Best Ecommerce Platform's For SEO

Starting an ecommerce store? Find out the best platform to use for SEO and what features you need to succeed online.

Ecommerce SEO has evolved from a nice-to-have extra to an essential part of a successful online businesses. Companies of all sizes now rely on robust ecommerce platforms to sell their products and services online, reach wider audiences, and grow their revenue streams. But simply having an online store isn’t enough, in fact that is just the start! To avoid paying for advertising like PPC, you’ll need a site that’s optimised for search engines to stand out from the competition.

The best ecommerce platforms for SEO don’t just facilitate transactions, they come equipped with powerful SEO features designed to improve your search engine rankings and drive consistent organic traffic to your virtual storefront. Selecting the best e-commerce platform is crucial as it can significantly impact your online visibility, website traffic, and overall revenue. Search engines like Google have become increasingly sophisticated in how they evaluate ecommerce sites, making it essential to choose an ecom platform for SEO that provides comprehensive tools to help businesses optimise every aspect of their online stores. These platforms also integrate seamlessly with existing websites and offer SEO-friendly features like customisable metadata and SEO-friendly URL structures, enhancing online visibility and user experience. (Theres no affiliate links in this article just helpful information)

Importance of SEO for Ecommerce

SEO isn’t just a buzzword - it’s the lifeblood of successful online businesses. For ecommerce stores in particular, strong SEO strategies are absolutely essential for improving visibility in Google and driving qualified organic traffic to your products. Without proper optimisation, even the most beautiful online store will remain hidden in the depths of search results, never reaching its target audience. In all honesty if your on page 2 your website is basically hidden and wont receive hardly any traffic as theres 10+ options all ahead of you.

A well-optimised ecommerce site does more than just rank well - it improves SEO performance and creates a better overall user experience that, if you’ve got all your other factors in line, like pricing and product market fit, will lead to higher sales… hopefully! When your site is easy to find, navigate, and use, visitors are more likely to trust you and become customers. This is important because positive user experience sends strong signals to Google that your site is valuable, creating a virtuous cycle of improved rankings and more traffic. User signals is one part of SEO that if difficult for SEO agencies to improve on as, we don’t set product prices, choose the products, take product images or control branding.
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Choosing the right platform for your ecommerce business is crucial for enhancing your SEO efforts. Various e-commerce platforms offer specific SEO tools and features designed to improve online visibility, which can significantly affect your ecommerce store's traffic and sales results.

​Choosing the Right Ecommerce Platform

Selecting the right ecommerce platform is vital for building a successful online store. With numerous options available, it's important to focus on factors like ease of use, customisation options, payment gateways, and SEO features. An ideal platform should include built-in SEO tools such as customisable URLs, meta tags, and product pages to enhance search engine rankings. Consider mobile responsiveness, site speed, and analytics tools to ensure a seamless user experience. Popular platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, and BigCommerce offer a variety of features to support online success. By choosing the right platform, you can set your store up for long-term success and drive more organic traffic.

Ecommerce Platform Features

Ecommerce platforms offer a range of features to help businesses build and manage their online stores. Some key features to look for include customisable product pages, meta tags, and URLs, as well as built-in SEO tools and plugins. A good ecommerce platform should also have a user-friendly interface, mobile responsiveness, and fast site speed to ensure a seamless user experience. Don't forget to consider the platform’s integration with social media, Google Analytics, and other marketing tools to help drive traffic and sales. Advanced features like product reviews, customer testimonials, and loyalty programs can also help increase conversions and customer retention. When evaluating ecommerce platforms, consider the features that are most important to your business and choose a platform that meets your needs. By leveraging these features, you can create a successful online store that attracts more organic traffic and drives more sales.

Top Ecommerce Platforms

Shopify
​Shopify has made a name for itself as one of the go-to ecommerce platforms for SEO, and it’s easy to see why. This website builder could be the best ecommerce platform for SEO, because it offers a wide range of SEO and essential e-commerce features right out of the box, including customisable URLs, meta tags, meta descriptions, and alt text fields for all products and pages. Most of Shopify’s themes are designed with clean code and mobile responsiveness in mind, both of which are crucial for website performance. We’ve worked on a few Shopify themes and overall it’s a great platform that’s built for beginners and can easily grow with your business no matter how big you get!

Compared to other e-commerce platforms like Wix and Squarespace, Shopify offers more robust SEO and scalability options, making it a better choice for businesses planning to expand.

