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Home / Which eCommerce Platform is Best For SEO?
Gearing up to launch an online store for the first time? Or perhaps you’re shopping around for a new platform to help grow your business? Either way, you’ll want to make sure the CMS you choose is SEO-friendly, or you’ll be limiting your organic growth potential.
If your competitors’ sites are built on an SEO-friendly platform and yours isn’t, chances are they’ll outrank you and generate far more traffic via search engines like Google and Bing. And, as we all know, more traffic means more potential customers.
In this guide, we’re going to help you choose an SEO-friendly platform that makes sense for your business. We’ll delve into the importance of SEO, what makes a website CMS SEO-friendly and run through five top picks to suit every budget and business requirement.
When it comes to long-term, sustainable growth, SEO (search engine optimisation) and content marketing are king. Working hand-in-hand, these two marketing channels are an unbeatable combination. No, they won’t deliver results as quickly as paid ads can, but they will be more cost-effective in the long run – and they’re crucial for brand awareness and driving sales.
The more visibility your brand has in the SERPs, the more site visits you’ll get. And the best bit? You won’t have to pay for all those clicks like you do with Google or Microsoft Ads. Once you’re ranking for the right keywords, you’ll be able to pull in tonnes of traffic without spending a penny.
So, choosing an SEO-friendly site platform might cost you a little more to begin with. But in the long run, that up-front investment will pay off.
With so many of us now choosing to shop on our phones or tablets instead of laptops or desktops, a mobile-responsive website is no longer optional – it’s essential.
The platform (and theme) you choose should be built with mobile in mind. A site that performs poorly on mobile won’t just put customers off, it can harm your ability to rank highly in search results too.
If you’re new to the world of SEO, you might be surprised to learn that site speed is actually a critical ranking factor. Sluggish, unresponsive websites are heavily penalised by search engines like Google because they’re frustrating to use – and fast-loading sites are rewarded with higher rankings.
Simply put, search engines are trying their best to offer users enjoyable, hassle-free experiences. So, if your site is agonisingly slow to load, don’t expect it to perform well in organic search.
Customisation and flexibility are key if you want your site to rank highly in search results.
The platform you choose will need to offer plenty of design freedom, allowing you to create pages that utilise the right content in the right places. And a customisable URL structure is essential, too: a clear hierarchy of pages and subpages makes it easier for bots to crawl your site and enhances the user experience to boot.
The best eCommerce platforms make it easier to get a handle on how your pages are likely to perform before you set them live. Integrated SEO tools allow you to check things like keyword density, readability and technical SEO elements like site speed without having to leave your site’s backend, saving valuable time and making life easier.
Although this list isn’t in any particular order, if it was, WooCommerce would probably be at the top. Because it’s built as an add-on for WordPress – the world’s most popular CMS – WooCommerce offers an unparalleled amount of flexibility, with thousands of themes available to choose from, a vast array of plug-ins and excellent blogging features.
Strong on everything from site speed to mobile useability, WooCommerce is an excellent all-rounder for an affordable price. Although you’ll need to sort hosting separately, you can find hosting plans for less than £10 per month.
Perhaps WooCommerce’s closest direct competitor, Shopify is another tremendously popular choice – but beneath the skin, it’s a completely different animal. Unlike the open source CMS that WooCommerce is based on, Shopify is a dedicated, closed-system eCommerce platform.
That does mean it lacks some of the flexibility of WooCommerce, but it also means it’s much simpler to set up. Although Shopify does have a suite of built-in SEO features, it doesn’t have WooCommerce’s blogging capabilities, limiting your content marketing output (but this can be resolved with a third party add-on).
Formerly known as Magento, Adobe Commerce is another dedicated eCommerce platform, much like Shopify and BigCommerce (more on that in a second).
Although Adobe Commerce does have a powerful suite of SEO features built in and plenty of customisation options, it can be expensive and tricky to work with – making it less than ideal for startup brands.
Built with ease of use in mind, BigCommerce is strong on mobile optimisation and isn’t light on features, with plenty of flexibility and all the SEO tools you could ever need.
However, just like Adobe Commerce, it’s quite an expensive option – and because it’s not as popular as either Adobe Commerce or Shopify, there aren’t as many themes or add-ons to choose from currently.
Looking for an affordable, DIY website builder that has a surprisingly impressive array of features? Wix remains a solid option.
Although you’re likely to outgrow it eventually, Wix still has enough SEO tools and enough flexibility to get you started. Building a site is as simple as it gets; the drag-and-drop system results in a shallow learning curve, with no coding skills required.
Need a helping hand to pick a platform and get your SEO journey off to a flying start? Why not have a chat with the team at Brave? We’re an award-winning eCommerce marketing agency with more than 25 years of experience working with brands across the UK, from startups through to fast-growing SMEs.
Check out our recent case study on Cookology, a leading kitchen appliance brand, to see what our SEO and content marketing teams are capable of!
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