BigCommerce SEO Features & Tips for Ecommerce Success

More needs to be done, in eCommerce’s fast-paced world of helping an online store differentiate itself from others rather than just attracting an attractive website, to drive effective SEO strategies required for organic traffic and long-term success. One of the biggest players in respect of the eCommerce platforms almost has all the possible SEO features to help online businesses rank higher and be visible in the search engines. In this blog, we’ll delve deeper into BigCommerce’s SEO abilities and share actionable tips on how to make the most out of them.

Why SEO Matters for eCommerce

Before talking about BigCommerce-specific features, let’s cover why SEO is important for eCommerce: SEO refers to the configuration of your webstore to appear as high as possible on search engines like Google. Higher ranks increase visibility, which means clicks, more traffic, and finally better sales. With millions of online stores out there, SEO might be the key to success or obscurity.

Now, let’s take a look at how BigCommerce can play an important role in fashioning your SEO strategy.

Some Important BigCommerce SEO Features

1. SEO-Friendly URLs

BigCommerce lets you easily set up customizable, clean URLs, which help in SEO. Clean URLs are easier for both search engines and users to read and understand; thus, they receive better ranking. BigCommerce auto-generates SEO-friendly URLs right from the product and category names; you can edit them manually to make sure the keywords are optimized.

Tip : Ensure your URLs are containing the main key words for the product or category. Make them as short as possible and without adding extra parameters. Also you can check BigCommerce Intro to SEO to have more knowledge about how SEO works.

2. Sitemap Generation

This will help the search engines crawl and index your site efficiently. BigCommerce auto-creates and updates an XML sitemap in which all the pages of your site will fall under indexing. This saves much time, especially for those stores which have a large inventory, and it finds the whole site.

Tip : Re-upload your sitemap to Google Search Console on a regular basis so it knows the latest and freshest content of your store.

3. Meta Titles and Descriptions

Meta titles and descriptions are very important in capturing CTRs from search engines. BigCommerce provides fields that are very easy for you to fill out in your customizing process of each product, category, and page. By doing so, it will ensure that all your pages have unique metadata that is keyword-rich, entailing users to click through to your website.

Tip : Use your keywords in the meta title and description, but write them so they make sense to a human. Action words like “Buy,” “Shop,” or “Discover” encourage people to click on links.

4. Responsive Design

BigCommerce themes are fully responsive, meaning they have been optimized for mobile devices. This is a very important factor in SEO, given that Google focuses first on indexing results that are mobile-friendly. Its mobile version will be the basis of indexing and ranking decisions that the search engine will perform on your site. BigCommerce responsive themes ensure that a store performs well on every device.

Tip : Always test the mobile version of your site for loading speed and user experience. BigCommerce themes are optimized, but if you don’t change the settings of the mobile experiences, that means users will experience slow loading or issues with layouts.

5. Optimized Product Pages

With BigCommerce, you are able to include full product descriptions, customer reviews, and high-resolution images-all very important in terms of SEO. Search engines love rich content, and BigCommerce provides ample space on your product page to accommodate all relevant information.

Tip : Use long-tail keywords in your product descriptions. Also, ensure your images are optimized with alt text. And then there’s the customer reviews-you aren’t only building trust, but they help your SEO too by providing new, user-generated content.

6. Built-in 301 Redirects

Each time you update the URL of a product or change it, you would want visitors who use the old URLs to directly reach the new one. BigCommerce had features for creating 301 redirects out of the box. This will be necessary for continuing search engine optimization rankings and ensuring that the transition of web experiences remains smooth.

Tip : Periodically audit your site for dead links and utilize 301 redirect functionality to reroute traffic from stale URLs to fresh ones.

7. SSL Certificates for Security

One of the less popular facets of SEO is security. Google ensures, based on its algorithms, websites offering the best browsing experience are rewarded. BigCommerce offers free SSL certificates, meaning your store will boast the HTTPS protocol, adding to your SEO and user trust.

Tip : Make sure that your entire store, even down to checkout and any login pages, falls under an SSL. This will not only contribute to SEO but also give confidence to customers that their data is safe.

8. Page Speed Optimization

Page speed is a ranking factor. BigCommerce has different tools that might ensure the site loads as fast as possible. From server-side improvements to CDN integrations, BigCommerce covers all possibilities for making your website work smoothly and fast.

Tip : See what Google PageSpeed Insights has to say about how you could improve speed. Optimize images, lazy load, and keep the code clean for even better results.

9. Rich Snippets and Schema Markup

BigCommerce supports rich snippets that allow the search engines to highlight extra information about your products directly within search results, such as price, ratings, and availability. This may improve your click-through rates and visibility in search results.

Tip : Enable product schema in BigCommerce and structured data to let the products feature in rich snippets. This will give you an edge in search results, especially for e-commerce searches.

SEO Tips for BigCommerce Success

Now that we have gone through some powerful SEO features available in BigCommerce, I will give you more tips that can help you take your SEO game to the next level:

1. Keyword Research

Use Google Keyword Planner or Ahrefs to find what keywords would fit your products. Use broad and long-tail keywords to target a wide variety of searches.

2. Create Unique Content

Do not use duplicate content at all. Make the product description, meta title, and blog content unique for better search rankings.

3. Leverage Blogging

BigCommerce has the capability of letting you add a blog to your store; use it to create content that’s going to bring in organic traffic. Write content related to your products and in your niche, and practice SEO.

4. Local SEO Optimization

If you have a physical store, or if you target a particular region, be sure you’re optimizing for local search. BigCommerce’s SEO features work well with local SEO tactics that include adding your store location in meta titles and descriptions.

5. Track Your Progress

SEO PERFORMANCE: Regularly monitor, through Google Analytics and BigCommerce reporting, where improvements are needed.

Conclusion

BigCommerce is an excellent platform that equips its users with numerous SEO features aimed at helping them cut a niche for themselves in today’s competitive eCommerce frays. By putting into practice the built-in tools at your disposal and some of the tips outlined above, you can considerably improve the search engine ranking of your store, traffic yield, and conversion rate.

SEO isn’t something you do once and call it a day. Because BigCommerce has more advanced features than most, you’re already well-equipped to handle an ongoing, optimized strategy that will see you through to long-term success.

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