The Best Ecommerce Platforms for SEO in 2024

Let’s dig deeper into each platform and see what it’s best for.

Why is SEO So Important for Ecommerce Websites?

Almost any ecommerce business owner will tell you that generating traffic to their website is a top priority. After all, without visitors, there would be no sales or customers. One of the best ways to drive traffic to an ecommerce site is through search engine optimization (SEO).

SEO is the process of optimizing a website for Google search with the goal of earning higher web traffic levels and improving the visibility of the site. Investing in SEO offers many benefits for an ecommerce website, which include:

• Generating more organic traffic
• Better ROI, often more than what other marketing channels like paid advertising offer
• Increased brand awareness and credibility
• Building a long-term asset that continues to pay dividends even after the initial investment has been made

Given all of these benefits, it’s no wonder that ecommerce businesses are investing more in SEO than ever before. If you’re looking to get started with SEO for your ecommerce website, you should start by finding the right platform. 

Features to Consider in SEO Ecommerce Platforms

Not all ecommerce platforms are created equal when it comes to SEO, so it’s important to choose one that has the features you need to succeed. Some of the most essential features to look for include:

• A platform that is built with SEO in mind
• The ability to customize titles, metatags, and URLs
• Faster site speed, which means lower page load times (consider picking a self-hosted platform)
• Canonical website URLs
• Indexing control
• Customizable HTML
• A sitemap generator
• Integration with Google Analytics
• Product tagging and categorization
• Batch uploading
• Mobile optimization
• Built-in blogging and content marketing features
• Social sharing buttons

These are just a few of the features you should look for in an ecommerce platform to make sure it’s SEO-friendly. In addition, you should also consider the overall user experience of the platform as well as its price.

How to Choose the Best Ecommerce Platform for Your SEO Needs

When it comes to ecommerce platforms, there are a lot of options out there. So, how do you know which one is best for your SEO needs?

Here are some things to keep in mind when making your decision:

• The platform’s ability to generate traffic: The platform you choose should be able to generate a lot of traffic to your site. Otherwise, what’s the point?
• The platform’s ability to convert traffic: Once you have visitors on your site, you need to be able to convert them into customers using high-converting pages. Make sure the platform you choose has features that will help you do this. For example, a platform that offers abandoned cart recovery or product recommendations is a good choice.
• The platform’s ability to scale: As your business grows, you’ll need a platform that can grow with you. Make sure the platform you choose has the features and flexibility you need to expand your business so that you don’t have to switch platforms down the road.
• The platform’s SEO features: This is, of course, one of the most important factors to consider. Make sure the platform you choose has all the SEO features you need to get your products seen by potential customers.
• The platform’s price: Don’t forget to consider the cost of the platform when making your decision. You should be able to find a platform that fits your budget.

So, those are some things to keep in mind when choosing an ecommerce platform for your SEO needs. Do your research and choose the platform that’s right for you.

List of the 9 Best Ecommerce Platforms for SEO

Now that you know what to look for in an ecommerce platform, it’s time to take a look at some of the best options out there. Here are my top picks:

1. BigCommerce

BigCommerce is a platform that helps businesses create and manage their online stores. It offers a lot of features that make it a good choice for SEO, including abandoned cart recovery, product recommendations, and a blog.

It's considered the most-trusted B2B and B2C ecommerce solution by IDC, Forrester, and Gartner and it also has an app store that offers additional features, such as email marketing and social media tools.

The only downside is that its plans can be on the expensive side. But if you're serious about SEO, BigCommerce is definitely worth considering.

If you want to learn more about it, also check out my detailed review of this ecommerce platform here.

