10 Best Website Builders for SEO To Boost Rankings in 2024

Effective search engine optimization (SEO) goes beyond just getting access to and using many SEO tools. The code structure that a website builder creates has a tremendous impact on how your website ranks, as do its loading speeds and general performance. Leaving any of these SEO essentials out risks getting your content lost in the sea of search results.

But here’s where it gets tricky: SEO isn’t the only consideration. You also need a website builder that meets your specific needs. The challenge is finding one that balances strong SEO capabilities and user-friendly functionality.

Sounds straightforward, right? Well, it can be. After thorough research, I’ve identified 10 website builders that excel in these areas and are suitable for different types of users. Though there’s no one-size-fits-all solution, Wix came out as the best website builder for SEO thanks to its SEO-friendly code structure, extensive SEO features, and ease of use.

Keep reading to find the ideal SEO builder, or get started with Wix today.

How Your Website Builder Choice Affects SEO

SEO is not just about keywords and backlinks. It’s also about how your website is built and functions. The builder you select can significantly impact how well your website ranks on search engines in various ways, including:

• On-page and technical SEO tools. The best website builders offer built-in SEO tools such as automatic sitemap generation, SEO audits, and canonical tags. They allow you to modify page titles and descriptions and structure URLs so search engines understand the hierarchy of your content.
• Site performance. Fast-loading builders that support caching, content delivery network (CDN) integration, and image optimization help reduce load times and improve user experience. This can also give you better Core Web Vitals scores, which affect how your pages rank on Google.
• Apps & plugins. Builders that integrate with tools like Yoast SEO, Semrush, or Google Analytics give you better control and insights into your SEO performance. These integrations allow you to track keywords, analyze traffic, and optimize content effectively.
• Mobile-first approach. Google’s mobile-first indexing means that the mobile version of your site is now the primary version considered by search engines. Your chosen builder should have responsive template designs and allow you to preview and edit the mobile version of your site.
• Content delivery. Builders with strong content management systems (CMS) enable easy blogging, content categorization, and internal linking. These features improve SEO and user experience by making content easily discoverable.

The website builders I’ve picked offer all these features and are best positioned to help you achieve your SEO goals.

1. Wix: Best SEO Website Builder for Beginners1

I’ve always been a big fan of Wix’s free plan, ease of use, and wide range of customization features. But beyond that, Wix also stands out for its comprehensive set of SEO tools1. From the get-go, you’re equipped with a proprietary SEO dashboard that breaks down your site’s SEO tasks into actionable steps, tailored to your site’s specific needs.

The Wix SEO Setup Checklist, Wix’s AI-powered assistant, is another noteworthy tool. Using artificial intelligence, the Setup Checklist suggests optimizations specific to your content and goals, effectively acting as your personal SEO consultant. The Checklist gives you information about exactly what you need to do to optimize each element of your site, effectively guiding your hand to ensure comprehensive SEO results.

What’s more, Wix allows you to edit the mobile version of your site separately from the desktop version. Sure, this can involve more work on your part, but considering that search engines prioritize the mobile version of your site, getting control over your mobile site also means that you get further options to enhance your SEO.

Features

• AI-powered site creation. Wix’s AI Builder leverages artificial intelligence to design tailored websites for your business. It ensures your site structure and content are optimized for SEO, enhancing your site’s visibility and ranking.
• E-commerce and marketing features. Wix supports robust e-commerce capabilities and integrated marketing tools.
• Detailed SEO tutorials and resource center. Access a comprehensive suite of SEO tutorials and resources within Wix. These guides are invaluable for optimizing your site’s content and structure to achieve better search engine rankings.
• Over 500+ apps. Enhance your site’s functionality and SEO potential with Wix’s extensive app market. It has over 500 first- and third-party apps, including countless for boosting your site’s search engine performance.

Read our expert Wix review for more details.

2. Squarespace: Best for Effective SEO Website Design1

Squarespace stands out for its robust marketing features, beautiful templates, and built-in SEO. Its dedicated SEO panel provides extensive control over SEO page settings, including customizing meta titles and descriptions. Advanced features like automatic sitemaps and clean, indexable URLs ensure your Squarespace site is both user and search engine friendly​.