One of Shopify’s biggest strengths is its app ecosystem, which lets you enhance the platform’s native features with specialised plugin tools for things like schema markup, redirects management, and in-depth keyword research. The platform also automatically generates sitemaps and handles canonical tags, helping you avoid duplicate content issues that can hurt your visibility online. Remember note to add to many plugins as this will bloat the code, potentially causing issues like slower loading times.
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Pro: Shopify’s extensive app ecosystem provides flexibility and additional SEO tools to enhance the platform’s built-in features.
Con: Shopify’s transaction fees can be a downside unless you use Shopify Payments, which might increase overall costs.
Pricing: From £19 per month plus transaction fees
Our Rating: 9/10

WooCommerce
If you’re already using WordPress, WooCommerce is a powerful ecommerce platform that can transform your WordPress site into a fully functional e-commerce store with advanced features. Since it’s built on WordPress, you get to enjoy the excellent SEO foundation that comes with the world’s most popular content management system. WooCommerce benefits from WordPress’s strong permalink structure options and works seamlessly with popular SEO plugins like Yoast and Rank Math, both huge names within the SEO world with free and paid versions.

This platform gives you detailed control over product pages, allowing for rich product descriptions, custom fields, and attribute management that you can use for keyword optimisation. WooCommerce’s flexibility means you can customise your store’s structure and content as much as you want, giving business owners and SEO experts the freedom to implement sophisticated optimisation strategies without being held back by technical limitations.

Pro: WooCommerce offers unparalleled customisation and flexibility, making it ideal for implementing advanced SEO strategies.
Con: WooCommerce requires more technical knowledge and maintenance compared to other platforms, which will be challenging for beginners. If your going alone you’ll need to watch a few Youtube tutorials. Find out why SEO is worth it for small businesses here.
Pricing: WooCommerce is free to use, but costs can arise from hosting, premium themes, and paid plugins, making total expenses variable depending on the setup.
Our Rating: 7/10

BigCommerce
BigCommerce is a standout choice for enterprise-level solutions (hence the name) with impressive built-in SEO features. The platform offers customisable URLs, automatically creating SEO-friendly URLs for product and category pages. BigCommerce also provides microdata implementation for products, helping search platforms better understand your content and potentially getting better search engine rankings with star ratings and pricing information. Additionally, BigCommerce's SEO-friendly features include clean code and fast loading times, which are critical for enhancing online visibility and user experience.

Social media integration is another area where BigCommerce shines, with built-in tools for sharing products across various platforms and automatically implementing Open Graph tags. The platform’s content delivery network ensures fast loading times globally, and its mobile-optimised checkout process helps reduce cart abandonment rates - both factors that positively impact search engine visibility and help drive more sales.

BigCommerce also supports creating high-quality content, which is essential for effective SEO strategies. By providing robust tools for content management and optimiSation, it helps businesses improve their conversion rates and overall SEO efforts.
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Pro: BigCommerce provides robust built-in SEO features without the need for additional plugins, simplifying the optimisation process.
Con: The platform’s complexity and enterprise focus might be overwhelming for smaller businesses or those without technical expertise. BigCommerce offers a lot of features, some users may find the customisation options more limited compared to open-source platforms.
Pricing: BigCommerce offers a range of plans starting £21.68 per month
Our Rating: 7/10

​Technical Considerations for SEO Friendly Features

​When it comes to the technical aspects of your ecommerce platform, they’re like the unsung heroes behind the scenes, ensuring search engines give your site a thumbs up. One of the biggies here is URL structure. Think of URLs as the roadmap that helps Google navigate your site and get a sense of its layout and content. So, you want a platform that lets you whip up neat, SEO-friendly URLs without a bunch of confusing numbers or extra bits.

Then there’s page load speed, which has become crucial for ranking highly on Google. Googles all about speed, and they give faster sites a boost. Your ecommerce platform should be all about optimising things like image delivery, caching, and cutting out any code clutter to make sure your pages load super fast on both mobile devices and desktops. The truth is, even shaving a second off your load time can make a big difference in both rankings and how many users stick around to shop.
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For the bigger ecommerce players out there, having advanced features like schema markup and handling canonical tags properly is key. These technical goodies help online engines understand your complex product offerings, variations, and overall site structure, so you don’t run into hiccups that could mess with your positions in search results.

​URL Structure Best Practices

The URLs of your ecommerce pages communicate important information to both users and Google. Effective ecommerce platforms allow you to create SEO-friendly URLs that incorporate relevant keywords naturally. The best practice is to keep URLs short while still clearly indicating what the page contains.

For example, a good URL for a women’s running shoes page might look like this: www.example.com/womens-running-shoes. This URL is concise, descriptive, and includes relevant keywords, making it easy for Google to understand the page content.

On the other hand, a bad URL example might be: www.example.com/product-12345?category=shoes&type=running&gender=female. This URL is cluttered with unnecessary parameters and lacks clear, descriptive keywords, which can confuse both users and search engines.

