Category page optimisation

Format: How-To Article | Audience: Category Managers, E-Commerce Managers | Keywords: category page optimisation UK health, browse node strategy, category visibility e-commerce Britain

Introduction: the category, a strategic territory too many brands neglect

In UK healthcare e-commerce, most visibility strategies focus on a single lever: search. Optimising keywords, bidding on high-volume queries, working on product listing SEO. All of this is essential, but it only represents part of the purchase journey. A significant portion of consumers don't arrive at your products by typing in a query. They arrive by navigating through categories.

On Amazon.co.uk, industry data indicates that between 30% and 40% of traffic to product listings comes from category and subcategory navigation—the famous "browse nodes". On UK online pharmacies such as Boots or Superdrug, this proportion can be even higher. Health product buyers often adopt exploratory behaviour: they browse a category ("Vitamins & Supplements > Sleep Support", "Pain Relief & Fever > Paracetamol") to compare available options, read descriptions, and evaluate prices before making their decision.

Yet most Consumer Healthcare (CHC) brands have no specific strategy for these category pages. They leave their positioning to the whims of algorithms, without understanding the mechanisms that determine display order and without activating the levers that allow them to progress.

In the UK, where online sales still represent only around 3% of total pharmacy sales, the growth potential is considerable. Each position gained on a category page can translate into a lasting competitive advantage, as the market isn't yet saturated and competitors haven't all identified this challenge.