If you are looking for the best ecommerce platform for SEO, you are in the right place.
We are going to discuss the most SEO friendly ecommerce platform for your ecommerce online store building.
Before we jump into the discussion, we should know the SEO requirements for a website. This blog will lead you to learn about the top 10 SEO friendly ecommerce platforms in-detail.
Your online store’s Google search rankings and conversion depend on several factors. And SEO is the prime concern that you should always be concerned about.
Not to forget, there are many ecommerce website building platforms with a basic SEO feature. But you must choose the best ecommerce website builder for your better google ranking. This guide will make it easy to find out the most advanced ecommerce platforms that offer a lot of SEO features.
Why SEO is Important for ecommerce?
Now it is time to understand why SEO friendly ecommerce development platform is important for your ecommerce website.
According to Junto Digital, 93% of internet activity starts with search engines and I guess it further indicates the priority of search engines.
Another report states that 75% of people never scroll past the second page of search engines. Therefore, the importance of ranking on the first page of search results is crucial.
So, first-page ranking makes the real difference and there is no alternative to rigorous SEO initiatives. A strategic Search Engine Optimization (SEO) decides whether you will rank on the first page or out of search result.
When it comes to ecommerce websites, SEO becomes an integral part. It matters because more than 81% of people research online before making a large purchase. Therefore, ranking on the first page becomes inevitable and SEO-friendly pages can only ensure your ranking. Keeping this in mind, you must be critical about this marketing option.
Main Factors to Consider When Choosing the Best SEO Friendly Ecommerce Platform
SEO depends on various factors including UX, speed, meta tags, indexing capability, etc. The following must be your priority when choosing a website builder for an online store:
Most e-commerce platforms present themselves as “friendly” to SEO strategies. But do they really comply with the most important resources for SEO?
Let’s learn about these 10 requirements and judge the platform before moving in. The followings are the most essential resources to optimize your online store and bring positive results.
Control on Custom Page Title
- The page title is probably the most important element in terms of SEO. It is essential that your e-commerce platform provides the possibility to change the titles of the pages to suit and optimize them to improve the ranking of the website. Stay tuned, as some platforms allow you to change the title of product pages, but not categories and brands.
Control Over URLs
- Choose a platform where you can change the URLs for products and other pages and make them visually appealing to customers.
301 Redirect
- Choose a platform that allows you to redirect. Often, pages are deleted when products are no longer manufactured or when changes to category, product, or brand names occur. The redirect will allow you to divert the flow of traffic. It will show the relevance of deleted or changed pages to other URLs that are still active. Besides, it will also prevent content duplication.
Freedom to Categorize
- Creating and organizing the brands and categories of the website will improve navigation on your website and leverage your SEO. In addition, it is essential that the pages of brands and categories have the freedom to be optimized with content (text, images, and videos), leading to an increase in the number of visitors.
Control on Meta Description
- Look for a platform that allows you to edit each meta description individually, as they will guarantee more clicks on search results.
Canonical URLs
- The inclusion of the correct canonical tag indexes and ranks the content, which can be accessed from different URLs. For example, a page in a category with different filters can be accessed from several URLs.
Friendly Navigation and Search Structure
- Users, whether customers or Google itself, need ease to browse your online store. Choose a platform that meets the following requirements:
- Navigation menus that can be edited individually.
- Primary navigation links with text and not images.
- A site that can be browsed without Java or Flash.
- Keep duplicate and useless links to a minimum.
- Users, whether customers or Google itself, need ease to browse your online store. Choose a platform that meets the following requirements:
XML Sitemap
- Having a sitemap.xml will not improve your ranking in search engines, but it will help Google to find, crawl and index new pages more quickly. In addition, an e-commerce platform with automatic generation of sitemap.xml will facilitate the creation and updating of your website.
Website Loading Speed
- In addition to increasing visitors to your website, fast platforms are better for SEO and for users. Know that your site’s loading speed contributes to a higher conversion rate. 40% of people abandon a website that takes more than 3 seconds to load. (Source: Neil Patel)
- Even a 12% conversion rate is lost for every second your website takes to load. Therefore, prioritize platforms that use cloud computing.
