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Below, you’ll find 21 proven strategies to drive relevant traffic to your website and turn visitors into customers. Each method is designed for savvy internet audiences, helping you build a modern online presence.
To increase website traffic, you need to be able to get your business in front of your ideal customers.
With paid social media ads, you can create highly targeted campaigns that serve tailor-made ads to customers who are most likely to purchase your products.
When planning to run paid social media ads, consider these platforms:
Traffic: 👤👤👤
Cost: 💰💰💰
Time to ROI: Days
Effort: Low
With over 3 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the largest social media platform in the world. Facebook ads allow you to target users by their interests, behaviors, locations, and more, optimizing your chances of conversion.
Use Facebook dynamic ads to target potential customers based on their browsing history and online activity. These ads are automatically generated, showing relevant products from your website that people are likely to be interested in.
For even more precise targeting, add the Meta pixel to your website. Advertising pixels track user behavior to refine ad content and placement. 
Traffic: 👤👤👤
Cost: 💰💰
Time to ROI: Days
Effort: Low
Some 90% of Instagram’s two-billion-odd users follow a business account, making it a valuable source of interested traffic. But if you’re only aiming for organic Instagram engagement, you might be missing its full potential. Instagram ads can boost your website traffic and increase sales—you can even sell directly on Instagram, so users don’t need to travel anywhere.
If you’re using a personal account, converting it to a business account will unlock additional features that are essential for advertisers. You can create ads in various formats such as photos, videos, carousels, collections, and stories, allowing for flexible and creative marketing approaches.
Exploring Instagram’s tools and hashtags, and jumping on the platform’s latest trends can win you more followers and strengthen your campaigns.
Traffic: 👤👤👤
Cost: 💰💰💰
Time to ROI: Days
Effort: Low
If you’re looking for ways to attract buyers to your online store, Pinterest is a source of motivated traffic with clearly signaled interests. According to Pinterest, users tend to be more affluent and more willing to spend compared to other social media sites.
Promoted Pins are especially useful for reaching people who are actively looking for ideas and products. This type of Pinterest ad displays your content at the top of search results, and has been shown to influence users’ purchasing decisions.
Pinterest works well when targeting niche audiences. Whether someone is redoing their garden, planning a wedding, or updating their home décor, the platform helps associate your brand with their interests.
Traffic: 👤👤👤👤
Cost: 💰💰💰💰
Time to ROI: Days
Effort: High
Google Ads stands out from social media advertising by targeting people who are already searching for what your website provides. These ads let you place your web pages in front of users who’ve made relevant searches on Google and YouTube.
There are several Google ad formats:
Understanding these tools and effectively applying them can maximize your ad spend. Creating and managing YouTube ads is a discipline that takes time to learn, but when deployed effectively, it can flood your website with relevant traffic.
Traffic: 👤👤👤👤
Cost: 💰💰
Time to ROI: Days
Effort: Medium
Despite questions over its long-term future in the US, TikTok continues to be a powerful platform for sourcing traffic. Users increasingly view TikTok as a place to find new content that matches their interests. For marketers, it’s a space to connect with large audiences in almost any demographic.
While creating TikTok marketing content takes time, it can be a great platform to add to your marketing arsenal. You can also use TikTok Shop to sell on the platform, so you don’t need to convince users to visit your site.
The TikTok ads platform is easy to use, with preset options for budgeting and audience selection.
Generating traffic via social media can require more than posting ads for your website. Social engagement often comes from encouraging conversations with the right people, responding thoughtfully, and driving excitement and enthusiasm.
Traffic: 👤👤
Cost: 💰
Time to ROI: Weeks
Effort: Medium
When you launch your business, turning to friends and family for support is a great tactic to generate initial awareness, traffic, or even your first sale (thanks, Mom!).
Take inspiration from the content website Upworthy. It generated its initial traffic by reaching out to friends and family. The company set a goal of getting 1,000 Facebook fans by the end of launch day. It worked, providing valuable traction.
Reach out to your friends and family in a targeted way. Are there channels for talking to your extended family, coworkers, or community? Send a note and tell them about your new store. On social media, tell the story of your business in an update.
Once you have the attention of your friends and family, ask them to share your website with their networks. This type of exponential reach is the key to successful word-of-mouth marketing.
Traffic: 👤👤
Cost: 💰
Time to ROI: Weeks
Leverage: Medium
You don’t need to start selling products or publishing content before you engage with people on Instagram. Blackbird Baking Company, a bakery in Toronto, Canada, built an audience of engaged, passionate bread lovers on Instagram before it opened its first storefront. This ensured it had a great reception when it opened its doors.
First, the bakery followed a disciplined social media marketing strategy. It generated follow-backs by following select people it determined may be interested in a new bakery. These include restaurateurs and self-declared bread enthusiasts in Toronto.
You can find people with interests in your niche or field. Search relevant keywords in bios and profiles.
Second, Blackbird made sure the photos it uploaded of bread being baked and delivered to stores were mouthwatering and shareable.
