In a world where 'Google' has broken free of its noun category and become a bona fide verb, it's impossible for businesses to ignore the impact that search engines have on digital traffic. They account for over half of all traffic volume and, as a result, 61% of marketers say that growing their organic presence through improved SEO is their top marketing priority.
But what if you're just taking your first shaky steps into the world of websites and organic search? There's no getting around the fact that it's quite an intimidating prospect, but - luckily for you - building a website in this day and age gives you a special set of advantages. That's because most website builders come with inbuilt Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tools, to help your fledgling website find its wings in the search engine rankings.
However, when it comes to SEO, not all website builders are created equal. Some offer more comprehensive SEO tools than others, so picking the right one for your business can be a daunting task. But don't sweat it - below, we've compiled a list of the 10 website builders with the best SEO features, to help you narrow down your options. We'll dive into the features that help each of our top SEO website builder picks tick this all-important box - so read on to get started!
Best for complete SEO beginners
When it comes to SEO features, Wix is the cream of the crop. As with everything this builder offers, its SEO tools are designed specifically for beginners, with the aim of promoting best practices and demystifying the jargon.
You won't need any coding skills to unlock Wix's basic SEO functions - everything is built right into the editor. Each website page comes with its own set of dedicated SEO settings, and you can easily add alt text to all images. If you're not sure where to begin, we'd recommend taking advantage of Wix's SEO Wiz.
SEO Wiz is where Wix really shines. Users need only answer a few questions and Wix will create a custom SEO plan, complete with a checklist that displays finished and outstanding tasks. Even better, if your SEO isn't up to scratch, Wix will let you know, and it'll provide steps you can take to improve it.
Wix's SEO Wiz generates an SEO plan tailored specifically to your website based on your answers to a few quick questions
On top of this, Wix provides market-leading SEO guides that don't just pay lip service to the topic, but actually aim to educate you as you progress through your website-building journey. Wix also comes with a pre-installed Google integration that enables you to track your site's performance, and analyze traffic. Given that over 70% of desktop search traffic comes from Google, comparing your effectiveness against the leading search engine's gold standard is an excellent idea.
Wix is also renowned for its impressive app store. While you won't need to download extra SEO tools if you don't want to, there are still a ton out there to choose from (such as Rabbit SEO) if you do.
Best for those who already have some SEO confidence
In the world of website builders, Squarespace has earned itself a bit of a reputation. Slick, professional, and visually stunning, it's well-known for taking website design to the next level. Like Wix, it has an impressive suite of SEO features, but it's not so beginner-friendly. You won't find the same kind of support here as you would with Wix, and it expects you to have at least some idea of what you're doing.
That's not to say there's no help available - Squarespace provides an excellent SEO checklist to keep you on track, as well as various help articles in its knowledge base, but it lacks the tutorial-style approach of other builders. Generally, it's a more hands-off experience.
However, Squarespace still provides all the SEO tools you need to help your site climb the rankings. An automatically-generated XML sitemap, clean URLs, automatic redirects, and in-built search keyword analytics are the very least of what Squarespace has to offer. Its social media integration is also second-to-none, giving you plenty of chances to build your online profile across a number of channels.
Unlike Wix, Squarespace doesn't place much emphasis on app integrations, instead preferring to make sure all of the important elements of a successful online presence are included in its plans as standard. However, Squarespace does have a number of approved plugins available in its extensions library, one of which is Smart SEO. This allows you to bulk edit your meta tags and alt text, as well as automate certain parts of your SEO process. This is ideal if you're looking to minimize the time you spend on SEO tasks, without diminishing any of their efficacy.
Best for good-quality SEO apps
Like Wix, Weebly is another website builder that scores highly when it comes to ease of use - and that extends to its SEO tools. Everything you could possibly need to enhance your SEO efforts can be found built into its platform and editor. This makes it an excellent choice if you're a beginner, or aren't overly familiar with SEO best practices.
So what can you expect from Weebly's SEO tools? Quite a lot, actually!
All of its templates are optimized for mobile, and you can edit your meta titles, meta descriptions, custom URLs, and alt text in the page editor. You can also connect Weebly to Google Analytics and the Search Console, too, to help you track your site's performance.
Although Weebly's SEO tools are generally very good, one thing to bear in mind is that it doesn't allow you to add alt text to product images. If you aren't planning to run your site as a store, this won't affect you too much, but ecommerce businesses might want to think twice about choosing Weebly. While it's likely that this will change in the future, it still remains an issue right now.
