Bigcommerce SEO Tips

BigCommerce SEO shares many similarities when compared with WordPress and Shopify sites for example.

But there are some specific considerations when it comes to BigCommerce SEO due to its e-commerce nature. To explain more, our Bigcommerce SEO expert, Liam, breaks down how BigCommerce SEO differs from SEO on other platforms whilst providing some useful BigCommerce SEO tips to guide you towards improving your SEO rankings.

Bigcommerce has limited SEO Tools and Plugins

While BigCommerce platform includes essential SEO functions, it doesn’t have the extensive range of third-party plugins available on WordPress and is limited to the tools and features provided by the platform. Compared to other platforms like WooCommerce which has range of SEO plugins available for WordPress that provides greater flexibility through WordPress's ecosystem. For example, with WooCommerce you can use various SEO plugins like Yoast SEO or All in One SEO to extensively customise on-page SEO, meta descriptions, sitemaps, and more.

So how can you optimise Bigcommerce stores for better rankings? 

BigCommerce offers built-in SEO features tailored to e-commerce, such as automatic meta tag generation, product-specific optimisation, and schema markup all of which cover the pillars of SEO which are Technical SEO, Onsite and Offsite

Technical SEO TIPS For BigCommerce

BigCommerce handles many technical SEO aspects automatically, such as mobile SEO optimisation, site speed, and security. It’s designed to be a complete package with built-in performance optimisations. Our BigCommerce SEO tip here would be to address specific technical aspects such as canonical tags to prevent duplicate content issues, schema markup for product information, and optimisation of site speed for better user experience and ranking.

If you're working on improving the SEO for your BigCommerce store, there are several critical steps you can take to enhance your website's visibility and overall performance. Let’s go over some essential Big Commerce SEO tips to ensure you're on the right path to success.

Use the Robots.txt Editor to Control Crawling

One of the most straightforward yet crucial techniques involves using BigCommerce’s built-in Robots.txt Editor. This tool allows you to easily control what search engines can and can't crawl on your site. By blocking non-essential pages like internal search pages or cart pages, you prevent duplicate content issues and make sure Google is focused on indexing your key pages that matter most for SEO. By keeping your SEO clean and organised, you're ensuring your pages are optimised for search engines and making them easier for customers to find.

Integrate Google Shopping and Social Listings with BigCommerce’s Channel Manager

Another effective strategy is integrating your store with Google Shopping and social listings through BigCommerce’s Channel Manager. This allows you to sync your product listings directly with Google Shopping, Facebook, and Instagram. With visibility across these platforms, you reach a wider audience. Ensuring that your product data is accurately synced between platforms and updated frequently helps you maintain a consistent online presence. Connecting your store to these channels directly from the BigCommerce control panel helps you to streamline this process and ensure your products are found by the right customers.

Take Advantage of Sitewide SSL for Enhanced Security and Trust

BigCommerce provides an SSL certificate that protects not only your checkout pages but your entire site. This built-in security measure is more than just a safe way to protect sensitive customer data; it’s also a factor that Google considers when ranking sites. Ensuring your SSL certificate is active across all your pages is an important Big Commerce SEO tip because HTTPS is a known ranking factor. It is typically automatic with BigCommerce, but it’s worth double-checking that all pages are secured. This not only boosts your SEO but also fosters trust with your visitors, as they’ll feel more secure browsing your site.

Use Built-In JSON-LD Structured Data to Boost Rich Snippets

When it comes to improving your website's visibility in search results, structured data plays an important role. BigCommerce automatically includes JSON-LD structured data on product pages, which helps your content appear as rich snippets with important details like product reviews, pricing, and availability. To ensure you’re fully optimising this feature, run your product pages through Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool. This tool will help you confirm the structured data is correctly implemented, and will also highlight any issues that need fixing to make sure your site qualifies for enhanced search results.

Simplify Redirects with BigCommerce’s Built-In Redirect Manager

The Redirect Manager in BigCommerce allows you to easily implement 301 redirects, ensuring a seamless user experience and retaining SEO value when you change URLs or remove products. When customers or search engines visit outdated URLs or out-of-stock product pages, redirects will automatically send them to the correct location, minimizing the impact on user experience and SEO. Whether you’re redesigning your store or removing old products, this simple tool will help you keep things running smoothly, without sacrificing any SEO ranking power.