Third, Blackbird Baking Company engaged proactively with followers to discuss local community issues. Topics included life in Toronto, great food, and, of course, bread.
So when the bakery finally opened, there were lots of interested people waiting to buy its goods.
Here’s how you can engage with an Instagram audience:
Reddit has thousands of niche-based forums, called subreddits. You can find a subreddit on nearly any subject, for example, /r/bicycling, /r/scifi, or /r/corgi.
Reddit poses an interesting opportunity to grow brand awareness and generate website traffic. It’s a place where passionate folks congregate around their favorite topics, sharing advice, best practices, and personal life stories.
Here’s how you could use Reddit if your business is selling hair products. Navigate to a few subreddits such as /r/femalehairadvice, where there’s discussion on all aspects of haircare for women. There are also subreddits like /r/haircarescience, /r/curlyhair, or simply /r/hair.
To promote your business and drive traffic to your site, create a new post. Make the post brief but detailed, with concrete examples to engage readers. Here are the components of a great Reddit post:
Pay attention to Reddit’s platform guidelines and Reddiquette values. Some subreddits don’t allow promotional material. If you post about your site in a thread that doesn’t want it, you may find that no one upvotes your link, and you may get banned from the subreddit.
Alongside promoting your website on relevant subreddits, you can also turn to threads like /r/entrepreneur for advice, tapping the know-how of more than three million subscribers. Other browse-worthy threads include /r/smallbusiness, another source of general business advice.
Traffic: 👤👤👤👤
Cost: 💰💰💰
Time to ROI: Days
Effort: High
Contests and giveaways are a great way to get more followers on Instagram, increase social media engagement, and drive traffic to your website. With viral contests, giveaways, and sweepstakes, you can quickly drive traffic to your site by exchanging contest entries for sharing your site.
Contest and giveaway apps on the Shopify App Store make it simple to embed giveaways into landing pages and blog posts. Social sharing gives sweepstakes a chance to go viral and spread around social platforms. See how Toyota fan site Prime Driven leverages giveaways to generate traffic.
Traffic: 👤👤👤👤
Cost: 💰💰💰
Time to ROI: Days
Effort: High
Offering time-sensitive discounts can be an effective way to get people to take action, generating traffic and increasing sales. Putting an expiration on your discount leverages scarcity, a powerful psychological sales trigger.
In the example below, the bags and accessories brand Rareform offers a discount that expires after one day. If you’ve launched your store recently, consider adding a minimum qualifying purchase for your discount offer. This can be a smart way to offer your fans an incentive without compromising your profitability.
Product discounts aren’t the only time-sensitive offer you can provide customers. If you don’t normally offer free shipping, then occasionally doing so can be a compelling incentive to drive traffic from social media or email marketing campaigns to your store.
Influencer marketing involves partnering with successful social media content creators to promote your website to relevant users. This form of marketing harnesses the creativity and reach of notable people in your industry, leveraging the trust they’ve earned with audiences to refer traffic to your store.
Traffic: 👤👤👤👤
Cost: 💰💰
Time to ROI: Weeks
Effort: High
As many as 70% of shoppers use Instagram to inform purchasing decisions, highlighting its potential to convert browsing into sales. This makes Instagram an excellent avenue for boosting brand visibility and driving traffic to your online store—especially when you partner with an influencer.
Bloggers and social media celebrities are highly trusted by their followers. Finding a relevant influencer to feature your products is an effective tactic for increasing your traffic. For example, lifestyle influencer Estée Lalonde promotes brands by incorporating products into her posts:
Find influencers to drive sales with Shopify Collabs
Shopify Collabs makes it easy to partner with creators, promote your products, reach new customers, grow your sales, and track affiliate performance all from Shopify admin.
Traffic: 👤👤👤👤
Cost: 💰
Time to ROI: Weeks
Effort: High
Having connections who will talk up your product—especially if they’re connections engaged audiences of their own—is essential to driving traffic to your site and increasing sales. This is where blogger outreach comes in.
Blogger outreach is about more than making friends online. It’s a process to offer value and tell bloggers exactly what’s in it for them. Simply asking for help rarely works. Instead, here are some blogger outreach ideas to help you generate traffic:
Traffic: 👤👤👤👤
Cost: 💰
Time to ROI: Days
Effort: Medium
Instead of waiting for an influencer to feature you, you can feature them first. This networking tactic is an expansion of blogger outreach. The core of the tactic is: Write a blog post featuring an influencer, and send it to them in an email or via X in the hope they will share it with their audience.
For example, a cosmetics brand could write a blog post on what to look for in buying your next foundation, and ask beauty influencers for their opinions. Or, an outdoor gear website could write a blog post listing their favorite 10 hiking influencers.
After you’ve produced your blog post, reach out to the influencer with a link and ask them if they can share it with their audience.
Content marketing is about creating interesting, informative, and engaging content to organically attract traffic to your website. From videos and podcasts to guides and ebooks, there are endless opportunities for your business to branch out into the world of content and generate traffic.