Key Features

• Page builder with visual editor
• Fully-customizable themes
• Open APIs, SDKs, and data
• 70+ native discounts and promotions
• Customizable, SEO-friendly URLs
• Faceted search
• Multi-storefront and cross-channel selling
• Social commerce
• Automated in-store sales tracking with POS systems
• Inventory management solutions
• Customer segmentation and bulk pricing options for B2B businesses
• Out-of-the-box metadata and robots.txt editing
• Automatic 301 redirects and URL rewrites
• Multi-currency and multilingual support
• Real-time reporting

Pros

• Offers the flexibility and scalability that your ecommerce site needs
• Essential back office integrations
• Robust security
• 99.9% uptime
• Seamless WordPress integration
• Blazing-fast site speed with Google Cloud platform infrastructure
• Scalable catalog
• No additional transaction fees, even with a third-party payment gateway
• 24/7 tech support via phone, chat, and ticket with all plans

Cons

• A bit more pricey than other ecommerce SEO platforms on this list
• Limits on annual sales

Pricing

• They offer a 15-day free trial
• Standard plan: $29.95/month
• Plus plan: $79.95/month
• Pro plan: $299.95/month

Enterprise plan: Contact their sales team or call 1-866-991-0872 for custom pricing

2. Shopify

Shopify is an excellent choice for ecommerce businesses of all sizes, but it's especially well-suited for those just getting started. That's because they offer an easy-to-use platform with lots of built-in SEO features that are helpful for SEO, such as an abandoned cart recovery system and the ability to add alt text to images.

Shopify has some limitations regarding advanced SEO features. For example, you may need the help of a developer to adjust your internal link structure. But their support team is always willing to help you troubleshoot any issues.

The biggest downside of Shopify is that its transaction fees can add up quickly so you may want to consider its alternatives. But if you're just starting out, the ease of use that Shopify brings is hard to beat.

Key Features

• 70+ storefront themes
• Built-in mobile commerce shopping cart
• A number of sales channels supported, including social media and online marketplaces
• Easy inventory management
• Manual order creation
• Discount codes
• Free SSL certificate
• Abandoned cart recovery emails
• Gift cards
• Customer segmentation options
• Automated email marketing workflows and templates
• Ecommerce automation features
• Multilingual and multi-currency support to run your business worldwide

Pros

• Ease of use
• Add an unlimited number of products even with its Basic plan
• Lots of built-in SEO features
• Perfect for novice businesses
• Top blogging features
• Fast speed
• Seamless Google Analytics integration

Cons

• Its transaction fees can add up quickly, which makes it expensive for heavy-traffic-and-sales stores.
• Doesn’t let you edit robots.txt file

Pricing

• Basic plan: $29/month
• Shopify plan: $79/month
• Advanced plan: $299/month
• Shopify Plus plan: $2000/month
• A 14-day free trial available

Also read where Shopify stands against BigCommerce in the race of the top ecommerce platforms in the market.

3. WooCommerce

WooCommerce is one of the most popular open-source ecommerce platforms on the internet and is used by millions of online stores. It is great for SEO because it is easy to use and has a lot of features that can help you improve your website's ranking in search engines.

It has a built-in sitemap feature that makes it easy for Google to index your products and it also allows you to customize your title tags, meta descriptions, and URLs to optimize your pages for specific keywords.

Another great thing about WooCommerce is that it is constantly being updated with new features and improvements that can help you further improve your website's SEO.

And the best part?

You can easily integrate it with your existing WordPress website using the WooCommerce plugin. So if you're looking to take your online store to the next level, then WooCommerce is a great choice.

Key Features

• Fully customizable with hundreds of free and paid plugins and extensions
• Configurable shipping options
• Automated tax calculations
• Endless product variations and product bundles options
• Subscription options for digital products
• Custom URLs
• Access to robots.txt file
• Multi-lingual and multi-currency support
• Marketing options using Google Shopping, Facebook promotions, and email marketing
• Built-in blogging feature
• Automatic sitemap generation
• Built-in support for Google Rich Snippets

Pros

• Open-source platform
• Flexible and secure payments using 140 region-specific gateways such as WooCommerce Payments, Stripe, PayPal, etc.
• Developer-friendly site builder that uses a REST API
• Advantages of seamless integration with WordPress
• No fee on transactions beyond that of the payment service provider
• Extensive documentation and open development community

