts/seo_audit.py). 3. Map the URL surface: list the filter, sort, and pagination parameters the template can emit, and check Search Console page indexing reports for parameter URL inflation. 4. Write the two text zones: a 1-2 sentence intro at the top, a 400-800 word block at the bottom (structure below). Before writing, mine Google Search Console for the page's own keyword demand (section 0 below) and weave the high-impression secondary keywords into the block in the searchers' exact wording. Open the body with the primary keyword as the very first word (never an em-dash, a dash, or filler), and bold the primary keyword plus the most important secondary keywords. 5. Fix the metadata: H1, title, slug, meta description. 6. Set the faceted navigation and pagination directives (decision tables below). 7. Evaluate thin or empty collections and merge or noindex them. 8. Wire internal links (menu, sister collections, top products, breadcrumbs) and the schema essentials, then hand details to seo-internal-linking and seo-schema-markup. 9. Apply the GEO layer below. 10. Deliver in the exact output format at the end of this document.

Rules and thresholds

| Element | Rule | Basis | |---|---|---| | Top intro | 1-2 sentences maximum under the H1 | Field heuristic from 115+ agency audits | | Bottom text block | 400-800 words below the product grid | Field heuristic from 115+ agency audits | | H1 | The category keyword | Standard practice | | Title | {Category} \| {Brand}, unique per collection | Standard practice | | Slug | Category keyword, descriptive words, hyphens | Measured correlation (Ahrefs, see Sources) | | Meta description | Handwritten, about 150-160 characters | Field heuristic from 115+ agency audits | | Filtered URLs | Canonical to the clean collection URL by default | Standard practice | | Indexable facets | Only with proven demand plus distinct inventory plus unique content | Standard practice + spam policy boundary | | Pagination | Page 2+ self-canonical, never canonical to page 1 | Standard practice (Google pagination doc) | | Thin collections | 0-2 products: merge or noindex | Field heuristic from 115+ agency audits | | FAQ in bottom block | 3 questions minimum | Field heuristic from 115+ agency audits | | Punctuation | Zero em dashes and zero en dashes, replaced by commas | House rule, most recognizable AI-writing tell |

Punctuation, non-negotiable: never leave an em dash (U+2014) or an en dash (U+2013) in copy that goes live on a client site. Replace every one with a comma; use a colon, a period or parentheses when a comma loses the sense. The em