Original content helps position your business as an industry thought leader and build your brand. Your business’s content strategy can include anything your customers might find relevant or interesting—don’t limit yourself to content that includes or focuses on your products. Instead, consider any and all topics and resources related to your business that your customers would find useful.
Traffic: 👤👤👤👤👤
Cost: 💰
Time to ROI: Months
Effort: Medium
Every month, approximately 70 million new blog posts are published on WordPress, the world’s largest blogging platform, generating more than 20 billion monthly page views.
While there is ample opportunity to reach an audience with blogging, you’ll need to be purposeful about your content to attract relevant traffic. Solving problems with search engine-optimized content is the best editorial policy for most blogs. Finding the right subjects to write on involves persona building, keyword research, and content gap analysis.
Successful content marketing on a blog starts with two things:
What problems do your potential visitors have? What interests them? What do they do for fun? What are they passionate about? Craft blog content based on the answers to these questions.
To get in front of the right audience, make a list of topics and phrases to target.
Ask yourself: If I were looking for this product/service/article, how would I search? What words would I use? What phrases? Getting in the mind of your visitor-to-be is the key to generating quality traffic.
Traffic: 👤👤👤👤👤
Cost: 💰
Time to ROI: Months
Effort: High
In 2024, as many as 47% of Americans listened to at least one podcast per month. Much like blogging, podcasting gives you the potential to excel in a specific niche, targeting a specific audience.
Unlike a blog or social media post, however, there’s no call to action that easily turns a podcast listener into a website visitor. As a result, you’ll need to find ways for listeners to easily reach your website.
Shuang Esther Shan, who manages the Shopify Masters podcast, uses three methods. For in-app podcast descriptions, she provides a summary of the episode with a link to the corresponding blog post.
Second, on the Shopify blog, she publishes podcast transcripts and summaries for hearing-impaired audiences. Finally, if an episode includes mentions of apps, tools, or any other useful resources, she’ll provide a list of relevant resources with each item linked.
Traffic: 👤👤👤👤👤
Cost: 💰💰
Time to ROI: Months
Effort: High
While there are various options for hosting videos, YouTube is the most popular channel for generating traffic. It’s also the second-largest search engine in the world.
Potential reach on YouTube is impressive: more than 2.7 billion active users with a wider reach among 18- to 49-year-olds than all US cable TV networks combined.
So, how do you narrow down that massive audience and get the right eyes on your YouTube channel and then back to your store? Here are some of the different types of YouTube marketing your business could use:
Free Reading List: Video Marketing Tips and Tricks
Video marketing is a powerful tool you can’t afford to ignore. Get a crash course with our free, curated list of high-impact articles.
When customers search for your products, you want your website to rank among the top results. Earning prized positions in SERPs is a key ingredient for generating sustained, qualified website traffic.
Search engine optimization is the process of fine-tuning your website to increase its chances of ranking highly in search results for relevant keywords.
SEO is a fine science that requires learning the rules that govern search engines like Google and applying them selectively to your site. You can use popular SEO tools such as Ahrefs and SemRush to help you find opportunities to optimize site content.
Traffic: 👤👤👤
Cost: 💰
Time to ROI: Days
Effort: Low
Search engines show a page’s title tag on their results page for search queries. Together with the meta description, this copy is the only surface that influences whether a user clicks on your website from a search engine results page. That makes your pages’ title tags important.
As Google explains, “Titles are critical to giving users a quick insight into the content of a result and why it’s relevant to their query. It’s often the primary piece of information used to decide which result to click on, so it’s important to use high-quality titles on your web pages.”
When writing title tags:
Traffic: 👤👤
Cost: 💰
Time to ROI: Days
Effort: Low
A meta description acts as a summary of a page’s content. Search engines often display it on the results page under your title tag.
Clicks to pages can be won by an alluring and interesting meta description. Google explains, “A meta description tag should generally inform and interest users with a short, relevant summary of what a particular page is about. They are like a pitch that convinces the user that the page is exactly what they’re looking for.”
If your meta description doesn’t offer a compelling reason to click, it could affect your organic search ranking. It’s also worth noting that meta descriptions can be any length, but they’re often truncated to fit the device the search is performed on.
Good meta descriptions:
Traffic: 👤👤👤
Cost: 💰
Time to ROI: Weeks
Effort: High
Getting backlinks for other websites is a well-known technique for boosting SEO. However, internal links also play an important role in helping pages rank. This is because of the Google metric called PageRank, a formula that can measure the importance and value of a page by the quantity and quality of pages that link to it.
Linking from pages with a high PageRank on your domain can pass authority and help the target page rank better. Alternatively, linking from low- to high-priority pages on your website can pass that PageRank back to your priority pages.
Here’s what you can do to optimize your website’s internal linking:
Incorporate links naturally, using anchor text related to the keyword you’d like the target page to rank for. You can find ideal anchor text to link by searching in Google with the following search operator: site:yourdomain.com “keyword or phrase related to page.”
