In 2003, WordPress launched as a blogging platform. Today, it is a trusted Content Management System (CMS) used to build and maintain SEO-friendly websites. Its primary mandate to make website building easy without coding knowledge has enabled countless businesses to create eCommerce SEO-friendly stores.
WordPress websites with robust on-page SEO rank well on Google, mainly because the platform’s built-in plugins offer easy customization. In addition, the platform automatically alerts Google each time a site is updated, so new content moves up Google’s SERPs. WordPress is a valuable tool that can boost leads and sales when correctly optimized.
WordPress powers nearly 40% of all websites worldwide. Although it isn’t strictly marketed as an eCommerce platform, its powerhouse eCommerce SEO capabilities attract large volumes of traffic to online stores that use it, and that’s just one of the reasons why it’s excellent for SEO.
Custom websites designed by agencies can be pricey when you’re just starting your eCommerce business and don’t have the capital to splurge on website development. At the same time, other website builders don’t offer the same WordPress on-page SEO functionality or ability to scale because they have a limited number of templates and plugins. On the flip side, WordPress is a top-ranking CMS that dominates Google’s SERPs with 2.28 billion results. Best of all? It’s free.
UX design, front end, and back end development; these terms can befuddle those unfamiliar with website design. However, while WordPress contains all the bells and whistles to create a modern and functional eCommerce website, the building process is plug-and-play, meaning Ii’s simple and easy to customize.
There are loads of themes and plugins to choose from. Plugins are apps that enhance websites, adding features like analytics, contact forms, social media share buttons, and SEO tools. With WordPress, you can create an entire eCommerce store without having any prior coding knowledge.
Due to Google, WordPress technical SEO best practices prioritize fast webpage loading speeds. Since 2010, the search engine included site speed as one of the signals used by its algorithm to rank pages. Optimized webpages should take no longer than two seconds to load – anything over is considered poor and demoted.
Now, when it comes to WordPress, you’re not guaranteed a fast loading time. However, this often has to do with too many plugins and be remedied with caching plugins like WP Fastest Cache. This plugin generates HTML copies of your web pages that are faster than default WordPress PHP scripts. You have to install and configure the plugin to improve page load times and WordPress technical SEO.
WordPress has many impressive plugins, including ones specifically designed to improve WordPress technical SEO and WordPress on-page SEO. Google Analytics by Monster Insights allows users to track their analytics from their WordPress dashboard, for example. Other plugins like WordPress SEO by Yoast and All In One SEO Pack enable the easy set up of meta descriptions, plus the checking of keyword placement and relevance, for instance.
WordPress sites maintain simple frameworks that make it easy for web crawlers to find web pages, index and rank them. Their plugins also create structured schema markup, i.e., code utilized by websites that helps search engines understand their contexts to rank their site accordingly.
Using a plug-in like Yoast SEO automatically automatically applies structured data to your eCommerce website, boosting its ranks. Additional plugins like Schema Pro and All in One Schema Rich Snippets make it possible for eCommerce businesses to outperform their competitors in search engine results.
All search engines, including Google, can’t actually see website images. Instead, they rely on alt text to provide an accurate description. Alt text supplies semantic meaning and is an eCommerce SEO best practice because it gives search engines detailed information to help rank your site.
WordPress’s media library interface allows you to add alt text to all images at once or those on a particular page. Similarly, WordPress plugins also allow you to effortlessly manage meta tags on the side, namely the title tag and meta description, so you stand out in SERPs.
With a platform like WordPress, you can create clean and attractive permalinks that improve eCommerce SEO. It’s commonly agreed that the best permalink structure has the post name in the URL, which often contains important keywords. WordPress allows you to customize permalinks in just about any way you desire. Permalinks are foundational parameters of websites and something easy to get right with WordPress.
Hitwise reports that nearly 60% of all online searches are performed on smartphones.
Given the pervasiveness of smartphone use, if your page isn’t designed to be mobile-friendly, it can affect loading times and user experience. For example, a pop-up that works on a desktop may become annoying screen clutter on a mobile screen.
Thankfully, all themes in WordPress’s Theme Directory are already mobile responsive. Google automatically demotes websites that aren’t mobile-friendly. With WordPress, you don’t have to worry about optimizing for mobile. You merely have to leverage its eCommerce SEO capabilities.
In addition to customized on-site social media buttons that make it easy for readers to share content, WordPress plugins leverage the power of your social media to drive traffic to your store. Connecting your eCommerce website to your social media accounts ensures that new website content is published on your socials. A strong content marketing strategy will direct traffic to your website, especially SEO-friendly and distributed on social media.
Δ
Intuitive, simple, and effective; There’s a lot to favor about WordPress, over and above its incredible eCommerce SEO abilities. If you’re interested in using this CMS platform but have no idea how to optimize it, we can help. Catapult Revenue is an eCommerce digital marketing agency offering effective eCommerce SEO services. On average, our clients experience a 55% average increase in transactions when implanting our strategies. Click here to arrange a consultation with our expert team.
Learn about your current digital footprint and how your website is truly performing with a full marketing audit. We’ll uncover missed e-commerce digital marketing opportunities and provide a growth strategy to ramp up revenue.
Once or twice a month. 100% goodness, 0% spam.
Increasing traffic or sales? Designing a new high-performance website or face-lifting an existing one? Strategic consulting? Tell us your needs. We're certain we will find the right solution.
