10 rounds of technical platform capabilities accessing the impact of these on SEO performance and opportunities

1. PLATFORM KOMBAT

2. V

3. WHO AM I?
HEAD OF SEARCH @ RED HOT PENNY
• Responsible for organic and paid teams
• Over a decade in ecommerce and digital marketing
• Love Lego, Star Wars, football, golf, music, gaming and of course
SEO!
Worked with…

4. WHAT ARE WE DOING?
Comparing 2 popular ecommerce platforms in 10 rounds of technical SEO
capabilities
Accessing the potential impact of these SEO opportunities

5. ROUND 1:
FRIENDLY URLS

6. FRIENDLY URLS:
WHAT?
URLs designed to match the needs of the users search
WHY?
Help search engines understand what the page is about
and sends stronger signals
HOW?
Customise to make them relevant and user friendly

7. FRIENDLY URLS:
https://uk.gymshark.com/pages/shop-men
https://uk.gymshark.com/collections/bottoms/mens
https://www.zoggs.com/swimwear/mens
https://www.zoggs.com/swimwear/mens/performanc
e

8. WINNER!
More flexibility and better naming convensions

9. ROUND 2:
FILTERING & PAGINATION

10. FILTERING:
WHAT?
Standard ecommerce functionality on category or
product list pages
WHY?
Help users narrow in on the product their trying to find
using certain criteria
HOW?
Search engines crawl and index them (if allowed) and
are a source of new ranking opportunities

11. FILTERING:
https://uk.gymshark.com/collections/base-
layers/mens+filter-colour-blue
• Canonical to itself
• Clear and concise
https://www.zoggs.com/swimwear?fabric=780
• Canonical back to source category
• Not clear what the filter is

12. WINNER!
Clearer to determine what the filters are
Better ability to rank for variations

13. ROUND 3:
CANONICAL TAGS

14. CANONICAL TAGS:
WHAT?
HTML tags implemented directly into HTML or via Google
Tag Manager (GTM)
WHY?
Tell search engines which page is the “master” version
HOW?
Stops duplications and dilution of authority

15. CANONICAL TAGS:
URL:
/collections/bottoms/mens+filter-colour-red
Canonical URL:
/collections/bottoms/mens+filter-colour-red
URL:
/swimwear?colour=672&fabric=780
Canonical URL:
/swimwear

16. WINNER!
Can determine canonicals freely whereas shopify
is more rigid and does not allow for flexible
application of the canonical tags

17. ROUND 4:
ROBOTS.TXT

18. ROBOTS.TXT:
WHAT?
First file that bots look for when visiting a site
WHY?
Determines what they can or can’t crawl on the site
HOW?
Flexibility to tailor how crawl budget is spent and can
solve duplications

19. ROBOTS.TXT:
Shopify does not allow you to edit the robots file,
they say what they add in is right.
Forces you to add code to individual pages for non
index.
Can access the file and exclude pages as and when
required giving more flexibility and helping to
optimise the crawl budget.
Warning can be dangerous if you don’t know what
your doing.

20. WINNER!
More flexibility and ability to optimise your crawl
budget

21. ROUND 5:
CATEGORIES

22. CATEGORY STRUCTURE:
WHAT?
How products are structured and found on site
(navigation)
WHY?
Help users to find what they are looking for easier
HOW?
Structure them to determine the themes and topics of
the site and what the business is about

23. /pages/shop-women
/collections/t-shirts-tops/womens
/uk/junior
/uk/junior/boys
/uk/womens/dresses
CATEGORY STRUCTURE:

24. WINNER!
URLs line up with the category structure giving
better signals
Shopify category landing pages have to be custom
pages that don’t follow the structure

25. ROUND 6:
SITEMAPS

26. SITEMAPS:
WHAT?
File providing information about the pages of the site
WHY?
Another way to navigate through the site (HTML for
users, XML for search engines)
HOW?
Use them to advise site structure and ensure pages are
crawled