Traffic: 👤👤👤👤👤
Cost: 💰
Time to ROI: Weeks
Effort: Medium
Next on the SEO checklist for your website is building a keyword strategy. Because they’re easier to identify, it’s tempting to target short, high-volume search terms. But you might be missing out on page views if you’re not looking at long-tail keywords.
Long-tail keywords, which capture more detailed or specific search queries, are easier to rank for and usually get clicks from search engines at a higher rate than shorter, more generic terms. 
Here’s an example of how you can maximize your exposure to long-tail variations and increase your traffic. Imagine you want to optimize a web page to appear in search results related to the Logitech C310 webcam. To increase traffic to the page, you’ll need to create content that’s relevant to variations of “Logitech C310” searches.
For instance, keyword research might reveal related terms like “review” or “compatible with Mac.” You might compare the differences between similar webcam models, making sure to include key search phrases such as the production year and model number. Incorporating various modifiers into the content on your page increases its potential to rank for a wider range of queries around the primary keyword.
Traffic: 👤👤👤👤
Cost: 💰💰
Time to ROI: Weeks
Effort: High
Rich snippets are enhanced listings that appear in search results with additional information such as ratings, price, and availability, making your entries stand out.
To make the most of rich snippets, ensure your website’s structured data is correctly implemented. This data helps Google understand the content of your site, which it can use to display in a more detailed and appealing format in search results. To check and manage your structured data, utilize tools such as the Google Structured Data Testing Tool, which helps identify and fix any issues with your site’s markup.
Some of the marketing strategies in the list above generate highly relevant traffic for your website, while others produce large volumes of general visitors.
For example, imagine you’re targeting young professionals interested in buying office supplies. LinkedIn posting might be a good option for finding individual clients, while Google Ads could bring in thousands of general clicks.
Successful website traffic acquisition involves doubling down on the most relevant traffic, while also considering practical factors, such as:
Aim for strategies you can execute consistently. Spreading yourself thin with too many tactics can lead to frustration and poor results.
Increasing website traffic starts with picking a marketing strategy and a relevant channel. Remember, a good digital marketing strategy is about layering short-term and long-term tactics so they work in tandem. Once you feel like you’ve mastered one, come back to this list and pick your next traffic-driving tactic.
Illustration by Rachel Tunstall.
Start by optimizing your website for search engines to increase visibility in Google search results. Engage with your audience using social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and X, tailoring content to the interests and needs of your target demographic. Additionally, invest in high-quality, engaging content to encourage shares and backlinks. Consider running targeted pay-per-click advertising campaigns and collaborating with influencers to extend your reach. Speed optimization, mobile-friendliness, listing your site in online directories, and engaging in guest blogging are also effective strategies to boost website visits.
Free methods for increasing website traffic include leveraging the power of social media. Regularly promote engaging content to build a loyal follower base. Create valuable content that resolves common issues or provides insightful information relevant to your audience to increase the likelihood of shares. Build and nurture an email list to keep your audience informed and engaged, and participate in online communities and forums to increase visibility. Additionally, utilize SEO strategies to improve your organic search rankings, and consider guest blogging to tap into new audiences.
Driving organic traffic to your website hinges on optimizing your content for search engines—a tactic known as SEO. Begin by identifying key terms and phrases that your target audience searches for, and create relevant, high-quality content to answer those search queries. Regularly updating your website with fresh, relevant content will keep your audience coming back and signal to search engines that your website is a reliable source of information.
To quickly drive traffic to your website, invest in pay-per-click advertising to place links to your website in front of your target audience on search engines and social media platforms. This method allows you to generate significant traffic immediately after your ads go live.
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Podcasts have become an essential tool for brands aiming to establish a place in their audience’s minds, promoting not only trust but also a shift in perceptions regarding topics or products. According to the 2024 Podcast Marketing Trust Index Report, conducted by Quill Inc. in partnership with Ipsos, 33% of Americans have changed their opinion on a topic or brand after listening to a podcast.
This figure is even higher among men (35%) and young adults aged 18-34 (50%), highlighting the impact of podcasting on younger audiences and traditionally hard-to-reach demographics.
The report reveals that over half (56%) of Americans feel that a host’s recommendation increases their confidence in a product or service. This effect is especially strong among men (60%) and the 18-34 age group (62%), who tend to trust the host’s recommendations as a reliable source of information. This trust translates into purchasing decisions: 44% of listeners say they have bought or considered buying products they heard about on a podcast, with this figure rising to 66% among younger listeners (18-34 years).
Additionally, 42% of Americans trust information from podcasts more than traditional media, such as television or newspapers. This finding underscores the growing role of podcasts as an alternative communication channel that challenges conventional media in terms of authenticity and emotional connection.
The study also provides key insights into podcast consumption: 59% of Americans listen to podcasts regularly, with 34% discovering them through social media, 30% through recommendations from friends, and 24% via online searches. This suggests that social media remains a major driver of audio content discovery, with personal recommendations reinforcing credibility.

Transparency in sponsorships is key

For brands to build trust through podcasts, transparency in sponsorships is essential. According to the report, 54% of listeners trust sponsored podcasts more when they clearly disclose their relationship with the brand, and 46% prefer episodes that include experts or diverse perspectives. Therefore, authenticity and transparency in collaborations are crucial to delivering credible messages to audiences.