Apps are where Weebly's main strength lies, particularly when it comes to SEO. There's a whole host of plugins designed exclusively to help you improve your website's rankings. Site Booster, Positionly, MarketGoo, Traffic Booster... the list goes on! The bottom line is that, with Weebly, you'll be spoiled for choice if you're keen to beef up your website's SEO functionality.
Best for those who want to outsource SEO help
If you want the best of GoDaddy's SEO features, you're going to need to spend a bit more money. That's because its cheapest plan (costing $9.99 per month) isn't quite up to par, and - beyond offering responsive design - its tools are quite limited. However, you won't be disappointed with what the Standard plan (available for $14.99 per month) has to offer.
In return for the extra outlay, you'll have access to targeted keyword suggestions, as well as GoDaddy Insights. This is a proprietary tool that analyzes your site, and produces a unique action plan to help you grow your online presence.
If you want to go even further, though, upgrading to the Premium plan will unlock additional benefits, including the jewel in GoDaddy's SEO crown: its SEO wizard tool. This works in a similar way to the Wix SEO Wiz, in that it'll create a set of optimization recommendations based on a couple of questions. The only difference here is that you'll need to pay extra for it, whereas Wix offers it as part of its free package.
As well as being a website builder, GoDaddy also offers a separate SEO service for $6.99 a month. This pays for a dedicated SEO team to carry out regular audits on your site, and make subsequent updates. This is ideal if you don't want the hassle of maintaining your SEO efforts, and would rather have the professionals do it for you.
What we're trying to say here is that if you want a fully furnished suite of SEO tools, you're going to need to pay for it. You'll get little for free with GoDaddy, so it's definitely an option better-suited to the less budget-conscious.
Best for those who want to get stuck in
WordPress has always been a big hitter in the world of building websites, but can its SEO tools live up to that sparkling reputation? Well, actually, the answer to this is completely down to you. That's because WordPress allows you to take a more hands-on approach to your SEO, if you want to.
This doesn't have to be the case for everyone - WordPress does most of the work for you, taking care of 80-90% of your SEO functions. But if you'd rather get stuck in yourself, you'll need to bear this in mind when choosing your payment plan.
This is because, like with GoDaddy, the level of SEO features WordPress offers depends on the plan you select. Unsurprisingly, the more advanced your plan, the better your level of SEO functionality. WordPress's Free and Basic plans don't have much to offer, so you'll need to opt for either Premium or Business for the real deal.
With the Premium plan, you'll have access to Google Analytics, but if you want more, we recommend jumping straight to the Business package. This upgrade allows you to edit your homepage and post meta descriptions, as well as customize your title formats, and access search and social previews.
Best for small businesses or personal websites
Jimdo is a simple yet sleek website builder that's ideal for small businesses or personal websites. You can access some level of SEO tools across all of Jimdo's plans, with the exception of its free Play plan. So - if you're looking to build a website for free, that is - we'd recommend looking elsewhere.
Jimdo does the basics well, allowing you to edit your meta titles and descriptions, as well as offering mobile-responsive designs, an XML sitemap, and fast loading speed. In addition, it also allows you to customize your own 404 page, in addition to providing clean URLs, and taking care of redirects. On top of that, you'll get a handful of helpful tips to boost your site performance.
Jimdo also offers an analytics tool, so you can analyze your site traffic and monitor performance. If you'd rather use Google Analytics to do this, you can integrate the two with a few clicks.
On top of its standard offerings, Jimdo comes with an add-on called Business Listings. This connects your website to platforms such as Google and Facebook, helping to boost your traffic and rankings. This comes as standard in Jimdo's most expensive Unlimited plan, but you'll have to pay an extra $4 per month if you're on one of the cheaper packages.
Best for artificial intelligence SEO tools
In the ecommerce world, Zyro is the new kid on the block. It's known for its good value for money, and offers a decent set of SEO tools to boot. However, it's worth noting now that you'll need to upgrade to at least the Ecommerce Plus plan if you want to access more advanced features capable of analyzing traffic, such as Google Analytics, Hotjar, and Google Tag Manager.
This being said, you'll still get a basic set of SEO tools if you decide not to upgrade. All of Zyro's plans come with a mobile-optimized design, maximum uptime, and fast loading times. Core SEO mechanics have been built into Zyro's editor, too, so you can edit your meta tags and meta titles with ease.
But that isn't all - Zyro offers a truly unique set of artificial intelligence (AI) tools to help you optimize your copy. Not only is this hugely convenient from a design standpoint, it's also a pretty darn innovative way of automating an unlikely element of your SEO strategy.
This AI writer is unlike anything you'll see on any other builder. After answering a few questions, it'll generate a chunk of SEO-friendly copy for you. Although we don't recommend using this for every written element of your site, it's a big help if you suddenly come down with a case of writer's block!
