Nowadays, an E-commerce website can be a game changer for almost every business.

But why?


Because it can let you start income if you are a student. It is the reason you will find many e-commerce platforms on the Internet that offers easy development and setup of an E-commerce website. Perhaps, the trickiest part is choosing the e-commerce platform. You have to stick with it for a longer duration. Also, your business depends on it. Therefore, it is should be the best and reliable.

The question that might be troubling you after owning an online store is how to promote a small business? It is where SEO enters the picture. Well, when it comes to e-commerce, then one of the important factors that you should take into consideration is being an SEO friendly. It is because around 44 percent of online shopping starts with a simple online search according to the survey conducted by IPSOS 2012. If your product is listed at the top of the search results, then most likely it will make a significant upsurge in sales.

Thus, an ideal E-commerce platform would have the features required to make the e-commerce website search-engine-friendly. Some platform offers only the basic SEO features free of cost, while some charge a hefty amount for advanced SEO Features. There are also some e-commerce platforms who don’t come with any such feature. Therefore, it might be puzzling for you to select the right one for your business.

But what if you get training of internet marketing strategy to start own business for almost free here?

Now, you don’t need to get puzzled if you are looking for the top platform to build e-commerce. In this article, you will find important insights about the top platforms to build e-commerce based on my experience of working with them.

Types of e-commerce platforms Easy to build

E-commerce platforms come in two major types. They are self-hosted and hosted. As the name suggests, the company hosts your online store. While you have to take care of the hosting part of your website in self-hosted solutions. The company just provides the software or CMS through which you built your website.

If you don’t have a good hosting solution in mind or if you are new to this business, then you should better go with a hosted one. However, you may have to pay a fairly high monthly charge.

Shopify 

If you have shopped online at least for a couple of time, then you might have heard about Shopify. It is a very popular e-commerce platform that has a gorgeous looking user interface and admin panel.  According to the latest report by Shopify, it hosts over 100000 e-commerce websites worldwide.

Pros

• There are many advantages of this platforms. Some of them are as follows:
• One can upload infinite products with easy control over modifications and complete inventory.
• One doesn’t have to pay the transaction fee as this e-commerce features discount code engine.
• It features app store that has more than a thousand free as well as paid apps. These apps are helpful for different functions.

Cons

• This great e-commerce platform has its limitations as well. Some of them are as follows:
• When it comes to modifying the Checkout Page, then it features very limited options. One only has minor control over it. Shopify is not the thing for you if you want a specific design in Checkout page other than the default website design. As a matter of fact, the hosted solution doesn’t offer customizable Checkout design.
• Being a hosted solution, it comes with significantly costlier plans as compared to the other non-hosted solutions in the market. Also, the transaction fees are high on lower plans. However, the higher plans have lower transaction fees.

SEO Score

I analyzed Shopify on the basis of various factors that make an e-commerce ideal for SEO. It comes with features like Independent Links, Independent Page Titles, Independent URLs, Independent Image ALT tags, and Independent H1 headings. It also features Canonical URLs, Integrated Blogging Platform, Social Sharing Buttons, Auto XML sitemap, 301 redirects, and Robots Noindex. After considering all the factors, it’s SEO score is 98.

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Magento 

This e-commerce platform is not just one of the most popular but oldest as well. It is a highly scalable e-commerce platform. It suits small businesses as well as large businesses. With this open-source platform, it is extremely easy to add features. Magento can be an ideal option for emerging companies. It is a bit complicated and more mature platform. First-time users may face difficulties. They should better learn the ins and outs of the features offered by this sophisticated platform. Being a self-hosted, it doesn’t cost much.

Pros

• Extremely elastic in nature.
• Extremely SEO friendly.
• Open source and easy to add features.
• Reliable and has been around for a long period.
• Comes with plenty of features.
• Self-hosted and you are free to choose the hosting provider.

Cons

• Difficult to customize
• Not friendly Interface
• The performance is a bit slow. However, it can be fixed but you have to jump into complexities of its interface.

SEO Score

When it comes to an extremely SEO friendly e-commerce platform, Magneto enters the picture.  It comes with features like Independent Links, Independent Page Titles, Independent URLs, Independent Image ALT tags, and Independent H1 headings. It also features Canonical URLs, Integrated Blogging Platform, Social Sharing Buttons, Auto XML sitemap, 301 redirects, and Robots Noindex. Additionally, it features own IP address. After considering all the factors, it’s SEO score is 100.

Big commerce 

It is another hosted e-commerce platform. Big commerce works like Shopify. Though, you can customize it a bit. You can easily find the right tools to leverage on and automate a lot of daily repeated tasks on this platform. At present, it has empowered more than tens of thousands e-commerce websites and processed more than $9 billion transactions worldwide.

Pros

• It offers a very comprehensive set of useful e-commerce tools.
• With minimal effort, one can leverage social media to grow sales.
• A titanic app sore with simple and advanced tools.
• It features cleaner and easy to navigate Admin panel.

Cons

• Not 24/7 support
• Only 7 free templates
• A bit expensive plans.

SEO Score

It has almost all the features of an SEO friendly e-commerce platform. However, it lacks the feature Own IP addresses. After considering all the factors, it’s SEO score is 91 out of 100.

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Squarespace 

Squarespace in kind of general website builder. It is great for building simple e-commerce websites. It offers some simple but useful e-commerce tools. The best part is, it’s an inexpensive option. It matters especially if you are setting up or if you own a small business. You can have a beautiful layout of your online store without knowing the coding with the help of its templates. You can add unlimited items on your website. You will also have complete control on the inventory management.

Pros

• Great for small businesses.
• Features awesome templates.
• Can host podcasts.
• Great blogging capabilities.

Cons

• Don’t feature many capabilities in SEO or CRM
• The e-commerce platform of Squarespace integrates with just one payment processor.
• The Google speed’s test rates its templates to be slow.

SEO score

When it comes to SEO capabilities, then Squarespace doesn’t offer much. It lacks independent H1 headings and Own IP addresses. After considering all the factors, it’s SEO score is 91.

Volusion 

Similar to Big Commerce, Volusion is a hosted e-commerce platform. You can start selling online with this platform even if you are a technical nerd. You don’t have to deal with servers or technical issues related to the shopping cart. All you have to focus is on your business and sales. At present, it is empowering more than 40000 e-commerce websites. Also, more than $17 billion transactions took place on its platform over the past 15 years.

Pros

• Features comprehensive set of useful e-commerce tools.
• 24/7 responsive support
• Zero transaction fees

Cons

• Comes with fewer customization options.
• Just one template file for starters.
• One has to buy SSL certificate
• Limited Bandwidth with unspecified charge for Bandwidth exceed
• No blogging options

SEO score

It misses some of the features such as Own IP addresses, no blogging platform. Thus, it is not much SEO friendly. After considering all the factors, it’s SEO score is 88.

Here we have some of the best e-commerce platforms in the industry. It is important that you take your e-commerce website to the next phase by automating the daily tasks and freeing your time for focussing on your business especially on the sales. The above list includes some of the great e-commerce platforms that are flexible and supportive. They can deliver a hassle-free and organized experience of running online store to you. Hopefully, this article has also answered the most awaiting question of how to build your dream website for free?