BigCommerce SEO Review: Is It A Solid Online Store Builder?

These days, making an online store for your business does not have to be difficult. If you run an ecommerce store, there are plenty of options to choose from. Picking a platform that can provide you a lot of features (i.e. marketing tools) can come a long way. Maybe one platform such as BigCommerce might be a great choice. As part of this BigCommerce SEO review, I will discuss how you can use this tool to grow your business.

Note: We may include products or services that will be helpful to our readers. This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please review the affiliate disclosure page.

What is BigCommerce?

BigCommerce is an ecommerce platform that provides software as a service (SAAS) to businesses. They help retailers set up and manage their online stores, along with managing payments and store maintenance. The platform includes the following:

• Online store creation
• SEO services (they focus heavily on this one)
• Hosting
• Marketing tools (i.e. social media)

Founded in 2009 by two Australian entrepreneurs, both individuals met in an online chatroom early on. In the years to follow, the company grew and raised a lot of money to expand the platform’s services. 

As of 2021, BigCommerce has assisted more than 60,000 merchants in selling their products/services. Serving customers in more than 150 countries, they have offices located in the US (Austin, Texas, & San Francisco, California), Sydney (Australia) , London (UK), and Kiev (Ukraine).

BigCommerce certainly has grown to be a great ecommerce platform over the years. For the remainder of this post, I will go over setting up a store, whether it can help grow your business, and if it’s worth checking out to build your online presence.

Setting up a BigCommerce store: How it works

The following is a brief overview on the setup of a website/store with BigCommerce.

Add a product(s)

Whatever products you’re selling, you can easily add on to the storefront. From here, you can write a brief description, add images and videos, list identifiers, and add your prices.

Also, you have the option to add any variations. If your products have colors or different sizes, you have those variations and customization choices available.

Import/export products

When setting up your products, you can import documents or csv files. It can help save you time when adding a product description to your store page.

When exporting products, you can export listings to other places you sell online. If you sell on Amazon, eBay, or Etsy, you can bring those listings over to your ecommerce website.

Set up shipping

When getting shipping set up, you’ll enter your shipping address and calculate shipping rates displayed to customers within checkout. For the most part, it’ll mainly be domestic orders if sending products in the US. They do have options for international shipping as well.

Set up taxes

For taxes, you have two options. The first one is to set them up manually. By doing that, you can configure your own classes, rates, and zones.

The other option would be using BigCommerce’s recommended service: Avalara. It’s an automated solution for sales tax calculation that’s integrated with BigCommerce.

Accept payments

There are a couple options available:

• Credit card processors < Use Paypal or Stripe

• “Buy now, Pay Later”

BigCommerce uses Sezzle, an alternative platform to help increase sales and use interest-free installment plans.

Accelerated checkout

This option helps reduce customer check out time. For mobile users, it helps to improve mobile conversions (by shopping via a mobile phone). For checkouts, BigCommerce uses “Bolt”, an easier method to integrate payments online.

Publish your store

Once you get through the initial setup process, you’re ready to launch your online store.

Key Features

Storefront

• Themes

BigCommerce has a lot of beautiful themes to select from. A lot of them look appealing, and they can help make your website stand out. They have some free themes, while others are paid themes to select from.

Marketing

• Gift certificate templates

This feature is a neat one to use- the idea of sending gift certificates via email. These can be for any type of occasion, including birthdays, graduations, and holidays.

• List your products on Google

You have the option to showcase your products through Google Search. If you don’t want to do paid ads yet, you can take advantage of their SEO services. Or, you can connect BigCommerce to Google through an app as well.

• Google customer reviews

Having customer reviews can greatly benefit your website. Asking for customers to leave product reviews can help increase conversions. So that’s definitely something to take advantage of as well.

Make note that this integration is only available through a paid plan (either the pro or enterprise plan).

• Integration with eBay

There’s a section where you can sell on eBay. It’s an easy setup process to get your products up and listed.

• Analytics

This one is a new feature added recently. It’s a basic user dashboard that gives you clear insights into real-time visits. So you can see which pages are visited more often or not.

This dashboard can help improve your sales, or figure out how to improve the user interface on your website.

Can BigCommerce help make your business more efficient?

BigCommerce provides some neat tools to build your potential ecommerce store; or, if you have an existing one you want to grow and scale. BigCommerce aims to reduce complexity, so that it’s not difficult to manage your online store.

That is one of the great things about BigCommerce. In helping reduce complexity, they aim to make your business simpler to manage.