Under the hood, Squarespace boasts clean, well-optimized backend code which contributes to fast page loading times. This is especially notable given Google’s emphasis on site speed. Beyond SEO, Squarespace excels in marketing. Its advanced marketing suite includes everything from promotional banners to social media integrations, although email marketing is a paid add-on.

You’ll want at least Squarespace’s second-tier plan for e-commerce1, but you can also sell on the entry-level plan with an add-on service. If you’re thinking about selling products or services with your site, Squarespace ensures that each product page is discoverable by search engines.

Features

• Professionally-designed templates. Squarespace offers a range of professionally-designed templates that are not only optimized for SEO, but also visually appealing. This ensures that site visitors will stick around on your site once landing on it.
• AMP (accelerated mobile pages) tool. Utilize Squarespace’s AMP tool to create faster-loading mobile blog pages that improve user experience and contribute positively to your site’s SEO performance.
• Squarespace Blueprint. This is Squarespace’s AI design tool. It can help you generate a unique, custom site, plus SEO-friendly text to fill your site with.
• Useful third-party integrations. Squarespace supports a variety of third-party integrations that enhance your site’s functionality and online presence, from analytics tools to advanced marketing solutions.

Read our expert Squarespace review for more details.

3. SITE123: Best SEO Site Audit Tool for Small Businesses1

If you’re stepping into the world of website building as a beginner, SITE123’s user-friendly website builder and robust SEO Audit tool offers a smooth start. Not only is the builder itself incredibly straightforward, but it also offers easy settings for adjusting the homepage, meta tags, and sitemaps, which are crucial for improving SEO visibility.

SITE123 has an audit button that automatically scans your site and provides an SEO score. Though only available on the Gold plan, it’s a practical way for newbies to gauge their site’s SEO health. The audit tab highlights areas that need attention, and allows you to edit SEO elements directly from the tool.

SITE123 has affordable pricing plans1, aside from its free one. Its intuitive interface and pre-designed page sections remove the complexities typically involved in web design. It might limit the design options somewhat, but if you’re inexperienced or need a simple site, SITE123 is an excellent, beginner-friendly tool for creating SEO-optimized websites​.

Features

• Multi-language support. SITE123 lets you automatically translate your pages to different languages, which is great for hitting search results in different languages. Plus, each translated page gets its own URL, which is excellent for SEO.
• Basic e-commerce. SITE123 has essential e-commerce tools that help you set up an online store quickly and efficiently. It also has a conversion tracker tool that lets you see which website visits result in purchases, so your SEO efforts are put to good use.
• 24/7 customer support. With round-the-clock customer support in English, SITE123 ensures that you have constant assistance for any SEO queries or website issues, helping maintain your site’s optimal performance.
• Logo Maker. Utilize SITE123’s Logo Maker to create unique, memorable logos that can be easily integrated into your site, boosting brand recognition and complementing your search engine marketing effort.

Read our expert SITE123 review for more details.

4. Webador: The Simplest SEO Builder for Mobile Optimization1

Another builder that prioritizes ease of use, Webador’s simple editing interface makes it so you can create a complete website in a matter of minutes. It also features a modest SEO menu that facilitates basic search engine optimization tasks, like adjusting meta tags and descriptions.

Webador’s Statistics feature provides valuable insights into your website’s performance by tracking page views, unique visitors, and referral sources. With this data, you can monitor where your traffic is coming from, identify top-performing pages, and adjust your SEO strategy accordingly to improve visibility and user engagement over time.

Webador’s simple editing interface might put off some users, especially those who want a lot of customization power. However, this simplicity allows for easy and speedy modifications. You can add essential elements like custom forms, social buttons, and even multimedia content, which can enhance the functionality of the site while keeping the design process manageable​.

