Are you going to dive into the sea of website builders but worried about finding the effective one in terms of SEO? Are you someone whose requirement is more towards SEO and does not want to code the whole website? Well, if you are looking for such a website builder which will fulfill most of your SEO needs then, you are in the right place.
The hype of using website builders has increased a lot in the past few years and the reasons are pretty clear. Most of the businesses are moving online day by day, and since not everyone is from technical background nor very wealthy to spend a huge amount of money in website building, therefore, website builders are the answer to it. They are easy to use, not expensive, and enough effective to create great websites.
Well, website builders work effectively in most of the aspects of website building but what about SEO. The market is full of well-known website builders and that’s where you need to make a choice. In this blog, we’ll take a look at these (WordPress, SquareSpace, Wix, Weebly) 4 website builders and compare them in terms of SEO to reach a conclusion.
Let’s see what they all have to offer in terms of SEO
- WordPress- WordPress with its out-of-the-box features and functions helps you to embrace your SEO. WordPress comes with various built-in search optimization tools and abilities like using .htaccess to create static URLs known as permalinks, blog rolling, and pinging. Apart from built-in features, WordPress is known for its plugin’s capability as it allows a number of third-party plugins and hacks to use for search engine optimization. You can add powerful plugins such as Yoast SEO and Google Analyticator, page acceleration plugins, image optimization, and cashing to really amplify your SEO efforts. Well, WordPress can bring great possibilities in terms of SEO, but you surely need some technical knowledge to add different plugins and make them work for you.
- WordPress offers plugins that check your site’s broken links continuously and plugins to automatically create internal links once set keywords have been typed.
- Wix- being a well-known website builder, Wix does a decent job of SEO. It offers various built-in options for optimizing your site SEO, including the ability to edit your website’s page title, URL, and image-alt-texts, set meta titles, meta descriptions, headings, and integrated social media sharing options. It covers most of the basics in terms of SEO. Since it provides SSL encryption, it not only helps your site to rank higher in searches but you can also hide certain pages from search engines, and integrate with both Google analytics and search console.
- Wix also comes SEO apps (paid & free) that can be integrated through its app market also Wix’s SEO wizard helps you choose keywords to write about and hooks you up with Google Analytics and Search Console.
- Weebly- well, apart from basic SEO features and functions, Weebly is pretty good for SEO as a website builder if we compare it with the previous two contenders. Within the Weebly editor, you can customize your website’s page titles, page descriptions, image alt attributes, and URLs with strong and relevant keywords to amplify your SEO. You can check Weebly’s SEO Guide for instructions to improve your SEO. Weebly also provides SEO specific apps to integrate with your site and improve your SEO
- Weebly does provide you with SSL encryption in all of their plans and also allows you to create 301 redirects to not confuse search engines.
- SquareSpace- SquareSpace does a pretty good job of SEO with its SEO-friendly tools and features. It includes Site Map for automatic generation and linking a proper sitemap.xml, for perfect indexing. It’s all domains include SSL certificates and it also produces pages with clean HTML mark-up, clean URLs, and images with proper automatic tags, which is indexable by search engines. Squarespace comes with built-in mobile optimization and meta tags to help your site rank better on mobiles and for easy site identification.
- Apart from basic features, Squarespace provides you with AMP (accelerated mobile pages) to create lightweight versions of web pages to help them load faster on mobile devices. AMP helps in prioritizing your site in mobile searches.
That was a brief but important dive into what they all can offer to improve your SEO. From basic features and functions to out-of-the-box stuff, they all compete well against each other. Take look at this table to get a smart insight:
| Points to compare | platforms | |||
| Overall rating | WIX | Squarespace | Weebly | WordPress |
| Pricing starts from | $14 | $12 | $6 | $4 |
| Customizable meta titles | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Image alt attributes | Yes | Yes | Yes (but not on specific product pages | Yes |
| Social media integration | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Keyword support | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| SEO specific apps | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| SEO insist while adding products | yes | No | Yes | No |
Conclusion- well, they all seem to do pretty well to boost your SEO with different features and out-of-the-box elements. Some are good with on-page SEO while they also have a great hold on off-page SEO.
- Wix is perfect for those who were absolute SEO beginners due to its ease of use as a website builder and SEO functions
- Squarespace is a great choice for those who are more confident with SEO and have the knowledge to set up the things
- Weebly comes with dozens of high-quality, helpful SEO apps. If you are looking for something out of the box and on-page, Weebly is for you.
- WordPress is a CMS that has almost everything you need. But it’s not for you if you don’t have any technical knowledge to implement things. It’s a great tool for those who want a hands-on SEO experience.
Your effective SEO doesn’t rely solely on website builders but it depends on you. An effective choice always includes all the aspects and your needs. One can be better than the other at some places but not in every aspect. Your content plays an important role in your SEO and website optimization controls various aspects too for your website to rank higher in results. Identify all the aspects and needs to thrive in this digital market.