Is Wordpress better than Squarespace for Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)?
I’m Stewart Liesnham and I’m a Squarespace SEO Consultant based in the UK. In this article, I’m going to explain how Squarespace and Wordpress can both help you get more website traffic and also compare them for their SEO features. When it comes to building a website, the platform you choose can have a significant impact on your search engine optimisation (SEO) efforts. Two popular options for building websites are WordPress and Squarespace. In this article, we will explore which platform is better for SEO and why.
But before we dive down the ‘Is Squarespace good for SEO’ rabbit hole, let’s consider some practical examples because as you probably already know, both Wordpress and Squarespace are great options for building websites.
In my opinion, for 80% of websites, Squarespace will be the best option and will be more than adequate for your SEO performance. Unless you have lots of complexity, your website has lots of integrations or you just need a ton of customisation, Squarespace will probably have you covered with a lot less hassle.
This website is built with Squarespace and before that Wordpress. When I launched the Squarespace site I wrote some Blog articles on some topics that related to some of the challenges I faced when launching my website and also about some SEO tools that I use. Because they were well written and detailed articles they were ranked on page 1 of Google organic search within a few weeks and still are today. To see what I mean about quality content feel free to take a look at the articles I am referring to;
Using SEMrush API with Google Sheets
Redirect a domain to another domain using AWS Route 53
My point here is that despite all the comparisons of technical features of Squarespace vs Wix vs Wordpress etc, all things being equal, the quality of your content is what matters most. Quality content is platform agnostic so if you have good content and you want a website that’s really easy to set up and manage then Squarespace is as good an option as Wordpress and you don’t even need to read the rest of this article. That being said, let’s dive into some detail on how Squarespace compares to Wordpress for Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
WordPress and Squarespace: An Overview
WordPress is a free and open-source content management system that powers more than 43% of all websites on the internet according to W3Techs. It is highly customisable, with a vast library of themes and plugins that allow you to create a website that suits your needs.
On the other hand, Squarespace is a website builder that offers a range of pre-designed templates that you can customise to create your website. It is an all-in-one platform that includes hosting, so you don't need to worry about finding a separate hosting provider. It also includes a lot of built-in SEO features, and the ability to add some quite advanced SEO capabilities with a bit of extra time and effort. It also has a whole lot of marketing features built-in. Squarespace are also constantly updating the platform, adding new marketing functionality and making improvements.
SEO Features of WordPress
When it comes to building a website, search engine optimisation (SEO) is crucial for ensuring your website is easily discoverable by search engines. There are several platforms you can use to build your website, but one of the most popular options is WordPress. One of the reasons why WordPress is so popular is because of its vast library of SEO features although most of these are available through 3rd party plug-ins. In this article, we will explore the SEO features of WordPress and why it is a great platform for optimising your website for search engines.
Wordpress SEO Plugins
One of the most significant advantages of using WordPress for SEO is its vast library of SEO plugins. These plugins offer a range of features to help optimise your website for search engines. Some of the most popular SEO plugins for WordPress include Yoast SEO, All in One SEO Pack, and Rank Math. These plugins provide features such as on-page SEO analysis, sitemap creation, and social media integration, making it easier for you to optimise your website for search engines.
WordPress SEO Customisation
Another significant advantage of using WordPress for SEO is the level of customisation it offers. With WordPress, you can make changes to your website's structure and content to optimise it for search engines. For example, you can easily create custom post types, add meta tags, and optimise your images for SEO. This customisation is crucial for SEO, as it allows you to create content that is optimised for specific keywords.
WordPress Mobile Responsiveness
Mobile responsiveness is a crucial ranking factor for SEO, as Google considers it when ranking websites. WordPress offers various responsive themes that make it easy for you to create a mobile-friendly website. With a mobile-responsive website, you can ensure that your website is accessible to mobile and tablet users irrespective of their screen size and layout and improve your website's SEO.
WordPress Site Speed
Website speed is another critical ranking factor for SEO. Slow-loading websites can lead to a poor user experience, resulting in lower search engine rankings. WordPress offers various tools and plugins to help improve your website's speed. For example, you can use caching plugins to reduce the amount of time it takes for your website to load. That all being said, choosing fast, reliable and secure hosting is also important and is one area you should not be looking to skimp on. There are many reliable hosting companies that provide hosting specifically engineered to perform well for Wordpress websites so look for one of these when choosing your hosting provider. Fast hosting first, caching plugins second.