Getting in touch with someone at BigCommerce can be a great start. It is easier to move forward when you speak with an expert who understands your business needs. With a simple conversation, it can be much easier to figure out where you want your online store to go.

Who is BigCommerce designed for?

BigCommerce is designed for the following individuals and groups:

• Individuals who sell most of their products online
• Business owners who have big ecommerce stores
• Individuals who have a deep understanding of SEO (& using Google Search)
• People who do business-2-business (B2B) or who are in wholesale

If you own a traditional brick and mortar store (or sell a few products online), BigCommerce may not be the best fit for your business needs. If you’re looking for another alternative, I encourage you to check out my recommendation to make a simple online store.

Can BigCommerce help grow your business?

BigCommerce goes by one of their slogans, “Think Big”. One of their goals is to help businesses grow and get to the next level. Here on our website (No More Time Killers For Business), we help businesses find the right resources to grow and scale further.

So there is a commitment within the company to working with businesses that dream big, along with taking action as well. BigCommerce is one of those services that has great resources to help your website along the way. If you already have an online store and you’re eager to grow it even further, BigCommerce can be very helpful.

Pricing

BigCommerce has a few options for you to build an ecommerce store. You can start off with a 15-day free trial before committing to one. 

They have monthly and annual plans available. If you select a plus or pro annual plan only, you can save up to 10% by picking one or the other. Also, they have 24/7 tech support available if you run into any trouble (via phone, chat, and submitting a ticket).

Plan	Monthly	Annual
Standard Sell online with a great store	$29.95/month	$29.95/month
Plus (Most popular) Grow your business with plenty of marketing tools to boost sales & conversions	$79.95/month	$71.95/month
Pro Scale your business	$299.95/month	$269.96/month

Along with these plans, they offer an enterprise plan for larger businesses. For custom pricing (and based on business needs), contact or request a call for more information.

If you’re still undecided, you can always call to speak with a consultant. It’s always good to get a technical perspective on how to navigate through the website builder. Also, they have a great list of FAQS if you have more questions you need answered.

Pros & Cons

Pros

• No platform fees or commissions on any plan
• Nice features (free for most plans offered)
• Great multi-channel integration for marketing (i.e. social media)
• Great platform for SEO services (big emphasis on using SEO)
• Excellent customer support

Cons

• No free plan available
• Not an easy setup at first- so a little bit of a learning curve
• Not the best for small stores (i.e. if you’re selling a few products)
• Prices are a bit high- especially for new users
• Not the best choice for beginners building a brand new store

Is BigCommerce worth it?

Rating: 4.4/5

BigCommerce has a lot to offer for your online store. What really stood out for me was it’s heavy focus on SEO. If you know a thing or two about SEO, BigCommerce can be a great platform to expand on applying those skills.

If you’re someone who’s just starting out, BigCommerce is not the best choice for beginners (or if you have small stores). Therefore, I would not recommend it for beginners; however, I would recommend it to those who have big online stores and want to expand them.

Final Words

If you’re someone who has a store and looking to expand on other options, BigCommerce may be a great fit for your business needs. It will make running your store easier because of the nice integrations they offer.

If you’re interested in checking it out, get started today with a 15-day free trial. It doesn’t hurt to see if it can help grow your business. 

As I mentioned earlier, their customer support is awesome. So if you have any questions along the way (or you would like to read their FAQS), don’t hesitate to get more information.

BigCommerce has grown to a point where they’re up with the bigger platforms (i.e. Shopify, Squarespace, Wix, etc.). So it’ll be around for awhile, and it’ll get better overtime.

Your Turn: Is BigCommerce right for your business?

I would like to get some of your thoughts on this platform? Do you think BigCommerce is a great choice to build an ecommerce store? What is your favorite part of what BigCommerce offers?

Is there anything you don’t like about this platform? What else can they offer that would make it better for those with online stores?

Feel free to leave your thoughts by leaving a comment below. I look forward to reading your thoughts, and I’ll gladly respond promptly.

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Eric is the owner and chief editor of notimekillers.com. 

He takes great pride in helping people manage their time and grow their businesses. 

Eric is a firm believer in financial and time freedom, as he believes in financial independence and taking ownership of your time. 

“Time is your most important asset. It can be your best friend or worst enemy. How you use your time can shape the future you desire to have.” 

In his leisure time, Eric loves to write and read whenever possible. He enjoys going for long walks outdoors while doing in-home workout videos every week. 

You can also connect with Eric via LinkedIn.