Optimize for search engines

Getting your site ranked in search results can be a confusing, time-consuming ordeal, but it’s pretty important to running your business online. The good news is that Big Cartel has already optimized your store for search engines, based on Google’s own recommendations.

What we do automatically

• Unique titles and meta descriptions based on your products and pages

• Valid HTML markup

• Clean, search-engine-friendly URLs

• Simple, clear navigation

• Proper headers and anchors

• Appropriately labeled alt tags on images

• A robots.txt that points to an automatically generated sitemap

• A canonical URL, which really helps with custom domains

If you have no idea what all of that means, don’t worry, you don’t need to. That’s why we’re here!

What you can do

Use a custom domain by following our directions. This can help search engines see your URL as a defined, unique brand and may boost your rankings.

Provide a good store description on the Account page. This shouldn't be a laundry list of keywords - think of it as a brief bio of your shop with relevant terms included in it.

Write quality descriptions for each product. For real. Don't leave 'em blank!

Get quality inbound links from friends and established sites. Links to your site from blogs, social media posts, even news articles or press releases can help you rank higher. Get creative, but be careful - don't wallpaper the entire internet with your link.

Don’t spam or try to manipulate search engines. There are all kinds of sketchy services out there that seem legit, and make promises about how they'll magically boost your rankings with some kind of SEO dark art (and a bunch of your hard-earned cash). Tactics these "experts" use can hurt your brand. The real benefits come from good old-fashioned hard work.

To learn more, check out our related articles! 👇