Editor’s note: “Ask an SEO” is a weekly column by technical SEO experts Jenny Halasz and Kristine Schachinger. Come up with your hardest SEO question and fill out our form. You might see your answer in the next #AskanSEO post!
Welcome to another edition of Ask an SEO! Today’s question comes from Sarah in Montreal. She asks:
I am migrating our website from Wix to Shopify and I was wondering if I should do it ? (Pages content will mainly remain the same.) Do you consider this as a major change?
The simple answer is, yes, you should do it!
Well maybe, context is really the deciding factor here and yes, any move to a new platform is a major change.
OK, well, guess we are done here.
Just kidding.
So should you move to Wix? That is a complex question, with a few fairly simple answers.
Wix vs. Shopify
There is an idea in the SEO community that Wix cannot rank well.
While there are issues with Wix that make this more difficult and in some cases not probable, most of the time Wix can rank just fine.
So all else being equal, that is not a compelling reason to move over to a new platform.
However, when you are looking for an ecommerce platform, there are limitations in Wix that make it less than desirable for all but the small store that is just interested in selling a few items.
In the decision between Shopify and Wix, Shopify is where you want to be to grow your ecommerce business or if you are managing more than just a few SKUs.
So Why Shopify?
Simply put, Shopify is designed as an ecommerce platform with all the tools to help you grow a successful ecommerce business. For this reason, it is used by well-known companies such as Budweiser, The Economist, and Tesla Motors.
Basically, you also have more control over SEO-related site issues in Shopify than Wix.
Shopify allows you to use SEO plugins to control on-page/on-site SEO issues, while Wix does not give you plugins or access.
You can also add customized sitemaps, customized canonicals, and AMP pages on Shopify; while these features are not available on Wix. On an ecommerce site, these can be important tools to control the quality of Google’s crawl and to deal with page speed issues in the case of AMP.
In addition to the SEO issues – while Wix has pretty templates, drag-and-drop page creation, and a lower price point for entry (i.e., free), Wix is limited in its ecommerce functions.
While it can do some ecommerce, it is not designed as an ecommerce platform.
This means that it has far less ecommerce features (e.g., fewer choices for payment gateways, no help with cart abandonment, and no social media integration).
This article gives a very good breakdown of these pros and cons between the two platforms.
So Wix or Shopify?
If you are serious about growing your online ecommerce presence, then Shopify, while not perfect, is a much better choice than Wix.
With better SEO tools, plugins, AMP readiness, and greater ecommerce functionality, it can help you grow your business more quickly.
Wix is a fine place to start, but you will have to move off it at some point if you want to grow.
So seems, you have made the right choice to migrate now.
Site Migration Plan
Tip: All site migrations are big deals. You will want to make sure you covered all your bases and moved over everything that needs to be moved.
This article on ecommerce migrations from Search Engine Journal should be helpful in addressing any issues that arise from your move.
More Resources:
- Shopify SEO: How to Optimize Your Store for Success
- 5 Technical SEO Problems Within Shopify & How to Solve Them
- Ecommerce Marketing: The Definitive Guide
Featured Image Credit: Paulo Bobita
