Enhancing Search Engine Rankings on BigCommerce: Top Strategies for Store Optimization
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BigCommerce, first launched in 2009, is a versatile ecommerce platform that offers a range of features designed to help merchants optimize their stores for search engines. Here's a look at some of the key advantages of using BigCommerce for SEO compared to other ecommerce platforms.
Robust Built-in SEO Tools
BigCommerce includes native support for customizable URLs, meta titles and descriptions, image alt text, schema markup, sitemaps, 301 redirects, and canonical tags. This helps stores rank higher and display more attractive search results without needing extensive custom development or external plugins.
Clean Code and Fast Page Loading
The platform offers a clean code structure and good page speed, which aligns with Google's Core Web Vitals ranking factors, enhancing SEO performance.
Scalability and Growth Support
BigCommerce is scalable for both small and large stores, allowing SEO efforts to grow alongside the business without needing to switch platforms.
Strong Integration Capabilities
It supports seamless integration with tools like Google Analytics, Google Shopping, email marketing platforms like Mailchimp and Klaviyo, enabling a unified marketing and SEO strategy.
No Transaction Fees
Though indirectly related to SEO, the absence of transaction fees allows businesses to reinvest savings into SEO and marketing efforts.
Compared to Other Platforms
Platforms like WooCommerce benefit from WordPress’s extensive SEO plugin ecosystem (e.g., Yoast SEO), but this requires more setup and maintenance of third-party plugins.
Shopify provides good SEO features and superior marketing integrations, including native email marketing, advanced URL structure control, and easier redirects. Its app ecosystem adds keyword analysis and content planning tools missing in BigCommerce. Shopify is often preferred for content-driven SEO-heavy brands.
However, BigCommerce's key advantage lies in offering solid, ready-to-use SEO features natively with minimal reliance on external apps, making it a strong all-in-one choice for merchants wanting built-in SEO capabilities paired with scalability and integrations.
Other Considerations
While BigCommerce excels in SEO, it's important to note that its blogging capabilities are limited compared to dedicated blogging tools like WordPress.
To optimize site speed, it's recommended to optimize images, enable Google Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP), limit third-party apps and plugins, minimize custom code and features, and use fast-loading web fonts.
Proper use of headers improves SEO by making your pages easier to crawl and enhances the user experience by allowing visitors to quickly scan and find relevant information. A well-structured category hierarchy helps search engines understand your site's layout while making it easier for visitors to navigate.
BigCommerce also offers a content delivery network (CDN) for faster load times, and comes with a free SSL certificate for secure sites. It has customer groups and segmentation features, and provides efficient product management.
In conclusion, BigCommerce is a powerful ecommerce platform that offers a range of SEO-friendly features, making it an attractive choice for merchants looking to optimize their online stores.
- With BigCommerce's built-in analytics tools, merchants can monitor their content marketing performance and make informed decisions to boost conversions.
- In the realm of education-and-self-development, BigCommerce's ecommerce capabilities can be harnessed to sell online courses, transforming it into a versatile platform for lifestyle and tech enthusiasts.
- For sports merchants, BigCommerce's scalability ensures seamless growth during peak seasons, maintaining optimal SEO performance throughout.
- By integrating finance tools like Stripe or PayPal, BigCommerce enables merchants to manage their finances effectively, freeing up resources for further marketing and SEO investments.