Security
Security is also essential for SEO, as search engines penalise websites that have security issues. WordPress is a highly secure platform that offers various security features, such as two-factor authentication, SSL certificates, and automatic updates. By using WordPress, you can ensure that your website is secure and optimised for search engines.
WordPress SEO - Conclusion
In conclusion, WordPress is an excellent platform for optimising your website for search engines. Its vast library of SEO plugins, customization options, mobile responsiveness, speed, and security features make it a great choice for businesses and individuals looking to improve their website's SEO. Whether you're a beginner or an advanced user, WordPress has everything you need to optimise your website for search engines. Now let’s take a look at what Squarespace has to offer…
SEO Features of Squarespace
As we mentioned for WordPress, or indeed any website, search engine optimisation (SEO) is crucial for ensuring your website is discoverable by search engines. While WordPress is a popular platform for optimising your website for SEO, there are other options available. One of these options is Squarespace, a website builder that offers a range of pre-designed templates, built-in SEO features and a host of other built-in marketing features, as well as eCommerce functionality. In this article, we will explore the SEO features of Squarespace and why it is a suitable platform for optimising your website for search engines.
Squarespace Built-in SEO Features
Squarespace has built-in SEO features that make it easy for you to optimise your website for search engines. For example, you can easily add custom page titles, alt tags, and page descriptions for your pages and images quickly and easily in the site admin. The website builder will add these by default based on your page content but you can further optimise these by adding custom and better optimised content. These features help search engines understand what your website is about and improve your website's SEO. Squarespace also automatically generates a sitemap for your website, making it easier for search engines to crawl and index your website.
Squarespace Mobile Responsiveness
Mobile responsiveness is a crucial ranking factor for SEO, as Google considers it when ranking websites. Like WordPress, Squarespace offers responsive templates that make it easy for you to create a mobile-friendly website. With a mobile-responsive website, you can ensure that your website is accessible to mobile and tablet users and improve your website's SEO. There is little user input required here and this works very well right out of the box. Squarespace has your back here and you can rest assured that your Squarespace website will work well on any mobile or tablet irrespective of the user’s screen size.
Squarespace Website Speed
Website speed is another critical ranking factor for SEO. Slow-loading websites can lead to a poor user experience, resulting in lower search engine rankings. Squarespace is known for its fast-loading websites, and it uses a content delivery network (CDN) to ensure that your website loads quickly, regardless of where your visitors are located. Again, there’s not really anything to think about here, your website will work well right out of the box - although as a side note you should also ensure that you optimise the images on your Squarespace website to reduce page loading times.
Squarespace Ease of Use
Squarespace is a user-friendly platform that makes it easy for you to optimise your website for search engines. Its drag-and-drop editor makes it easy to create a website, and its built-in SEO features ensure that your website is optimised for search engines.
Squarespace Website Security
Security is also essential for SEO, as search engines penalise websites that have security issues. Squarespace offers various security features, such as SSL certificates and automatic updates, to ensure that your website is secure and optimised for search engines.
Squarespace SEO - Conclusion
In conclusion, Squarespace is a suitable platform for optimising your website for search engines. Its built-in SEO features, mobile responsiveness, speed, ease of use, and security features make it a great choice for businesses and individuals looking to improve their website's SEO. While it may not offer as much customisation as WordPress, Squarespace is still a great option for those looking for a user-friendly platform to optimise their website for search engines.
Which Platform is Better for SEO: WordPress or Squarespace?
When it comes to choosing a platform for your website, search engine optimisation (SEO) is a crucial factor to consider. Both WordPress and Squarespace offer features that make them suitable for optimising your website for search engines. However, when it comes to SEO, which platform is better: WordPress or Squarespace?
Customisation
One of the most significant advantages of using WordPress for SEO is the level of customisation it offers. With WordPress, you have complete control over your website's structure and content, which means you can optimise it for search engines in various ways. For example, you can create custom post types, add meta tags, and optimise your images for SEO. This customisation is crucial for SEO, as it allows you to create content that is optimised for specific keywords.
