You’re trying to pick the right e-commerce platform. It feels like a massive decision because it is. You’re worried that if you choose wrong, all your hard work on your products will be for nothing if nobody can find your online store on Google.
You’ve heard good things about BigCommerce, but you need to know what are the key SEO features of BigCommerce before you commit. It’s smart to be cautious, and you are right to question this. Getting your search engine optimization right from the start can make or break an online store, so let’s walk through this together.
If you are looking for an e-commerce SEO company or a national SEO agency, SEO Locale can help. Give us a call today!
You’ll learn exactly what the built-in SEO features of BigCommerce are and how they give you control over your search rankings. A strong SEO strategy begins with a capable platform. This is your guide to understanding if BigCommerce is the right fit for your business goals.
Mastering Your On-Page SEO
On-page SEO is what you can directly control on your website’s pages. These are the foundational elements that tell a search engine what your pages are about. Getting them right is your first step to getting seen by your target audience.
Page Titles and Meta Descriptions
Your page title is the first thing a person sees in a Google search result. It needs to be catchy and relevant to the user’s search intent. BigCommerce gives you full control over all meta tags on every single page.
This includes your homepage, product pages, categories, and blog posts. You can write specific, compelling titles for each one to attract potential customers. This helps both search engines and customers understand your content instantly.
Likewise, you can edit all meta descriptions. These are the short summaries under the title in search results. A good meta description convinces people to click on your link instead of a competitor’s, directly impacting your traffic.
Customizable URLs
Messy URLs full of numbers and codes can confuse users and search engines. BigCommerce lets you create a clean URL for every page. This practice is often called creating SEO-friendly URLs or readable URLs.
For example, instead of a URL like “yourstore.com/prod?id=123,” you can have a clean URL like “yourstore.com/blue-running-shoes.” This immediately tells everyone what the page is about and improves user experience. Google even states that simple URL structures are easier for their engine crawlers to process.
You have this control for products, categories, and web pages, allowing for an organized site structure. This level of customization with unique URLs is a huge advantage for your on-page SEO efforts.
Header Tag Management
Header tags (H1, H2, H3, etc.) structure your content and signal importance to search engines. Your H1 tag is the most important header, acting like the headline of the page. BigCommerce themes correctly use the H1 tag for your page or product title.
You can then use H2s and H3s within your product descriptions and blog posts. This breaks up your text for easier reading by visitors. It also creates a clear hierarchy for Google to understand the main topics of your content, which is a fundamental part of a good SEO strategy.
Powerful Technical SEO Foundations
Technical SEO can feel intimidating, but it’s about making sure a search engine can easily find and understand your site. BigCommerce handles a lot of the heavy lifting for you. It builds your BigCommerce store on a solid technical base.
Automatic XML Sitemaps
An XML sitemap is a list of all the important pages on your website. It acts as a roadmap for search engine crawlers. You don’t have to build this map yourself or worry about keeping it current.
BigCommerce automatically generates and updates your sitemap for you. Whenever you add a new product or page, it gets added to the list, which you can then submit to Google Search Console. This process helps Google find your new content much faster.
Easy Robots.txt Access
The robots.txt file gives instructions to search engine bots about which pages to crawl or not crawl. For the most part, you won’t need to touch this. But for advanced SEO techniques, having access is critical.
BigCommerce gives you the ability to edit this file directly. This might be useful if you need to block private sections of your site or faceted navigation URLs to prevent duplicate content from being indexed. It shows they trust store owners with more technical SEO control if they need it.
Built-in SSL Security
Having a secure website is no longer optional for online shops. Google uses HTTPS as a ranking signal, which means secure sites can get a small boost in a search result. Every BigCommerce store comes with a free, built-in SSL certificate.
This encrypts data between your customers’ browser and your store, building trust and protecting sensitive information. It also gets you that little padlock icon in the address bar. This is a baseline expectation for any serious online business today.
Site Speed and Performance
How fast your website loads is a huge factor for both users and Google. Slow sites have higher bounce rates and can negatively impact your rankings. A poor load speed leads to a frustrating user experience, causing visitors to leave.
BigCommerce uses the Google Cloud Platform for its hosting, providing a fast and reliable infrastructure to improve SEO performance. They also use a Content Delivery Network (CDN) to accelerate content delivery. The delivery network serves your product images and files from servers located closer to your customers, speeding up load times around the world.
The platform’s focus on site speed means you have a head start on your competition. This built-in SEO advantage helps you meet the expectations of modern consumers. Fast page loading is crucial for keeping potential customers engaged.
What are the Key SEO Features of BigCommerce for Product Pages?
Your product pages are where the sales happen. They need to be perfectly optimized to show up when people are ready to buy. BigCommerce offers several SEO features specifically for this purpose.
Product-Level SEO Fields
Just like with regular pages, every product gets its own set of SEO fields. You can write a custom page title, meta description, and a unique URL for each item you sell. This lets you target very specific keywords.
