Link building for WooCommerce stores breaks into two distinct workstreams: internal linking architecture (which you control completely) and external link acquisition (which requires outreach, content strategy, and relationship building). Most stores waste time chasing backlinks while ignoring the 70% of link equity improvements that come from properly structuring internal links.
I’ve audited hundreds of WooCommerce catalogs, and the pattern is consistent – broken internal linking costs more ranking power than a lack of backlinks. Let’s fix both.
Internal linking architecture for WooCommerce
Your internal linking structure determines how Google understands your product hierarchy and distributes authority across your catalog. Strategic internal linking around cornerstone product and category pages effectively distributes link equity across your site, yet most stores treat it as an afterthought.
Category pages should accumulate the most internal links because they target high-volume commercial keywords. Product pages need lateral cross-linking with descriptive anchor text to help Google understand product relationships. Every informational article should funnel authority to relevant categories and products. Breadcrumb navigation creates structural internal links that Google uses to understand your taxonomy – stores with proper breadcrumb implementation often see 5–15% improvements in organic click-through rates.
Start by mapping your information architecture. For a running store, your structure might look like Homepage → Running Shoes (category) → Trail Running Shoes (subcategory) → Individual Products, with parallel branches for Running Apparel and a Blog content hub. Each blog post should link to the relevant category and to 2–3 specific products featured in the article. The category page links back to blog content in a “Related Articles” section.
Links placed higher in content receive more weight from Google than footer links, so place your most important internal links in the first two paragraphs of product descriptions and blog content. For large catalogs with thousands of products, cross-linking between related categories helps Google understand product range connections – your “Running Shoes” category should link to “Running Apparel” with anchor text like “shop running apparel to complete your kit.”
Content hubs built around keyword clusters significantly improve internal linking strategy and signal comprehensive topical coverage to search engines. Create a pillar page targeting a broad commercial keyword like “Running Shoes Guide,” then build 8–12 supporting articles covering specific angles: “How to Choose Running Shoes for Flat Feet,” “Trail Running Shoes vs Road Running Shoes,” “Best Running Shoes for Beginners.” Each supporting article should link back to the central pillar page to reinforce topical relevance, and the pillar page links out to each supporting article while also linking prominently to your main “Running Shoes” category page.
Use ContentGecko’s free SERP keyword clustering tool to identify which keywords share search intent and should target the same page versus which deserve separate content. Proper internal linking prevents keyword cannibalization while boosting topical authority, with documented cases showing 43% organic traffic increases.
Anchor text strategy for product and category links
Generic anchor text like “click here” or “learn more” wastes link equity. Internal links should use descriptive anchor text that is accurate and tells both users and search engines what they’ll find on the destination page.
For product-to-product links, use anchors like “Similar runners prefer the [model name]” or “Compare with our [product category] collection.” For blog-to-category links, write “Browse our [category name] for [benefit].” For blog-to-product links, try “The [product name] offers [specific feature].” Category-to-subcategory links work well with “Shop [subcategory] designed for [use case].”
Varying anchor text naturally makes internal linking appear more organic and avoids over-optimization. For your top category pages, use a mix of exact-match anchors (30%), partial-match anchors (50%), and branded or generic anchors (20%). I tested this on a supplements store – replacing all “click here” anchors with descriptive variants increased category page rankings by an average of 4 positions within six weeks.
URL structure and permalinks for link equity
Your WooCommerce URL structure determines how easily link equity flows through your site architecture. Short, keyword-rich URLs concentrate authority more effectively than long parameter-laden structures.
Use yourstore.com/category/product-name/ to preserve category context in URLs, or yourstore.com/product-name/ for stores with flat hierarchies. Avoid yourstore.com/?p=12345 or deeply nested structures like yourstore.com/shop/product-category/category/product-name/ that dilute signals across too many subdirectories.
When you change URLs, implement 301 redirects immediately. Each redirect adds 200–300ms of load time and dilutes link equity – a redirect chain from old URL to temp URL to new URL loses approximately 15% of link value at each hop. Canonical tags must point filtered and sorted product archives to the main category page to prevent link equity dilution across duplicate URLs. Your category/shoes/?color=blue&size=10 should canonicalize to category/shoes/.
Automating internal linking with ContentGecko
For stores publishing content at scale, manual internal linking becomes impossible to maintain consistently. The ContentGecko WordPress connector plugin automatically identifies relevant product and category links based on your catalog structure and inserts them with descriptive anchor text, maintaining proper internal linking as your catalog evolves.
The ecommerce SEO dashboard segments internal linking performance by page type – categories, products, blog posts – so you can identify which content types need more internal links. If your product pages show high impressions but low clicks, they likely need more internal links from high-authority blog content.
When you rename a category or discontinue a product, ContentGecko updates all internal links automatically to prevent broken links and maintain link equity flow. For large catalogs, the automated content platform generates product-focused blog content that automatically includes internal links to relevant products and categories.
External link acquisition tactics for ecommerce
Now the harder part: earning links from external websites. For WooCommerce stores, link acquisition requires a different approach than SaaS or media sites because product-focused content naturally attracts fewer links than newsworthy or data-driven content.
Send products to relevant bloggers, YouTubers, and publications in exchange for honest reviews. A single review from a mid-tier industry blog with DR 40–60 drives more qualified traffic than ten directory links. Target reviewers who already cover your product category and have engaged audiences. This outreach template has worked for me: “Hi [Name], I noticed your recent article on [related topic]. We produce [product category] and think your audience would appreciate [specific product feature relevant to their content]. Would you be interested in testing [product name]? I can send a sample with no strings attached.” For an outdoor gear store, this approach generated 23 product reviews in three months, resulting in 18 followed links from DR 35+ sites.
