If SEO is a big part of your marketing strategy (or you want it to be), you’re probably wondering how much your e-commerce platform matters — and whether BigCommerce can help or hurt you when it comes to ranking.
Short answer: BigCommerce gives you a solid foundation for SEO, with most of the core tools built right in.
But no platform — BigCommerce included — is going to magically rank your store for competitive keywords. That part still takes work. The good news is: BigCommerce won’t get in your way.
In this post, I’ll walk you through the key SEO features of BigCommerce, what it does well, where it falls a little short, and what to consider if search traffic is a major driver for your business.
And if you want help deciding whether BigCommerce is the right fit based on your SEO goals, I offer a free platform evaluation. It’s personalized, no pressure, and gives you a clear recommendation based on your actual business.
First, Let’s Talk About What Really Impacts SEO
A lot of people overestimate how much their platform affects their SEO. Your rankings come from:
- Content quality
- Site structure
- Backlinks
- Internal linking
- Mobile speed and performance
- Metadata
- Indexability
Your platform doesn’t create SEO results — but it absolutely influences how easily you can manage and optimize the things that do matter.
That’s where BigCommerce holds up well.
BigCommerce’s SEO Strengths
Here’s what BigCommerce gets right when it comes to SEO — and why I recommend it to merchants who want a strong, scalable platform without a ton of third-party bloat.
Clean URLs
BigCommerce automatically generates short, readable URLs. No weird strings, no nonsense — just straightforward category and product links that make sense to both search engines and humans.
Full Control Over Metadata
You can set your own:
- Page titles
- Meta descriptions
- URL slugs
- Image alt text
- H1 headings
All without installing an extra SEO plugin.
Fast, Mobile-Responsive Themes
BigCommerce’s modern themes are optimized for speed and mobile use right out of the box. That means better Core Web Vitals scores — and a smoother shopping experience for your customers.
Built-In Redirects
Change a product name or restructure your categories? BigCommerce handles 301 redirects automatically — and you can set manual ones too. That’s a huge win for anyone managing SEO during a site rebuild or migration.
Robots.txt, Canonicals & Sitemaps
You can control key technical SEO elements like:
- robots.txt
- XML sitemap
- Canonical tags
No developer needed. It’s all available in the BigCommerce backend.
Where BigCommerce Has Limitations
It’s not perfect, of course. Here are a few things to keep in mind:
Structured Data Customization
Basic schema markup is built into many themes, but if you want to customize it deeply — say, to enhance product listings or support rich snippets — you may need some developer help.
Fewer SEO Plugins Than Shopify or WordPress
BigCommerce doesn’t have a massive app store of SEO plugins — but that’s kind of the point. Most core functionality is already built in. You can connect to advanced tools (like JSON-LD generators or reporting dashboards), but you won’t find 15 SEO apps that all do the same thing.
The Blogging Tool Is Basic
The built-in blog works fine for occasional announcements or simple posts, but if content marketing is a big part of your strategy, I recommend pairing BigCommerce with WordPress (on a subdomain or via headless setup). It gives you more power for content-heavy SEO.
When SEO Should Heavily Influence Platform Choice
I pay extra attention to SEO capabilities when I’m working with clients who:
- Have a large product catalog and need clean navigation
- Rely on content marketing for traffic and sales
- Are in competitive niches where technical SEO really matters
- Are migrating from another platform and need to preserve rankings
If any of that sounds like you, BigCommerce is a smart pick. You’ll have the control you need without wrestling with apps or messy code.
Final Thoughts
BigCommerce isn’t an SEO “cheat code,” but it gives you everything you need to build and maintain a search-optimized store. Clean URLs, fast performance, flexible metadata, and built-in redirect tools make it a solid foundation for long-term SEO growth.
If search visibility is part of your business strategy, you don’t want your platform to get in the way — and BigCommerce won’t.
Still not sure if it’s the best fit? Let’s talk. I offer a free platform evaluation to help you compare options and understand how SEO fits into the bigger picture.