Optimise Default Metadata for Better Coverage

Lastly, you’ll want to make sure you’re optimising the default metadata for your product and category pages. BigCommerce offers a convenient option to set up default metadata templates, which ensures you don’t miss crucial meta descriptions and titles. This is a great way to maintain consistency and comprehensive coverage across your site. However, for the best results, go the extra mile and customise your metadata for individual product or category pages. Tailoring your metadata for specific keywords helps your products appear in relevant searches and increases your visibility.

Onsite Content 

Unlike general SEO which might focus on various types of content, BigCommerce SEO often focuses heavily on optimising product pages. This includes optimising product titles, descriptions, images, and meta tags to improve visibility in search results. Likewise, with category Pages, which BigCommerce relies to organise products involves optimising category titles, descriptions, and metadata to help users and search engines understand the content and structure.

Create a Custom 404 Page for Better UX and SEO

BigCommerce gives you the ability to create custom 404 error pages, allowing you to optimize them in a way that retains visitors, even if they end up on a non-existent page. To improve the user experience, consider adding helpful links, a search bar, or links to your top categories on the 404 page. This makes it easier for visitors to navigate to relevant content and helps reduce bounce rates. To edit your 404 page, simply go to Storefront Content > Web Pages in the BigCommerce control panel.

Site Structure

BigCommerce sites often have complex structures with numerous product and category pages. Effective SEO requires a well-organised site structure with clean URLs, breadcrumb navigation, and internal linking to help search engines crawl and index the site effectively.

Some example tips which are unique to BigCommerce revolve around:

Manage Faceted Navigation URLs to Prevent Duplicate Content

BigCommerce has the capability to append URL parameters for faceted navigation, which can lead to duplicate content issues if not carefully managed. To avoid this, you can block faceted URLs using the robots.txt editor or employ canonical tags to redirect filtered pages back to the main category page. While BigCommerce does handle some of the canonicalisation automatically, it’s essential to double-check this to ensure everything is optimised for SEO.

Optimise Your Blog Structure for SEO Impact

With BigCommerce, the blog is usually hosted on a subdomain (like blog.yoursite.com), which some SEOs believe might not have the same SEO impact as subdirectory hosting. If subdirectory hosting is a key part of your strategy, I might look into using a third-party blogging platform that integrates directly into the main domain, such as yoursite.com/blog. However, if you decide to stay on BigCommerce’s built-in blog, I make sure to optimise the content thoroughly and interlink it with product pages to create stronger relevance and boost my site’s SEO.

Product Reviews 

BigCommerce sites often include customer reviews and Q&A sections. These can be valuable for SEO, so it’s important to ensure they are indexed properly and optimised for search engines.

Mobile Optimisation

While mobile optimisation is important for all SEO, it’s crucial for e-commerce sites since many users shop on mobile devices. BigCommerce provides responsive themes, but additional SEO efforts may be needed to ensure a smooth mobile experience.

Leverage BigCommerce’s Akamai Image Manager for Faster Loading Times

BigCommerce integrates Akamai Image Manager, which automatically serves optimised images tailored for each device. This feature helps you reduce load times and improve Core Web Vitals scores, which are essential for SEO. To take advantage of this, make sure to enable Akamai Image Manager in your settings so BigCommerce can dynamically serve the optimal image sizes, eliminating the need for you to manually compress images.

Local SEO

If an e-commerce store has a physical location, local SEO becomes important. This involves optimising for local searches and ensuring that the store’s location information is correctly represented on the site and in local business directories.

Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO)

For e-commerce stores and online retailers, driving traffic is just one part of the equation; converting that traffic into sales is equally important. SEO strategies on BigCommerce often involve CRO techniques to enhance product pages and checkout processes.

Summary

In summary, while the core principles of SEO apply, BigCommerce SEO has a unique focus on product and category pages, technical aspects related to e-commerce, and the overall structure of the online store. Using this guide, we hope that these platform-specific tips will help you maximise BigCommerce’s unique features and improve your site’s visibility and user experience on search engines.

By implementing these BigCommerce SEO tips, you're not just ticking off the essential SEO tasks—you're taking the right steps toward positioning your BigCommerce store for success. From improving your crawling control to integrating with Google Shopping and ensuring your site is secure, each tip enhances your overall SEO strategy. By fine-tuning these elements, you can boost your visibility, attract more qualified visitors, and ultimately drive more conversions for your business.

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