It’s important to remember that just because your website doesn’t rank well, there is most likely no magical “programming” fix that will make your website rank on Google. Most eCommerce platforms such as Yahoo, Shopify, Big Commerce, 3dcart and others do have all of the SEO basics built in. Ranking well on Google, Bing or other search engines has a lot more to do with “website authority” than it does with programming.
While your website “coding” is positively a factor that can affect how your website ranks, your website “authority” plays a much larger role.
Let us pretend you sell widgets. Ask yourself this question, “If there are 20,000 websites that sell widgets, why should Google recommend my website?”. What is it that I do better? Do I merchandise my products better? Is my customer service better? Do I have a better selection of widgets than my competition? Chances are you don’t actually do any of these any better than your competition.
But what if you do most of these things better? How does Google know this? Google knows this by certain factors, which we call “authority”. Google scans the web looking for clues. Before assuming that the problem with your ranking is related to programming, ask yourself these questions.
- Social Media. How many people like your website? Are they sharing information about purchases they’ve made? Are the social shares positive or negative?
- Product Reviews. Have people reviewed my products? Are the reviews positive or negative?
- Websites that Link to You. In order to determine website popularity, Google looks for websites that link to you. Are these inbound links to your site from reputable sources? Do you even have any inbound links?
- Does your site work on Mobile devices? If your website doesn’t display properly on mobile devices, are you providing the best customer experience? Probably not.
One of the best things you can do is to actively use Google Webmasters. The Google Webmasters Search Console will help you with all of these items. There are recommendations from Search Appearance, Search Traffic, Google Index, Website Crawl, Website Security and even additional web tools, along with a help section that explains everything in detail.
There is generally no simple fix. It is a combination of many things. At the very minimum, make sure you always use Google Webmasters Search Console, and you can get even more information by using Bing Webmaster Tools.