“This survey reassures how important trust is for effective storytelling, and the unique power podcasts have to instill trust and influence opinions on critical topics from politics to personal values,” says Fatima Zaidi, founder and CEO of Quill Inc. “In a world where we are constantly bombarded with information, at Quill we are committed to showcasing how authentic storytelling can spark meaningful conversations and reshape perspectives on topics and brands, driving real change in how people think and engage with important issues.”
As consumers increasingly value authenticity and transparency, it is vital for brands to collaborate with hosts and experts who have a genuine connection to the product or topic and to focus on narratives that go beyond mere promotion. This combination of factors can be key to building the trust necessary to influence purchase decisions and positively shift brand perception.
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Search Engine Land » SEO » Canonicalization and SEO: A guide for 2025
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Canonicalization is a crucial yet often overlooked strategy in SEO, ensuring that search engines recognize the original source of content. 
A strong canonicalization strategy is essential, especially for large-scale sites with thousands of pages. Even smaller sites, however, can benefit by avoiding duplicate content issues that impact rankings and visibility.
This guide covers the essentials of canonical tags, practical implementation strategies and advanced insights for site optimization:
Canonicalization is a technical SEO technique used to specify the preferred version of a webpage when multiple URLs contain similar or duplicate content. It’s like designating an original source or master copy for a piece of content.
By using canonical tags, you tell search engines which URL to index and rank, preventing confusion and ensuring that your website’s authority and ranking power are concentrated on the correct page.
The following are key terms we will use throughout this article:
To implement canonical tags, you’ll typically need to work with your website’s developer or technical team.
Many content management systems (CMS) have built-in features for adding canonical tags, which often automatically self-reference. However, you may need to manually specify a target URL for certain pages, such as product variants or paginated content.
If your CMS doesn’t have built-in canonical tag functionality or you need more advanced customization, you’ll need to work with a developer to add the canonical tag to the <head> section of the HTML code. 
The specific implementation will vary depending on your website’s platform and structure.
Canonicalization plays a pivotal role in improving a website’s overall SEO performance.
Search engines have limited resources to crawl and index content, especially for large-scale sites with thousands of pages.
Canonical tags help direct crawlers to the main version of the content, ensuring that the crawl budget is spent efficiently and preventing duplicate pages from being needlessly indexed.
Duplicate or similar content can split ranking equity (think backlinks and engagement metrics) across multiple pages, weakening each page’s authority. 
Canonicalization consolidates these signals to a single preferred version, strengthening the page’s overall SEO value.
When multiple pages with similar content compete for the same keywords, it can result in keyword cannibalization, where none of the pages rank optimally.
A proper canonical strategy helps designate the primary page for ranking, maintain focus and avoid competition within your site.
As Google increasingly emphasizes the value of E-E-A-T, demonstrating a clear and authoritative content structure is more critical than ever.
Canonicalization ensures that only the most authoritative version of a page is recognized and indexed, helping boost a site’s overall trustworthiness.
This is particularly important for sites repurposing content across different subdomains or syndicating content across platforms/domains.
A robust canonicalization strategy helps achieve these benefits and ensures a clean, efficient content hierarchy that aligns with Google’s expectations for authoritative, experience-rich and trustworthy content. 
Even if you have a single, unique source of content, it’s still a best practice to implement self-referencing canonical tags. 
By doing so, you provide a clear signal to search engines about the preferred version of the page.
This can help improve indexing efficiency, prevent potential confusion and ensure that your content is displayed correctly in search results.
Duplicate content issues aren’t always obvious. Subtle technical URL variations can create duplicate pages that negatively impact your site’s SEO. 
Below are common pitfalls to watch out for and how canonical tags can address them:
www vs. non-www versions
HTTP vs. HTTPS
Trailing slashes
Capitalization
URL parameters (e.g., Session IDs, UTMs)
Blog tags and categories
This involves using canonical tags to link content on one domain to its equivalent on another domain. Here are common use cases for cross-domain canonicalization: 
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It’s time to throw a curveball at you. Let’s say you have a site that has hundreds of blog posts or thousands of products, and they are all hidden behind paginated category pages.
Should each subsequent paginated page (i.e., 2, 3, 4, etc.) canonicalize the first? 
The short answer is no. This one is a bit of a trick question, as we’ve been so focused on canonical tags. 
However, correct pagination implementation uses a different HTML rel attribute and here’s why.
Canonical tags will hinder the crawling and indexing of the items listed on these pages. 
If you have blog articles or products on Page 2 and you want those products or articles to be indexed by Google, don’t implement a canonical tag.
Instead, implement rel=prev/next tags to indicate to Google that this is a page in a series.
This will give higher priority to the top-level page while showing the sequential relationship of the subsequent pages. Because of that relationship, those pages won’t be dinged for duplicate content. 
Pagination is where SEO best practices and user experience often collide.