Cons

• Requires a bit of technical knowledge
• Specific to WordPress websites
• You may end up spending a lot of money to add multiple plugins

Pricing

• Free to use, open-source ecommerce platform. However, you’ll need to pay for a domain name, WordPress hosting, and an SSL certificate.
• Free and paid plugins and extensions to add ecommerce functionality and SEO features to your online store

To improve your site’s SEO, you can easily install and use WordPress plugins like Yoast SEO. Using the Jetpack plugin can help you increase the speed of your WooCommerce store, which will further help improve its SEO results.

Considering whether you should choose WooCommerce or BigCommerce or Shopify?

Read these comparison posts I did to help you understand the key differences between these platforms: WooCommerce vs. BigCommerce and WooCommerce vs. Shopify.

4. Adobe Commerce (formerly Magento)

Formerly known as Magento, Adobe Commerce has been a heavy hitter in the ecommerce world for some time. It’s now part of Adobe Experience Cloud, which gives it access to other Adobe tools like Adobe Target and Adobe Analytics.

As an ecommerce platform, it offers a ton of features out of the box like product categorization and management, shopping cart functionality, order management, and more. It’s also a very popular choice for enterprise-level businesses due to its scalability and for developers, due to its flexibility.

Adobe Commerce is a great choice for businesses that are looking for an ecommerce platform that can help them optimize their store for search engines. That's because it lets you create custom URLs for your products, optimize your product pages with metatags and rich snippets, and even set up 301 redirects to manage any broken links.

If you're serious about SEO and don’t mind paying a bit more for it, then Adobe Commerce is a great pick for a self-hosted ecommerce platform.

The downside is that it can be quite technical and there's a learning curve. But if you're willing to put in the time, Adobe Commerce can definitely be worth considering.

Key Features

• Easy-to-use page builder and drag-and-drop tools
• Image optimization features
• Product recommendations
• Real-time inventory and order management
• Custom catalogs and price lists for B2B selling
• Performance monitoring tools and data analysis features
• Automatic data backup
• Scale your ecommerce store with AWS and Azure
• AI-powered live search for faster results
• Customer account management
• Automated visual reports to help you understand important data easily
• Cloud-based deployment for better efficiency
• Unified payment solution to let users pay via debit and credit cards, PayPal, and more

Pros

• Integrated search engine optimization (SEO) tools
• Faster support response time
• Increased customization available using extensions and third-party integrations
• Integrations with Adobe products like Creative Cloud, Analytics, etc.
• Seamless mobile optimization for app-like experiences
• Secured commerce data
• Multi-channel commerce
• Better developer experience and tooling
• Faster ecommerce platform, even for stores with heavy catalogs and high transaction volumes

Cons

• Requires technical knowledge to build an ecommerce site using Magento
• Not as user-friendly as many other ecommerce platforms on this list

Pricing

• Adobe Commerce Pro plan: Contact its team for pricing details.

If you want to customize your ecommerce store to the max by hiring a professional developer, Adobe Commerce can be your best choice. However, there are other Magento alternatives too, that can be worth trying out.

5. Squarespace

Squarespace is great for ecommerce because it has built-in features that make it easy to create and manage your online store. For example, you can add products easily, set up payment processing, and track your sales data.

You can not only use it to sell physical goods but also build a site for a restaurant or salon that wants to book appointments or sell a subscription-based service that needs to manage recurring payments.

Plus, if you want to get more traffic to your store, Squarespace has built-in tools to help with search engine optimization (SEO). For example, you can control how your site appears in the SERPs, automate generating sitemaps, add meta tags to each page, and more.

Whether you’re just getting started with ecommerce or you’re looking to take your business to the next level, this ecommerce platform for SEO is definitely worth considering.

If you're not sure where to start, Squarespace offers a number of templates specifically designed for creating beautiful online stores that will engage your customers.

