E-commerce marketing is not confined to social media campaigns, advertisement, product placement, merchandising, remarketing, etc. It is also about creating impactful content for the visitors that can assist you with building brand awareness. For this, finding the right e-commerce platform can be a daunting task. Knowing which tool is best for your business can be challenging, with many available options.
In today’s world, search engine optimization comes at the top in establishing free-value brands. But what if we tell you there are certain platforms through which you can organically bring more visitors to your site?
With the right e-commerce platform, you can increase your organic search engine rankings, drive more site traffic, and increase overall sales. To simplify the process, we’ve compiled this comprehensive guide to help you choose the best.
Here, we’ll discuss the most important factors to consider when choosing an e-commerce platform. By the end of this guide, you’ll have all the knowledge you need to make an informed decision about the best ecommerce platform for SEO.
What is SEO?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) refers to the process of optimizing a website to improve its organic visibility in the SERPs or search engine results pages. This involves improving the quality and quantity of a website’s content and making technical improvements to the website’s structure and code. It is estimated that 44% of people start online shopping with search engines.
SEO use relevant and popular search queries that help them rank better in the search engine. It benefits both content pages and key searches, including titles, meta descriptions, keywords, and headlines. SEO aims to increase a website’s visibility, making it easier for potential customers to find the website. This also results in bringing organic traffic to your website.
Why is SEO Important for E-commerce Platforms?
SEO is one of the most important methods and tools for online storefronts, as it enhances the brand’s visibility. It gathers natural traction, which leads to more conversions and sales. The e-commerce SEO focuses on how the Google engine ranks content based on how many keywords you have incorporated into the website, the meta descriptions, titles you include, and many more.
An SEO-friendly website is essential in e-commerce as it helps customers discover your brand. Moreover, it ensures the website is optimized for mobile since more customers use mobile phones than laptops and desktops. Investing in SEO gives you a competitive edge and can lead to a significant increase in sales.
Evaluating SEO-Friendly Features
When evaluating SEO-friendly features, there are several key factors to consider that can help you make an informed decision. These are as follows:
- Relevant Keywords: The keywords used within the content must be relevant to the topic and used throughout the text to help search engines more accurately identify the content.
- Page Titles and Meta Descriptions: Page titles and meta descriptions should be concise and include targeted keywords. This helps search engines understand the content of a page, as well as attract clicks from users.
- Internal and External Linking: Internal and external links should be used throughout the content to help search engines crawl the page and provide additional information to readers.
- Image Optimization: Images should be optimized with the appropriate keywords, titles, and descriptions to help search engines understand the content.
- Mobile-Friendly Design: The website should be designed with a mobile-friendly design to improve visibility on mobile devices.
- Speed: The website should have high speed to ensure quick loading times and improve user experience.
How Can Your E-commerce Platform Impact SEO?
Many well-established platforms are available for entrepreneurs that offer numerous features to assist you with optimizing search engines. However, there are certain factors you need to find in the platform.
For instance, customers are rarely specific with their searches and rely primarily on auto-fills. You should go for that platform that gives you generic auto-fills. It should be something like “t-shirt for kids,” instead of “t-shirt for a 5-year-old boy”.
When selecting an e-commerce platform, it is important to pick the best e-commerce platform for SEO, offering features necessary to optimize the website. This includes URL optimization, image optimization, and meta-tag editing features. Moreover, the browsing data generated can be used to understand customer behavior and the website’s performance.
Features to Consider in E-commerce Platforms
Site Speed
Sluggish site speed is the biggest turn-off for customers. A slow website infuriates your customers in ways that can cost you a lot of money. Loyal and new customers return from websites that load 3-4 seconds longer. Even a one-second delay can give you 11% fewer page views, a 7% drop in conversions, and 16% less customer satisfaction.
The best SEO platform offers you high-speed caching and modification. Research those hosting packages that optimize server time to manage high website traffic.
Canonical Website URLs
Many leading e-commerce platforms now offer canonical website URLs. When a user is operating your website from mobile, they should be redirected to the mobile version of your site. With this, you can improve search engine rankings, and customers will be more engaged with your site.
