SEO (Search Engine Optimization) practices are important for ecommerce websites because they affect the site's performance on search engines (e.g: Bing, Google), enabling (or not) potential customers to discover online stores and eventually make a purchase.
The platform where the website is hosted significantly influences SEO success. To understand how this works, Gear SEO, a leading systems integrator (SI), published an article with insights and practical examples on how to choose the best platform to create and host ecommerce experiences.
Original article by Rodrigo Botinhão, CEO and Founder of Gear SEO: Read Here
Original article translated to English: Read Here
In this blog post we summarize the main points from GearSEO’s article and complement them with real examples of how clients leverage deco.cx to achieve extraordinary results.
Key SEO elements for ecommerce platforms
1. Fast, responsive design
Google increasingly prioritizes mobile versions of websites. Your site must be responsive, ensuring content loads quickly across all devices.
- Server Side Rendering
- Edge deployment
- Optimized images
- Automatic conversion to light formats (webp/avif)
- Different sizes to each device
- Pre-load the main image (LCP of CWV)
- Lazy loading
- Cacheable fonts
dentalproclin.com.br, our first client using wake.tech, with CWV approved
2. Customizable URLs
Having the flexibility to incorporate keywords into your URLs is an effective optimization strategy.
For instance, Gear SEO's project BolsasJá achieved significant SEO improvements by customizing category and subcategory URLs to the first level of navigation, enhancing page relevance.
Category: https://bolsasja.com.br/bolsas-femininas
Subcategory: https://bolsasja.com.br/bolsa-casual
3. Integrated content strategy
Merging ecommerce with content-rich pages is a tactic to both improve the Customer Experience and increase SEO results. This content ranges from embedded ecommerce blogs or customized landing page for products and categories.
4. Flexible collections and landing pages
Custom collections and landing pages are key for targeting long-tail keywords and seasonal traffic.
Embelleze's special Black Friday LP, with products outside of main catalogue
5. Editable meta elements
Having control over and easy access to edit meta tags / titles is key to getting the most out of Google and Bing indexing, since this information is what new users will first see when they discover a website. One of the most relevant meta tags is the canonical tag, which tells the search engine which one is the canonical URL. The canonical URL is the version of a webpage chosen by the search engine as the main version when there are duplicates. This selected URL is prioritized to avoid showing repetitive content that does not provide unique value in search results.
For example, on deco.cx, only option A is indexed by default (although this is 100% editable):
A. yoursite.com/categories/category-1
B. yoursite.com/categories/category-1/?ordenation=true&page=3
Form created on deco.cx by Zee.Dog to edit SEO meta elements
7. SEO-friendly frameworks
Sites built with frameworks that ensure search engines can accurately crawl and index pages are generally ranked higher.
8. Product organization and availability
Whenever a product is out-of-stock or removed, all organic visits to the corresponding URL result in errors (page not found, error 404). Correctly managing these situations to redirect your visitors is important to maintain traffic and search rankings.
9. Constant site availability
A high uptime is crucial for maintaining SEO rankings.
deco.cx: a leader in SEO-focused ecommerce
Gear SEO's analysis positions deco.cx as a leader in implementing SEO recommendations with minimal complexity. Through their "SEO in Practice" program, Gear SEO showcased deco.cx's effectiveness using the headless storefront "Bolsas Já," which combines deco.cx's frontend with Shopify's backend.
Why opt for deco.cx?
- Headless flexibility: Offers creative SEO implementations, from responsiveness to meta element management.
- Seamless integrations: Works effortlessly with major ecommerce backends.
- Cost-effective development: Reduces costs while enhancing focus on SEO.
Concluding thoughts
In an ecosystem where perfection is elusive, deco.cx stands out for fulfilling comprehensive SEO needs. Its functionalities are designed to align with core SEO principles, ensuring ecommerce success.