Which is the best e-commerce platform for SEO?

[2012]

I was wondering which is the best e-commerce platform for SEO?

Im looking to build a new website for a market other than my main one.

I've been using magento for my main sites but from experience I find it the hardest to use and manage if your a small company, the seo performance does not seem to be as good as you would assume.

I've used Opencart in the past (few years ago) It seemed much easier and the seo was good,
I've also used wordpress.

Please share your thoughts and experience

 

[webhostuk]

Try Woocommerce , Zencart, cubecart and yes opencart is good alternative, their are plenty of options.

 

[2012]

Thanks for the reply but I was wondering which platform is best purely for SEO, what experience have others had.

 

[fisicx]

All of them. It's how the build the site, the content you write, the images you, the navigation system, the calls to action and all the admin pages (T&C, privacy, returns etc) that determine your rank not the platform your use.

So use any of the main platforms and you will be fine.

 

[Idosell Shop]

Usually, there are passive algorithms embedded in so as long as you stick with general rules of SEO all should be fine. Agreed in fisix- this is not a platform what determine your rank.

 

[StevePoster]

It would be great if you use every possible content management platform for your ecommerce site. Its how you build the reputation of the site for the target users.

 

[Chelios]

???

@2012 it's about how you structure the site rather than the platform itself. Use the one that you prefer from a user experience point of view, as it'll make the setup easier on you.

 

[Infigic]

Choosing an ecommerce platform for your online business is not a decision to be taken lightly. While you might be tempted to use the most well-known provider offering you the cheapest and easiest solution,
My personal would be to use a well-supported, self-hosted, customisable, open-source solution such as WooCommerce which offers a wide range of free or low cost add-ons.

 

[Vadym Gurevych]

In regards to on-site Ecommerce SEO, I suppose WooCommerce would be a good choice for when you don't have too many products to sell, and those products that you do sell are not very complicated ones.

Otherwise, you need to choose a solution that allows for the following:

- it should be a QUICK one. Use Google Page Speed test to see how fast are the websites built using platforms you are considering. Magento, for example, is normally quite slow because of the complexity of the database and its page structure

- page structure - should be a simple as possible, and as optimised for SEO as possible. We use the likes of WooRank to check how good the website is for SEO, and it would give you an idea too.

- check that the Ecommerce platform of your choice gives you full control over: page URL, title, META tags, H tags, page contents, image ALT tags, and so on.

- also check that the platform can take care of those tasks on its own in case you don't want to spend too much time entering SEO-friendly details for every product, every image, every CMS page.

- mobile friendly - whatever site you will have, it needs to be 100% mobile friendly from day 1. Google requires for sites to be quick and mobile friendly for them to perform well in its organic search results

I hope this is of help. Cheers!

 

[Paul Norman]

All of them. It's how the build the site, the content you write, the images you, the navigation system, the calls to action and all the admin pages (T&C, privacy, returns etc) that determine your rank not the platform your use.

So use any of the main platforms and you will be fine.

This. This answer is vital. Learn it by rote. Because there are pages of utter misinformation on this topic.

Who you choose to do the work is of more significance than which platform it is based on - there are pros and cons of each platform you mention, and others, but SEO alone is not the reason to deselect any of them.

 

[brianlee1982]

So far, I have been using WooCommerce with Wordpress. Seems to be blending easily. While i bought the themes from a store. It just took me 2-3 days to fully set it up easily. I use Yoast SEO with that too and try to follow the standard practise for SEO. For 2-3 days, it requires some of wordpress knowledge.

It all depends on the need and are u willing to pay for it. Shopify is another 1 that can be a great platform.It setup everything for u with some tweaking of course. As long as all the designs conform to Google standards (terms n condition, payment method, shipping, contacts).Good luck. Just an info sharing.

 

[CyberMust]

My advice would be to select an eCommerce platform based on its "eCommerce features" and *not* on its SEO friendliness. You need to address the SEO separately. The most effective way to address the SEO (onsite) of an eCommerce site is to have a WordPress blog under the same domain (not sub-domain) in a separate directory. Something like this:

Shop: MyWebsite
Blog: MyWebsite / blog

Then regularly update the blog with relevant SEO articles.

Nowadays, the platforms ( either CMS or Cart) do not affect the SEO much as most of the platforms have the basic structure that creates foundation for a good SEO. Some of the factors that affect the SEO friendliness of a platform are :

(i) text to code ratio
(ii) markup semantics
(iii) Seo friendly URLs
(iv) Dynamic sitemaps (XML)
(v) Ability to define meta titles, description, and keywords for each dynamic page

WordPress seems to have slight edge over other platforms in this regard. Then, why not make WordPress as the eCommerce platform by installing Woocommerce plugin? Well, you surely can opt for this solution. In fact, a lot of small eCommerce sites are made this way. But, most of the 'purists' do not consider Woocommerce/WordPress a serious eCommerce solution. That's a long debate

To summarize:

(i) An easy & quick solution: Select WordPress with plugin Woocommerce as the main eCommerce platform that takes care of bothe cart features & SEO

(ii) A proper solution: Select a regular eCom platform ( I recommend OpenCart if your main target market is the UK) + Add WordPress for SEO

I hope I've been helpful!

Cheers,
Tashu

 

[antropy]

All of them. It's how the build the site, the content you write

Agree with this.