Which E-commerce Platform is Best for SEO?
Search engine optimization for websites is essential for any e-commerce business to attract traffic and sales. Selecting the appropriate e-commerce solution that is in a position to reject SEO factors will undoubtedly set your online retail store apart from other competitors. As you will see in this article, some of the most commonly used e-commerce platforms are compared in terms of SEO so you can decide which is the best for SEO.
Critical Elements That Affect E-commerce Search Engine Optimization
Before looking at specific platforms, let’s first understand the key factors that influence SEO for online stores:
– Site Speed: Loading a page takes less time through less code, which means a more efficient page that results in a better user experience, which indicates to the search engine that the site is optimized.
– Mobile Responsiveness: One of the most important aspects of search engine optimization will be to have a mobile-friendly website.
– URL Structure: Properly constructed URL structure also provides an increased show index, making it more easily crawled by the search engine.
– Metadata: This includes the page title, meta descriptions, and image alt texts used on the page to help search engines index the page content.
– On-page Content: Unique and optimized product descriptions, blogs, and other content will get better ranking.
– Backlinks: Hyperlinking establishes one site’s credibility as connected to others, indicating search engine popularity.
Best E-commerce Solutions for SEO
Shopify
Shopify is one of the most significant and most commonly used e-commerce solutions. It’s designed for maximum performance right after installation. Shopify sites are fully optimized, which means they are mobile responsive; therefore, they will adjust depending on the type of device being used to access the site. The platform also allows for more accessible URL structures and precise control over your post’s metadata. It is easy to link up with backlink builder tools. Having an integrated ability to blog also provides for the extent of adding content incorporating optimization. All these factors make Shopify the most appropriate option when it comes to SEO.
BigCommerce
Another hosted e-commerce platform is BigCommerce. Many SEO options are built in, such as page caching to allow faster loading, responsive templates, and the ability to easily edit the metadata for individual pages. The URLs are made adaptable to fit as search engine-friendly URLs. It also includes auto creation of sitemap to assist in indexing. BigCommerce lets users add blogs, videos, and other content that enrich the site on page SEO.
WooCommerce
WooCommerce is an open-source e-commerce plugin designed for WordPress’s content management system software. Since WordPress is developed initially for SEO, WooCommerce stores also possess such functions themselves. URL structures are pure with WordPress permalinks. However, so many paid SEO plugins, such as Yoast SEO, are available to improve on-page search engine optimization. This is an excellent benefit compared to hosted platforms because the open-source code makes it easier to customize and manage SEO.
Magento
Magento is an open-source solution for managing an online store with a heavy focus on custom and expandable product offerings. Initially, there was an essential SEO for the community version. Still, more options are available in the paid Enterprise version with additional details on metadata, performance, and other integrated marketing tools. Though it is endowed with many features, the application is quite vast and requires a programmer to build customizations.
Shopify Plus
For big outlets, Shopify also provides an advanced level of selling platform known as Shopify Plus. It retains all the SEO benefits of regular Shopify but with enhanced capabilities for adjusting and enhancing page templates. It also boasts improved CDN and profound delivery times, more sophisticated reporting metrics, and compatibility with marketing automation tools. The additional control can improve SEO, yet it takes more effort in its implementation.
Conclusion
Each of the mass-market platforms has the absolute minimum of native SEO support, and Shopify and BigCommerce top the list in terms of the extent of such support. If you want more flexibility, the best open-source platforms are WooCommerce and Magento. The premium extensions extend the gap in features to this level. However, apart from the structural consideration, fresh content should also be featured as critical aspects of e-commerce SEO strategy.
Therefore, pay attention to the solutions that enable you to efficiently handle both your technical SEO and create and publish your products, descriptions, blogs, and all the other content that both search engines and buyers would like. E-commerce SEO success is all yours if you follow this great combination of the right platform and a creative marketing effort.
Bill Yeager, Co-Owner of High Point SEO & Marketing in CT