Google Analytics
- Make sure the ecommerce platform supports Google Analytics. This will allow you to see detailed sales reports, average ticket, and all metrics to see how your e-commerce is selling.
Integrated Blogging Platform
- platform with an integrated blogging platform indicates better SEO friendliness. Blogs on your site can make your website more visible. Moreover, it attracts more relevant customers. On the other hand, blogs are highly likely to rank faster.
Image ALT Tags
- Image ALT tags are highly important for SEO friendly ecommerce platforms. Google’s algorithm does not understand images if not have an ALT tag that describes the image in the first place. Keeping this in mind, you must choose a platform that allows you to edit this SEO feature.
These are the 12 fundamental characteristics that you need to consider when deciding on your e-commerce platform.
10 of the Best Ecommerce Platform for SEO
Let us get to the main point and help you find the best commerce platform for SEO. There are hundreds of website builders and they all have some different features. Know that you will not get everything on one platform from the SEO Rader. Yet it is possible to find out a solution for establishing your ecommerce website. We are going to discuss the top 10 SEO Friendly ecommerce platforms ranked according to both SEO and builder features.
Shopify: Overall Best Ecommerce Platform for SEO
Shopify remains one of the most influential ecommerce website builders with the most SEO features. Because of its versatile online store builder, more than 1.5 million customers have been using this platform.
Because of the On-Page SEO features, Shopify became a major name in the market. With time, Shopify is also changing and developing its interface to reduce its SEO limitations.
This platform had a very intuitive store editor from the beginning, but the SEO features were not as sophisticated as it is today. It has come a long way and there is much more to develop.
Shopify SEO Features:
- Shopify provides a lot of plugins dedicated to SEO practices.
- It comes with google analytics-ready.
- Integrated blogging platform makes sure you can contribute to your website content marketing.
- A large inventory of better-optimized themes ensures SEO friendly development platform for ecommerce websites.
- Though most of the themes are ready for exclusive SEO optimization. Yet you must choose your theme very carefully to ensure better SEO functionality.
- According to Shopify itself, your sitemap.xml and robot.txt files are generated automatically.
- Shopify auto-generates Canonical URLs so that you can prevent any kind of duplicate content issues in search results.
- The social media button is another SEO indicator for your website and Shopify offers that too.
SEO Limitations on Shopify
- Shopify auto-generates the Robot.txt file, but you cannot edit the file.
- Custom URL is an important feature to look for and Shopify has its own non-customizable URL structure.
WooCommerce: Best WordPress Ecommerce Tool for Online Store
WooCommerce is the best option since it is integrated into WordPress. And not to mention that WordPress is the most SEO friendly CMS on the web.
Compared to many other website builders, WooCommerce provides the best responsive designs and SEO friendly features. Besides, this WordPress Plugin turned-ecommerce builder is one of the most user-friendly interfaces to use for your online store.
All the SEO features available in WordPress is available on this versatile ecommerce store builder. But if you investigate its builder aspect, it might not be as user-friendly as Shopify, therefore if you want to use this plugin, at least you need some learning curve.
Available SEO Features:
- WooCommerce is only compatible with WordPress, so all the SEO features are available that available for WordPress.
- You can choose from all the persuasive themes for SEO friendly features.
- WooCommerce lets you categorize your products.
- This plugin is better for local SEO along with the integrated geolocation support.
- WooCommerce is highly customizable, and you can add any features better for SEO.
- Built-in SEO features include URL customization. It also has the built-in 301 redirects, mobile-friendliness, built-in blogging, and text editor.
- With proper development, you can make your site fast enough.
SEO Limitations of WooCommerce
- To get all the SEO features you must use several plugins.
- It does not allow you to use a multi-store front.
BigCommerce is another name on the list of best Ecommerce platforms for SEO and it comes with a lot of unique SEO features. Big Commerce is home to more than a hundred thousand ecommerce websites. It is among the most progressive ecommerce platforms.