One common rule when handling paginated content stands out:
When to use rel=prev/next
Paginated content should use rel=prev/next to signal to search engines that the pages are part of a sequence. 
This helps maintain their visibility in search results and ensures search engines understand the relationship between these pages.
Here is an example of the correct placement of a rel=prev/next on Page 2 of a blog:
Why not rel=canonical?
Applying rel=canonical from all pages back to the first page consolidates ranking equity to the main page but effectively hides the other pages and the pages they link to from indexing.
This can be detrimental for sites with valuable content spread across multiple pages, such as:
Ecommerce sites are often complex, with product pages, category listings and dynamic URLs driven by parameters that create unique challenges for canonicalization. 
Properly handling these scenarios ensures a seamless user experience and optimal search engine indexing.
When optimizing an ecommerce giant, you will likely encounter the following.
Product variants
When products have slight variations (e.g., different colors or sizes), each variant may generate a unique URL. 
Canonical tags should point to the main product page to consolidate ranking signals and avoid duplicate content issues.
An exception applies if you want each product variant to rank individually. For instance:
Category listings
Pagination for category listing pages has already been discussed above. Implement rel=prev/next in lieu of a canonical tag to indicate their relationship as part of a series.
However, category URLs for ecommerce can go much deeper with the use of URL parameters for session IDs, tracking codes, etc.
This can create multiple URLs that display the same content. In this case, implement canonical tags pointing to the base URL without adding URL parameters. 
In this case, you may actually pair a canonical tag with a rel=prev/next. 
Faceted navigation (or filters)
Sites with filtering options for products (e.g., price, brand) can inadvertently create many parameterized URLs. This can quickly get out of hand when you suddenly have thousands of pages getting indexed. 
The implementation here will be unique to each site. That said, the general rule of thumb is to set the canonical tags to the base category. 
In some cases, you can use a custom structure where the first one or two filter combinations are self-canonicalized, while additional filter combinations either canonicalize to the main combinations or are tagged as noindex. 
Managing non-essential variations helps control indexing. Let’s take a real work example for a flooring company:
For websites targeting multiple regions and languages, canonicalization becomes even more complex. 
A combination of canonical tags and hreflang attributes is necessary to effectively manage duplicate content and ensure proper indexing.
Hreflang attributes specify a webpage’s language and geographical target.
When used with canonical tags, they help search engines understand the relationship between different language and regional versions of a page.
For example, consider a website with English and Spanish versions. For the English version of the product page, you would implement the following:
This tells search engines that the English version is the primary version and the Spanish version is an alternative version for Spanish-speaking users.
Canonicalization, while a powerful tool, can often become a silent culprit if not monitored regularly. 
When you work with enough websites, you’re bound to encounter the “canonical ghosts” – unintended changes to canonical tags that can lead to incorrect or missing tags. 
These errors can often go unnoticed, as they’re hidden within the codebase and can be introduced through code updates, theme changes or plugin conflicts.
To prevent such issues, monitoring your website’s canonicalization regularly is crucial. 
By using a combination of tools and techniques, you can identify and address problems before they negatively impact your website’s search engine rankings.
Google Search Console provides valuable insights into how Google indexes your site’s content. Specifically, the Pages report breaks this down to each page of your site. 
Here are some specific issues related to canonicalization that you can monitor in the GSC Pages report:
SEO auditing tools like Screaming Frog and Sitebulb can be used to crawl your website and identify SEO issues related to canonicalization. 
Here are some specific things to look for:
By regularly monitoring your website’s canonicalization status using these tools and techniques, you can identify and address issues promptly, ensuring that your content is indexed and ranked correctly by search engines.
SEO is always shifting, and as we move into 2025, the pace of change is only picking up. Canonicalization is no exception to this evolution. 
The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming not just how search engines interpret and rank content but also how SEOs approach and adapt their strategies. 
Even long-established practices like canonicalization may need to evolve to stay effective. Here’s what you should be ready for in 2025.
Search engines are becoming more sophisticated in using AI to evaluate content. 
While canonical tags have traditionally guided search engines, AI can potentially override these signals if user behavior or content context suggests a different page should take precedence. 
This makes it essential for SEOs to ensure their canonical tags align perfectly with the page’s value and relevance.
The tools SEOs rely on are rapidly evolving with the integration of AI. 
These advancements could improve how canonicalization issues are identified and resolved, making the process faster and more precise.
Personalized experiences and dynamic content are becoming standard on websites, but they bring complexities for canonicalization. 
While AI might help search engines interpret these user-specific pages better, missteps in canonical strategy can still lead to indexing issues. 
SEOs must find a balance between providing tailored user experiences and maintaining a logical, crawlable structure that search engines can navigate.
Throughout this guide, we’ve covered the ins and outs of canonicalization – from its fundamental importance to practical applications across complex scenarios. 
Canonical tags may seem like a small detail in the broader SEO picture. Still, their correct use can make the difference between a streamlined, high-performing site and one hurt by duplicate content and missed ranking opportunities.
Canonicalization is more than a checkbox; it’s a dynamic, essential component of effective SEO. 
