There are various ecommerce platforms available to create your dream online store effortlessly. Each one of them has some pros and some cons. You can choose any of them based on the features and functionalities you want. Then again, you have to pay attention to the pricing. But if you want to choose an ecommerce platform solely on SEO performance, there are a lot of SEO factors you have to consider to decide the best one. There is no doubt that if you get the SEO absolutely right, your website can be an instant success and there will never be any dearth of organic traffic which is vital for the growth and sustainability of any online store. Without further ado, let us check out the factors that influence the SEO and how the ecommerce platforms perform based on them.
SEO Factors And Performance –
Before we start, we need to mention the names of the leading ecommerce platforms. They are Shopify, WooCommerce, 3D Cart, BigCommerce, SquareSpace, Volusion, osCommerce, Big Cartel, Magento, WP Ecommerce, X-Cart, ZenCart, Prestashop, Open Cart just to name a few. The following are the major factors that determine the SEO score of your website and accordingly the ranking is done on the search engine result pages.
Website Loading Speed –
Any online store that takes time to load creates the worst first impression. Users will be annoyed and there are high chances that they will never come back to the sites again. Therefore, website loading speed should be as minimum as possible for a better SEO score. Among the available ecommerce platforms, Shopify, 3D Cart, and Big Cartel have the fastest website loading speed. If you want to build a feature-rich store that should load faster and get a better SEO rank, any of these platforms you need to choose. Among others, you can try BigCommerce, UltraCart, 1&1, and CoreCommerce as they score fairly on Google Mobile Page speed score.
Mobile First Performance-
It is an established fact that there are more mobile users than desktop users. Not only that, there are more buyers who are mobile users and many times desktop users make their ultimate purchases from their smartphones instead of their desktops. That is why Google and other search engines give preference to those websites that have a mobile-friendly design. According to Google mobile-friendly test, BigCommerce, Shopify, CoreCommerce, WooCommerce and Squarespace Ecommerce perform the best and within acceptable limits.
Ease Of Use –
Even though SEO is all about search engine result page ranking, SEO is primarily focused on improving the user experience. The user experience will be great if the website is easy to use and users can find the required options smoothly and intuitively. The ease of use is dependent on the speed and overall design. Shopify websites are the easiest online stores to use from the developer as well as the user’s perspective. Most of the online stores developed in Shopify have flawless design templates and intuitive structural themes. Apart from Shopify, other ecommerce platforms which score well are BigCommerce, CoreCommerce, 3DCart, and Volusion.
Better URL Structures –
The first thing search engines crawlers scan is the URL of the webpage and accordingly, the keywords are recognized and the ranking is done for the rest of the content on the webpage. Every crawler likes to scan simple and easy URL structure so that even the users can understand by reading them. In terms of the URL structure of the ecommerce platforms, BigCommerce, Shopify, Vulsion, UltraCart stand out completely. You have a higher chance of getting natural higher rank on the search engines if you prefer to make your store with these platforms.
Ecommerce Platform –
To improve the attraction of the online store you create, you need to include all the basic features and have a few additional and advanced features to attract the crowd. The ecommerce platform must offer SEO tools like sitemaps, meta data customization, URL optimization, SEO reports and likewise. There must be options for blog creation, coupon and discount offers, rating and review system, zooming capability, product search, subscription handling, drop-shipping integration, fulfillment, real-time tracking, reward points and likewise. In terms of the relevant features provided by the ecommerce platform, 3D Cart, UltraCar, BigCommerce, and Volusion stand out. Shopify which is performing consistently on all parameters is slightly down the rank.
Final Verdict –
From purely SEO perspective and considering factors like speed, performance, features, ranking capabilities and various other options, BigCommerce and Shopify clearly stand out among the crowd of ecommerce platforms. Some of them may perform better in one parameter but when you consider overall SEO performance, you can extract better SEO value when you make your online store using these two platforms. As a matter of fact, Shopify and BigCommerce are two of the most popular ecommerce platforms and Shopify leads in the market share.
