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In the hyper-competitive ecommerce marketplace, online visibility is critical to success. It is hard to achieve any kind of success if you are not easy to find online, but this can be challenging when you are competing against so many other online stores and the household name retailers. This is where search engine optimisation (SEO) comes in, as this allows you to climb the search engine results pages (SERPs) to increase organic traffic to your store. So, is Shopify or WooCommerce better for SEO and rankings? This post will break it down so that you can choose the right platform and reach new levels of success with your store.
Shopify & WooCommerce Overview
Shopify has seen extraordinary growth in recent years and now powers millions of ecommerce stores all around the world. It is an all-in-one platform that allows users to build and maintain a professional-standard ecommerce store without technical expertise. This is a subscription-based platform that provides all you need for your online store.
WooCommerce, meanwhile, is an open-source plugin designed for WordPress websites. It can turn a WordPress website into a fully fledged ecommerce store with customisation options, making it quick and easy to create an online store, but users must manage their own hosting and maintenance. WooCommerce is a free plugin, which makes it a cost-effective alternative.
Interestingly, statistics show that WooCommerce is currently the more popular option, holding an impressive 38.76% share of the ecommerce platform market compared to Shopify’s still impressive 27% market share. It is clear that both of these platforms are good options, but which is best for SEO?
SEO Features
Customisation
In terms of customisation, WooCommerce is best as you have complete control over the code of the WordPress website, allowing for complete flexibility and control. Additionally, plug-ins like Yoast SEO can further enhance the SEO capabilities of WooCommerce sites.
Shopify has many impressive built-in SEO features but does not provide users with the same level of flexibility and customisation.
SEO Plugins
Leading on from this, plugins are an important consideration as they can equip ecommerce store owners with tools to simplify the SEO process. This is another area where WooCommerce comes out on top as WordPress provides access to a huge range of SEO plugins, which can provide functionalities like XML sitemap generation.
Shopify has many built-in features and a range of apps that can further enhance SEO capabilities, but it is limited compared to WooCommerce. This means that store owners may need to use third-party apps, which can cost more.
Mobile Optimisation
These days, over 50% of web traffic comes from mobile, and Google uses mobile-first indexing, so mobile optimisation is a key part of SEO strategy. Shopify provides users with a selection of mobile-friendly designs, which means users do not have to perform their own optimisation or invest in extra resources.
WordPress themes can be responsive on mobile devices, but it will depend on the chosen theme and customisation efforts. This means that the user may have to perform their own configurations to ensure the online store is mobile-friendly.
Loading Speed
Page loading speed is another important area that can determine SEO ranking as well as user experience. Shopify has a fully hosted infrastructure with the platform boasting an impressive 99.99% average uptime which ensures reliability and performance - factors that search engines will look favourably on.
WooCommerce’s loading speed will depend entirely on the chosen hosting partner, so this is down to the user. Therefore, it is important to take your time to find a hosting partner that can guarantee fast loading times and reliability to boost your ranking.
URL Structure & Site Architecture
URL structure impacts both the user experience and SEO ranking, so this is an important area to consider. WooCommerce allows for the creation of SEO-friendly with the ability to create customised URLs and permalinks. This allows users to create a hierarchical site structure that can improve the crawlability and indexing of the site by search engines.
Shopify, meanwhile, has more solid URL structures with elements that cannot be changed, such as all product pages including “/products/“. This rigidity can be limiting when it comes to optimisation, which could harm the SEO potential of your Shopify website.
Content Marketing
Content marketing is one of the most important areas of SEO. WooCommerce benefits from WordPress’s industry-leading content management system (CMS) and blogging capabilities, which allows for seamless integration of content marketing strategies. This means that it is simple and fast for users to create and optimise blog posts, landing pages, and any other form of content.
Shopify does have a built-in blogging feature, but it is not as comprehensive as WordPress. The blog editor lacks advanced formatting options and some of the best SEO tools, which means that many store owners end up relying on third-party apps or external platforms.
Which Platform is Best for SEO?
Picking a platform that is best for SEO is challenging as both have benefits and drawbacks. Ultimately, it will depend on your needs, resources, and budget. If you are looking for SEO customisation and content marketing capabilities while keeping costs down then WooCommerce is the way to go, but it does require more technical know-how and ongoing maintenance.
For ecommerce businesses seeking a simple, all-in-one solution with built-in SEO features, then Shopify can be a great solution. While it requires a subscription and customisation is limited, Shopify ensures fast loading times, a mobile-friendly design, and a simple yet effective blogging platform.
Hopefully, the information in this post will help you make an informed decision. Online visibility is crucial to success in ecommerce, but it is also an incredibly competitive industry and hard to get noticed online. Therefore, you want to choose an ecommerce platform with SEO capabilities that will help you climb the rankings, increase brand awareness, and attract organic traffic to your store. Shopify and WooCommerce are the two biggest names in the industry, but you want to choose the platform that best suits your needs and preferences.
