There is a whole slew of reasons why WordPress is good for SEO. Getting your SEO up to par requires the right knowledge and CMS, so choosing a CMS (content management system) that’s easy to use and customize is vital.
As one of the most popular open-source content management systems, WordPress supports over 810 million websites and can help your website succeed.
The Power of WordPress
WordPress powers 14.7% of the top 100 websites worldwide.
The best of the best continue to use this CMS because it’s free and it’s easy to use. With all the expenses of owning a business, using a free CMS is ideal, especially for website owners just starting.
Because it’s intuitive to use, you don’t need to be an expert in plugins and tools to use WordPress. It prompts you with the next steps, is built with clean code, and has easy default templates to build upon.
Getting started is simple, and if you have any concerns about doing this yourself, WordPress is one of the easiest CMS to find professional help with. Most professional developers are extremely familiar with WordPress, and even those who haven’t worked with this CMS will easily figure it out.
Is WordPress Still the Best CMS for SEO?
Yes, WordPress is a powerful CMS, especially regarding SEO. There are good reasons why 43.1% of all websites run on WordPress! Let’s go over some more reasons why WordPress is good for SEO.
1. User-Friendly Interface
Along with being easy for website owners to use, WordPress has ensured that its interface is easy for users to navigate and enjoy. The variety of customizable themes, plugins, and tools available serve to help you create a professional and attractive website.
Users are more likely to enjoy their browsing experience with WordPress-supported sites, which means they’ll stay longer, increasing your SEO and reputation.
2. Easily Manage Metadata
Search engines are pretty good at figuring out what your content is about and when it’s relevant to the reader. But they do this by relying on indicators such as keywords, subheadings, and alt text. WordPress allows you to optimize all of these things, giving you an edge over other websites when search engine crawlers index your site.
WordPress makes it easy to manage your metadata by providing a ton of easy plugins and tools that allow you to add relevant keywords to your metadata.
There are a variety of built-in WordPress SEO plugins ready to boost your SEO right at your fingertips. Yoast SEO is a particularly popular option because it has a simple interface that’s easy for even a beginner to master, and it provides you with real-time insights into your content’s SEO score as you write.
It also allows every page to contain a unique title, meta description, category, tags, and search-optimized URLs.
3. Ideal for Optimizing Images
Images are an important tool for website owners. They break up lengthy blog posts to hold readers’ attention, provide more product details or context, and improve your site’s overall aesthetic.
WordPress makes optimizing images a breeze. It allows you to resize images so they don’t slow down your page’s speed. You can also plug keywords into the alt text as part of the image description, which helps get your page noticed by search engine crawlers.
4. Google Likes WordPress
Another reason WordPress is still excellent for SEO is because Google likes WordPress. Website load times have become increasingly important recently, and Google has started to put a premium on that.
WordPress uses various methods to ensure all the sites it supports load quickly. Some leaders at Google praise it as the best CMS for SEO. Matt Cutts, head of web spam at Google, claims that WordPress takes up to 80-90% of the mechanics for SEO.
Other Reasons WordPress Works Well for SEO
As if these reasons weren’t compelling enough, plenty of other facts contribute to why WordPress is good for SEO.
Here are some other top reasons why so many people are choosing WordPress:
- Most of its themes are optimized for mobile viewing, which is essential today.
- It also makes integrating their social media campaigns easy for website owners.
- You can also easily integrate other software with your WordPress site, such as Google Analytics, ConvertKit, G Suites, or Yoast.
- WordPress ensures that HTML markup is optimized, contributing to better SEO rankings.
- It offers a well-organized content structure that makes it easy to manage your content efficiently.
- WordPress provides top-notch security, which lessens your site’s chance of being hacked.
WordPress Vs. Other CMS
Of course, WordPress isn’t the only popular CMS out there. Weebly, Squarespace, and Wix are also throwing their hats in the ring, with respective 0.7%, 2%, and 3.7% of all websites running on these competitors. While these other CMS may have their pros and cons, it’s clear that WordPress is typically the better option.
WordPress Vs. Weebly
Weebly and WordPress offer the ability for anyone to build their website and customize it to their needs. However, there are some key differences between the two.
WordPress offers far more themes and templates, providing users with a broader range of customization.
However, Weebly’s themes are all drag-and-drop, which is super intuitive. WordPress has a bit of a steeper learning curve. It has many drag-and-drop themes, but its design themes and plugins require setup and regular updates.
Our conclusion: Weebly is great for beginners hoping to launch a modern website, online store, or blog quickly. WordPress is best for businesses and those needing a highly versatile platform.
WordPress Vs. Squarespace
Squarespace is another CMS that’s incredibly beginner-friendly and easy to use. It’s perfect for people who aren’t tech-savvy but want to build an aesthetically pleasing website quickly. You’ll need to be a bit more technology-minded to get the full use out of WordPress’s features.
When it comes to which is better for SEO, WordPress is the clear winner. While Squarespace does have some SEO tools already built in, they aren’t as efficient as WordPress SEO plugins.
For bloggers, WordPress is the better choice. Squarespace has a good set of blogging templates and tools to get you off the ground, but they aren’t nearly as robust, and it doesn’t have the same endless supply of plugins and tools that WordPress offers.
Our conclusion: Squarespace is great for beginners looking for an aesthetically stunning website that they can get off the ground quickly and without a background of technical knowledge. WordPress is better for those who want complete creative control to fully customize their site and need more features to support a content-heavy website.
WordPress Vs. Wix
By now, you probably know how this comparison is going to go. WordPress is a CMS renowned for its versatility and ability to be completely customizable. You can control every aspect of your website through WordPress, from design to security.
Wix is similar to Squarespace and Weebly in that it’s more beginner-friendly. It doesn’t offer the same range of tools and plugins that WordPress does, but it features stunning pre-made templates and themes that allow users to get their website up and running in little time and with little background knowledge.
Here’s what you should take away from these comparisons: WordPress is ideal for professionals. It has the right tools, plugins, and SEO features to get your site in front of the right users.
Other content management systems are excellent starting points for beginners. Still, at some point, when you need more customization options or the ability to control more aspects of your site, you’ll find yourself making the switch to WordPress.