Bigcommerce SEO Services
Search Engine Optimization can feel like an overwhelming concept, especially if this is your first site or eCommerce store. Today, we are going to talk about how to Optimize your BigCommerce store, so you can work towards getting your site higher in search results. A search engine wants to know as much about your website as possible in order to determine how to display your site in search results. To know what pages to recommend, search engines send out bots to crawl websites, and your goal is to make crawling and understanding the content on your site as easy as possible.
Organic Search Results are free and can take around 3 months to start seeing an improvement in search results. Paid Search Results cost money and these are separate from your organic rankings. Work to create a great experience for users, and search engines will recognize that your BigCommerce site is relevant, and optimized for your audience.
Keyword Research
Take the time to write out a list of 5-10 keywords that you would like to target. If there is heavy competition on some of your keywords, think of long tail keywords that will target a more specific search. Long tail keywords are specific search phrases that can help your site rank, and they often have less competition.
Competitor Analysis
Make sure you know your competitors! Check them every so often to see how their site looks, functions, and how they are promoting their product. This is a great way to make sure you stay ahead of them, and research what they are doing to rank in search results, and provide users with an optimized experience.
Image Optimization
Optimizing your images is especially important on your product pages, and you will want to focus on the alt tag and description. This is important because search engines cannot see an image, so the text that you add tells a search engine what the image is, and where it should be displayed.
Original Content
Create fresh, original content throughout your site. Highlight what your product is, what problem your product is solving for the customer, and what sets you apart from your competitors. When creating your content, work to make sure that it’s easy to understand, and that it’s presented in a user-friendly manner. If you have text that’s small and hard to read, your audience will not take the time to read it, no matter how well written it is.
Blog
Utilize the BigCommerce built in blog to continuously add new pages and content to your site, and try to create and post a post at least once a week.
On-Site SEO
Fill out detailed information on every page of your BigCommerce store. BigCommerce automatically creates optimized product page URLs and titles, and you can customize your title, header tags, meta descriptions, keywords and alt tags with ease.
Titles and Meta Descriptions: These help tell search engines what your page is about. This is a great opportunity to include the keyword you are targeting, and feature a call to action (for example: “Shop Now!”)
Micro-Data: BigCommerce natively includes micro-data, or rich snippets into your product reviews to help encourage conversions from search listings.
CDN: The content delivery network helps to increase site speed so your site loads quickly for users and search engines.
Sitemap: BigCommerce submits a sitemap for you, so you can rest assured that search engines have been told about your site, and have been asked to crawl it.
Summary
BigCommerce offers great SEO tools that are built-in, but it is up to you to make sure that the information you provide is original and up-to-date. It’s also important that you strike a balance between a site that has great SEO and is user-friendly. You can send all the traffic in the world to your website, but if you don’t have a strong design, and your site is difficult to navigate, you are not going to see the conversions you were hoping to.
Need help with a digital strategy for your BigCommerce site, or have questions for the Border7 Team? Send us a message, or give us a call today for a Free Consultation! (805)416-2457
