Best Website Builder for SEO: Is Your Choice Hurting Your Business?

For small business owners like me, having a website is a crucial part of showing how professional we are. Even if you have a website, are you sure that you’re using the best website builder for SEO? With all the options out there, it can be difficult to decide which to use.

I’ve heard many entrepreneurs—both online and in person—ask about how important Search Engine Optimization is for getting a business off the ground to make a profit.

Short answer: It’s absolutely critical!

Without a good SEO strategy, which includes the choice you make for your website builder, you can feel like a castaway, stranded on a desert island with nothing but an emergency flare—with a lot of luck and hope, maybe, just maybe, someone will find you.

As anyone in business knows, though, you can’t survive on luck and hope. You have to do something to increase sales. You can’t just wish yourself onto the front page of Google.

All website builders are not created equal. So, which is the best website builder for SEO? I had my suspicions—I’m a diehard WordPress fan!—but I wanted to dig a little deeper before I addressed this critical question.

Here is how Squarespace, Wix, Weebly, and HubSpot COS compare to WordPress.

How These Website Builders Stack Up

The following table, created by Rebecca Gill at Web Savvy Marketing, shows how the five most popular website builders compare to one another.

WordPress Squarespace Wix Weebly HubSpot COS Custom Domain Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes SEO friendly URLs Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Manual override for URLs Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Content silo creation Yes Yes Canonical links Yes Yes Yes Breadcrumbs Yes Yes H1 headers Yes Yes Yes Subheader control (H2, H3) Yes Yes Yes Yes Set focused keyword Yes Yes On-page optimization scoring Yes Yes Meta titles by URL Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Meta descriptions by URL Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No index, no follow at URL Yes Yes Yes Yes Image alt text Yes Yes Yes Link anchor text Yes Yes Featured image for social Yes Yes Facebook Open Graph Yes Yes Yes Twitter Open Graph Yes Yes Social sharing buttons Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Integrated blogging Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Blog categories Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Blog tags Yes Yes Yes Yes Blog post commenting Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes RSS feeds Yes Yes Yes Yes Podcast support and embeds Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Video support and embeds Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Online stores Yes Yes Yes Yes Mailing lists Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Template Switching Yes Yes Yes Yes Custom CSS Yes Yes Yes Yes Mobile responsive Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes XML sitemaps Yes Yes Yes Robot.txt files Yes Yes Yes 301 redirects Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes HTML5 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Schema and structured data Yes CDN Option Yes Yes Yes Yes SSL Certificates Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes AMP Support Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

As you can see, the best website builder for SEO that checks all 39 boxes is WordPress. In close second is HubSpot COS with 37 out of the 39 criteria checked off. The other three—Wix, Weebly, and Squarespace—leave some pretty big gaps in your business’s SEO strategy. These missing criteria not only reduce the functionality of your website and how you are able to manage it but also lower your chances of ranking on search engines.

Does Your Business Need the Best Website Builder for SEO?

Let’s take SEO off the table for a minute. Does your site really need the SEO integrations that WordPress has to offer?

If you look at some of the sites that people build using Wix and Weebly, you can see that you don’t necessarily need all the trappings of the highest scoring website builder in order to make your business look good. But unless you run a small business that only needs an online presence that makes you look professional rather than a website that actually pulls traffic in, then these builders won’t be adequate.

While Squarespace makes up some ground in SEO functionality, if your business relies at all on online searches to bring in traffic and leads, then it will put you at a disadvantage. HubSpot, though it comes in close second, is way too expensive for what you get.

Are you interested in building a website that both looks good and brings traffic to your business? At ZenChange, we recommend WordPress, the best website builder available. Get in touch with us to learn how we can put you on the front page of search rankings.