Think about a person using Google Search for a “size 10 red women’s sneaker.” If your product page title and URL reflect that, you have a much better chance of showing up. Don’t overlook these detailed fields in your BigCommerce SEO strategies.
Image Optimization and Alt Text
Images sell products, but they can also hurt your engine optimization if they are too large. BigCommerce has a built-in image optimizer that compresses your photos without losing significant quality. This is great for keeping your page speeds fast.
More importantly, you can easily add alt text to all your product images. Alt text describes the image for visually impaired users and for search engines. It’s a prime spot to include relevant keywords and improve both accessibility and SEO.
Schema Markup and Rich Snippets
Have you ever seen search results with star ratings, prices, or stock levels right in the listing? Those are called rich snippets. They are powered by schema markup, which is code that helps search engines understand specific data on your page.
BigCommerce automatically adds product schema to your pages. This tells Google about your product’s name, price, customer reviews, and availability. Schema markup can make your listing stand out and may improve your click-through rate from a search result page.
Here is how rich snippets can improve a search listing:
| Feature | Standard Search Result | Result with Rich Snippets |
|---|---|---|
| Visual Appeal | Plain blue link and black text. | Includes star ratings, price, and stock status, making it more eye-catching. |
| Information | Shows only the title and meta description. | Provides key product details at a glance before the user even clicks. |
| Click-Through Rate | Standard. | Often higher because the listing is more informative and trustworthy. |
Managing Duplicate Content with Canonicals
Duplicate content can happen easily in e-commerce. A single product might appear in multiple categories or have variations, creating different URLs for the same page. A search engine can get confused about which page is the “main” one to rank.
BigCommerce helps fix this problem because BigCommerce automatically adds canonical tags. This tag tells search engines the “preferred” URL for a piece of content. It consolidates your ranking signals to the correct page, preventing duplicate content issues from hurting your SEO performance.
Content Marketing and the Blog
Selling products is only one part of the equation. You also need to attract people who are researching topics related to what you sell. This is where a BigCommerce blog becomes an incredibly powerful SEO tool.
Every BigCommerce plan includes a built-in blog. This is a fully functional blogging platform, not a clunky add-on. You can create content, or write unique blog posts, that answer your customers’ questions and bring them to your site.
For example, if you sell kitchen knives, you could write blog posts about “how to properly sharpen a chef’s knife” for a specific product category. People searching for this information might discover your store and become customers. A great content marketing plan involves publishing regular, helpful content.
You can also add personality to your brand with creative posts. You might compare running shoes and include a fun reference to the shoes from “forrest gump” to connect with your audience. This type of content helps with brand building and can be shared on social media to expand your reach.
This approach to content also supports your link building efforts. High-quality articles naturally attract links from other websites, which is a powerful signal to Google. It’s an essential part of a long-term SEO strategy.
Advanced SEO Controls and Support
As your business grows, your SEO needs may become more complex. You might redesign your site or migrate from another platform. BigCommerce offers the tools to handle these situations, along with support to guide you.
301 Redirects and URL Rewrites
If you change a URL, you can’t just let the old one die. You’ll lose all the authority and traffic associated with it. You need to set up a 301 redirect to manage your URL rewrites.
This permanently sends both users and search engines from the old URL to the new one. BigCommerce has a user-friendly redirect manager. This lets you easily manage your links and preserve your hard-earned SEO value without needing deep technical knowledge.
Integration Capabilities
No platform does everything by itself. BigCommerce offers a large app marketplace. This lets you connect your store with powerful SEO apps and any other SEO tool for more help.
You can integrate with analytics platforms for advanced reporting to better understand your traffic. You can also connect to platforms for managing customer reviews to pull in more user-generated content. These integrations let you build a marketing machine that fits your specific needs.
Support When You Need It
Even with the best tools, you sometimes need help. BigCommerce offers multiple support channels. Depending on your plan, you may have access to 24/7 experts live chat, email support, and phone support.
For technical issues, you may be given a support PIN to verify your account quickly. Some plans have required live chat or required email support channels to start. While unavailable phone support might be a limitation on lower-tier plans, the experts live chat is highly responsive.
The platform also provides an extensive SEO guide and help documents. This makes it easier to implement BigCommerce SEO strategies on your own. BigCommerce’s SEO support system is strong.
Conclusion
You needed to know what are the key SEO features of BigCommerce, and the answer is clear. The platform gives you a powerful mix of built-in automation and granular control. From customizable clean URLs and on-page elements to the technical foundations like sitemaps and site speed, BigCommerce’s SEO capabilities have what you need.
It supports your search engine optimization from the very beginning. The platform handles many of the technical SEO details, allowing you to focus on creating great products and content. It provides the tools necessary to compete in a crowded market.
When you add the product-specific features, URL rewrites, and a full-fledged blog for content marketing, you get a system ready for growth. Making sure an e-commerce platform checks all the SEO boxes is a critical step. You can now feel more confident about understanding what BigCommerce offers to help your business get found on a search engine.