Ecommerce stores sit on valuable data that publications want to cite. Survey your customers, analyze your sales data, or compile industry statistics, then publish the findings as a comprehensive report. A pet supplies store surveyed 2,000 customers about pet ownership costs, published the data as “The True Cost of Dog Ownership in 2024,” and earned 47 backlinks from pet blogs, news sites, and financial planning publications within six months. Make your data easy to cite by creating embeddable charts and graphics, offering the full dataset as a downloadable CSV, writing a press release highlighting the most newsworthy findings, and emailing relevant journalists with a summary and link to the full report.
If you sell products from established brands, request links from manufacturer websites. Most brands maintain “Where to Buy” directories or dealer locator pages that link to authorized retailers. Email the brand partnership team with your store details, emphasizing your stock depth, customer service ratings, and marketing reach. For B2B or specialty products, this often results in a followed link from a high-authority domain.
For stores with physical locations, local citations remain valuable for both local search visibility and domain authority. Get listed in local chamber of commerce directories, Better Business Bureau, industry-specific trade associations, municipal business directories, and local news “shop local” features. These typically provide followed links and take 10–15 minutes each to set up.
Guest posting works for ecommerce if you target publications your customers actually read and provide genuinely useful content. Don’t chase high-DR sites with irrelevant audiences. For a maternity clothing store, I wrote guest posts for parenting blogs focusing on topics like “Building a Maternity Capsule Wardrobe” and “What to Pack in Your Hospital Bag.” These articles linked naturally to relevant category pages and drove 15–20% more traffic than generic backlinks from higher-authority but less relevant sites. Target publications that cover your product category or customer demographic, where articles receive social shares and comments proving an engaged audience, existing content includes product recommendations or affiliate links, and domain authority sits at 30 or higher.
Find broken links on relevant websites, then offer your content or category page as a replacement. This works particularly well for discontinued products or outdated buying guides. Use Ahrefs or Screaming Frog to find broken outbound links on competitor sites or industry blogs, filter for broken links that pointed to product pages or buying guides similar to your offerings, then email the site owner: “Hi [Name], I noticed the link to [broken resource] on your [article title] is returning a 404. We published a comprehensive guide on [related topic] that could work as a replacement: [your URL].” For a coffee equipment store, this tactic generated 12 links in two months by replacing broken links to discontinued products on coffee blogs.
Measuring link building impact
Track crawl depth (average clicks from homepage to reach any page – target three clicks or fewer), orphaned pages (pages with zero internal links – target zero), and internal PageRank distribution using Screaming Frog to identify pages that should have more internal links. For external links, monitor referring domains (total unique domains linking to your site), followed versus nofollowed link ratio (target 70% or more followed), domain authority of linking sites (focus on DR 30+ links), referral traffic from backlinks (link value equals traffic multiplied by conversion rate), and category page rankings for commercial keywords.
Proper internal linking structure can increase organic traffic by 43%, so measure before and after metrics when you restructure your internal links. For external links, calculate the revenue contribution of each acquired link by tracking assisted conversions in Google Analytics. A link that drives 10 visitors who never convert is less valuable than a link that drives 2 visitors who generate $500 in revenue.
The ContentGecko ecommerce SEO dashboard breaks down performance metrics by page type, making it easy to spot which categories and products benefit most from improved internal linking and which need more external link equity.
Common link building mistakes to avoid
Don’t buy links from PBNs or link farms – Google’s spam detection identifies unnatural link patterns within weeks, and I’ve seen stores lose 60% of organic traffic overnight from manual penalties. Avoid letting 80% of your external links use exact-match anchor text, which Google flags as manipulative; aim for 20% exact-match, 40% partial-match, 30% branded, 10% generic. Stop linking all blog content to your homepage, which concentrates link equity on a page that rarely ranks for commercial keywords – link to relevant category and product pages instead.
Limit footer links to 8–10 primary categories rather than site-wide footer links to every category, which dilutes link equity and looks spammy. If your product appears at multiple URLs due to filters or variations, internal links split between those URLs and dilute ranking power – implement canonical tags to consolidate signals. Don’t pursue external links to pages with slow load times, mobile usability issues, or crawl errors that waste link equity; fix technical issues first using the ContentGecko category optimizer to identify quick wins.
Tools and workflows for link building at scale
For stores managing thousands of products and publishing weekly content, manual link building doesn’t scale. Use Link Whisper (WordPress plugin) to get suggested relevant internal links as you write content, Screaming Frog to crawl your site and identify orphaned pages and internal linking opportunities, and ContentGecko to automatically insert internal links to products and categories based on your catalog structure and update links when SKUs change.
Track external links with Ahrefs to monitor new backlinks, track referring domains, and analyze competitor link profiles; Google Search Console to view which external sites link to your store and which pages attract the most links; and Pitchbox or BuzzStream to manage outreach campaigns for guest posting and product reviews.
Review new backlinks in Ahrefs weekly and disavow spammy links. Audit internal linking structure with Screaming Frog monthly and add links to underlinked category pages. Analyze which content types attract the most external links quarterly and create more of that content. Publish content around keyword clusters identified with ContentGecko’s SERP clustering tool on an ongoing basis to build topical authority.
TL;DR
Link building for WooCommerce requires mastering internal linking architecture before chasing external backlinks. Structure your site so category pages accumulate the most internal links, use descriptive anchor text, implement proper URL structure and canonical tags, and build content hubs around keyword clusters. For external links, focus on tactics with proven ROI: product reviews, data-driven content, supplier partnerships, and targeted guest posting. Track crawl depth, internal PageRank distribution, and revenue-per-link to measure impact. Automate internal linking maintenance with tools like ContentGecko to maintain link equity as your catalog changes.