Big Commerce Hosting issue/SEO Problems

[Attention2detail]

Hi,
I'm new to the forum so hello to you all.
I'm hoping I can find some impartial advice to a problem that has been highlighted to me today by a SEO firm.
We run an ECommerce business which was only launched this year.
I'm not going to lie to you, I consider myself knowledgeable of what I do and know my products but I have very little experience of web based businesses.
Our rankings on Google are currently non-existant! We urgently need a SEO company to grab the bull by the horns and sort the issues.
We have a Big commerce platform which is US Hosted and this has been highlighted to me as a major problem for achieving acceptable rankings as Google do not like platforms hosted outside of the UK.
My first reaction to this is that I have not been correctly advised and that I have been mis-sold a product as we have invested a considerable amount of money into the development of the site.
I am seriously considering migrating the site to a open hosted platform such as Magento but this obviously means an additional outlay at such an early stage of trading.
Please would anyone with knowledge of this issue help and advise me of my best options?

What would be a rough cost for me to change the existing site to a Magento site or similar?

Many thanks,

Ben.

 

[Faevilangel]

Moving the site to Magento will cost you in the region of £2k, depending on features, design etc so don't jump into it right away.

First thing I would do is to find out why your site isn't ranking! Have you spoke to BC support? Have you had someone look at the site?

 

[Attention2detail]

Hi and thankyou for your response.
I haven't contacted BC yet but perhaps this would be my next port of call.
The SEO firm which took a quick look at the site said there are numerous problems with the site including web robots and duplicate URLs, but said the first major issue is having a US hosted ECommmerce platform. I have spoken about having the site re-hosted but have been advised this is not an option when using Big Commerce.
We are in the stage of investing a significant amount of money on SEO although If I'm fighting a losing battle, my money may be best invested in having the hosting issue corrected before hand.

 

[bargainmania]

Would this be a .co.uk or .com domain?
Have you made sure your settings in webmaster tools are all set to UK?

 

[Faevilangel]

Hi and thankyou for your response.
I haven't contacted BC yet but perhaps this would be my next port of call.
The SEO firm which took a quick look at the site said there are numerous problems with the site including web robots and duplicate URLs, but said the first major issue is having a US hosted ECommmerce platform. I have spoken about having the site re-hosted but have been advised this is not an option when using Big Commerce.
We are in the stage of investing a significant amount of money on SEO although If I'm fighting a losing battle, my money may be best invested in having the hosting issue corrected before hand.

It is true, BC is an American company with their servers hosted in America.

Duplicate URL's are quite common on ecommerce sites due to the number of different products along with categories etc.

If you do intend to invest money in SEO then the option to move to another platform is something that needs to be considered.

I would get another SEO firm to do a proper analysis of the site, make a report and then show the findings to BC as it may be something they can sort out.

Once you have an answer from BC, then you can make a decision on the next step.

 

[Raw Rob]

Have you made sure your settings in webmaster tools are all set to UK?

Agree with this. You need to go to www.google.co.uk/webmasters and you can create an account there and claim your site, then you can specify that the target audience is UK.

 

[Bluepark]

What would be a rough cost for me to change the existing site to a Magento site or similar?

Just to give you a hosted option, fully UK based, we have experience transferring merchants from your existing provider to our platform. We can quote you very reasonably for your existing site template and products. Feel free to give us a call tomorrow if you'd like.

 

[OldWelshGuy]

Hi Ben,

what you have been told isn't correct sorry. having a com and it being hosted in the Uk isn't an automatic rank killer. There are many other associated elements that will geo position your site, the easiest of all of course is Google maps/places Google+ for business etc. as thes confirm in no uncertain terms to Google where your site is located, and where to weght you in the SERP's. Additional items are microformats on your address, UK based citations.

As stated, dupliate issues on ecomm are commonplace.

You are in a competitive niche, and you don't have any backlinks. So I must assume this SEO contacted you out of the blue, because his findings are milles off.

That said, BigComm isn't a very good platform IMO, there are many better.

 

[emmylou74]

Hi,
I'm new to the forum so hello to you all.
I'm hoping I can find some impartial advice to a problem that has been highlighted to me today by a SEO firm.
We run an ECommerce business which was only launched this year.
I'm not going to lie to you, I consider myself knowledgeable of what I do and know my products but I have very little experience of web based businesses.
Our rankings on Google are currently non-existant! We urgently need a SEO company to grab the bull by the horns and sort the issues.
We have a Big commerce platform which is US Hosted and this has been highlighted to me as a major problem for achieving acceptable rankings as Google do not like platforms hosted outside of the UK.
My first reaction to this is that I have not been correctly advised and that I have been mis-sold a product as we have invested a considerable amount of money into the development of the site.
I am seriously considering migrating the site to a open hosted platform such as Magento but this obviously means an additional outlay at such an early stage of trading.
Please would anyone with knowledge of this issue help and advise me of my best options?

What would be a rough cost for me to change the existing site to a Magento site or similar?

Many thanks,

Ben.

you only launched the site this year - well we are only 28 days into this year so you are going to hae to give it some time to start being picked up and going up the google listings!

Who is the SEO company you are using - how knowledgeable are they really?

I am with BigCommerce I moved one of my sites which had no ranking at all over a couple of months ago. Already I have had an increase in sales and ranking at top of google - not for highly competitive keywords but for some its a start!

You should get in touch with BigCommerce and get one of their experts help you get started to understand the system better and help you. They also have lots of help articles.

I also agree with going into google and claiming your site there and setting the target to a UK audience.

 

[Attention2detail]

you only launched the site this year - well we are only 28 days into this year so you are going to hae to give it some time to start being picked up and going up the google listings!

Who is the SEO company you are using - how knowledgeable are they really?