It is not that you cannot implement SEO titles, meta descriptions, or all other SEO features on other platforms, but user-friendliness is another factor. Keeping that user-friendliness in mind, Big Commerce is ahead of many platforms. Most of the SEO features on this interactive ecommerce builder are available with easy access.
Available SEO Features:
- Big Commerce comes with a lot of On-Page SEO features.
- It ensures that the focus keyword is used in the page <TITLE> tag. And it will be used ideally in the <H1> header.
- A keyword-rich meta description describes the page and with Big Commerce lets you edit that meta description.
- It also offers a human-readable page URL that uses “-” for spaces and includes the focus keyword for better google ranking.
- This platform ensures images include ALT tag attributes that ideally include the focus keyword
- Speed is a big factor for SEO friendliness, and its integrated CDN can make your site substantially fast.
- HTML Text editor is also present to make things easier for implementing anything with codes.
SEO Limitations of Big Commerce
- It lacks canonical settings to prevent content duplication.
- Despite having an interactive blogging platform, it is missing the CRO tools.
- The site speed issue is another factor you must consider, though the CDN made it a little bit faster.
Weebly: Best Ecommerce Platform for SEO on Budget
Weebly is a simple and objective website builder, focused on virtual stores. Although not suitable for large e-commerce sites, it does offer smaller sellers a very economical way to enter this market.
Despite being very economical, the SEO features allow entry of header and footer code, indexing control, and redirects. This is more than we have seen so far in many other tools.
Weebly Available SEO Features:
- Weebly obtained a high rating (A +) but you must optimize to get this speed score.
- Highly flexible designs.
- Page titles and description features are available.
- You can edit the permalink, but you cannot remove the .html string.
- 301 redirects are available so that you can send your traffic from your old domain to the new domain. Besides it also prevents content duplication.
- It allows Google search console integration by header and footer codes.
SEO Limitations on Weebly
- Limited Blog Tools. Weebly’s blog tool is like the website builder.
- Weebly adds HTML strings to your URLs.
Squarespace is one of the best website builders for small businesses offers a lot of features.
On the other hand, we have also found that this interactive ecommerce platform is one of the best ecommerce platforms for SEO.
You must know that Squarespace does not have any plugins rather they use built-in features. And SEO features come by default.
Available SEO Features in Squarespace:
- The built-in SSL certificate is free.
- Squarespace auto generates Robots.txt file, and you do not need to do anything at all.
- Squarespace also generates a sitemap; you just need to submit it to your search console.
- This platform also comes with built-in CDN which will improve your site speed.
- Mobile responsiveness is another important thing for SEO, and Squarespace is fully mobile-ready.
SEO Limitations on Squarespace:
- Templates are very problematic along with cover pages
- Squarespace only offers H1 to H3 for body text
- Schema markup is an issue with Squarespace
Looking at the Wix SEO features, it is one of the best ecommerce website builder for small businesses that comes with a lot of features within a budget. Besides, the builder is also one of the best platforms for your online store.
Though there are a lot of SEO benefits of Wix, it also has few SEO limitations. But in the overall score, it has a very easy to drag and drops tool for builders, with many SEO features.
Wix Available SEO Features:
- In Wix editor, you can always edit page titles which is crucial for a better SEO signal.
- A meta description is crucial for Google ranking and in Wix, it is customizable for all pages.
- You can use H1 to H6 for all pages to properly structure your heading.
- Custom URLs are important for Wix allows you to customize your URLs, but Wix ads an extra string for pages, blogs, or product pages.
- Easily add image ALT tags.
- 301 redirects are available, and you can easily avoid any content duplication issues.
- You can build your mobile page differently with a mobile page builder.
- Canonical tags google analytics and google search console are available.
SEO Limitations of Wix
- The heading structure for a blog post is not convenient because you only have H1 and H2.
- Wix generates a site map for your site but you cannot access or edit for needs. But this is not needed most of the time.
