Built on BigCommerce? It’s a great eCommerce platform that makes it easy to launch an online store.
And, importantly, BigCommerce makes it fairly straightforward to optimize for SEO so you can improve your organic footprint. Here’s what to know about Bigcommerce SEO.
Do Some Basic Keyword Research
The first thing you need to do is find out some keywords that you want your website to rank for. They have to make sense, and they have to be relevant to your website and of interest to your potential customers.
You need some keywords that have decent volume and low difficulty which makes them attainable. Get like 50 to 100 keywords that you want to use to get your web pages to rank.
Use Original Images
Do not use manufacturer images unless you have no other option. Duplicate files will never work as well as original files.
While duplicate files might not hurt your website, the original file on the publishing website is going to get the authority.
Also, high-quality images, specifically photography, improve the user experience of a website and can improve conversion rates.
Compress Them Before Uploading
Before you upload any images to your BigCommerce website, make sure you compress them. There are lots of free tools you can use and all will help increase site speeds and lower loading times.
This is critical because a fast website is not only essential for good BigCommerce SEO best practices, but also because fast page load speeds result in a good UX.
Add Alt Text and Captions
When you add images to your BigCommerce website, add alt text to each image file, and use one or two keywords in each. This will help your images show up in the search results which can increase click through rates as well.
Adding captions to your images will also improve the user experience and can also improve SEO.
Add Keywords to Page Titles
Take some of those keywords you found during research and add some of them to each of your page titles. Make sure that every page has at least one target keyword (where relevant) in at least one title.
On pages in which there are several titles and more than one keyword makes sense, include several.
Write Your Own Meta Descriptions
Google and possibly other search engines will generate their own dynamic meta descriptions if a page lacks them, but this is an opportunity for you to create your own and include keywords and search phrases that will improve organic visibility.
Don’t Use Manufacturer Descriptions; Write Your Own and Use Keywords
On-page category page and product descriptions are among the most important ranking signals on your website, second perhaps only to page headers and titles.
Do not take manufacturer copy or plagiarize any other copy. Even if it doesn’t incur a penalty, Google will scrape the web, find the original publisher, and assign authority to that website. If you steal enough, you might even get penalized.
Rather, write your own informative descriptions detailing the category or product. Include target keywords where possible and answer questions about the product in the description.
Draft Some Blog Posts or FAQs Pages
Once you’re done with all these other BigCommerce SEO optimizations, put it in your rotation to start drafting blogs or FAQs pages for your website.
These pages should answer common questions you get about your products, and should include your target keywords.
Where possible, include links to your important products to increase the UX and conversion value of these pages.
That’s 90% of BigCommerce SEO Strategy in a Nutshell
If you make these optimizations, you’re 90% of the way there. You just need to be patient.
For some merchants, this is why they work with BigCommerce SEO agencies who can take a lot of this work off their plates.
Nonetheless, you still need to be patient. SEO takes a long time.
