The menu: what ecommerce SEO services actually include
Ecommerce SEO services are a set of separate jobs that get bundled and sold under one name. Knowing the jobs lets you read any proposal as a list of parts, and decide which parts your store needs.
The common ones are these. A site audit that finds what is wrong. Technical fixes that act on the audit. On-page work, meaning titles, descriptions and copy for category and product pages. Content creation, such as buying guides and answers to shopper questions. Internal linking, which connects pages so authority and shoppers move between them. Link building and digital PR, which earn mentions from other sites. Product data and structured data work. Reporting and strategy. Some providers add local, marketplace or paid-search services under the same banner.
Each of those is a real job. None is a magic one. A bundle that contains all of them at a low price should make you suspicious, because the hours behind it cannot cover them. If you are unsure whether you are even looking for services, or for one person, the main guide, our starting-point guide to who does what in ecommerce SEO, sorts the types of provider.
Audit and technical services
An audit is a diagnosis. It crawls your site, checks how Google sees it, and reports what is blocking you. It is a sensible first purchase for a store that has never had one, and a poor repeat purchase, since the same findings reappear if nobody acts on them. What a good one covers is detailed on the page about what an ecommerce SEO audit inspects.
Technical service is the action that follows. It includes fixing duplicate pages from filters, cleaning up redirects, repairing pages that are not being indexed, improving speed, and making sure product information is machine readable. This is where a store with a big or old catalog often finds its largest gain, because a fix at the template level reaches every page at once.
Watch what is scoped. Some providers sell an audit and then quote technical fixes separately at a high rate. Ask up front whether the fixes are in the fee, and who makes them if the change needs your developer.
On-page and content services
This is the work shoppers can see, and for most stores it is where the money is. On-page work rewrites the titles, descriptions and copy of the pages that already exist: your category pages first, then your best-selling products. Content work adds pages you do not have, aimed at the questions shoppers ask before they buy.
The difference matters. A shopper searching for "best running shoes for flat feet" is not looking for a product page. They want a guide, and then a place to buy. A store that has that guide earns the visit and the sale. A store that only has product pages never appears.
When you assess a provider, ask who writes and how they learn your products. Copy written without knowing the products reads thin and often repeats what every competitor says. The better providers interview you, read your supplier information and study how customers talk. Then check the volume. Content is the service where "hours" and "output" come furthest apart, so ask for the number of pieces per month in writing.
Links, structured data and product data
Link building means earning mentions from other websites. It helps, and it is also the service most often sold badly. Be wary of any provider that promises a number of links for a flat fee, since quantity bought in bulk tends to be low quality and can do harm. Real links come from real things worth linking to: a useful guide, a tool, original data, a good story. A provider that talks about earning them is more believable than one that talks about placing them.
Internal linking is the quiet cousin, and it is nearly free. Connecting your articles to your categories and your categories to your products tells search engines which pages matter. It is part of any competent content job.
Structured data and product data are the technical labels on your pages: price, availability, reviews, size, brand. They help search engines and AI assistants read your pages accurately. Done right they can earn richer results. Done wrong they can mislead. Ask a provider to show you the markup on a live page and explain it. The glossary entry on Google Search Console also shows where you can check how these appear.
Which services a store needs, by size and gap
You do not need the whole menu. Match the services to where you sit.
A small catalog with a large content gap. This is the most common store. A few dozen products, thin pages, no articles. You need page writing and articles first. A heavy technical program is mostly wasted, because there is little to crawl.
A large catalog with a large gap. You need both. Technical work to stop the catalog leaking, and content at volume to fill the gap. This is the most expensive corner and the one where the shape of the provider matters most.
A small catalog with a small gap. You are already doing well. A checklist, a periodic audit and monitoring in Google Search Console are probably enough.
A large catalog with a small gap. The risk is decay. Technical care, monitoring and refreshing high-value pages protect what you have. Our page on technical SEO for ecommerce lists what to keep watching.
Services to be careful with
A few items on service menus deserve a second look before you pay for them.
Keyword ranking reports as the main deliverable. A list of positions for chosen phrases is easy to produce and easy to flatter. It does not tell you whether the right pages are earning clicks. Ask for clicks and impressions to category and product pages instead.
Bulk directory submissions and bought links. They are cheap, they look busy, and they rarely help. Some are risky.
Mass-produced pages with no review. Hundreds of near-identical pages can look like volume and read as filler. Volume is good only when each page answers something.
"Monthly optimization" with no defined output. If you cannot say what changed on your site last month, you paid for nothing you can see.
For a longer list, see ecommerce SEO red flags.
How to buy from the menu without overpaying
Ask each provider for the services priced separately, even if they usually sell a bundle. You do not have to buy them that way. You only need to see how the bundle is built.
