User experience is a crucial SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) factor for online businesses. It affects your website’s click-through and bounce rates, as well as their dwell time. When prospects visit your website and don’t like what they see, they abandon your page, making search engines believe that your website doesn’t satisfy their needs. As such, Google will rank your website low in the search results and reduce your chances of growth.
Fortunately, there are many ways to optimise your brand’s user experience and drive customers to your site. One of them is through SEO-optimised themes (I call them premium themes). eCommerce themes are store designs that eCommerce platforms pre-build for online store owners. Brands can install them to improve their customer’s user experience on their eCommerce websites.
This article is an expose on why eCommerce themes can make or mar your marketing strategies and the best SEO-optimised ones for your brand. Let’s get started.
Why Should I Choose Premium Themes for my eCommerce SEO?
There are many reasons why you should stick with premium themes when optimising your eCommerce website for search engines. The most obvious one is that they give your online store an edge over competitors by improving traffic to your website. However, there are more reasons to consider premium themes:
Customisation and Flexibility
The best eCommerce themes are flexible and allow easy customisation to suit your unique needs or goals. In addition, they support page builders, so you wouldn’t need professional assistance to make your themes different from other brands. With the ability to create numerous variations, premium themes ensure that you have a brand identity that’s truly yours.
Support
One of the characteristics of the best eCommerce themes is the maximum theme support that comes with them. With premium themes, you don’t have to rely on trial and error to navigate any challenge you may encounter. This means fewer chances of making unnecessary errors that may negatively impact your brand’s growth.
Responsiveness
Premium eCommerce themes are terrific when it comes to responsiveness. The best themes support smaller screens without needing to recode or use plugins. This advantage is significant because it makes it easy to create a fantastic user experience for your clientele that access your website via mobile devices.
Security
With premium themes, you don’t have to worry about malicious codes. Furthermore, premium theme developers update them regularly to ensure that you aren’t compromised. As such, you’ll have peace of mind working with premium themes as you’re sure of reduced avenues for hackers to exploit.
Professional Design
Everyone loves quality designs, and that’s precisely what premium themes offer. Expertly designed and maintained themes will improve your website’s looks and feel. This ensures that visitors perceive your site as authoritative, making them more receptive to the information you put out. In other words, premium themes will improve your user’s dwell time by giving your website pro-looks.
So, are SEO eCommerce premium themes worth it? My answer is a big YES, based on the reasons above. In subsequent paragraphs, I’ll walk you through the best SEO eCommerce premium themes for Shopify, WordPress, and BigCommerce as they are the most popular eCommerce CMSs out there.
Best WordPress Themes for SEO
WooCommerce on WordPress is one of the biggest eCommerce platforms for SEO worldwide. The platform also offers numerous SEO-optimised themes for business owners. These are my favourites:
1. Astra – Best in Customisation Features
To optimise your WordPress website to attract as many prospects as possible, you should consider using Astra. Astra helps you build a solid website while providing you with the best SEO benefits. For example, this theme’s features include lightweight code, schema markups, and premium support for mobile pages. These ensure optimal site performance and will significantly boost the user experience for your clients.
Astra offers you many options for importable demo sites and allows you to tweak them to suit your needs. If SEO fonts and design mean a lot to you, then Astra is your best bet.
2. Divi – Best in Shop Designs
Divi is another excellent choice of WordPress eCommerce theme for SEO. This premium multi-purpose theme is as functional as it is popular. In addition, Divi offers you an integrated Divi Builder that offers the best versatility when it comes to design. With Divi Builder, you’ll get a drag-and-drop visual page builder interface system and numerous options for styling, elements, and layouts.
Choosing Divi means selecting a theme that offers your clients the best customer experience and fast-loading pages. With this theme, you’ll also enjoy highly responsive layouts and elements, descriptive HTML, and other advantages. So, if you want your website to enjoy high search engine rankings, Divi is never a bad choice.
3. Extra – Best for Blogging
Like its name, Extra gives your website enough SEO advantages to make it perform optimally. Interestingly, Extra shares the same developers with Divi, so you can be sure that this theme was developed with the best SEO practices in mind. As one of the best magazine WordPress themes, Extra is beginner-friendly and lets you seamlessly create custom designs for your website.
Extra also allows you to explore numerous pre-made layouts and editorial modules. Moreover, this theme is optimised for all devices, all thanks to its fully responsive control panel. In summary, Extra will make my list of the best eCommerce themes for WordPress every time.
