10 BigCommerce SEO Strategies to Increase Your Online Visibility

Intro

Building a visually appealing and functional BigCommerce store is just the beginning; driving organic traffic requires effective SEO practices. BigCommerce provides a strong foundation for eCommerce, enabling easy setup and integration options, like WooCommerce. However, to truly reach customers and maximize the platform's potential, businesses benefit from specialized BigCommerce development services, which ensure both design and SEO strategies align perfectly.

A comprehensive BigCommerce SEO strategy is crucial, especially with tools like Headless BigCommerce that offer flexibility in design and functionality without extensive coding. This guide covers 10 essential BigCommerce SEO tactics to enhance your store's visibility in 2024.

To effectively track your BigCommerce SEO performance, it’s essential to monitor specific metrics and utilize the right tools.

Here’s a step-by-step guide to the critical steps:

1. Google Analytics

Link your BigCommerce store to Google Analytics to access valuable traffic insights. This tool will help you monitor where your visitors are coming from, what pages they engage with most, and identify any drop-off points in the user journey.

2. Google Search Console

Google Search Console provides a clear view of how Google crawls and indexes your website. It’s essential for optimizing content for search visibility and staying on top of any issues that may affect your rankings.

3. Key Metrics

Track key SEO metrics consistently, including organic traffic, keyword rankings, click-through rate (CTR), bounce rate, and conversions. These indicators reveal the effectiveness of your SEO efforts and guide adjustments.

4. Keyword Rankings

Regularly analyze keyword positions using tools like SEMrush or Ahrefs. This will help you see where your target keywords stand in search results and identify areas to optimize.

5. Traffic Sources

Understanding your traffic sources allows you to optimize high-traffic pages for better reach. Focusing on organic sources can help you grow your reach through search engines.

6. Click-Through Rate (CTR)

Monitor CTR using Google Analytics and Google Search Console. A higher CTR indicates effective page titles and meta descriptions that attract clicks.

7. Technical Issues

Google Search Console can also identify technical SEO issues, such as crawl errors, broken links, and duplicate content, which need prompt resolution to avoid hurting your site’s rankings.

8. Backlink Profile

Regularly monitor your backlink profile. Identifying and disavowing toxic links is essential for protecting your site’s authority and credibility in search results.

9. On-Page SEO Metrics

Check each page for on-page SEO factors like page speed, mobile-friendliness, and schema markup. These metrics significantly impact user experience and search engine rankings.

10. User Engagement

Analyze user engagement by looking at bounce rate, time on page, and pages per session. This data can reveal how effectively your content engages visitors.

11. Conversion Tracking

Set up goals in Google Analytics to measure conversions. This step lets you see how SEO impacts revenue and guides efforts to enhance user experience and conversions.

12. Reporting

Generate regular reports to track your SEO growth. Reports provide insights into performance over time and are essential for understanding where to focus next.

13. A/B Testing

Experiment with A/B testing for SEO changes, such as headline variations or call-to-action updates. Testing helps you identify changes that increase traffic and conversions.

14. Competitor Analysis

Use SEO tools to monitor competitors' performance. Competitor insights can help refine your SEO strategy by identifying keyword gaps or backlink opportunities.

15. Stay Informed

Stay updated on SEO trends and Google algorithm changes. Consistent learning helps ensure your strategies remain effective and allows for timely adjustments.

Tracking these metrics and staying informed will ensure that your BigCommerce SEO strategy continues to support your business growth effectively.

**Read Also: **How to Track and Measure Your Ecommerce SEO Results

10 SEO Strategies for BigCommerce in 2024

1. On-Page Optimization

• Keyword-Optimized URLs: Use clean, short URLs with targeted keywords.

• Headings and Content Structure: Add keywords to H1 and H2 tags and use Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) keywords naturally in the content.

• Image Optimization: Use descriptive alt text and optimize file names with relevant keywords before uploading.

• Long-Form Content: Aim for informative, well-researched blog posts that include primary and long-tail keywords.

2. Rich Snippets & Structured Data Implement structured data (schema markup) to enhance how your content appears in search results. Use BigCommerce’s built-in tools or a third-party app to automatically generate product-rich snippets.

3. Image SEO

• Alt Text: Use keyword-focused alt text to improve accessibility and help search engines understand your images.

• File Names: Ensure files have keyword-optimized names before uploading to BigCommerce to avoid re-uploading. Use the BigCommerce Image Manager for other images.

4. Content Creation and Backlinks Quality content that addresses user interests and includes targeted keywords can attract backlinks. Build authority by creating blog posts, guides, and articles around relevant eCommerce topics.

5. Optimized Page Titles Include primary keywords in your page titles, which search engines prioritize for ranking. Make titles concise and specific to your content.

6. Register with Search Engines Set up Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools to help search engines find and index your BigCommerce site faster.

Registering your website with these essential tools notifies the major search engines of its presence and ensures it will be crawled. To start, create a Google Search Console account, choose ‘Add property,’ and follow the on-screen instructions to add your BigCommerce store. Bing Webmaster Tools offers a similar process by selecting the ‘Add a Site’ option.

In both Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools, this can be managed by accessing your site’s dashboard and selecting the sitemaps option:

7. Page Speed Optimization

• Compress images, limit external scripts, use essential apps, and implement AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) where possible to improve load times.

8. Clear, Structured Headings When building and updating websites on DIY platforms like Headless BigCommerce, it's common to overlook the proper use of headings (H1, H2, H3, etc.), which can lead to several issues:

• The layout may appear less visually appealing.

• Site navigation becomes more challenging.

• Search engines may struggle to accurately interpret and index the content.

Before adding content to your BigCommerce store, it’s important to understand headings and how to apply them effectively.

The H1 heading is the most important, as search engines use it along with the page title for ranking purposes. Therefore, your primary keyword should always be included in the H1. However, ensure your H1 is not an exact match to the page title, as this can be seen by Google as over-optimization.

9. Clean URLs Google recommends using 'clean' URLs, which are short, straightforward, and easy to understand. The information you enter in these fields should:

• Be reasonable in length

• Include your target keyword (this supports BigCommerce SEO efforts)

For multiple keywords, use hyphens to separate them, helping Google accurately interpret and index your content.

10. Engaging Meta Descriptions Meta-descriptions are brief summaries of web pages that appear below clickable links on search engine results pages. While Google states that meta-descriptions are not a ranking factor, a well-crafted meta-description can attract more visitors, increasing the page’s click-through rate (CTR). Many SEO experts now consider CTR a ranking factor, making accurate meta-descriptions essential.

Your meta-description should:

• Be concise
• Be accurate
• Include your primary keyword
• Provide an engaging overview of the content

Different steps apply for modifying the description of a static page versus a product description, similar to adjustments made with page titles.

BigCommerce SEO Best Practices to Boost Discoverability

• Conduct Thorough Keyword Research: Identify keywords that align with customer search intent.
• Site Architecture Optimization: Organize site structure based on keyword research to improve crawlability.
• Technical SEO: Ensure fast load times, fix crawl issues, and enable HTTPS for security.
• Content Marketing: Attract visitors with valuable blog content around relevant keywords.
• Link Building: Earn quality backlinks from reputable sites.
• SEO Analysis Tools: Use tools like Google Analytics and Ahrefs to analyze site performance and identify improvement areas.

Conclusion

Beyond SEO, leveraging multiple traffic sources like social media, paid ads, and email marketing can further support your BigCommerce store's reach. For businesses focused on B2B eCommerce development, an effective strategy includes technical SEO, content marketing, and targeted lead generation to cater to business clients. A well-rounded approach combining these efforts can position your BigCommerce store competitively in 2024.