​URL customisation should extend beyond just product pages - category pages, blog posts, and informational content should all follow a consistent, logical structure. Look for ecommerce platforms that allow URL rewriting capabilities, which let you easily update legacy URLs to a more SEO-friendly format while maintaining proper redirects to preserve existing rankings. Shopify does this well with auto redirects, this allows you to update URL’s quickly without the worries of leaving a trail of 404 errors behind, which we see a lot of beginner ecommerce stores do.

Schema Markup Is Important for Ecommerce SEO

Schema markup is becoming a game-changer for ecommerce SEO. Think of it as a secret code that helps Google get the full picture of your content, beyond just the words on the page. For online stores, using product schema can display essential details like prices, availability, and customer reviews directly in search results pages, giving your listings a significant boost in click-through rates.

The best ecommerce platforms either automatically handle schema markup or offer out of the box SEO tools that let you add it without needing a tech wizard. This structured data creates those eye-catching rich snippets in search results, making your listings pop with star ratings, pricing info, and availability updates. These enhanced listings typically draw in more qualified organic traffic with a higher chance of converting into sales. Implementing schema mark up isn’t a ranking factor so it wont help you rank higher but it can increase clicks to your site which is what we all want.
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But don’t stop at product schema! Look for ecommerce platforms that also support organisation, breadcrumb, and FAQ schema implementations. These additional markup types help search engines better understand your site's SEO and content, potentially boosting your visibility for relevant searches.

​Other Popular Ecommerce Platforms

Adobe Commerce (Formerly Magento)
Adobe Commerce offers enterprise-level capabilities with extensive SEO features. The platform provides granular control over every aspect of your online store’s SEO, from URL structures to advanced meta tags management, including customizable meta tags that enhance online visibility. Its layered navigation system can be optimised to create SEO-friendly category pages that target valuable long-tail keywords.

The platform’s Page Builder tool allows for the creation of rich content experiences that can be optimised for specific search terms while maintaining an engaging user experience. Adobe Commerce also excels at handling large product catalogs with sophisticated attribute management that can be leveraged for better rankings.
Our Rating: 7/10

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Squarespace
For medium-sized businesses looking for simplicity without sacrificing SEO capabilities, Squarespace offers an attractive solution. The platform automatically generates clean, search-friendly URLs and handles technical SEO elements like canonical tags and sitemaps. Squarespace’s built-in blogging capabilities enhance SEO by making content marketing straightforward, allowing for more content creation and keyword optimisation, which ultimately improves rankings.
The platform’s mobile-responsive designs ensure your online store looks great across all devices without additional configuration, satisfying search engines’ mobile-first indexing requirements. While not as feature-rich as some other options, Squarespace provides a solid foundation for smaller businesses that might prefer ease of use over advanced features that aren’t necessary to start with.
Our Rating: 7/10

Is It Easy to Change Ecommerce Platforms?

So you think you've found the best ecommerce platform for SEO and want to switch! Switching ecom platforms with a live website is not for the faint-hearted. It involves a complex process that, if not executed correctly, can lead to significant drops in traffic or even result in your website being temporarily dropped from Google’s index. This transition requires meticulous planning and careful execution to ensure that your existing rankings and traffic are preserved. Use an agency to help you do this its not for beginners!

One of the biggest challenges is maintaining your site’s SEO during the migration. You’ll need to ensure that all URLs are properly redirected to the new platform, preserving the link equity you’ve built over time. Any missteps in redirecting URLs can lead to 404 errors, which can negatively impact your search engine visibility and user experience.

Another critical aspect is ensuring that your new platform supports all the SEO features you’ve been using, such as customisable URLs, meta tags, and schema markup. Some platforms have limited features, which can be a significant challenge for businesses anticipating growth. Failing to replicate these elements on your new ecommerce site can result in a loss of rankings and organic traffic.
It’s essential to conduct thorough testing before and after the migration to identify any issues that could affect your site’s performance. This includes checking for broken links, ensuring all pages are indexed correctly, and verifying that your site’s speed and mobile friendly responsiveness remain optimal.
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Ultimately, changing ecommerce websites with a live website requires a strategic approach and, often, the expertise of SEO professionals to minimise risks and ensure a smooth transition. With careful planning and execution, you can successfully migrate your site without compromising your visibility and traffic.

​Conclusion

Choosing the best ecommerce platform for SEO is crucial for your online business. The platform you select can significantly impact your search engine visibility and traffic. Focus on SEO features like customisable URLs, built-in SEO tools, and technical performance to ensure long-term success. Different ecommerce businesses have unique needs. A small boutique might thrive with Shopify's user-friendly interface, while a large enterprise could benefit from Adobe Commerce's extensive customisation. Assess each platform based on your current and future requirements. Ultimately, the best platform for SEO aligns with your business goals and marketing strategy. By selecting a platform that enhances optimisation through a comprehensive SEO strategy, you'll attract organic traffic and boost sales from your online store. Find out how much ecommerce SEO costs here.