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Search engine optimization (SEO) is crucial for driving traffic to your website from search engines like Google.
If your site isn’t optimized for SEO, it can be virtually invisible to searchers even if you have great content.
That’s why it’s important to choose a website builder with strong SEO capabilities built in.
The leading website builders offer varying levels of SEO support to help boost your search rankings.
Some make it easy to include important elements like meta descriptions, alt text for images, and structured data markup.
Others give you access to edit the underlying code for maximum optimization.
The best website builders don’t require any SEO expertise to get started.
Their platforms are designed to help your site perform well in search results right out of the box.
In this article, we’ll compare the top website builders for SEO.
We’ll look at their built-in SEO features, flexibility for customization, and overall capabilities to help your site rank high in search engines.
With the right website builder, you can launch a site that drives targeted organic traffic without needing to be an SEO expert.
WordPress.com (I’ve Had The Best Success With WordPress)
WordPress.com is a great option for SEO thanks to its powerful content management system (CMS) and ability to optimize your site for search engines.
One of the biggest advantages of WordPress.com for SEO is that it allows you to install the Yoast SEO plugin.
This plugin gives you control over all aspects of on-page optimization, including meta titles and descriptions, XML sitemaps, and more.
It makes it easy to optimize each page and post so search engines can properly index and rank your content.
The WordPress.com platform itself is already search-engine-friendly with features that boost SEO, like customizable URLs, built-in image alt text, and sitemaps.
The CMS makes it easy to create and organize your content in an SEO-friendly structure.
Compared to self-hosted WordPress, you have slightly less control over things like plugins on WordPress.com.
However, the SEO capabilities are still robust, especially with Yoast SEO as an option.
The ease of setup and built-in SEO features make WordPress.com a great choice if you want SEO without the hassle of managing your own server.
Shopify (I’ve Had Good Success With Ranking Shopify Sites)
Shopify is one of the best eCommerce website builders specifically optimized for SEO.
With built-in SEO features tailored for product pages and online stores, Shopify makes it easy to rank your eCommerce site in search engines.
Some key SEO advantages of using Shopify include:
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Clean, semantic code: Shopify sites are built on clean HTML and structured data markup to help search engines understand your products and pages.
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Custom URLs: You can customize your product and page URLs for better optimization. Shopify also offers URL redirects to maintain SEO during site migrations.
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Alt text automation: Shopify can auto-generate alt text for product images to describe items to search engines.
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Integrated blog: The built-in Shopify blog has SEO features like URL slugs, tags, author links, and XML sitemaps.
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Analytics integration: Connect your Google Analytics to view traffic sources, popular pages, conversions, and other insights to inform your SEO.
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App store: There are over 4,500+ apps including plenty of SEO tools like schema markup generators, SEO optimizers, sitemap creators, and more.
With an SEO-optimized platform made for eCommerce sites, Shopify is a top choice for building a search engine-friendly online store.
The powerful built-in features and SEO app ecosystem give you the tools to rank your products and drive traffic.
Wix
Wix is one of the most popular DIY website builders out there, used by over 200 million people worldwide.
It’s easy to see why – Wix is incredibly easy to use, even for total beginners.
The Wix editor uses a drag-and-drop system, allowing you to create professional-looking websites just by dragging elements like text boxes, images, videos onto the page.
You can choose from hundreds of designer-made templates or start from scratch.
But Wix isn’t just about ease of use – it also has powerful built-in SEO features.
Wix’s SEO Wiz provides recommendations to optimize page titles, meta descriptions, headings, and more.
You can also easily customize meta tags for each page.
Additionally, Wix has integrations with top SEO tools like SEMrush and Yoast to analyze your site’s SEO and make improvements.
It also has a sitemap generator to help search engines index your site.
With its user-friendly editor and robust SEO capabilities, Wix gives DIY website builders the tools they need to create an SEO-friendly site, even without any technical expertise.
Squarespace
Squarespace is known for its beautiful templates that look great right out of the box.