Key Features

• Easy-to-customize website templates, color palettes, and more for every purpose
• Complete customization with CSS and JavaScript
• Appointment booking options
• Subscription options
• Set up on-brand email campaigns and use social tools
• Social media image monitoring
• Custom clean URLs
• Canonical tags
• Structured data and automatic markups
• SSL security
• Mobile-friendly ecommerce sites
• Automatically generated SEO‑friendly pages with static URLs for all products
• A dedicated SEO panel with a built-in search preview tool
• Flexible shipping options based on a flat rate, product weight based, and more
• Easy-to-use tax tools
• Basic and advanced website tracking metrics
• Squarespace extensions
• Commerce APIs
• Accept payments from Stripe, PayPal, credit cards
• Multi-currency support

Pros

• Free custom domain
• Fully-managed cloud hosting
• Great security
• Built-in SEO features such as default SEO titles and meta descriptions for every page, option to hide a page from search engines, automated sitemaps, etc.
• Direct integration with Google Search Console and Google My Business
• 24/7 support
• Google Ads credits

Cons

• No phone support

Pricing

• Personal plan: $23/month
• Business plan: $33/month
• Basic Commerce plan: $36/month
• Advanced Commerce plan: $65/month

6. Shift4Shop (formerly 3dcart)

Shift4Shop is the best ecommerce platform for SEO because it offers a number of features that are designed to help your store rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs). It creates automatic sitemaps that help search engines index your site more quickly and easily and also offers built-in support for popular SEO plugins like Yoast SEO.

In addition, this ecommerce platform provides detailed analytics so that you can track your progress and adjust your SEO strategy accordingly. 

Key Features

• Powerful and intuitive website builder
• Mobile-friendly and SEO-friendly templates
• Editable HTML and CSS files
• XML Sitemap builder
• Custom URLs and 301 redirection tools with 404 auto-detect
• Product and order management
• SEO-friendly features
• Social media marketing tools
• Fast and convenient payments
• PCI compliant hosted ecommerce platform
• Built-in marketing tools like daily discounts, group deals, etc.
• Cart abandonment recovery tools
• Customizable meta tags, page titles, and H1 headings
• PageSpeed optimized
• Google AMP for products
• SEO-friendly navigation with breadcrumb links
• Canonical website URLs
• Control of Robots.txt file
• Google Analytics integration
• Built-in blog
• Targeted email marketing system

Pros

• Unlimited products, users, and bandwidth
• AI-driven fraud protection
• Free migration of your current ecommerce website
• Real-time shipping and credit card processing capabilities
• Dedicated ecommerce support team and hands-on assistance
• Free SSL certificate
• Free domain name registration
• No additional transaction fees

Cons

• Many users found it too complicated or difficult to use.
• Quite expensive if you don’t qualify for its free plan

Pricing

• Basic plan: $29/month for up to 2 staff members
• Plus plan: $79/month for up to 5 staff users
• Pro plan: $299/month for up to 15 staff users
• End-to-End Ecommerce plan: $0 (a pro-level enterprise-grade plan)

If you don’t qualify for the free plan, this ecommerce platform can be quite expensive. Contact their team for more details.

7. OpenCart

OpenCart is another ecommerce platform that offers SEO-friendly features. If you're interested in building an SEO-optimized ecommerce store, its Bootstrap framework will give you a solid foundation to work with. Plus, its extensive documentation will help you get started quickly and easily.

What makes it the best ecommerce SEO platform is its ability to let you customize almost every aspect of your website. This includes the URL structure, title tags, meta descriptions, and more. Plus, with OpenCart's built-in SEO module, you can easily manage all your SEO settings from one central location.

If you're looking for an ecommerce platform that offers powerful SEO features and is easy to use, OpenCart is a great option.