4. Neve – Best for Speed
One of my favourite things about Neve is its optimisation for all screen sizes and impeccable user experience. Neve offers extensive, top-quality demos with fast-loading pages and WordPress plugin compatibility. This multipurpose theme is also compatible with numerous drag-and-drop page builders. You’ll enjoy using Neve as part of your SEO strategies.
5. Olsen Pro – Best for Beauty/Lifestyle Store Owners
There are many things to love about Olsen Pro, but my favourite feature is its responsiveness. Olsen Pro is super fast and offers demo content/widgets to guarantee speedy blogging. You can also explore the theme’s eleven layout choices to create a website that’s uniquely yours. Other exciting benefits of using Olsen Pro include access to integrated social media icons and the best customisation. This blogging style SEO-friendly premium theme for WordPress is a dream come true for many online store owners.
6. Monstroid2 – Best in Beginner-Friendliness
Best-selling Monstroid2 offers an Elementor integration and numerous SEO-optimised features to help you build your website seamlessly and drive more traffic. In addition, this multipurpose theme is beginner-friendly and offers various built-in customisable options to explore. With Monstroid2, you’ll also enjoy top-notch support, documentation, and access to JetElements and other quality plugins.
Best Shopify Themes for SEO
Shopify is one of the best eCommerce platforms for online shop owners who want to grow their businesses speedily. According to Statista, Shopify businesses enjoyed an incredible 50% online sales increase in 2022. This is not surprising because the platform has some of the best SEO eCommerce premium themes to explore, including the following:
7. Palo Alto – Best Contemporary Designs
Palo Alto is pretty pricey at $250, so this theme may not be your best choice if you’re looking for the most affordable options. However, it offers impressive features that can significantly improve your organic traffic in no time. This makes it one of your Shopify website’s best SEO eCommerce premium themes.
Besides being SEO-friendly, Palo Alto is a high-performing theme that offers large image optimisation and free theme updates. You’ll enjoy using this theme, especially if you’re in the beauty, fashion, and health industry.
8. Negan – Best Minimalist Theme
Negan is one minimal theme with surprisingly amazing and powerful SEO advantages that you can enjoy for $89. This fully responsive theme offers you numerous templates and layouts to explore. Negan is flexible, fast, and customisable. You’ll enjoy Instagram integration, RTL, and customer support when choosing Negan. It’s one of the best affordable premium eCommerce themes to optimise your Shopify shop for search engines.
9. Oars – Best for Clothing Stores
Here’s another affordable SEO Shopify premium theme for websites. With $69, you can get a fully responsive eCommerce theme with speed and mobile-optimisation advantages, courtesy of tvlgiao, the developers of Oars. In addition, Oars offer customisation and quality customer support. This theme will boost your search engine rankings and offer you a top-notch customer experience.
10. Sigma – Best in Responsiveness
Do you want to give your Shopify store a pro look? Then, you should make Sigma your favourite theme. Sigma is a fully responsive theme with advanced SEO features and numerous other advantages. For example, using Sigma, you can enjoy HTML5+ CSS3 and newsletter signup form features. This theme costs $45.
11. Star – Best in User Experience
Star offers you sleekness like you’ve never seen before and unique SEO features for $59. This theme is optimised for mobile devices and features Google-rich snippets, product reviews, image optimisation, social media sharing, and customisation tools. Star is also user-friendly; even novices will have a field day exploring this theme. So, if you want a Shopify theme that gives you the best modern looks while following SEO best practices, Star is just perfect.
12. Everest – Best for Modern Stores
Everest, developed by CleverSoft, takes the spotlight regarding feature-richness and modern designs. It’s also one of the best Shopify themes for conversions. Everest costs $59 and can improve your website’s speed and overall performance. In addition, this theme is fully customisable and includes amazing features like a countdown timer, sticky menus, newsletter popups, and customisable image size.
Best BigCommerce Themes For SEO
BigCommerce is one of the most popular eCommerce platforms. If you use eCommerce, you can take advantage of these premium themes to boost your SEO:
13. Cornerstone – Best for Simple Designs
Although Cornerstone is a free theme, it offers numerous advantages for your SEO. First, this theme is highly responsive and optimised for desktop, tablet, and mobile. It always functions perfectly for large catalogues and sales/discounts. Other amazing Cornerstone features include free customer support, Google Analytics Enhanced eCommerce, mega navigation, complex search filtering, advanced quick view, etc. Also, there are three Cornerstone variations to choose from- Cornerstone Bold, Cornerstone Light, and Cornerstone Warm.
Cornerstone is the theme of choice for many new BigCommerce shop owners.
