Salesforce Commerce Cloud (SFCC) is a leading e-commerce platform – formerly known as Demandware before its acquisition by Salesforce in 2016 for $2.8 billion. SFCC has become very popular among online retailers, attracting the likes of Fossil, Adidas, GameStop to its cloud-based e-commerce software.
I’ve had the pleasure of working within Commerce Cloud (Demandware) over the last 5 years and have been able to work on more than +200 sites, as website migrations and strategic partnerships.
SFCC is an extraordinarily robust platform that started to highlight SEO capabilities in recent years. Being that my clients depend on organic search to drive traffic and revenue, any update to a CMS that highlights SEO is appreciated.
Who is this guide for?
This is a thorough SEO guide meant to help brands, merchandisers, and webmasters navigate the various SEO settings that exist in Commerce Cloud’s SFRA version. As such, this guide will focus primarily on the “SEO”-specific sections of SFCC.
Based on my praise I’ve received from this guide, varying disciplines can benefit from understanding the SEO nuances in Salesforce Commerce Cloud, including the below disciplines,
- Marketing managers
- Brand managers
- Business analysts
- SEO vendors / partners
- Those completely new to the platform
How can we follow along?
This guide is working under the assumption that you have access to a Salesforce Commerce Cloud instance, possibly a sandbox environment.
Keep in mind, you may find yourself needing to create an SEO dev ticket for platform customizations but for this guide, we will focus on out of the box (OOTB) features, which will be accessible to any Salesforce Commerce Cloud instance.
Why did I create this guide?
Over the last several years I had found myself looking for answers from other SFCC webmasters and merchandisers online, trying to make sense of all the tools found in the platform. There wasn’t as much documentation and felt a resource hub would be valuable for someone on the ground optimizing an SFCC site for organic search.
This guide is meant to help supplement your SEO strategy and add onto your arsenal of website migration tools but certainly not meant to substitute any roadmap. If you’re looking to craft a strategy, please read my guide on building an SEO project plan.
I’ll attempt to link to the Salesforce Commerce Cloud official documentation where possible, this way you can reference either my documentation and / or the SFCC documentation, in parallel.
This guide has been structured into easy to digest chapters. Each chapter focuses on either overarching capabilities or considerations.
Explore the chapters below!
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Chapter 1: Staging vs. Production vs. Development Instances
Discover the nuances between various Salesforce Commerce Cloud web environments and their impact on your SEO efforts. Learn more about web environments today!
Chapter 2: Business Manager SEO Portal
Business Manager is the gateway to all things Salesforce Commerce Cloud, including merchandising, administration, site development and SEO capabilities.
Chapter 3: Salesforce Commerce Cloud URL Rules
Build an optimal URL structure in Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Discover how to configure URLs for your SEO project today!
Chapter 4: Salesforce Commece Cloud Redirects
Learn how to efficiently build redirects within Salesforce Commerce Cloud. From URL Redirects, Static Mapping, and Dynamic Mapping, SFCC offers various redirect options.
Chapter 5: Salesforce Commerce Cloud Robots.txt
Discover how to configure a Salesforce Commerce Cloud robots.txt template for your site; read the Salesforce Commerce Cloud guide today!
Chapter 6: Salesforce Commerce Cloud Aliases
Discover the secret power of the Salesforce Commerce Cloud Alias file. Read more today!
Chapter 7: Salesforce Commerce Cloud XML Sitemaps
Discover how to generate Salesforce Commerce Cloud XML sitemaps. Understand the settings and configurations today!
Chapter 8: Salesforce Commerce Cloud URL Request Analyzer
Discover how to better analyze URL status codes and redirects with the Salesforce Commerce Cloud URL Request Analyzer.
Chapter 9: Salesforce Commerce Cloud Page Meta Tag Rules
Discover an efficient way to build meta tag rules in Salesforce Commerce Cloud with the Page Meta Tag Rules. Read more today!
Chapter 10: Salesforce Commerce Cloud SEO Settings
Discover additional SEO settings within Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Optimize your site to the fullest today!
Chapter 11: SFCC SEO Summary
A few parting words as we wind down this Salesforce Commerce Cloud guide. Read today!
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