If you’re thinking about starting the journey of creating a website, then hopefully you’ve had some thoughts about how you’ll optimize it for search engines. Unfortunately, you won’t find a CMS (Content Management System) that automatically optimizes your website for you–there’s always going to be some manual work involved to make sure your website is up to SEO standards. There are countless CMS platforms to choose from, but some are more SEO-friendly than others.
You’ll need to first ask yourself which platform is best for you and make sure to do some research on how it performs in SEO management. Will you be able to easily edit page titles, meta descriptions and H1 tags? Can you easily add and edit content on all pages? Is there a redirect feature? It’s no fun when you’re digging around the backend of a website trying to find a redirect module only to learn there isn’t one or you have to take extra steps to add it.
When it comes to SEO user-friendliness, these platforms are some of the best in the industry to help you get the work done and also have a pretty website at the end of the day.
BigCommerce
BigCommerce is a CMS ideal for eCommerce–hence the name. There are no SEO plugins or fancy add-ons with BigCommerce to get started. Everything is built right into the platform, so you don’t have to worry about searching for ways to implement title tags or meta descriptions.
Key SEO Features:
- Full control over URLs and meta data for all pages including categories and products.
- Allows users to import product data via CSV.
- Built-in integration with Google Shopping to increase eCommerce visibility and traffic.
- Automatic sitemaps built-in.
- Sync Google Analytics and Search Console.
- Users have access to a BigCommerce analytics suite.
- Social media features, including social sharing for products.
- Manually add 301-redirects in Server Settings or via bulk import.
WordPress
I’m a big fan of WordPress. It’s user-friendly and ideal for both beginners and advanced SEOs. There’s a reason why as a company we specialize in WordPress SEO services. WordPress is big and well-known, so it’s secure and constantly pushing out updates to stay relevant. Almost a quarter of all websites in the world use the platform. If you’re thinking about using their services, make sure to read up on WordPress.com vs.Wordpress.org as there are distinct differences. In this case, we’ll focus on the self-hosted WordPress.org version, which has a lot of SEO flexibility included with its plugins.
Key SEO Features:
- Thousands of unique plugins to search and install.
- SEO plugins, like WordPress SEO by Yoast for page titles, meta descriptions and other meta data along with finding your XML Sitemap easily among other technical features.
- Broken Link Checker helps users find and fix broken links and images.
- The Redirection Tool allows users to implement redirects manually or via CSV.
- Edit alt-tags directly on images.
- Full control of URLs and their structure.
- Site Verification for Google Search Console and Google Analytics tracking code.
- Website backup options included.
- Multiple author profiles and roles.
Drupal
Drupal is a little more advanced and not typically recommended for those with little website experience. If you want a CMS that functions like WordPress SEO but also incorporates web analytics and statistics, then this platform might be best suited for you. Similar to plugins, Drupal has modules for SEO and like WordPress, it’s always improving. Drupal also constantly rolls out new modules.
Key SEO Features:
- Various SEO modules to choose from. Real-Time SEO for Drupal is most similar to Yoast for WordPress.
- Drupal SEO Tools module is ideal for an all-in-one SEO suite with search engine reporting.
- Google Analytics integration via a module.
- Site Verification for Google, Bing and Yahoo!.
- Clean URLs and rewrite management in the form of redirect modules.
- Metatag module gives the user full control of metadata from inside the CMS.
- Users can specify menu attributes (ID, name, target, rel=”nofollow”).
- XML Sitemap module available.
While these web platforms have key SEO components to ensure you have a fully optimized website, every CMS has its share of flaws. Make sure to do additional research to determine what’s the right fit for you. It’s all dependent on what your website needs, how advanced your website skills are and which features are most important to you.
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