This makes it easy for anyone to create a professional-looking website without any web design experience.
The templates are also optimized for SEO already, with proper HTML markup and metadata.
Squarespace has its own built-in SEO tools like a metadata editor to customize page titles, descriptions, and social sharing images.
However, the downside is that Squarespace offers limited customization options compared to other website builders.
You can’t edit the core HTML code or CSS.
Advanced users may find this restrictive when trying to fine-tune SEO elements.
The templated nature also means all Squarespace sites follow similar patterns and structures.
So you won’t be able to stand out as much. Overall, Squarespace strikes a balance between good looks and SEO but isn’t ideal if you want maximum control over SEO factors.
Webflow
Webflow is a fully customizable drag-and-drop website builder with advanced SEO tools and a clean, modern interface.
It allows you to control every aspect of your site design while optimizing for search at the same time.
Some of Webflow’s top SEO features include:
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Metadata customization: You can customize page titles, meta descriptions, social sharing data, and structured data to help search engines understand your content. These details are critical for on-page SEO.
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XML sitemaps: Webflow can auto-generate a full sitemap of all your site pages to help search engines index them efficiently. The sitemap updates whenever you make changes.
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URL slugs: You have full control over your page URLs to create human-readable, SEO-friendly address structures.
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ALT text: The visual editor makes it easy to add alternative text descriptions to all images, which search engines factor into rankings.
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Speed optimization: Webflow sites score very highly for performance metrics like page load speed and mobile responsiveness. Fast sites earn a boost in search.
With its balance of design flexibility and built-in SEO tools, Webflow is a top choice for marketers and agencies who want to build conversion-focused sites that also rank well organically.
The seamless workflow from concept to the finished site is ideal for launching SEO-driven content marketing campaigns.
Weebly
Weebly is a popular drag-and-drop website builder known for its simplicity and built-in SEO features.
It offers an easy-to-use editor that allows you to create professional-looking websites without any coding knowledge.
Some of the key SEO features Weebly provides include:
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SEO Wizard – This tool walks you through optimizing your site for search engines by guiding you to add meta descriptions, use keywords, improve site structure and internal linking.
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Built-in sitemaps – Weebly automatically generates XML sitemaps to help search engines index your site more efficiently.
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301 redirects – When you change a page URL or delete pages, Weebly retains rankings by automatically applying 301 redirects.
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Optimized templates – The template designs are SEO-friendly out of the box, with semantic markup and clean code.
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Integrated analytics – Weebly has built-in integration with Google Analytics to help you track and improve website performance.
With its drag-and-drop editor focused on simplicity and SEO optimization built-in, Weebly is a smart choice for anyone looking to build an SEO-friendly website without learning to code.
The automatic technical SEO configuration and guidance from the SEO Wizard make it easy to hit the ground running with a site structured to win with search engines.
Conclusion On The Best Website Builders For SEO
Choosing the right website builder is crucial for having a site with strong SEO capabilities.
When deciding on a builder, focus on the ones that make it easy to customize metadata, URLs, and page titles.
Being able to edit the HTML and CSS source code is also important for fine-tuning your on-page SEO.
Of the builders mentioned, WordPress.org offers the most SEO control, given its open-source CMS foundation.
However, hosted WordPress solutions like WordPress.com are also very SEO-friendly.
Other excellent options covered include Wix, Webflow, Squarespace, and Shopify.
Key factors to weigh when picking a website builder for SEO include:
- The ability to customize page URLs and metadata for each page
- Options for adding meta descriptions, titles, alt text, etc
- Access to edit HTML and CSS source code
- Integrations with SEO plugins (for WordPress)
- Built-in SEO guidance and tools
- Customizable content architecture with landing pages
- Strong technical SEO (site speed, mobile optimization, structured data, etc)
While SEO is important, also make sure to consider the overall ease of use, features, and scalability of the website builder platform.
Balancing SEO capabilities with the builder’s other strengths will ensure you choose the best solution for long-term success online.
