2. BigCommerce SEO
BigCommerce
Online Shopping (eCommerce)
Software as a Service (SaaS)
● Hosting
● SSL
● Support
● Advanced features built in
● Apps (plugins)
● APIs
● ...
From US$30/month
15 day free trial
What is...
3. BigCommerce SEO
Store Settings
BigCommerce SEO Helper (chrome extension)
Home Page Title
Meta Description (default for all pages)
Dub Dub Dub or not to Dub Dub Dub
Your Secure
Control the Bots (robots.txt, no robots meta tag)
Let’s get started...
6. BigCommerce SEO
Content
Home, Product, Category, Brand, Page, Blog
Title Tags
Meta Descriptions
Friendly URLs
Image Alt Attributes (inc. carousel)
Page Content
The King is...
8. BigCommerce SEO
CrUX and Core Web Vitals
CDN
Image Optimiser (Akamai)
Image Lazy Loading
JS & CSS bundling and minification
AMP (product and category pages)
Not a $5/month server
Need for speed...
10. BigCommerce SEO
Structured Data & Rich Snippets
3rd Party Review Systems
Currently Supported:
https://www.bigcommerce.com.au/apps/seo-rich-snippets/
Warning: Promo Ahead...
11. BigCommerce SEO
Analytics
Built in Analytics Reports
GA Enhanced Ecommerce
Facebook Pixel
GSC/Bing verification tag
https://support.bigcommerce.com/s/article/Setting-Up-Google-Analytics
Tracking success with...
12. BigCommerce SEO
Script Manager
App Scripts
Embedded Scripts
URL Scripts
Access to server side objects via the Handlebars templating language.
Custom tagging...
13. BigCommerce SEO
Google Search Console
Verify domain via DNS
Or sites via a tag add all site variants (www, https)
Add XML sitemap (xmlsitemap.php)
What does Google think...
14. BigCommerce SEO
Limitations
No Emojis in content 🤦♂️ (Solution via our app)
No microdata/json-ld in content (Solution via our app)
No built in brand page content (via banners)
No direct control over meta robots tag (hackable)
No direct control over canonical tag (hackable)
No redirecting images/resources in the CDN
It’s not perfect...
Trial store created in less than 10 minutes
Takes a lot longer to fully set a store up. Products, shipping, payments and designing the theme. (Image shows the steps)
Different to WordPress/WooCommerce - production line car v build your own kit car
Feature rich, low maintenance, robust system
Admin interface
Meta description is the default on all pages if custom ones are not added
Use GSC to help decide if www or not
No built in way to do meta robots noindex. BigCommerce controls via robots.txt
Large sites (>10,000) may want to consider reviewing indexing and how robots.txt controls it
If faceted navigation is used it should be reviewed for possible indexing issues
Can disallow all but default sort order, but risky
Migrations
Admin interface is not very usable
Worth auditing for bad redirect (404, recursive, loops, blank, home redirects) - it can get confused
On migrations it may be a good idea to try and match the old structure. If not, redirect.
Out of stock settings are at Advanced Settings->Inventory. Can mean product pages disappear.
Show/Hide product is fine, the page is still there.
Watch out for the URL changing on the title changing.
Blog is basic
Brand has no built in way to add content (use banners)
No one sets the carousels alt text
Category is typically a top earner. (Kristina Azarenko said similar from her meetup).
Page Builder is only available on a few pages.
Not as flexible as php
Images from Page Speed Insights
Lab data is single run, better to have Field data from CrUX
Google Search Console is based on 28 day field data
Core Web Vitals
LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) - time to main content
CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) - page movement
FID (First Input Delay) - responsiveness, needs field data
FCP (First Contentful Paint) - when you first see something
TTFB (Time To First Bite) - when the site first responds with anything
Chrome Lighthouse Tool (but limited Core Web Vitals)
Images from Chrome Performance reports
Example is an empty page on the default theme. Notice how few resources are used (bundling)
Blue = Biggest issue, Time To First Bite (TTFB)
Yellow = js bundles
Purple = css
Long purple + first green = font!!!
Last green = favicon
TTFB (Time To First Bite) - when the site first responds with anything, end of blue bar
FP (First Paint)
FCP (First Contentful Paint) - when you first see something
LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) - time to main content
DCL (Dom Content Loaded)
L (Load event)
CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) - page movement, Experience row red bar
Issue causers: carousel, widgets, big images
Latest themes have ok Structured Data that is hit and miss on getting rich snippets.
Product price and review stars
Poor integration with third party reviews
Our app “SEO Rich Snippets”
Getting around editor issues for FAQ, How-to, Video and Emojis
Example from a client in Sydney.
Example editor is from ClassySchema.org
Needs some configuration in GA
We add more features like events, goals and error tracking.
And custom reports like missing pages.
Can also use DNS records to verify with GSC
Keeps tags organised and separate from the theme
Only one sitemap which is limited to 50,000 URLs.
Performance - ranking. Search Appearance for rich snippets
Coverage - indexing
URL Inspection - test structured data
International targeting
Conclusion: Lot’s you don’t have to worry about so can focus on the content
Find me on…
Twitter
BigCommerce Community