Squarespace, on the other hand, doesn't offer as much customisation as WordPress. While Squarespace does allow you to add custom page titles, descriptions and image alt tags for example, you are limited to the templates provided and the built in features of the platform. That being said there are ways to add more complex SEO features but these can be more complicated than using a custom plug-in as you would in WordPress. This means you may not always be able to optimise your website for search engines in the way that you want or without added complexity.
SEO Plugins
One of the most significant advantages of using WordPress for SEO is its vast library of SEO plugins. These plugins offer a range of features to help optimise your website for search engines. Popular SEO plugins for WordPress include Yoast SEO, All in One SEO Pack, and Rank Math. These plugins provide features such as on-page SEO analysis, sitemap creation, and social media integration, making it easier for you to optimise your website for search engines.
While Squarespace has built-in SEO features, they are not as comprehensive as the features provided by SEO plugins for WordPress. Squarespace does allow you to easily write custom page titles, descriptions and image alt tags for example but you are sometimes limited by the builtin features unless you want to write some limited code to add to your site without the use of a custom plugin. It also automatically generates a sitemap for your website, making it easier for search engines to crawl and index your website.
Flexibility
WordPress is a more flexible platform than Squarespace, which means you can create custom post types, custom fields, and other features that can help you optimise your website for SEO. With Squarespace, you are limited to the templates provided and their built-in SEO features. You can add more SEO customisation by adding code to your site but this is generally more complex than using a WordPress Plugin. That being said if your content is well-optimised and you take some time to write custom page titles and descriptions you have got most of your SEO needs covered with Squarespace. For most people, this is probably enough to level the playing field. If you need more complex functionality then WordPress might be a better option.
Mobile Responsiveness
Mobile responsiveness is a crucial ranking factor for SEO, as Google considers it when ranking websites. Both WordPress and Squarespace offer responsive templates that make it easy for you to create a mobile-friendly website. With a mobile-responsive website, you can ensure that your website is accessible to mobile users and improve your website's SEO. As such neither platform has an advantage in this space although you could argue that using the Squarespace website editor is easier and more risk-free in terms of making mistakes than using WordPress.
Speed
Website speed is another critical ranking factor for SEO. Slow-loading websites can lead to a poor user experience, resulting in lower search engine rankings. WordPress offers various tools and plugins to help improve your website's speed, such as caching plugins. Squarespace is known for its fast-loading websites and uses a content delivery network (CDN) to ensure that your website loads quickly, regardless of where your visitors are located. If you choose high quality WordPress hosting and optimise your site using something like WP Rocket there’s probably little to choose between them. It is worth bearing in mind that you may need to budget for both hosting and potentially expensive plug-ins when comparing the all-in-one costs of Squarespace vs Wordpress.
Security
Security is also essential for SEO, as search engines penalise websites that have security issues. Both WordPress and Squarespace offer various security features, such as SSL certificates and automatic updates, to ensure that your website is secure and optimised for search engines. As with some of the other features above, always bear in mind that you may need to budget for WordPress plugins as well as hosting when comparing costs with Squarespace where all of these features are standard.
Overall Conclusion
In conclusion, both WordPress and Squarespace offer features that make them suitable for optimising your website for search engines. However, when it comes to SEO, WordPress is arguably the better option due to its customization options and vast library of SEO plugins if you are likely to need to make use of these. If you are in the likely 80% of users who don’t, then Squarespace is going to give you everything you need in order for your site to rank well in search engines. While Squarespace does offer built-in SEO features and is a user-friendly platform, it may not offer as much flexibility and customization as WordPress for optimising your website for search engines but that is part of your needs assessment. If you don’t need the advanced features, and most people won’t, then Squarespace is less hassle and will rank equally as well for the same well written content.
Are You Looking for Help With Your SEO?
Are you struggling to get your Squarespace website to rank high on search engines? Look no further! As a Squarespace SEO expert based in the UK, I offer customised SEO services that can help your website get noticed online. Using my extensive knowledge of Squarespace and proven SEO strategies, I can optimise your website for relevant search terms, improve website performance, and boost your online presence. Let me help you succeed online, contact me to learn more.
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