- Site speed is a bit sluggish.
On this list of best ecommerce platforms for SEO, Volusion comes with many SEO benefits though there are a few downsides as well, yet we can keep this platform on the 10 best SEO friendly ecommerce platform list.
Talking of SEO friendly ecommerce platforms, Volusion has integrated SEO features within your admin panel. With this, you can have a very easy SEO experience and make your site rank better in search engines.
SEO Features of Volusion:
- Meta tags are available on this development platform which contains information about your content.
- You can add meta keywords.
- In the advanced SEO option, you can have globally appended meta tags.
- SEO friendly URLs also come without any strings.
- Meta description option is available in the builder’s SEO plugin.
- You get enabled canonical links for preventing duplicate content.
- Setting image Alt became easier.
- Meta title feature is a built-in option in your admin panel.
SEO Limitations for Volusion:
- Volusion has a lot of features but speed is a big concern.
- It has a poor site search function which affects SEO scores.
- In comparison to its competitors, it has some issues with mobile- friendliness.
It might not be that popular among many of us, but this ecommerce website platform is worth mentioning. BigCartel is a progressive ecommerce builder started in 2005. Since then, they have come a long way. Along with the builder, they have been updating their SEO features rigorously.
With a significant market share in the ecommerce website building, BigCartel keeps updating its SEO features and other builder features.
Available SEO Features:
- Unlike many other platforms, Big Cartel generates meta descriptions automatically. But you can always add your custom meta description.
- Adding a meta keyword became easier and it will improve your site’s visibility.
- BigCartel also generates a sitemap automatically but you have full access to making any changes.
- All these SEO features are easy to handle.
BigCartel SEO Limitations
- BigCartel has a very limited theme.
- It has issues with mobile-friendliness.
- When it comes to Speed indexing, it provides an average speed score.
Magento: Best Open-Source SEO Friendly Development Platform
Magento is a flexible platform because it is open-source, and you can add a lot of resources to create your website.
It provides everything you need to build a spectacular online store. The platform provides features such as marketing and customer segmentation.
With the open-source Magento, you can optimize SEO features with the necessary tools. This platform supports Google’s sitemaps, Google’s content APIs, and search engine friendly URLs.
The integrated marketing tools and conversion in Magento consist of coupon codes, customer groups, product bundling, and report management.
Available SEO Features in Magento:
- You can add a custom URL to your pages and posts.
- It also allows sitemap customization along with the sitemap generation feature.
- Magento enterprise also provides caching feature that indicates good SEO practice.
- Custom Meta titles and description features are also available along with image ALT tags customization.
SEO Limitations of Magento:
- It is a front-end heavy platform and speed is an issue.
- Canonical redirects feature is not available.
- txt file comes blank, and you need to implement a script for indexing and no-indexing.
OpenCart is an open-source and free eCommerce with a lot of SEO features. It has more than 1300 customizable modules. The easy to use On-page SEO tools are integrated into the Admin panel. So, beginners can take care of their needs. Along with all the on-page SEO features, technical features are also easy to customize.
But you need help from developers when you first set up your shop. Because this is an open-source ecommerce software without built-in SEO features.
Available SEO Features:
- Since it is open-source, You can add all SEO options.
- Headers are optimizable with easy access to set your titles hierarchy.
- Product page URLs can be fully customizable.
- You can even set any URL strings if you wish.
- From the Admin Panel, you can also set Canonical URLs to prevent duplicate content issues.
- Meta titles and description features are available.
- OpenCart also has an image title generator.
- Sitemap and robot.txt file editor is available.
OpenCart SEO Limitations:
- You need a little development skill, or you must use extensions.
- Site speed optimization requires development skills.
Now you have found all to 10 best SEO friendly options for ecommerce in a single place, you can analyze them and choose according to your preference. But before you dive in for purchasing your plan, don’t forget to check the details depending on SEO features. But this ranking focuses both on SEO and builder features. We hope this is enough to guide you to choose the best ecommerce platform for SEO.