Features

• Unique widgets. You can upload and display documents using the file-sharing widget. Plus, you can add a five-star rating widget anywhere on the page, so site visitors can rate your blog posts or products.
• Simple blogging tools. You can integrate social media sharing buttons, users can quickly comment on your blog posts so you keep in touch with your audience, and more.
• Collaborative editing. This feature allows multiple users to edit and optimize site content simultaneously. This is especially handy if you’re hiring freelancers or staff to help out with your site’s SEO.
• Free stock photos. Access a library of over 10,000 free stock images, perfect for your web content and SEO.

Read our expert Webador review for more details.

5. Hostinger Website Builder: Top-Tier AI Tools for SEO1

Hostinger Website Builder excels in performance, and offers a dedicated SEO dashboard and efficient sitemap integration. These features help organize your site’s content and ensure it’s easily navigable by search engines, thus potentially boosting your rankings​​.

Hostinger includes an AI content writer tool that generates SEO-friendly copy to improve your site’s visibility on search engines. Combined with its blogging suite, you can easily create and publish content on your site, enhancing your potential for higher rankings.

Hostinger’s SEO and marketing suite comes with tools like heatmaps, Facebook Pixel, Google Analytics, and Google Tag Manager. This makes it easy to track your SEO traffic and see how your users are engaging with your content.

Features

• AI SEO Assistant. Helps automate SEO tasks, generates SEO-friendly content, and comes with a real-time grammar checking and tone adjustments feature.
• SEO-friendly URLs. You can automatically generate clean and readable URLs that are search-engine friendly.
• Image optimization. Hostinger lets you include alt text for images to enhance visibility in image searches.
• Analytics integration. Offers easy integration with tools like Google Analytics and Facebook Pixel for tracking SEO performance.

Read our expert Hostinger Website Builder review for more details.

6. Shopify: The Best E-Commerce Platform1

Shopify is widely recognized as the go-to platform for advanced e-commerce. Its powerful e-commerce tools come alongside advanced marketing and SEO features. Shopify’s internal linking capabilities and logical site structure support improved site crawling and indexing, which is crucial for e-commerce sites with extensive product catalogs​.

Despite its advanced toolbox, Shopify has a user-friendly nature. Shopify’s built-in tools allow for straightforward management of essential SEO elements such as meta titles and descriptions. You can also make more detailed interventions with the vast third-party app store, such as by using Crush.pics for image optimization and Google Search Console for performance tracking​​.

Because it offers such powerful e-commerce capabilities, Shopify tends to be on the pricier side. If your business has a small catalog, it might be excessive, but if you plan on selling a lot of products online, Shopify is probably a worthy investment.

Features

• Thousands of third-party templates. Shopify supports thousands of third-party templates, each designed to be SEO-friendly, enhancing your store’s visibility and searchability on major search engines.
• Fraud detector tool. Utilize Shopify’s fraud detector tool to protect your transactions and maintain the integrity of your online presence, indirectly supporting your SEO efforts by ensuring user trust.
• Unlimited products and storage. With unlimited products and storage, Shopify enables you to scale your business without worrying about space constraints, which can positively impact your SEO as your catalog expands.
• Local business listings. Shopify helps enhance your SEO strategy by helping to add your site to local business listings, boosting visibility in local search results and attracting more location-specific web traffic.

Read our expert Shopify review for more details.

Other Notable Website Builders for SEO

7. BigCommerce 1

BigCommerce is not a new name for e-commerce business owners, thanks to its rich features and multiple customization options. Like the others on this list, it offers a range of built-in SEO features to help your online store get noticed by search engines. For instance, BigCommerce automatically creates SEO-friendly URLs for every product, category, and other pages.

I like also that BigCommerce offers built-in schema markup that generates rich snippets, directly into product pages, enhancing your search result listings with information like ratings, prices, brands, and stock levels – all of which can help attract more clicks from search engines. However, unlike Wix, BigCommerce doesn’t offer a free plan, and it is best suited for teams and enterprises.

8. IONOS1

IONOS offers a range of AI-driven SEO tools that streamline content optimization. The AI SEO Text Generator crafts well-optimized metadata and helps guide the creation of SEO-aligned content. This tool simplifies the process of producing engaging and search engine-friendly content.

