Starting Out with BigCommerce? 6 Tips for Beginners
April 19, 2025
Starting a new online store with BigCommerce presents a unique set of challenges and opportunities. This article provides exclusive insights from seasoned BigCommerce professionals to guide beginners through the essentials of setting up a successful store. Learn how to optimize your site, engage customers effectively, and harness the full potential of BigCommerce's tools and resources.
When starting with BigCommerce, it's essential to understand its built-in features to optimize user experience and conversions. Familiarizing yourself with tools like customizable URL structures, meta titles, descriptions, and automated sitemaps enhances search visibility. For example, a clothing brand that utilized BigCommerce's SEO features effectively improved its online presence by ensuring its product listings appeared in search engine results.
Mohammed Kamal
Business Development Manager, Olavivo
My key advice for newcomers to BigCommerce is to prioritize establishing a strong affiliate marketing program from the start. This approach can enhance customer acquisition and drive sales while leveraging partnerships to expand brand reach. Affiliate marketing is cost-effective since you only pay for successful conversions. Use BigCommerce's features and third-party apps to manage affiliate relationships and monitor performance effectively.
Michael Kazula
Director of Marketing, Olavivo
If you're just starting out with BigCommerce, my biggest piece of advice is to focus on building a strong foundation--specifically, optimizing your site structure and product pages from the beginning. BigCommerce is a powerful platform, but its true strength lies in how well you set it up to scale.
One thing that helped us early on was leveraging BigCommerce's built-in SEO tools. For example, we made sure every product page had unique, keyword-rich titles and meta descriptions, along with high-quality images and detailed product descriptions. This improved our organic search visibility right away.
Another game-changer was integrating third-party apps for automation. We used Stamped.io for product reviews, which added social proof and boosted conversions, and Klaviyo for email marketing automation, which helped us nurture leads effectively.
If you're looking for a great resource, the BigCommerce community forums and their knowledge base are invaluable. We learned a lot from other business owners sharing their experiences, and BigCommerce's support team was always responsive when we hit a roadblock.
Ultimately, success on BigCommerce isn't just about launching a store--it's about continuously optimizing and leveraging the right tools to grow. Start with a solid structure, invest in automation, and stay engaged with the community to keep learning.
Max Shak
Founder/CEO, nerDigital
The best advice I would give to someone just starting out with BigCommerce is to fully leverage its built-in SEO and conversion optimization features from day one. When I first set up a store, I overlooked structured data and site speed, which hurt early traffic and conversions. Once I optimized product pages with custom URLs, meta descriptions, and alt text, rankings improved significantly.
One specific resource that helped me early on was BigCommerce's Knowledge Base and community forums. Unlike other platforms where you need third-party apps for everything, BigCommerce has a lot of native tools for scaling--abandoned cart recovery, built-in analytics, and multi-channel selling.
A mistake I made early on was focusing too much on site design rather than product organization and user experience. Once I streamlined navigation and simplified the checkout process, conversions improved immediately. BigCommerce is powerful, but success comes from focusing on functionality and making data-driven decisions.
Georgi Petrov
CMO, Entrepreneur, and Content Creator, AIG MARKETER
My top advice for someone just starting out with BigCommerce is to thoroughly explore and utilize the platform's native features and resources from day one. I found that investing time in BigCommerce University was incredibly beneficial--it offers a wealth of tutorials, webinars, and detailed guides that cover everything from setting up your store to optimizing SEO and conversion rates. This resource helped me avoid common pitfalls and accelerate my learning curve.
By leveraging these educational tools and actively participating in BigCommerce community forums, I was able to fine-tune my store's design and functionality early on, which significantly improved my site's performance and customer engagement. The proactive use of these resources set a strong foundation for sustainable growth and operational efficiency.
Shehar Yar
CEO, Software House
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My advice to someone starting out with BigCommerce is to focus on building a solid SEO foundation from day one. Optimizing product descriptions, URLs, and image alt text can dramatically improve search visibility. One resource that helped me early on was using BigCommerce's built-in SEO tools and Google Analytics. Understanding how to leverage these tools to track and refine my strategies made a huge difference in driving traffic. Consistency in maintaining SEO efforts is key to growing your online store.
Mike Khorev
Managing Director, Nine Peaks Media