Each page of your site has a different URL, which means that search engines can index multiple URLs for the same page. It could create duplication issues that can bring down your website ranking. On the other hand, Canonical URLs can redirect mobile users to the mobile version of your URL or website, improving your ranking and eliminating duplicity concerns.
Customizable HTML and Meta Data
Both these elements are crucial for website optimization as they allow you to modify your website code, improving positioning. It also lets you add a custom meta tag, enhancing your website’s appearance in search results.
The best e-commerce SEO tool provides you with both features. Shopify is one of the platforms that gives you customizable HTML options. The editors can change the website’s code per their requirements.
Indexing Control
Indexing control refers to the potential to command search engines, identifying which pages on your website need indices. It is imperative as this permits you to keep the irrelevant pages out of your website’s main keywords.
This can be done by sitemap features which contain a compiled list of all these pages on your website. If you submit your sitemap to search engines, you will get only these pages whose indices you want to include in their results. Some prominent SEO platforms for indexing control are– Volusion, BigCommerce, and Shopify.
Key Factors for Optimal E-commerce SEO
Let’s explore the key SEO ranking factors that should be present in your e-commerce SEO platform.
1. Custom Navigation Links
These navigation links are at the top of your menus. It encompasses all the product names and categories within this navigation link that helps users understand your genre. The product categories and the name would be the same as you want, and almost all e-commerce SEO platforms offer this factor.
However, keep the name generic without creating any unnecessary extensions. Suppose you have a gadget company; the navigation link shouldn’t display “Sony Bravia KDL50W8 LED 1080p 3D smart TV, 50”. Just the LED TV category would suffice.
SEO WEIGHT: 10/10
2. Custom Page Titles
The page title appears at the top of your tab in the tab section when a user is bookmarking your tab as a shortcut to their mobile or desktop. This page title is important for SEO as it contains key search words at the beginning of the page title. Some SEO platforms even use the product or category name in the title.
For example, your title page would preferably use “Crop top- Mango,” close to the customer’s search result.
SEO WEIGHT: 10/10
3. Independent Page URLs
The page URL contains key search words in the browser’s address bar. That search word has an SEO advantage and looks better in engine results. It also helps them in CTR. Some platforms use the same name as your product or category in the URL for SEO purposes. However, it should also be concise and crisp so that it doesn’t affect your page ranking.
For example, if you’re buying clothes from Mango, the page URL would say– “http;//YourShop.com/formal-pants-for-women-Mango.”
SEO WEIGHT: 9/10
4. Custom Meta Descriptions
The meta description is the one or two catchy phrases or sentences present just below the listing title in Google results. Although these custom meta descriptions don’t affect your SEO ranking, they impact prospective customers to click on your link, keeping you ahead of the competition.
SEO WEIGHT: 9/10
5. Custom Image ALT Tags
The ALT tags appear over the uploaded image to describe it to search engines and bots that cannot comprehend your media otherwise. Like meta description, it doesn’t affect your search rankings on Google but strongly impacts Google’s image search results, bringing you additional traffic.
These ALT tags are “Combat Boots for Winters,” “Multilayer Pendant,” Sleeveless Bodycon Dress,” and so on.
SEO WEIGHT: 3/10
6. Custom H1 Headings
The H1 heading appears at the top of the product as the main heading. It creates a substantial impact on SEO when your H1 tags are relevant. It directs the customer straight to your link if the heading contains a powerful keyword.
SEO WEIGHT: 3/10
7. Canonical URLs
It is the original address of the page that can exist in multiple locations. The product can be listed under multiple URLs. For instance, Children’s Garden Swing can come under both the “Toys” and “Home and Garden” categories, which can appear under separate URLs. These are– www.OnlineShopping.com/Toys/ children-garden-swing and www.OnlineShopping.com/HomeandGarden/chindren-garden-swing.
The search engines will show these URLs as separate pages with similar content. This could result in content duplication, which affects your Google SEO ranking. To prevent this, Google provides a “REL CANONICAL” tag, which lets you specify the URL, thereby avoiding duplicate issues.
