Is BigCommerce good for SEO? This is one of the most common queries associated with the eCommerce platform.
The answer is both yes and no. On the one hand, the answer is no because no platform is optimized out of the box. (This is one of the things that makes BigCommerce SEO services so valuable.)
But, on the other hand, this platform does offer a number of features that actually do lend it to search engine optimization. These are some of the top ones.
An Automatically Generated XML Sitemap
Every eCommerce website should have an XML sitemap that should also be submitted to Google. Not all platforms generate one for you, but BigCommerce does.
Why does this matter? Because an XML sitemap is basically a collection of all of the pages a website contains and tells Google (partially) what pages should and should not be indexed.
The presence of a sitemap also makes a website’s structure more cohesive overall, which is good for both customer navigability and SEO.
BigCommerce Automatically Creates 301 Redirects
Another great thing about BigCommerce is that it automatically generates SEO-friendly URL slugs that you can edit at will.
But what happens when you edit a URL for one of your pages and forget to set up a 301 redirect?
Well, with BigCommerce, nothing. The BigCommerce platform automatically creates 301 redirects whenever you make a URL adjustment, preventing losses in traffic and rankings.
Page Titles and Metadata Are Easy to Edit
The consensus among SEO experts is clear. Page titles and metadata are two very important ranking signals.
More importantly, notwithstanding the fact that you need to perform keyword research first, optimizing them is extremely easy. In fact, optimizing page titles and metadata in BigCommerce requires basically no technical skills to do.
While BigCommerce won’t do the keyword research for you, making the actual optimizations to page titles and metadata themselves is very easy.
BigCommerce Uses a Content Delivery Network to Keep Page Load Speeds Fast
Page load speeds are not just a critical ranking factor that influences SEO. Load speeds have a pronounced impact on the user experience as well.
Fortunately, BigCommerce, being a hosted platform, offers pretty fast page load speeds. But it has another trick. BigCommerce uses a content delivery network.
A content delivery network, also known as a CDN, delivers content on web pages as needed instead of loading it all at once – keeping load speeds fast, users happy, and SEO scores good.
Are BigCommerce SEO Services Worth It?
In a word, BigCommerce SEO services are still absolutely worth it. This is due in part to the fact that a large portion of SEO is dedicated to off-page SEO (which mostly comes down to link building) and content.
Link building must be performed either in the old-school organic way or via the help of an experienced BigCommerce SEO services provider.
As for content, for it to be optimized, it not only needs to be original and high-quality but it must be carefully crafted by a skilled writer. Most importantly, you can’t optimize content until you’ve done your keyword research – and no platform can do that for you.
Considering the fact that keyword research influences not only category, product page, blog, and CMS page copy, but also on-page signals like titles and URL slugs, it’s pretty important.
And that’s not built into any platform, regardless of the promises it makes. So while BigCommerce is good for SEO, professional search engine optimization (SEO) strategies are still necessary to ensure that you’re BigCommerce website’s pages are truly SEO-optimized.
We recommend the BigCommerce SEO experts at 1DigitalⓇ Agency for SEO services. They have ten years of experience delivering eCommerce SEO services, they provide free SEO audits, are BigCommerce Elite Partners, and offer supporting marketing services, like conversion rate optimization, PPC, and social media and email marketing services.
Visit their website today at 1DigitalAgency.com to learn more.