Key Features

• Powerful store management capabilities
• 13000+ modules and themes
• Extensions for added functionality
• Integrations with popular payment gateways and shipping methods
• Admin dashboard with user management
• Multi-store management
• Product variables addition options
• Built-in affiliate system
• Update and bulk edit products, categories, and more
• Discount and coupons
• Easy backup and restoration features
• Multilingual support

Pros

• Open-source ecommerce platform for SEO
• Community support and dedicated support
• No monthly fees
• Fewer plugins than other self-hosted platforms

Cons

• May need to pay for some essential add-ons
• Canonical issues

Pricing

• No monthly fees

8. Volusion

Volusion is one of the oldest ecommerce platforms available today. Founded in 1999, Volusion has been around longer than most of its competitors. That experience shows in its feature set and overall stability.

It is also one of the user-friendliest ecommerce platforms for SEO. Its built-in features and flexible code make it easy to optimize your store for search engines. In addition, Volusion's customer support is excellent and they offer a free 14-day trial so you can try it before you buy.

If you're looking for an ecommerce platform that is easy to use and optimize for SEO, Volusion is a great option. Their long history in the industry and commitment to customer satisfaction makes them a platform you can trust.

Key Features

• Mobile responsive themes
• Powerful storefront builder and drag-and-drop editing tools
• Inventory and stock management
• Unlimited product options
• Built-in SEO management
• CRM system
• Social media integrations
• Abandoned cart reports
• SEO-managed category pages with sub-categories
• Advanced site search tools
• HTML and CSS editor
• Order replenishment
• Subscription-based products

Pros

• Seamless checkout experiences
• 24/7 customer support
• Powerful apps and integrations with Amazon, PayPal, and more
• Support from in-house ecommerce marketing and SEO experts
• 99.9% uptime
• Custom firewall settings

Cons

• 1.25% platform transaction fees

Pricing

• A 14-day free trial
• Personal plan: $35/month
• Professional plan: $79/month
• Business plan: $299/month
• Prime plan: Cost varies based on GMV (gross merchandise value)

9. Wix

Wix is one of the best ecommerce SEO platforms that lets you easily create a beautiful website that is optimized for search engines. With Wix, you can edit your website's title and meta tags. Its built-in keyword research tool can help you find the best keywords for your website.

In addition, Wix lets you create custom URLs for your website's pages and blog posts. This can help you improve your website's SEO.

Wix also offers a free plan that includes unlimited storage and bandwidth, and all the features you need to get started with SEO. You can upgrade to a paid plan if you need more advanced features and support.

Key Features

• 500+ free professional online store templates
• Built-in keyword research tool
• Custom URLs, titles, and meta descriptions
• Canonical tags
• Structured data markup
• Robots.txt file access
• Bulk 301 redirects
• Instant Google indexing
• Multi-channel sales
• Subscription model for recurring revenue
• Order management and fulfillment
• Inventory tracking and management
• SEO-optimized, multilingual storefront
• Abandoned cart recovery
• Tax automation tools

Pros

• Unlimited storage and bandwidth
• 24/7 support
• Automated Facebook and Instagram Ad campaigns
• Automatically created SEO patterns applied across product pages for better search engine rankings
• Limitless customization with APIs
• Top-grade hosting for free
• Secure online payments
• Free domain for one year
• Get an actionable SEO setup plan
• Google Search Console integration

Cons

• Limited storage with all plans

Pricing

• Business Basic plan: $24/month
• Business Unlimited plan: $36/month
• Business VIP plan: $53/month