By understanding its complexities and continuously refining your approach, you can maintain a strong and authoritative online presence.
Contributing authors are invited to create content for Search Engine Land and are chosen for their expertise and contribution to the search community. Our contributors work under the oversight of the editorial staff and contributions are checked for quality and relevance to our readers. The opinions they express are their own.
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Google appears to have pulled back further on AI Overviews following well-earned criticism about its AI-generated answers giving users incorrect, misleading and dangerous answers.
Let’s dive into new findings from two separate SEO platforms:
AI Overviews reduction. Google is showing AI Overviews less often, though the analyses disagree on the percentage. AI Overviews show for:
This reduction is not surprising – especially after Google responded to criticism and explained how it would improve AI Overviews on May 30.
Citations. Reddit’s visibility dropped in AI Overviews, according to SERanking. It is no longer among the top 10 most cited domains. The top five domains most referenced websites in AI Overviews:
By the numbers. Some interesting findings from SERanking’s analysis:
More findings. Here are other interesting findings from SEOClarity’s analysis:
Why we care. Despite the early hiccups in these early days of AI Overviews, Google continues to evolve in the direction of AI Overviews. Google wants to become an answer engine rather than a search engine. As this shift from Classic Search to AI Search continues, some brands and businesses may be forced to adapt to a new reality with less organic traffic.
The reports. You can read them here:
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Each month we evaluate and recognize award-winning designs in these industries.
Browse the best designs by category:
According to growth marketer and former HubSpot manager Alex Birkett, B2B content needs to meet four criteria to rank #1 on Google.
The 44th episode of the DesignRush Podcast explains why you should play a long-term game when it comes to SEO, as well as which indicators to look at when assessing the quality of the content on your website.
Tune in to the show to learn:
Alex is the co-founder of a content marketing & SEO agency Omniscient Digital. Before starting his agency, he worked on freemium growth at HubSpot where his team invented a new organic strategy called the “surround sound strategy” which led to Semrush building a tool based on this approach. Alex’s team drove thousands of net new freemium signups across their product suite.
In 2024, SEO isn’t just about topping search results – it’s about perfecting user experiences. With 58% of searches coming from mobile devices, the stakes for optimized, engaging content are higher than ever.
Our editor Vianca Meyer discusses with Alex how his agency approaches enabling businesses to scale their organic traffic.
Omniscient usually runs a website through a four-part audit:
LEARN MORE ABOUT SEO: 11 Types Of SEO & How They Can Improve Your Search Engine Ranking
A lot of people think about SEO audits as technical, Alex says.
You pump them through Ahrefs, SEMrush, or Screaming Frog and look at technical issues. That’s one dimension we use, but there are four in total.
One’s going to be a share of search and your visibility about competitors, topics, and the customer journey keywords – we map these out and give the business a visibility score.
Related to that is the content inventory, which I had mentioned before, and that’s gonna be your existing content assets, both the coverage of topics as well as where they fit in the customer journey.
Maybe you’re overweighted on top of funnel terms and underweighted on the bottom funnel. Maybe you’re overweighted on blog posts and underweighted on landing pages.
It’s gonna be an allocation of what kinds of content as well as the quality of the content:
Then there’s technical and UX.
We lump that into the same category because it’s based on the website infrastructure and the readability and findability, Alex notes.
Kosta Hristov, QGP’s founder and SEO lead, also believes that UX plays a major role in the success of modern SEO strategies.
“Here’s how it goes. You acquire links. Then Google gives you a spot on the first page to test your site.
Then it tracks the engagement metrics like CTR, and time on page, i.e. the UX. And if it’s not good enough, it drops you off the first page.
UX is an On-Page SEO factor that needs to be taken care of,” he shares.
Lastly, there’s off-page SEO.
So backlinks – how do you appear off-site? What are the off-page signals that show Google that you’re a reputable source? Usually, the off-page SEO of large companies is incredible, their technical SEO is off the charts. Sometimes, UX could use some work.
In the case of a recent client, the content they had published was pretty good and ranking – they just needed to publish more.
And that was one case where the solution was very simple.
You don’t need an SEO expert to say that if you don’t publish content, you’re not going to rank or attract visitors and convert them. However, we were able to quantify the largest opportunity and say don’t even touch your off-page.
Don’t even touch your technical – you can do micro tweaks as you go later on. We brought this client from their current 2/10 SEO score to a 10/10 by making them publish more content.
Don’t miss all of these keyword opportunities, Alex concludes.
With the latest algo updates, Google emphasizes user-focused content even more to ensure that the quality content that answers user needs ranks as high as possible in the SERPs.
Renowned SEO experts Daniel Foley Carter and Lily Ray previously explained this trend on the DesignRush Podcast.

Alex stresses that all serious businesses should focus their SEO efforts on the long-term game.
We’ve always indexed on the long game – We even call our podcast ‘The Long Game‘. Our core principle is to play long-term games with long-term people. As part of that, we always optimize the content for the user.