I am with BigCommerce I moved one of my sites which had no ranking at all over a couple of months ago. Already I have had an increase in sales and ranking at top of google - not for highly competitive keywords but for some its a start!

You should get in touch with BigCommerce and get one of their experts help you get started to understand the system better and help you. They also have lots of help articles.

I also agree with going into google and claiming your site there and setting the target to a UK audience.

James PM sent.

I completely understand that this is not going to happen overnight.
We havnt had any form of SEO carried out yet and due to the fact that we are a newly established company i realise that our current rankings will be extremely poor.
The issue with the US based hosting was only highlighted to me today when carrying out SEO enquiries.
What i need to establish is if i will be running an uphill marathon from the off by using the Big Commerce platform. Would it be far more economical in the long run to change to an open source platform such as Magento and have a far better prospect of ranking high in search engines.
I have already invested significantly into Big Commerce so if migration is not necessary then i will certainly be relieved.

 

[bargainmania]

From an seo perspective, migration is not necessary at all.
As long as you follow correct procedures in webmaster tools etc there is absolutely
no proven difference of a server in UK or USA.

Your issues could however be with the cart itself, but i would trust you investigated
fully that BC does as you require.

 

[Attention2detail]

Thank you for all your replies, your help has been appreciated.
I will make a few enquiries today and then weigh up my options.
Just don't want to flog a dead horse as the saying goes!

 

[Holopainen]

Hi there,
I don't know who told you that US hosting will ruin your ranking but that is not an issue.
However, if you decide to move your store to Magento I think this service will simplify your life. It offers product (orders, manufacturers, etc.) migration from one shopping cart to another.

 

[Andy777]

We have a Big commerce platform which is US Hosted and this has been highlighted to me as a major problem for achieving acceptable rankings as Google do not like platforms hosted outside of the UK.
.

That's totally not true.

I have all my websites (.com & .co.uk) hosted in the US and have hundreds of #1 positions in Google UK.

I don't know who said you that but it's total nonsense.

 

[OldWelshGuy]

Yep, as Andy says, it is an issue for consideration,. but certainly not 'a major problem'

 

[edpar]

I have hosted with bigcommerce myself
I have a UK based business and my site had no problems ranking in UK
Infact it only ranked in UK and not in US for my keywords
Bigcommerce by the way also has a host it yourself platform. This was their standard product before they rolled bigcommerce
I did all my seo myself. Its much cheaper if you are consistent
If your site is .co.uk listing on many directories is very easy for boost in ranking
Bigcommerce as a platform is very seo friendly
I dont think I can post links in the main forum to directories but if you want send me a pm

 

[Deleted member 162903]

Location of hosting has no direct influence on ranking. But it can have indirect influences:

If it's not a regionalised domain (e.g. a .com) then search engines may use it as one of the signals to help determine the websites target location. Google does provide a way to override this in its webmaster tools. Incorrect regionalisation means you will get excluded from "uk only searches" and it may have some influence in your ranking against local website. So it is always worth correcting. Your best move is to have a .co.uk domain, then you don't have to worry.

Hosting on the other side of the world can mean the pages of a website take longer to load. This is why major systems (Like BigCommerce) use Content Delivery Networks (CDN) to minimise this impact. CDNs mean that the static files of a website (like images, included files) are actually served from a server that is near to the user.

So, US hosting does not mean worse ranking. A far larger factor is that you strongly associate your website with your region. UK English, tell people you are based in the UK and earn links from other UK based websites.

Several of my clients use BigCommerce (after my recommendation). It's not perfect for SEO but I do think it ticks a lot of boxes with it's features. They are not the most responsive company at dealing with customer issues (like my SEO ones!) but the platform is evolving and improving.

I've overseen several customers switch over to BC from other platforms and if anything I have seen ranking improvements.

You tend to have less control over things with a hosted solution like BigCommerce. The flip side is with flexible and powerful solutions like Magento, your developer has a lot of ways to get things wrong. Ensure you have a technical SEO watching over any development. And I wouldn't trust your current SEO based on their international hosting advice.

Who you hire should think about the big picture. What will get you the most customers with the least pain. Not just SEO but usability (website and admin), branding and conversion rate optimisation.

Side Note: I recently read an article where someone outside the US switched to US hosting and their ranking improved! The theory is that all Google spiders come from the US so switching hosting made the website more responsive to those spiders, indexing went deeper and more pages ranked.

 

[emmylou74]

I completely understand that this is not going to happen overnight.
We havnt had any form of SEO carried out yet and due to the fact that we are a newly established company i realise that our current rankings will be extremely poor.
The issue with the US based hosting was only highlighted to me today when carrying out SEO enquiries.
What i need to establish is if i will be running an uphill marathon from the off by using the Big Commerce platform. Would it be far more economical in the long run to change to an open source platform such as Magento and have a far better prospect of ranking high in search engines.
I have already invested significantly into Big Commerce so if migration is not necessary then i will certainly be relieved.

I cannot answer that becaue I do not know anything about what you sell etc. There seems to be pros and cons with all carts and before I moved I drove myself nearly mad trying to choose just the right cart for me!

I am the same I am absolutely useless at SEO and anything technical. But after being burnt I am learning I need to know this myself. For me I find this cart system excellant for that. I have learned so much and find it easier to implicate.

You should definitely do some SEO research yourself that way if you are going to hire someone you will have a rough idea if they are talking rubbish or not. But definitely get in touch Bigcommerce and they will appoint someone who will talk you through everything and get you started so you can take it forward yourself. They would call me from USA and talk me through things when I first moved.

Oh and one more thing I learned was do not rely solely on google as your only way of being found/getting sales. I did that and one day my site slipped right off and bang not as busy as I once was with it live and learn I guess