Comparison of Best Ecommerce Platforms for SEO

Platform	Pricing	Transaction Charges	Key SEO Features
BigCommerce	Plans start from $29.95/month A 15-day free trial available	No additional transaction fees	Mobile responsive website, Free sitewide HTTPs and dedicated SSL, abandoned cart saver, customizable and SEO-friendly URLs, faceted search, product recommendations, 99.9% uptime, automatic 301 redirects and URL rewrites
Shopify	Plans start from $29/month A 14-day free trial available	Online credit card rates: 2.9% + 30¢ USD Online International/Amex credit card rates: 3.9% + 30¢ USD In-person credit/debit card rates: 2.7% + 0¢ USD 3rd party fees on transactions not processed through Shopify Payments: 2.0%	Automatically-generated sitemap, $100 Google Ad credits on spending $25 with Google, SEO-friendly product review options, social media integration, discount codes, gift cards, Google Analytics ready
WooCommerce	Free to use, open-source ecommerce platform	No fee on transactions beyond that of the payment service provider	Automatic sitemap generation, built-in support for Google Rich Snippets, SEO advantages of WordPress site, Google Shopping, marketing features, WordPress SEO plugins compatibility
Adobe Commerce (formerly Magento)	Contact its team for pricing details	No additional transaction fee	Mobile-friendly, structured data, image optimization, integrated search engine optimization (SEO) tools, faster performance for better user experience, live search, extended capabilities using extensions, AWS and Azure support, developer-friendly
Squarespace	Plans starting at $23/month with limited access Full-access plans start at $33/month	3% transaction fees with Business plan No transaction fees with Basic Commerce and Advanced Commerce plans	Default SEO page titles and meta descriptions, option to hide a page from search engines, automated sitemaps, clean URLs, automatic markup, canonical tags, SSL security, mobile-friendly ecommerce sites, useful integrations with Google Search Console and Google My Business, dedicated SEO panel with a built-in search preview tool
Shift4Shop (formerly 3dcart)	$0 for enterprise-grade plan (but only if you qualify for it) Else, plans start at $29/month Contact its team for more details.	No additional transaction fees	Pre-optimized for search engine results, automatic sitemaps, XML sitemap builder, custom URLs, 301 redirection tools, fast payments for better user experience, mobile-first approach, free SSL certificate, customizable meta tags, page titles, and H1 headings, PageSpeed optimized, Google AMP for products
OpenCart	Open-source platform Pay only for add-ons that you need	No transaction fees by OpenSource, Square charges 2.9% + $0.30 for processing payments, though	Customizable URL structures, title tags, and meta descriptions, built-in SEO module
Volusion	A 14-day free trial Plans start at $35/month	1.25% platform transaction fees	Responsive themes, SEO-managed category pages, 99.9% uptime, metadata management, SEO-friendly pages and products
Wix	Plans start at $24/month	2.9% + $0.30 payment processing charges	Actionable SEO plan, automatically created SEO patterns applied across product pages, customizable meta tags, URLs, canonical tags, structured data markup, robots.txt file access, bulk 301 redirects, instant Google indexing, Google Search Console integration

The Key SEO Factors (Explained)

SEO is a complex and ever-changing field, but there are a few key factors that have remained constant over the years. Here are some of the most important SEO factors to keep in mind when optimizing your ecommerce site:

• Relevancy: Perhaps the most important factor in SEO is relevancy. Your content must be relevant to the keywords you are targeting. If you are selling shoes, your content must be about shoes. You can’t rank for a keyword if your content is not about that keyword.
• Keyword density: In addition to relevancy, your content must also include the target keywords at a reasonable density. This means that the keywords should appear often enough to be noticed by the search engines, but not so often that it appears spammy.
• Title tags and meta descriptions: The title tag and meta description are what appear in the search results, so it’s important to make sure they are keyword-rich and compelling.
• URL structure: Your URLs should be short, descriptive, and include the target keywords.
• Image optimization: Optimizing your images can help you rank higher in the search results. Make sure to include relevant keywords in the file names and alt text.

FAQs

Build Your Ecommerce Site on the Best Platform

Now that you know how important SEO is for ecommerce websites and the features to look for when choosing an ecommerce platform, it’s time to start building your site on the best platform for SEO. 

I hope this guide has given you enough information about the nine best ecommerce platforms for SEO to help make your decision easier. All of the platforms listed here are great choices that will give you the ability to rank highly in search engines and drive more traffic to your site.

If you’re still not sure which platform is right for you or if you have any other questions about SEO and ecommerce, feel free to leave a comment below or contact me directly. I’d be happy to help you out.