Search Engine Optimization, the science and art of getting your website, be that eCommerce store or site to the top of the likes of Google and Bing and in front of your customers and users. While it does require skill and finesse to allow this to happen, certain things can help it along, one such being finding the best eCommerce platform for SEO from the whole bunch of solutions that are on the market…
So which one do you choose when looking to start eCommerce in Singapore?
Which is the best eCommerce platform for SEO?
You can check out our breakdown of the best eCommerce platform reviews to see what we think is the overall best online shop software in general, but let’s now have a look at the 2 best for SEO and then look for a winner.
Ok, so I’ll say it off the bat… you have 2 options:
- Shopify (starting at $29 per month – super affordable for companies and marketers)
- They give you a brand domain that you can change when you sign up: yourname.myshopify.com
- WooCommerce (with WordPress)
- You have to have your own domain.
The reason I have not included BigCommerce, Magento (this is huge, but not easier than Shopify and WordPress), Wix, Squarespace, Volusion, etc, is that they didn’t quite meet the requirements for 95% of customers.
To find a really good online store solution for the SEO strategy you need to lighten your digital load and take on a platform that allows you to excel at the craft of SEO, instead of being stuck in development hell, which is why easy Shopify and WordPress have been chosen.
And the more optimization you can do, the more online shoppers are going to find you. SEO is key to lots and lots of free shopping for your business.
What is the difference between WordPress and Shopify websites for SEO?
You see, WordPress is a lot more flexible when it comes to its infrastructure. This means that you and your business site will have a lot more control over what you do from an SEO standpoint.
On the other hand, WordPress isn’t specifically created for eCommerce sites, so it does miss out on a lot of the payment integrations (WooCommerce does this) that Shopify – one of the best eCommerce platforms includes as standard.
I will look at the most important things for you that you need to consider when it comes to being able to use SEO to increase your customers, build your website traffic, create a blog, and access many cool features.
First, let’s look at the ease of use.
Ease Of Use
Shopify – Overall, Shopify and its SEO are ok, not bad and the ease of optimizing content for your website is sufficient. Personally, I’m not a huge fan of it, and I think the plugins that are available for free from the Shopify App store are not great…
Vs.
WooCommerce – and their SEO. Well because WooC is built on WordPress, and you have thousands of developers creating plugins for their platform, the quality of the plugins that are available are so so much better.
For a start, you have plugins like Yoast SEO and Rank Math (this is what we use here).
These can turn even the newest of digital eCommerce shop owners into SEO masters. They are simple to use and give you guides on how you can reach the levels you need, to fully optimize your e-commerce pages and stores.
Page load speed
We have multiple different stores that run on both Shopify and WordPress.
For a start, page load speed is a key ranking factor for your website. If your web pages load slowly, then Google and the other search engines do not like this, as it provides a bad user experience for your visitors and hence, they won’t rank you well in the search engines.
Shopify – Page load speed for Shopify stores can be really good, and as I mentioned before, using an App from the App Store can help with this. One I recommend is called Booster Page Speed Optimizer.
So, Shopify scores well for eCommerce page speed. How about WordPress?
WordPress – Yes, WordPress too has loads of plugins (same as apps), our favorite ones being WP Rocket and also Nitropack.io. (Nitropack is so good).
But, who takes the prize on page speed?
It has to be WordPress by a nose, and this is down to the fact that WP is older and more developers build for it than Shopify, but it will come soon.
If you look at the Page Speeds image above for this site, this, while not an Ecommerce Website uses WordPress, and as you can see it is 99/100. I’ve never seen this on Shopify Stores.
Indexing Control
Indexing basically means your website/eCommerce site getting picked up by the search engine bots and being placed in the search results.
And, no matter what anyone says, indexing is never really an issue if you know what you are doing. If your website is new, no matter if it is on Shopify or WordPress, all you need to do is get your:
- Google Analytics setup,
- Google search console,
- Bing webmasters.
Whenever you have new pages on your website, simply go to the submit URL field and submit it.
You could also use a thing called a ping service, which basically just tells the different search engines, news aggregators and indexers that you have new content on your website.
The search engine bots will come and look at your website when they get the information (or their next available search) and fingers crossed your content gets indexed. You can use a tool like:
- Pingomatic,
- Pingler,
- Indexkings,
So, both Shopify and WordPress are pretty good for this.
Content Features and Meta Data
Personally, I prefer working with WordPress for content and metadata, and the reason is that WP has so many more plugins that can help you along with this kind of thing, which in turn is related to how well you do your SEO.
Also, because WordPress has a more customizable post creation area, so much more than Shopify, you will find the plugins that are added also add so much more, and so much easier to use interfaces.
The ability to create independent meta descriptions for each independent page you have is super important when it comes to helping you rank on the internet.
Shopify – You can use something like SEO Booster,
WordPress – You can use Rank Math or Yoast SEO to help create your content. My choice is Rank Math, such a good and easy plugin to use for your content features and metadata.
Both are relatively easy to add meta data, but I prefer the inclusion of Rank Math’s easiness in the picture when I do it, so WordPress wins again here.
eCommerce SEO In Singapore
For a start, eCommerce SEO in Singapore, while it is not easy, it is also not difficult. But, if you are new to SEO and driving web traffic in Singapore and the Southeast Asian region it is a good idea to seek a professional to help you with it,
My advice on this is to stick with a company that knows the landscape, as eCommerce SEO in Singapore and in local markets around the world requires local knowledge if you want to have it done correctly.
Expect to pay up to $5,000 per month, this would be if you were scaling and had huge budgets obviously, you might be a BigCommerce user by this stage. If you are starting out, expect to pay up to $1,000.
AND…
SEO is not a quick fix, it does not happen overnight and you must know this before you get involved in it with your business. It is in my opinion the best method of marketing for long-term business success.
