In-Depth Guide
The Complete Guide to SEO Services
Our specialists have written a comprehensive guide covering strategy, best practices, and the exact approaches we use for our clients.
You chose BigCommerce for good reasons. Reliable hosting, a solid checkout, room to grow. So why does your organic traffic look much the same as it did six months ago?
The platform gives you a decent foundation. It doesn’t write your category copy, choose your keywords or decide which pages deserve to rank. That part is down to you, and it’s where most UK stores we audit quietly lose ground.
Where BigCommerce Stores Usually Lose Rankings
| Area | Common Setup | Better Approach |
|---|---|---|
| Category pages | One line of text above the products | Clear copy written around what shoppers actually search for |
| Product descriptions | Supplier text shared with other retailers | Rewritten for your customers, starting with best sellers |
| Filtered pages | Parameter URLs left unchecked | Reviewed and controlled with canonicals and crawl rules |
| Structured data | Basic theme markup only | Checked against live GBP pricing, including VAT, and stock data |
Nothing on that list is exotic. It’s just rarely anyone’s job.
Category Pages Do The Heavy Lifting
Think about how people shop. They search for a broad need first, such as waterproof jackets or corner sofas, then narrow down. Category pages catch those broad searches, and for most stores they drive far more organic revenue than individual products do.
Yet the typical category page has a single sentence of text and a grid of products. Google has very little to work with, and neither does the shopper. A strong category page usually includes several things.
- A short opening paragraph explaining what the range covers and who it suits
- Clear headings for the main ways people choose, such as size, use or budget
- Links to closely related categories and popular products
- Helpful buying advice placed below the products, so it never pushes them down the page
- A title and description written for a real search rather than filled in by a template
We start with your five or ten highest earning categories. Fixing those first tends to pay back faster than spreading effort across the whole catalogue.
Faceted Search Needs A Rule, Not A Guess
Filters help shoppers, but they can create hundreds of parameter URLs that Google may crawl and index. Some of those pages are genuinely useful. A colour filter on sofas might match a real search like grey sofas. A price sort order almost never does.
The answer is a clear rule for which filtered pages earn a place in search and which don’t. Filters also shape how easily people find what they want, which is why our UI/UX design agency work often looks at layout and filtering alongside the SEO questions.
Product Data Has To Match Reality
Structured data tells Google your price, availability and review scores. That’s only helpful when it’s accurate. We’ve seen stores where a product sold out weeks ago but the markup still said in stock, and shoppers arrived to find nothing to buy.
Accuracy often comes down to how stock is managed behind the scenes. If your inventory lives in another system, a proper ecommerce inventory management integration keeps availability consistent between your warehouse, your store and what Google reads. We always test schema in Google’s Rich Results Test before and after any change.
Mobile Speed Is Where Themes Get Exposed
A theme can look fast on a desktop and still crawl on a mid range phone. Heavy sliders, oversized images and apps that load scripts on every page all add up, and shoppers rarely wait around.
We test on real mobile connections, then remove or defer what isn’t earning its place. Compressing images and trimming unused scripts usually gives the biggest improvement without touching the design.
Moving To BigCommerce Without Losing What You Have
Migrations are where rankings often disappear. URLs change, titles get rewritten, and old pages vanish with no redirect. Months of hard won visibility can drop away in a weekend.
The fix is planning before launch. We map every old URL to its new home, keep the titles and copy that already perform, and test redirects properly. If the move comes with a fresh look, our website redesign agency service plans the new structure and the redirects together, so design decisions never undo your SEO.
Selling On Marketplaces Alongside Your Store
Many BigCommerce merchants also list on marketplaces, and inconsistent product data across channels causes real problems. Different titles, mismatched pricing and conflicting descriptions confuse both shoppers and search engines.
Marketplace search works differently to Google, though. If Amazon is part of your mix, our Amazon SEO agency team can help you keep listings sharp on each channel without letting them drift apart.
What Realistic Progress Looks Like
Technical and schema fixes can show movement within a few weeks. Content led gains on competitive category terms take longer, usually three to six months, depending on your competition and how much needs improving at the start.
We won’t promise overnight jumps, because nobody honest can. What we can promise is a clear order of work, plain reporting tied to organic revenue, and a store that’s easier for both shoppers and search engines to understand every month you’re with us.