BigCommerce · SEO
BigCommerce SEO agency
BigCommerce gives you more search controls in the admin than most hosted platforms, and it also generates a lot of URLs on its own. Faceted search, category paths in product addresses and multiple storefronts all produce pages a crawler will find. The work is deciding which of those should exist, and using the Stencil theme to make the ones that matter worth ranking.
What BigCommerce changes
Platform facts that shape the work
These are true of BigCommerce today and they decide the approach before any strategy does.
URL structure is configurable in the admin
Product, category, brand and page URL patterns can be set store wide, including whether product addresses carry the category path. Those settings are powerful at setup and consequential later, because changing them affects every matching page at once.
Faceted search is native
Product filtering is built into the platform rather than added by an app, and it produces filtered views through parameters. Deciding which filtered states should be crawlable, and which should simply be usable, is a core part of the work.
There is a redirect manager built in
Redirects are managed in the admin and can be imported in bulk, which makes URL changes and migrations more controlled than on platforms where redirects live in a plugin or a file the marketing team cannot reach.
Stencil controls markup and speed
Templates are Handlebars files in the Stencil theme, so headings, structured data, image handling and script loading are theme decisions. Page Builder regions add flexibility for merchandisers and add markup that has to be kept in check.
Multiple storefronts share one catalog
A single catalog can serve several storefronts with their own domains and themes. That is useful for regions and brands, and it means duplicate product content across storefronts is something to plan for rather than discover.
Product options affect the address
How options and variants are configured determines what appears in URLs and what a shopper can link to. Keeping one indexable page per product, with options handled on that page, avoids a long tail of near identical addresses.
The work
Item by item, inside BigCommerce
Indexation audit
A crawl set against coverage data to see what the platform is generating: filtered views, brand pages, option combinations, paginated sets and any legacy addresses left by a previous structure or migration.
Faceted search strategy
The filter combinations with real search demand promoted to proper category pages with their own titles and content, and the remainder kept usable for shoppers but out of the index through crawl directives and linking decisions.
Category page depth
Category templates given space for an introduction, guidance below the grid and links to sibling categories, using theme regions so content is editable by merchandisers without a developer for each change.
Product content and markup
Titles written from real search language, descriptions that go beyond supplier copy, specification fields rendered consistently, and product, breadcrumb and review markup emitted once from the theme.
Performance in Stencil
Image sizes and formats handled through the platform's image handling, scripts audited in Script Manager, Page Builder regions checked for weight, and the largest element on each template made to arrive quickly on mobile.
Redirect and change management
A maintained redirect set for discontinued products, restructured categories and any URL pattern change, imported in bulk and monitored afterwards so link value and traffic follow the store rather than stopping at a dead end.
Reporting by template
Search performance reported separately for category, product, brand and content pages, per storefront, so the monthly conversation is about which template group to work on next.
What goes wrong
On BigCommerce, specifically
- Allowing every faceted combination to be crawled and indexed on a catalog with several filter attributes
- Changing the store wide URL pattern without preparing redirects for every affected page first
- Publishing the same product descriptions across every storefront and leaving canonicals unset
- Filling Page Builder regions with widgets until the category template is slower than the products it lists
- Treating the automatically generated sitemap as proof that the right pages are indexed
Should product URLs on BigCommerce include the category path?
Usually not. Including the path means a product sitting in several categories can be reached at several addresses, which adds crawl work and duplicate handling for no ranking benefit. A flat product URL is simpler to manage and easier to keep stable when merchandising changes.
How should BigCommerce faceted search be handled for search engines?
Decide which filtered views represent real demand, such as a brand within a category or a common size, and build those as genuine category pages with their own content. Leave the remaining combinations available to shoppers but not crawlable, so the index holds pages that can earn traffic.
Does BigCommerce need an SEO app?
Less often than most platforms, because titles, descriptions, URLs, redirects and sitemaps are handled natively. Where an app helps is bulk editing across a large catalog. Structured data and content layout are theme work, and doing them in the theme avoids conflicting markup.
How do you handle several storefronts on one catalog?
Decide first whether each storefront serves a genuinely different audience, region or language. If so, differentiate the content that competes and set canonical and language relationships deliberately. If two storefronts serve the same market, the honest answer is usually to consolidate them.
Can BigCommerce category pages carry real content?
Yes. The category template can render an introduction above the products and longer guidance beneath them, and theme regions let merchandisers edit that content directly. The common mistake is leaving the default description field as the only text on a page competing for a commercial query.
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