Then pick the one or two services that attack your largest problem, and start there. A store that fixes its category pages and publishes a dozen good articles will learn more in three months than one that buys a twelve-service package and receives a little of each. You can add services as the data tells you what is next.
The way a bundle is written matters too, which is why how to read an ecommerce SEO package goes through the lines one at a time. If you are working from a limited budget, what ecommerce SEO returns helps you judge how much each service is worth.
Services that are sometimes bundled in
Menus often include services that belong to a different job. Knowing which keeps you from paying for something you did not want.
Local SEO, meaning Google Business Profile and local listings, matters if you also have a physical shop. For a store that ships only online, it adds little. Marketplace optimization, meaning listings on large third-party marketplaces, is a separate skill from your own site SEO, and it is worth buying only if you sell there. Paid search and shopping ads are a different channel with different economics.
None of these is bad. Each is its own purchase. Make sure a bundle that includes them has the hours to do them, and that you actually want them.
One question to ask about every service
For every line on a service list, ask one question: what will exist on my site, or in my accounts, after this is done that does not exist now?
An audit produces a document and a list. Technical work produces changes to templates and settings you can inspect. On-page work produces rewritten pages. Content produces new pages. Link building produces mentions on other sites, which you can see. Reporting produces a report. If the answer to the question is "ongoing optimization" or "strategic support," you have found a line item that produces nothing you can point to.
This simple question works on any menu from any provider, and it takes under a minute per line.
Adding services over time
A good order for most stores is to diagnose, fix, write, then extend. Start with an audit or a clear read of the site. Fix what blocks the rest. Publish the pages that fill your largest gap. Then, once the foundation works, add the extras: link earning, product data refinements, expanded content.
This order has a practical benefit. Early work produces data in Google Search Console, and that data tells you where to spend next. A store that buys everything at once learns nothing about which part is working. A store that adds in sequence can see which step moved the numbers and spend accordingly.
It also keeps cost contained. You pay for a service only after the earlier one has shown what it can do.
What a fair scope looks like on paper
A good scope reads like a work order. It names the services included, the number of pages or fixes for each, the schedule, who does the work, what you must provide and how results will be measured. It also names what is excluded, which is as valuable as what is included.
A weak scope reads like a brochure. It lists capabilities in friendly words, says nothing about numbers and promises "ongoing optimization." If a scope can be read two ways, the version that favors the provider will win the first time there is a dispute.
Ask the provider to rewrite any vague line as a number, a page type or a date. A provider who is happy to is usually one who intends to deliver. One who resists is telling you something about how the engagement will go.
A sensible order for a store that has never done SEO
If your store has never had SEO work, a clean order avoids waste. First, confirm Google can see the store at all: connect Google Search Console and check that your main pages are indexed. Second, fix anything that blocks it, such as pages marked to be hidden or redirects that loop. Third, rewrite the titles and copy of your top category pages. Fourth, rewrite your best-selling product pages. Fifth, publish your first articles on buyer questions. Sixth, connect everything with internal links.
Each step is a small service on its own. A store that does these six in order has covered most of what any provider would sell it, and it will know exactly which part to hand to someone else.
What results to expect from each service
Each service has a natural result, and knowing it keeps your expectations honest. Technical fixes show up as pages being indexed that were not, or duplicates dropping out, usually within weeks. On-page rewrites show up as more impressions and then clicks on the pages you changed, over a few months. New content shows up slowly, since new pages must be found and trusted before they earn visits. Link earning shows up as mentions you can see, and an effect on competitive pages that arrives later still.
Ask each provider which result belongs to which service, and when you should be able to see it in Google Search Console. Anyone who says everything will move at once is guessing.
How RunOctopus handles this
Most of the menu above is advice or effort. Ours is the on-page and content part, done for you, so here is what that means.
RunOctopus is a done-for-you service. Its AI, Ollie, researches your business, then writes and publishes pages directly on your own website. A team plans, writes, reviews and publishes alongside Ollie. It works with Shopify, WordPress, WooCommerce and Wix. You install nothing, approve nothing, upload nothing and schedule nothing, and pages go live on their own.
The first week brings 8 long-form articles, 6 pages and a custom interactive tool built for your niche. After that it is 175+ pieces of content a month, written, published and linked. You also get reports on where ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude and Gemini name your business. The promise is more visibility on Google and in AI answers within 90 days, measured against the 90 days before you joined, or every dollar back.
For scale, an agency doing this work charges about $3,209 a month (2026 average, 439 providers) and publishes 4 to 12 pieces. You can see what Ollie would do for your store before you decide anything. Paste your address into the free site read. Ollie reads the site and shows the plan. No account, no call.