Additionally, IONOS’ highest pricing plan offers RankingCoach for more advanced, guided SEO strategies. For an extra fee, IONOS can help your business get a Google Business Profile, which makes your business easier to find in local search results and on Google Maps. However, the website builder offers only a handful of templates, and the site editor is somewhat limited.

9. WordPress.com1

WordPress.com makes starting a blog or small business site incredibly easy and quick. It offers essential SEO tools like customizable permalinks, meta tags, and XML sitemaps right out of the box. Because it has a lot of content management tools, it’s a good option for blogs and magazines.

However, for more advanced features, such as detailed SEO analysis tools or premium customization options, you’ll need to invest in its higher-tiered plans​. Plus, its user-interface may present a learning curve for beginners.

10. Web.com1

Web.com provides more advanced options for website design, but not as many SEO features as other builders. Thanks to the inclusion of a Content Delivery Network, however, Web.com ensures faster delivery of your content across the globe, which not only improves user experience but also boosts SEO​​.

However, Web.com has its limitations, particularly when it comes to more in-depth SEO strategies. While it offers SEO audits and simple guides, you might find yourself needing more tailored support, which is available only at an extra cost.

Our Additional Tips for Stronger SEO Results

Though choosing the right builder and making the most out of its SEO tools can be a huge help, there are some universal steps you can take to ensure better SEO results. Some of them are:

• Organize your site. A lot of the builders on this list offer checklists to ensure that every page or element has its appropriate meta descriptions and HTML hierarchy, but if yours doesn’t, then you should take the time to ensure that every element on your site does.
• Optimize your images. There are plenty of free and paid tools that can help you optimize your images, that is, reducing their file size without reducing their quality. This step is incredibly important because it will directly impact your website’s performance.
• Check your performance scores. Using a tool like GT metrix or Google PageSpeed Insights, check that your website delivers good loading speeds. Remember that mobile-first indexing is increasingly popular, so make sure that the mobile version of your site delivers good results.
• Update your website regularly. Search engines really value new content, so the more you leave your site stagnant, the more it will fall in rankings. Even if it’s with a blog post every now and then, make sure that your website remains updated.
• Consider external help. If you aren’t seeing the results you’d like, consider hiring an SEO expert to give you a more detailed look at areas for improvement. It doesn’t have to cost a fortune, you can find amazing freelancers on a platform like Fiverr for cheap.

Choosing the Best Website Builder for SEO Success

It’s not enough for a website builder to let you edit meta text and alt image descriptions. While powerful and varied SEO tools are very important, the way in which each builder optimizes its code can also have an important impact in search engine results.

For those who need a balance of user-friendliness and robust SEO features, Wix is the optimal choice1. It offers rich SEO tools, on top of extensive customization options, and separate mobile editing, which ensures better site visibility and more creative control.

Consider Squarespace for stylish designs with strong SEO1 functionalities. Plus, its powerful marketing features will also be appealing for anyone looking to grow their audience.

SITE123 is perfect for beginners1 needing straightforward SEO adjustments, or anyone who wants to get a simple site online quickly.

FAQ

Is Wix good for SEO?

Yes! Wix offers fantastic tools for SEO. Not only does it offer extensive SEO options through a dedicated dashboard, it also offers a specialized SEO assistant to ensure your site’s optimization.

Is Squarespace good for SEO?

Squarespace offers outstanding features for SEO, such as a full SEO dashboard, and AI-powered SEO text generation. Squarespace also offers a robust set of marketing features, so you can complement your SEO efforts with social media and email outreach.

How can I improve my website’s SEO?

There are many ways to improve your website’s SEO. First, you have to ensure that each element has the appropriate meta tags. You could also try optimizing your images and focusing on your website’s performance. It helps to have a website builder that provides fast-loading sites to begin with, such as SITE123.

Is SEO hard to learn?

Though the details of SEO can be hard to follow, you mostly have to stick to some tried-and-tested rules like including meta descriptions, alt tags, and ensuring good performance. And if you use a website builder, you can often find impressive SEO tools to help you. To learn more, take a look at our list of the best website builders in 2024.