The other day, one of my clients called me concerned about using Wix to host her site because people were telling her that Wix has bad SEO and she was wondering if she should switch to WordPress.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of articles on the web that site outdated information about Wix's SEO capabilities.
That's why I decided that it was time to write an honest, comprehensive review of Wix v WordPress SEO to set the story straight.
First of all, let it be said that Wix is dedicated to making the site as robust and powerful as possible. The company is on a mission to continually improve and enhance website design and performance. They have been adding SEO tools and investing in their server infrastructure to make Wix sites super fast.
For example, some of Wix's new SEO capabilities include:
Lightning-fast page speed.
URL Structure: You have the ability to modify the default URL structure; Customize subdirectory names; Edit, remove, or add a prefix to URLs; and Create a completely flat URL structure!
Automatic sitemap updates: This happens via "301 redirects and by updating canonical and other relevant meta tags." (2)
Visualization of log files in the form of Bot Traffic Over Time, Bot Traffic by Page, and Response Status Over Time reports.
Plus Wix has built-in accurate SEO analytic reporting.
Grab the Wix SEO Cheat Sheet for simple steps you can take to boost your SEO!
QUICK SUMMARY:
Essentially, Wix makes the super-technical side of SEO easy to do.
With WordPress, you will need to study SEO strategies on how to do everything that Wix guides you through. It takes a lot of extra effort and work on your part to do in WP (using external plug-ins) that you can do in Wix. At the same time, once you reach that level, you can go further with WP technical SEO strategies by using more plug-ins.
Let's compare the two, Wix v WordPress, side-by-side:
PAGE LOADING SPEED
Articles report that Wix has slow page loading speeds. This is UNTRUE!
Wix is lightning fast. Over the past couple of years, Wix has made a heavy infrastructure investment in their servers so that your page speed is super fast.
BUILT-IN SEO TOOLS
Most articles correctly states that Wix has intuitive, easy-to-use, and find SEO tools.
Wix has all of the major SEO tools you need are integrated within the editor and dashboard. It’s easy to use and easy to find.
WordPress on the other hand has very few built-in SEO tools. The ones they do have are scattered about and hard to find. Professional WordPress designers boast that WP has excellent SEO capabilities.
These capabilities are implemented using plug-ins. They have hundreds to choose from - which I personally find daunting and stressful trying to figure out which ones to use.
CONTROL OVER HTML AND CODING FOR ADVANCED SEO.
Wix has recently released VELO which allows you to add custom code to your site.
However, you are unable to modify the code that is built-in using the Wix Editor.
WordPress: It is true that you can do more with WP plug-ins and have more control over the code. This is helpful if you are a professional website designer with in-depth SEO knowledge, or are planning to hire a professional design agency to build and maintain your site. (It is important to keep a watch and maintain your site otherwise it will crash or get hacked.)
SEO FEATURE | WIX (Built-in Tools) | WordPress (Using Plug-Ins) |
Title Tags | Yes | Yes |
Meta Descriptions | Yes | Yes |
H1-H6 Tags | Yes | Via Plug-In |
XML Sitemaps | Yes | Via Plug-In |
Alt Tags | Yes | Yes |
301 Redirects | Yes | Via Plug-In |
No Index Tags | Yes | Via Plug-In |
Schema Markup | Yes | Via Plug-In |
Mobile Friendly | Yes | Yes |
Connect Google Search Console | Yes | Yes |
Connect Google Analytics | Yes | Yes |
Connect Bing Webmaster Tools | Yes | Via Plug-In |
All-in-one-platform | Yes | No |
Safe & Secure | Yes - Wix manages this for you. | No - You need to manage your backend or hire someone to do it for you. |
SEO Blog Post and Images | Yes | Via Plug-In |
The ability to modify default URL structure, customize subdirectory names, edit, remove or add a prefix to URLs and even create a completely flat URL structure. | Yes | Via Plug-In |
Automatic sitemap updates via 301 redirects and by updating canonical and other relevant meta tags. | Yes | Via Plug-In |
Visualization of log files in the form of Bot Traffic Over Time, Bot Traffic by Page, and Response Status Over Time reports. | Yes | Via Plug-In |
Built-in accurate reporting | Yes | No, You must install a plug-in or G.A. |
Which is the better choice for you?
SEO: Wix v WordPress
When it comes to which is better to use for SEO, I feel it is important to consider your level of SEO technical abilities and website design skills.
Go with Wix: If you are not a SEO or web design master (or want to become one), choose Wix. It has built-in, easy-to-use SEO tools that will do SO much!
✓ Wix provides complete SEO suite of tools that are built-into the editor and dashboard so you can easily take charge of your own SEO.
✓ If you are going to build your site yourself, and want a maintenance-free backend that is fully secured, then I recommend Wix!
Go with WordPress: If you are an advanced website designer, love getting technical, you can code and desire advanced SEO capabilities.
They have hundreds of plug-ins you can add to your site.
Out of the box, WordPress offers very limited built-in SEO tools. On the other hand, they have hundreds of plug-ins you can add to your site if you know how to use them properly.
So, if you are an advanced website designer, and you want to have complete control over your code and it's fun for you to research and study to become an expert in SEO strategies (or you plan to hire someone to build and maintain your website for you,) then WordPress is the choice for you. While they do NOT have many built-in SEO tools, there are thousands of plug-ins you can choose from to do the job.
FINAL PRO TIP:
Your site design is the first step to boosting your SEO. However, it will only take you so far in ranking well in Google search results.
For long-term SEO strategy, the BEST approach is to:
ONE: Continuously add valuable, keyword-rich content to your site via blog posts.
TWO: Then, promote those posts all over social media. Hopefully one or two will go viral.
THREE: Also, see if you can guest post on other experts' blogs in your industry so you can build up some backlinks!
"The importance of continuously adding value-added content to your site is paramount for SEO:
"For small businesses and sites, that might be the ticket. As John Mueller recently said, the content on the site is increasingly important regardless of what it’s built on. Unless you’re dealing with major technical issues, content is where you need to focus."
Grab the Wix SEO Cheat Sheet for simple steps you can take to boost your SEO!
References:
https://www.websitebuildertips.com/comparison/wix-vs-wordpress/?utm_campaign=ma_websitebuildertips_bi_wix_us%5E73196819892&experiment_id=1729774246%5E%5E399661146144%5Ewordpress%20vs%20wix%5Ee&gclid=CjwKCAjwp7eUBhBeEiwAZbHwkekcmMMa5PpyrDkwRllKaFNIVgHyqrD1Kyfj8oKUUYYYg3wyJhQpDhoCtwAQAvD_BwE
https://www.hostpapa.com/blog/marketing/wix-vs-wordpress-seo/