14. Fortune – Best in Sleek Navigation
If your catalogues are small or medium-sized, Fortune serves you best. This free theme comes in four variations: Fortune Minimal, Fortune Bright, Fortune Contrast, and Fortune Highlight. Fortune is optimised for sales/discounts, mobile/cell phones, tablets, and laptops.
With this theme, you’ll get access to powerful features, including Google AMP, Google Analytics Enhanced eCommerce, free customer support, customisable product selector, etc. You’ll also enjoy an advanced quick view, front-page slideshow, masonry design, saved payment methods, free theme upgrades, and many more. If you wish to increase your conversion rates seamlessly, Fortune is perfect for your eCommerce brand.
15. Scales – Best in Innovative Designs
Whether you go with Scales Chic, Scales Pop, Scales Modern, or Scales Pop, Scales remains a unique BigCommerce theme for SEO. This theme provides numerous advantages, including 100% responsiveness, free customer checkout, advanced quick view, and complex search filtering.
You’ll also enjoy Google Analytics Enhanced eCommerce, Google AMP, high res product images, product showcase, free theme upgrades, and lots more. Scales is optimised for multi-purpose, mobile, tablet, and desktop. It’s a great theme to explore.
16. SarahMarket – Best for Large Stores
SarahMarket is the best BigCommerce theme for online supermarkets, large stores, and grocery stores. SarahMarket is highly responsive, fast loading, and well-designed like other themes on my list. This multi-purpose theme will give your website a quick SEO boost with its top-notch functionality and powerful features.
One of the things to love about SarahMarket is its flexibility and impeccable technical support. SarahMarket provides powerful theme options, an extensive user guide, CSS Foundation, and SASS. You can also use Column, Carousel, and grid to display your products by category in a well-organised manner.
If you want to reach a global market, SarahMarket is a perfect choice as it includes multi-currencies and languages. This is one theme that was made to impress.
17. Parts Warehouse – Best in Features
Whether you’re a startup or an experienced online shop owner, Parts Warehouse remains a valuable theme due to its flexibility and numerous features.
If you’re in the home and garden, sports and recreation, automotive and industrial, or electronics and computer industries, this theme is optimised for you. Parts Warehouse comes in Classic, Light, Champion, and Dark styles and works well to improve your SEO.
Which are the Best SEO eCommerce Premium Themes for my Website?
The best SEO eCommerce premium themes for your site depend on numerous factors. As you may have already realised, the first thing to consider when choosing premium themes for your brand is how well they can improve SEO.
Your preferred theme should be compatible with all devices and enhance site speed. The best themes will also let you customise your website’s metadata while providing quality support for rich snippets.
However, there are other considerations to help you make the best choice. They include:
User Ratings and Reviews
Like with every other product, reviews and ratings can give you an idea of the quality of a selected eCommerce theme. So, analyse customer reviews and ratings before choosing any theme. It’s one of the best ways to do your due diligence.
Pricing
When choosing an eCommerce theme, sticking to your budget is always wise. You wouldn’t want to spend too much on a theme that offers similar benefits to a cheaper one. So, find the themes that provide the best quality at affordable prices.
Active Installs
How many users have installed your selected theme? The answer should give you an idea of the theme’s performance. Poorly performing themes will likely have ridiculously low sales even when they’ve been available for a long time. However, top-performing themes, like Astra, have millions of active installs.
Compatibility
Before choosing any theme, confirm that it’s compatible with your preferred plugin. To be sure, you can ask the developer before purchasing it. This gives you the best functionality, and you have themes and plugins that meet your every need.
Post-Sale Support
Will your chosen theme provide you with top-notch customer support? If it doesn’t, that’s a good sign it’s not for you. The developers of the best eCommerce themes wouldn’t leave you all by yourself to figure out challenges you may have with their products.
Other factors to consider include your content strategy, competitors’ websites, the latest UX design trends, and your hosting platform (CMS or eCommerce).
Get The Best of SEO with Your eCommerce SEO Consultant
Undoubtedly, having an SEO-optimised premium theme for your brand will do wonders for your website organisation. However, getting the traffic and sales your online shop deserves is not enough. More than eCommerce themes, you need an experienced eCommerce SEO consultant to help you achieve your business goals. Fortunately, I can help you with that.
As a freelance eCommerce SEO specialist with several years of experience in this industry, I’ve successfully helped numerous startups and SMEs achieve their SEO goals. From content marketing to technical and international SEO, you can be sure of the best results when working with me. I also offer the best SEO training and coaching services for teams in the UK. So, contact me today for more information on how I can help you get the best search engine optimisation to grow your online store.
