The majority of ecommerce SEO tips apply to any ecommerce store as if they were all created equal. They are not. The type of platform that a store operates on can affect everything from the URLs, to the handling of the canonical tags, to the control that a business has over their technical SEO settings. An ecommerce SEO agency that has an intimate understanding of both the pros and cons of each major platform will be better equipped to create a strategy that will work with the platform instead of against it.
Types of Platform-Specific SEO Challenges Each Store Faces
There are SEO factors to take into account with each of the significant ecommerce platforms and they have a different impact on a store’s performance in organic search. Shopify is one of the most popular platforms, but it has structural constraints such as enforced URLs that can create subdirectory depth and duplicate content problems with collection and product page variants that should be addressed. As WooCommerce is built on WordPress, it provides much greater flexibility in regards to URL structure, plugins and technical customisation, but this also means more responsibility to configure and maintain it well – as there can be major indexing issues if not done correctly at scale. BigCommerce does a better job of dealing with certain technical SEO aspects natively, but needs a bit more know-how when it comes to its faceted search configuration and URL canonicalisation, to avoid having thin content issues build up in large catalogues. When making technical recommendations, an ecommerce seo agency in melbourne can consider these differences to make recommendations suited to the platform that the store is running on.
How Platform Knowledge Shapes the SEO Approach
The key skill is not knowing the default behaviours, but rather how to learn to work within or around them to get the best technical foundation. On Shopify this involves handling canonical tags on collection pages, consolidating duplicate product urls and using structured data properly in the Shopify templating system. On WooCommerce, this would include setting up permalink structures, managing the category and tag taxonomy pages to prevent thin content and ensuring that plugins do not interfere with each other in ways that impact the crawlability. For BigCommerce, it translates to setting up faceted navigation filters so that you don’t end up with an excessive number of low-value URLs, as well as ensuring the native functionalities are fully utilized before introducing third-party solutions. An ecommerce SEO agency that has practical experience in these platforms will implement this knowledge from the get-go, and not the hard way with a live store.
Benefits of Working With a Platform-Experienced Ecommerce SEO Agency
When you select an ecommerce SEO agency that has experience within a particular store’s platform, you’ll wind up saving time and cash on locating and fixing avoidable technical problems. Platform-specific knowledge also translates into recommendations that can be followed without workarounds or costly development efforts required to put them into place. The more complex the catalogue, the more valuable the platform expertise becomes and the more nuanced the technical SEO problems that emerge at scale are per platform and will need a different approach – but not a simple fix! If ecommerce businesses are really serious about achieving strong organic traffic, then the route to results that stick is through a search platform they are familiar with, and an ecommerce SEO agency.
