When it comes to building a website, one of the most important factors to consider is SEO. The impact of SEO on the organic traffic your website receives cannot be overstated, making it a key element to focus on when using a website builder.
Choosing the best website builder for SEO is not as straightforward as it may seem, as one of the most important factors is your content. You could have fantastic content on a poor website builder and rank higher than a website with poor content on a builder renowned for its SEO capabilities.
Although different website builders offer different SEO capabilities, the most crucial aspect will be dedicated to your site around the content you produce.
What is a Website Builder?
A website builder is a software tool or platform that allows individuals and businesses to create websites without needing to write code or possess technical skills.
These tools offer a variety of features to simplify the website creation process.
Here’s a breakdown of key components and functionalities typically found in website builders:
- Drag-and-Drop Interface: Users can easily add and arrange elements (such as text, images, and videos) on their web pages by dragging them into place.
- To design a page on a website builder, you do not really need and development experience or knowledge of HTML or CSS, you can simply drag and drop elements onto your page.
- Templates: Website builders offer pre-designed templates that can be customised to fit the user’s needs. These templates provide a starting point and ensure that the website looks professional.
- Many templates are ready to go with limited editing, but if you want to impress your brand, you should be looking at changing the styling and colours of pre-built themes.
- Responsive Design: Most website builders ensure that websites are responsive, meaning they will adjust to look good on any device, whether it’s a desktop, tablet, or smartphone.
- All reputable website builders are set up to work on mobile devices with only limited edits needed in places, such as ensuring images scale to small screens on occasion.
- Hosting and Domain Services: Many website builders offer integrated hosting services and the ability to purchase domain names, simplifying the process of getting a website online.
- Along with SSL security certificates, most website builders also look after site security to an extent with regular updates and server-side security implementations.
- E-commerce Capabilities: Some website builders include features for setting up online stores, including product listings, shopping carts, and payment processing.
- Builders like Shopify have e-commerce set up out of the box; other builders like WordPress will need a simple plug-in such as WooCommerce to extend this functionality.
- SEO Tools: These tools help improve the website’s visibility on search engines through features like keyword suggestions, metadata management, and site analytics.
- Plugins and Add-ons: Users can enhance their websites with additional functionality through plugins and add-ons, such as contact forms, social media integration, and more.
If you are using a website builder and want to add new functionality to your website, the plug-in marketplace could have ready-made solutions you only need to install. Many plug-ins are also free to use, while others require a charge or subscription.
The Best Website Builder Contenders
When considering the best website builders for SEO, several key factors play a significant role. Here’s an overview of popular website builders and how they stack up in terms of SEO:
WordPress 
WordPress is highly regarded for its SEO capabilities, primarily because of its flexibility and extensive plugin ecosystem. Plugins like Yoast SEO or All in One SEO Pack can significantly enhance your control over SEO elements like meta tags, sitemaps, and keyword optimisation.
WordPress also allows for flexible URL structures, image alt attributes, and rich snippets, which are beneficial for SEO.
Within WordPress, you can also choose from an extensive list of themes, such as Divi or Elementor, which allow for complete page customisation.
These drag-and-drop builders are very easy to use and optimised for mobile devices, which is crucial for modern browsing.
Wix
Although Wix has made significant strides in SEO in recent years, it has had a bad reputation in terms of SEO features in the past.
It offers a straightforward SEO setup via its Wix SEO Wiz tool, which guides you through the basics of SEO settings. Wix supports customisable URLs, meta descriptions, and image alt texts.
However, it can be somewhat limited compared to WordPress due to its closed ecosystem.
Squarespace
Squarespace is known for its sleek templates and user-friendly design interface. It offers built-in SEO tools that handle basics like page titles, descriptions, and custom URLs.
Squarespace also automatically generates sitemaps, making it easier for search engines to crawl and index the site. However, the control over SEO aspects isn’t as granular as WordPress.
Squarespace doesn’t offer as much control over technical SEO elements, such as schema markup or custom robots.txt files, compared to more advanced platforms.
There is a limited plug-in marketplace to extend the functionality of your front end, and this can often be the difference between providing a great user experience and repeat visitors.
Shopify
If you’re running an online store, Shopify is a strong contender. It provides SEO-friendly features tailored for e-commerce, such as customisable headlines, titles, and meta tags.
Shopify also handles basic site optimisation automatically, like generating file names for images based on the product title, which helps with image search optimisation.
The page builders featured are very easy to use and with a wide range of plug ins available on the Shopify marketplace, you can extend the functionality of your website without much, if any developer assistance.
It does have some drawbacks from an indexing point of view, as it automatically creates canonical URLs and specific URL structures through collection pages. While not a negative in terms of SEO, the number of URLs can lead to a loss in crawl budget unless you purchase a particular theme or implement a developer fix.
Weebly
Weebly is another user-friendly option, providing a drag-and-drop interface that includes some basic SEO functionalities. It allows for customisation of titles, descriptions, and URLs. However, its capabilities are more basic than those of platforms like WordPress and Shopify.
What Website Builder to Choose?
When choosing the best builder for SEO, we need to consider the following:
- Customisability: More customisable platforms often offer better tools for SEO.
- Scalability: Consider whether the platform can scale with your business and SEO needs.
- Technical limitations: Some platforms have inherent limitations that might impact advanced SEO strategies.
- E-commerce needs: If you have an online store, consider a platform with strong e-commerce SEO features.
Ultimately, WordPress often emerges as the top choice for those who prioritise SEO due to its extensive customisation options and powerful plugins.
However, the best choice depends on your specific needs, technical skills, and the nature of your project.
If you are a large e-commerce company, you may not want to use a page builder as it may not be the best fit, whilst for other companies such as start-ups, it may make sense to start with a page builder before moving on to other platforms as the business develops and grows.
Posted on Tuesday, June 25th, 2024 in Latest News.