Many SEO experts chase everything Google says. Alex argues we shouldn’t care about this but stick to the SEO basics instead.
Ultimately what Google is trying to do is to align the best content to the user intent and create a good experience that allows users to use their search more, click more ads, and bring Google more revenue.
If you skip the platform, you should wonder what would the users want.
They want information from a trustworthy source – somebody who’s done this thing before, an expert. The content needs to be comprehensive and answer the question of the query. There’s search intent alignment.
Hopefully, Google will keep improving.
Alex admits there are a bunch of mid-term steps where Google ranks, for example, Forbes for best blenders. However, he still claims focusing on the long-term game is the best way to increase organic traffic in 2024.
If we look at the long game, we’re doing the right things that are going to parlay into great outcomes, regardless of what happens with Google updates or if SGE takes over.
Whatever the case is, we’re building for that long-term game.
Still, it’s often challenging to recognize where the hidden gems lie when it comes to ranking #1 on Google. An experienced SEO agency can assist every brand in doing so.
Concluding the conversation, Vianca asked Alex to explain how his agency measures the results of their SEO success and what’s the hardest part when it comes to managing client expectations.
Alex’s “simple” answer involves looking at two groups of indicators:

We’ve always been in an agency that attributes ourselves to growth outcomes, Alex confirms.
We map toward business outcomes, not just traffic outcomes. The leading indicators in the search-focused content strategy are going to be the number of indexed pages and visibility – impressions in number 1-3 search rankings and traffic. All of these metrics need to be in place to attract the traffic that’s going to convert.
An example of a lagging indicator is conversion, a qualified lead. In some cases, we have clients who have very advanced revenue and marketing operations that can help us connect data sources.
We’ve got our marketing & website analytics with GA4, and then the client might have a CRM or product analytics so we can stitch that together and say: we’ve attributed this much revenue to the content that we’re producing.
Then, we can build that based on whatever attribution model we’ve agreed on. A lot of the time, last click, sometimes first click, sometimes multi-touch, that’s getting into the weeds a little bit.
For more guides on perfecting your SEO game, check the latest trends on DesignRush.
It’s not always about revenue, Alex concludes.
Startups typically want revenue. They’re very much driven by how much money are they putting into SEO: how much money are they getting out and in what timeframe.
On the other hand, a lot of enterprises have a lot of SEO to do for their market. They’re looking at the overall visibility compared to their competitors. That’s where the share of search visibility comes into play.
We’ll always try to quantify that with an earned media value equivalent – if you were to buy this traffic, how much would that cost? It depends on what goal the client is aiming for, but we always attach it to some meaningful business metric.
If I had to draw some conclusions right now, I’d say the following:

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Join us in analyzing 3 case studies that show the importance of driving brand search behavior and engagement, and how to do it in months, instead of years.
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Google Search Advocate clarifies that duplicate content poses operational challenges but doesn’t penalize website rankings, offering three practical solutions.
Google’s Search Central team has released a new video in its “SEO Made Easy” series. In it, Search Advocate Martin Splitt addresses common concerns about duplicate content and provides practical solutions for website owners.
Despite concerns in the SEO community, Google insists that duplicate content doesn’t harm a site’s perceived quality.
Splitt states:
“Some people think it influences the perceived quality of a site but it doesn’t. It does cause some challenges for website owners though, because it’s harder to track performance of pages with duplicates.”
However, it can create several operational challenges that website owners should address:
Splitt adds:
“It might make similar content compete with each other and it can cause pages to take longer to get crawled if this happens at a larger scale. So it’s not great and is something you might want to clean up, but it isn’t something that you should lose sleep over.”
Splitt recommends using canonical tags in HTML or HTTP headers to indicate preferred URLs for duplicate content.
While Google treats these as suggestions rather than directives, they help guide the search engine’s indexing decisions.
Splitt clarifies:
“This tag is often used incorrectly by website owners so Google search can’t rely on it and treats it as a hint but might choose a different URL anyway.”
When Google chooses different canonical URLs than specified, website owners should:
The most strategic approach involves combining similar pages to:
Splitt explains:
“If you find that you have multiple very similar pages, even if Google doesn’t consider them duplicates, try to combine them. It makes information easier to find for your users, will make reporting in Google Search Console easier to work with, and will reduce clutter on your site.”
Google Search Console may flag pages with various duplicate content notices:
These notifications indicate that Google has indexed the content, possibly under different URLs than initially intended.
Splitt addresses duplicate content in international contexts, noting that similar content across multiple language versions is acceptable and handled appropriately by Google’s systems.
He states:
“If you find that you have multiple very similar pages, even if Google doesn’t consider them duplicates, try to combine them. It makes information easier to find for your users, will make reporting in Google Search Console easier to work with, and will reduce clutter on your site.”
This guidance represents Google’s current stance on duplicate content and clarifies best practices for content organization and URL structure optimization.
See the full video below:

Featured Image: AnnaKu/Shutterstock
Matt G. Southern, Senior News Writer, has been with Search Engine Journal since 2013. With a bachelor’s degree in communications, …
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