27. SITEMAPS:
• Auto generated sitemaps for products, pages,
and blogs
• Last modified dates are accurate from server
logs
• Does not allow to determine priority for pages
• No video sitemap
• Can be manual or auto generated
• Last modified dates can be taken from server logs
• Allows for priority to be added page by page
• Ability to create video and image sitemaps if
required

28. WINNER!
Magento and shopify’s sitemaps are
good and provide the data needed
Maybe Magento has a slight advantage
in terms of flexibility
&

29. ROUND 7:
CONTENT

30. CONTENT:
WHAT?
Custom pages – informational / campaign based pages
WHY?
Create useful information outside of PLP’s or listing pages
HOW?
Create customised pages to be part of campaigns, earn
rankings and build authority

31. CONTENT:
Any campaign content or custom content must
follow the specified structure /pages/
Makes authority channelling harder / more complex
as campaigns can’t be linked via the folder structure
https://international.triangl.com/pages/cam
paigns
Flexibility to create custom pages depending on the
requirement
Content is not determined by the platform capability
Content can be added at any level in the structure
and link effectively to any category
https://www.prettylittlething.com/campaigns
/2019/molly-mae/?navigation-campaigns-
mollymae

32. WINNER!
Pages are more customisable
Able to add pages closer to the root domain to
give more authority
Content can be created for and linked to
specific campaigns

33. ROUND 8:
PAGE SPEED

34. PAGE SPEED:
WHAT?
How quick your site pages load for users
WHY?
Now one of the biggest elements of search engine
algorithms
HOW?
Improve load times to improve user experience thus
boosting ranking signals

35. PAGE SPEED:
• Cloud based hosting infrastructure
• Offers a good CDN
• Built in image size parameters (optimisation)
• Minifies CSS automatically
• AMP apps available
• Page caching solution
• Can include CDN (cloud version)
• Apps available for all page speed elements

36. WINNER!
Slight winner due to standard features that
come with a hosted environment
The onus is on you when it comes to Magento

37. ROUND 9:
HOSTING

38. HOSTING:
WHAT?
Location of the servers that your site is hosted on
WHY?
Server location is part of the algorithm
HOW?
Location can help determine which market you are
targeting

39. HOSTING:
• Hosted platform
• All shopify sites locations are classed as Ottawa
Canada
• No ability to change server location &
configurations
• Self hosted platform
• You determine where and what it is hosted on
• More ability to locate sites based on target
market

40. WINNER!
Ability to determine where the site is hosted and
who with
Ability to change server configurations for
speed and optimisation purposes

41. ROUND 10:
INTERNATIONAL

42. INTERNATIONAL:
WHAT?
Ability to add additional sites to your domain
WHY?
Help business growth outside of your main target market
HOW?
Structure sites to serve localised content, products,
services to a specific country

43. INTERNATIONAL:
• Can add multiple sites in the platform
• Limited multilingual capability without using
plugins
• 2 solutions for international set up
• Sub domains
• Top level domains domains (TLD’s)
• Ability to add multiple sites
• Multilingual capabilities (more with extensions)
• Multiple solutions for international targeting
• Sub domains
• Top level domains domains (TLD’s)
• Sub folders (/uk/)

44. WINNER!
More capability to target multiple countries / markets
Ability to use sub folders for country targeting
(recommended for SEO)
Hosting can be dedicated for each country
Able to provide fully localised experience

45. MY VERDICT:

46. VERDICT:
My opinion:
Shopify is stronger if you want an out of the box
solution that is quick and easy to get going and is
good enough for starting up with SEO.
Both platforms will achieve success in SEO but
success will be limited with Shopify.
Magento will allow you to tap into a much more
advanced way of optimising for SEO.
Magento will help you to unlock the full potential of
the organic channel.

47. OVERALL WINNER!

48. THANK YOU
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