Best for mobile-optimized sites
When it was created in 2009, Duda was designed specifically to create mobile-friendly websites - and that's exactly what it does! If you know the bulk of your visitors are accessing your site via a mobile device, Duda is a great option, especially considering that responsive design is something Google smiles upon.
With this in mind, it's not surprising that a lot of Duda's SEO tools revolve around delivering an effective mobile experience. It guarantees dynamic serving, which means that your website will automatically respond to the type of device it's being viewed on. Whether that be a desktop, smartphone, or tablet, your content will automatically optimize to ensure faster loading times.
Duda also makes sure that Google knows this, by employing a tool called Vary: User-Agent. This basically lets search engines know that different users will see different content based on their viewing device. It's a way of shouting about your site's great responsiveness, so it doesn't get overlooked.
As well as all this, Duda ticks all of the basic SEO boxes that you'd want it to. Its plans provide a free SSL certificate, 301 redirects, Google page-speed optimization, and the ability to edit meta titles, descriptions, URLs, and image alt text. It also uses a Local Business Schema, which increases your site's discoverability by giving search engines accurate, structured information about your site's business.
Although it's certainly not the most comprehensive website builder when it comes to SEO, Duda is compatible with a wide range of third-party plugins that are perfect for bridging the gap. Google Analytics is a must, whilst others - such as Yelp Reviews and Mapbox - are ideal for building a presence both online and in the real world.
Best for diagnosing SEO problems on your site
On the outside, Site123 might look unassuming - but beneath its basic website builder veneer, it's hiding some pretty nifty SEO tools to help with your site's rankings.
Like all website builders, Site123 lays a good SEO foundation, allowing you to edit your meta tags, and providing a useful 301 redirect tool if you're removing older pages, or creating a new website entirely. Site123 also automatically generates an XML sitemap for you, which is crucial for letting Google know which pages it needs to index.
However, the best feature that Site123 offers is its SEO Advisor. This tool is like your very own personal SEO doctor, running health check audits on your site to make sure it's as optimized as it possibly can be. It'll review your pages, and then present you with a list of all the things you're doing right - and all the things you're doing wrong! This tool is available across all of Site123's plans, but its functionality is limited on the free plan - it'll only scan three of your pages.
Unfortunately, this is a bit of a theme for Site123, and unless you upgrade to a paid package, you won't be able to access all of its features. For example, you won't be able to download Google Analytics or Google Webmaster integrations without paying a monthly fee, either.
Best for one-page websites
Like its single-page website designs, Strikingly keeps SEO simple. Optimizing the basics like your site title and meta descriptions is a breeze, as is adding alt text, and altering your section headings to include relevant keywords. That said, it can be a little tricky to find these elements in the editor, as some of them are hidden in your page settings.
Plus, this isn't the only thing that makes Strikingly's SEO a challenge. By nature, single-page websites find it much harder to rank than their multi-page counterparts. Not only are you missing an XML sitemap, but you've also got a ton of conflicting content crammed into one page, too, which makes it harder for Google to decipher exactly what your business is about.
Luckily, Strikingly does provide a handy SEO checklist to help you navigate these murky waters, giving you complete control over your optimization strategy. There are also some lesser-known SEO benefits to a one-page site that work in your favor. For example, they render well on mobile, allow you to zone in on a particular niche, and - because all backlinks will point to the main URL - offer you better link authority, too.
If you'd rather not risk it, you can always upgrade to Strikingly's Pro plan, which allows you to break out of the one-page mold, and add up to 20 extra pages. That way, you can optimize each one for a specific keyword if you'd prefer.
Whichever you choose, you can integrate Google Analytics with both the free and Pro plan. Strikingly comes with its own inbuilt analytics software, but using Google as a supplementary tool can help to give you greater visibility over your visitors' behavior.
Final Thoughts: 10 Website Builders with Best SEO Features
When it comes to choosing a website builder, you won't be stuck for choice. There are plenty out there, but as you now know, not all of them come with the SEO tools you might want if you're keen to claw your way up those rankings. Here's a quick reminder of the 10 website builders with the best SEO features that we recommend, along with who they're best for:
- Wix - Best for complete SEO beginners
- Squarespace - Best for those who already have some SEO confidence
- Weebly - Best for good-quality SEO apps
- GoDaddy - Best for those who want to outsource SEO help
- WordPress.com - Best for those who want to get stuck in
- Jimdo - Best for small businesses or personal websites
- Zyro - Best for artificial intelligence SEO tools
- Duda - Best for mobile-optimized sites
- Site123 - Best for diagnosing SEO problems on your site
- Strikingly - Best for one-page websites
