It’s essential when deciding which platform you want to use for your eCommerce website, especially from an SEO point of view.
Following a record number of new companies set up so far in 2023 (a year-on-year rise of 6.5%), we have rounded up the top five eCommerce platforms for your site and business.
1. WooCommerce (WP eCommerce) – WordPress Plugin
WooCommerce is highly recommended for those who rate WordPress’s flexibility and customisation opportunities. As a plugin specifically designed for WordPress, WooCommerce seamlessly incorporates into your existing website, giving you complete control over your online store and SEO efforts.
By utilising popular SEO plugins like Yoast SEO, WooCommerce enables you to optimise product pages, categories, and content by utilising powerful features such as meta tags, XML sitemaps, and readability analysis. Leveraging WordPress’s inherent SEO-friendly nature, WooCommerce empowers you to enhance your search engine visibility and improve your online presence.
2. Shopify
Shopify is a top-notch eCommerce platform with an intuitive interface and powerful SEO capabilities. With Shopify, you can optimise your online store by fine-tuning elements such as title tags, meta descriptions, and URLs.
The platform’s clean and well-structured code is crucial in helping search engines comprehend and navigate your website. Additionally, Shopify offers built-in blogging functionality, enabling you to generate and publish optimised content for search engines.
3. Squarespace
Squarespace not only serves as a website builder but also offers eCommerce functionality. It provides a range of built-in SEO features to optimise your online store for search engines. By using customisable meta tags, clean URL structures, mobile optimisation, and integrated blogging, you can effectively enhance the visibility of your website and engage with your desired audience.
Squarespace automatically generates XML sitemaps to assist in efficient crawling and indexing by search engines and offers essential SEO tools that enable you to monitor and improve your search engine rankings.
4. BigCommerce
BigCommerce is a comprehensive eCommerce platform that stands out for its exceptional SEO capabilities. With its user-friendly interface and incorporated SEO features, you can optimise your online store’s various essential components. These include meta tags, URLs, headings, and image alt tags.
Additionally, BigCommerce supports canonical tags, 301 redirects, and XML sitemaps, which play a critical role in maintaining a robust SEO foundation. In addition, the platform’s emphasis on performance and speed optimisation further increases the likelihood of achieving higher rankings in search engine results.
5. Magento
Magento is a highly reliable eCommerce platform trusted by numerous enterprise-level businesses. It offers comprehensive optimise features to optimise your online SEO. You can customise URLs, meta tags, and headings to match your SEO strategy.
Magento provides tools to manage extensive product catalogues, enhance page load, and implement SEO best practices, ensuring that search engines can crawl and rank your website.
Choosing the right eCommerce platform is vital for optimising your online store’s SEO performance. They may all seem similar in some things they offer, but when selecting an eCommerce platform, you must consider your specific requirements, business size, and budget.
Here’s a checklist to help you choose the right ecommerce website for your business:
– Ease of Use: The platform should have an intuitive and user-friendly interface, making it easy for you to set up and manage your online store without extensive technical knowledge.
– Personalisation/Customisation: Look for a platform that offers a range of custom options, allowing you to create a unique and branded online store that aligns with your business’s identity.
– Mobile Responsiveness: With the increasing number of users accessing the internet through mobile devices, it’s crucial that your chosen eCommerce platform provides responsive designs and mobile-friendly features to ensure a seamless shopping experience.
– Payment Gateway Integration: Make sure that your chosen platform integrates with popular payment gateways to provide your customers with convenient and secure payment options.
– Inventory Management: Ensure that the platform provides robust inventory management features, such as stock tracking, automated notifications for low stock, and easy product updates.
– Scalability: Consider the platform’s scalability to accommodate your business’s growth. It should be able to handle increased traffic and product catalog expansion without compromising performance. This is crucial for sales at peak times such as Black Friday.
– SEO-Friendliness: Look for eCommerce platforms that offer built-in search engine optimisation (SEO) features to help improve your store’s visibility in search engine results, driving more organic traffic to your website.
– Marketing and Promotion Tools: Check if the platform provides marketing and promotional features like discount codes, coupons, email marketing integration, and social media integration to help you reach and engage your target audience effectively.
– Analytics and Reporting: The platform should offer robust analytics and reporting tools to track your store’s performance, including sales, customer behaviour, conversion rates, and other key metrics. This data will help you make informed decisions to optimise your business and marketing strategy.
– Customer Support: Everyone needs help every now and again. So, look for platforms that offer responsive customer support channels, such as email, live chat, or phone, to assist you in case of any technical issues or queries.
– Security Features: Over the last few years, there has been an increasing number of data breaches in the eCommerce industry and can damage trust and reputation, as well as result in financial and operational risks. Ensure that your chosen eCommerce platform provides advanced security features, such as SSL encryption, secure checkout, and regular security updates to reduce such risk.
– Integration with Third-Party Services: Check if the platform allows integration with third-party services, such as shipping providers, inventory management systems, marketing tools, and analytics platforms, to enhance your store’s functionality and streamline your operations.
– Pricing and Cost: Evaluate the pricing structure of the eCommerce platform, including transaction fees, monthly subscriptions, add-on costs, and any hidden charges, to determine its affordability and suitability for your budget.
– User Reviews and Reputation: Research the platform’s user reviews and reputation in the market to understand the experiences of other businesses. This will give you insights into the platform’s reliability, performance, and customer satisfaction.
– Future Updates and Development: Consider the platform’s history of updates and ongoing development to ensure it stays up-to-date with the latest eCommerce trends and technological advancements.
How Wild PR can support your eCommerce business
By using this checklist, you can evaluate different eCommerce platforms and make an informed decision that aligns with your business goals and requirements.
Utilising the appropriate platforms and implementing effective SEO for eCommerce, you can improve your search engine rankings, attract a more extensive customer base, and succeed in achieving your business goals.
We have experience supporting eCommerce businesses, including drinks brands and online toy retailers; discover the impact of our bespoke campaigns via our case studies.
Do you need help with eCommerce marketing? Get in touch with the team today!