SEO WEIGHT: 7/10
8. Integrated Blogging Platforms
Many e-commerce SEO platforms allow you to create blog posts for your website. Besides relevant tags, there are more factors associated with the positioning of your website that improves the quality of your link. Moreover, how many links are directed to your website also helps you develop search engine results.
Since Google prohibits link swapping, there are still a lot of ideas by which you can get traction. One of the best ways to become a reputable search result is to have several inbound links. Once you publish relevant blogs with keywords, you will automatically improve the search rankings. The high-quality blog will likely attract external links with engaging, topical, and shareable content.
SEO WEIGHT: 10/10
9. Social Sharing Buttons
This option has become a sensation for the website, where you add recognizable icons on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Email, LinkedIn, etc. Visitors who visit your website click on this icon, directing them to your social media handles. It is a robust digital marketing strategy representing your company and its product to prospective customers.
SEO WEIGHT: 8/10
10. Auto XML Sitemaps
It is a file on your web server that helps search engines find and index your content. It is different from an HTML sitemap, which is designed for humans to find your content on the website. A good e-commerce platform automatically generates this XML sitemap.
SEO WEIGHT: 9/10
11. Custom Domain Names
It is a unique name by which visitors find your website. The domain name is related to your business and is one of the most important e-commerce SEO strategies. Custom domain names are a great way to make a website more memorable and easier for people to find.
They are the URLs (or web addresses) that allow users to find a specific website and are based on a business name, product name, or a catchy phrase and can direct traffic to all kinds of websites, from personal blogs to large-scale business sites.
SEO WEIGHT: 10/10
12. Custom IP Addresses
Like domain names, an IP address is a unique number representing your website’s location. You can access the exact website address. Business owners generally prefer simple IP addresses, which are easy to remember. Some hosted platform, however, gives similar IP addresses to multiple websites. This could affect the website’s performance, and the rankings might drop.
SEO WEIGHT: 2/10
13. 301 Redirects
It is a command to redirect search engines from one URL to another. It is frequent for a product and its categories to get removed from online marketplaces when it is no longer available for the customers. When a customer clicks on the link that has been removed long back, it could redirect them to another website which could be riskier.
301 redirect is helpful to ensure visitors and search engine bots are directed to the correct page. They also help to keep your link juice, which is the ranking power associated with links pointing to your website.
SEO WEIGHT: 8/10
14. Robots Noindex Capabilities
A robotx.txt file on the web server informs search engines which section of your website should be indexed. It is largely based on the authority that your site has earned and the quality of external links redirecting to your site. Search engines will likely crawl your product for online stores with thousands of products rather than a folder with images, data, or scripts.
9 Best Ecommerce Platforms for SEO of 2023
Here is a compiled list of some of the best e-commerce platforms for SEO.
WooCommerce
WooCommerce is one of the best e-commerce for SEO that helps you create an online store to sell your products and services. It is a popular open-source plugin for WordPress, giving you access to a wide range of features and tools to help you build and manage your online store. With WooCommerce, you can add numerous extensions and themes to customize your store further.
BigCommerce
BigCommerce allows businesses to build and manage an online store. It lets you create a professional-looking website, manage customer relationships, accept payments, track inventory, and more. It also provides merchants with detailed analytics to help them monitor their store performance and make informed decisions about their business. In addition, businesses can use BigCommerce’s integrations with popular third-party applications like QuickBooks and MailChimp and its payment gateway integrations with PayPal, Stripe, and Apple Pay.
Shopify
Shopify allows users to launch and manage an online store easily. It features a comprehensive suite of tools designed to help businesses grow and succeed. It consists of various custom themes and plugins to help store owners create a unique look and feel for their store. Moreover, Shopify offers built-in blogs, customer and product reviews.
Wix
Wix is a website-building platform providing users various tools to create and manage websites. It offers drag-and-drop design tools, customizable templates, SEO tools, built-in analytics, e-commerce, and more. Furthermore, Wix provides hosting services and a free domain name to help users get started quickly. It also offers mobile optimization, allowing users to create mobile-friendly websites.
Squarespace
It is one of the most suitable platforms for creating beautiful websites. It offers many features to make your website functional, such as– a drag-and-drop website builder, allowing you to customize the look and feel of your website without coding. You can also add content blocks, images, and videos to your site quickly and easily.
Volusion
Volusion is a major e-commerce platform with various features to help businesses create online stores. These features include a customizable website editor, shopping cart, and payment processing system. It also provides features to help businesses create an online store secure hosting environment, detailed analytics, and product catalog management. Some other USPs are– product reviews, search engine optimization, marketing capabilities, and promotional tools.
Magento (Adobe Commerce)
Magento’s features include an intuitive content management system with drag-and-drop page creation, a search engine-optimized catalog, and an integrated checkout process. It also provides merchants with powerful APIs and resources, allowing them to integrate with third-party services and build custom applications.
Weebly
It is an easy-to-use website-building platform designed to help anyone create a beautiful, professional website with no coding experience required. Weebly offers a wide selection of customizable, mobile-responsive website templates, making it easy to create a website that stands out from the crowd. Weebly also provides users with powerful SEO tools, the ability to connect a custom domain, and 24/7 customer support.
Craft Commerce
It is one of the underrated platforms, which is slightly more complicated than the rest. Craft Commerce is designed for developers who want to optimize their websites based on their requirements. It offers many necessary tools to enhance your website’s functionality.
Conclusion
These are some of the best e-commerce platforms for SEO that help you optimize your website ranking and gather organic traction. If used strategically, SEO tools can give you excellent results in customer acquisition, link building, scalability, technical expertise, and high conversion rates.
FAQs
What are the top 3 ranking factors for an e-commerce website?
The top 3 factors are
- Quality content: It is essential for an e-commerce website, as it can help to build trust and authority with search engines.
- Optimized structure and design: An e-commerce website should be structured and designed to be user-friendly and search engine friendly to attract greater traffic.
- Link building: Link building is an important part of SEO for an e-commerce website, as it helps to build trust and authority with the search engines.
What top 5 features are a must for any e-commerce site?
1. Easy Navigation – Easy navigation should be the top priority for any e-commerce site. Users should be able to quickly and easily find what they seek with minimal effort.
2. Secure Checkout – Customers must feel confident that their personal information and payment details are safe.
3. Quality Product Images and Descriptions – They should accurately represent the product to the customer.
4. Customer Support – The customers may need help with their purchase or have questions about the product. Therefore, 24X7 customer support is necessary.
5. Search Functionality – Good search functionality helps shoppers quickly find a specific product or type.
How do I choose the right platform for my requirements?
The best way to choose the right platform for your needs is to research and compare different platforms. Consider the features and functionality of each platform, as well as the cost and customer service options. You may want to read reviews from users with experience with the platform to understand better how it works and its effectiveness.
What are the eight main essential factors to consider for a successful e-commerce site design? Describe them all.
The eight essential elements to consider in an e-commerce website design include:
- User-friendly navigation
- Site responsiveness
- Easy-to-spot call-to-actions
- Desktop and mobile-friendly interface
- Compelling visual aspects
- Social sharing
- Seamless checkout process
- Website safety and security
Which e-commerce platform is best for startups?
The best e-commerce platform for startups will depend on the business’s needs, such as budget, technical expertise, and scalability. Popular platforms for startups include Shopify, Magento, BigCommerce, and WooCommerce.
How can your e-commerce platform impact SEO?
An e-commerce platform can help improve SEO by providing a better customer experience, optimizing the website for search engines, and increasing the website’s visibility.
Why Is SEO So Important for E-commerce Websites?
SEO is important for e-commerce websites because it helps them to reach a larger audience, increase their visibility in search engine results, and generate more leads and conversions.
Why Does SEO Matter?
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) matters because businesses need to be visible online. SEO helps businesses rank higher in search engine results pages, which increases their chances of being seen by potential customers.
