When you need a new or refreshed website, your first step is to pick a content management system (CMS). A CMS is a platform that allows you to add, edit and manage the content on your website. Choosing the best option for your business can seem daunting when so many CMS platforms cater to different needs and industries. However, there is one need all businesses have when building a new website: search engine optimization (SEO).
Selecting a CMS that is built for and understands the importance of SEO is crucial to your digital marketing efforts. Maximizing SEO on your site gets your business noticed. So, that begs the question: what is the best CMS for SEO?
What is the Best CMS for a Website?
There are a lot of CMS options available but one stands above the rest: WordPress. Since 2003 WordPress has been converting thousands of businesses – large and small – to its versatile interface. But why is WordPress the best CMS for SEO?
Why WordPress?
WordPress powers more than 41% of websites that exist today. In addition to being powerful and popular, WordPress also offers a wide variety of features, customizations, and add-ons to help users create their ultimate website.
Do WordPress Sites Rank Well?
The basic structure of a WordPress site combined with an array of advanced features make the platform a favorite among SEO practitioners. Additionally, the unique structure, rooted in blogging, wins it favor in the eyes of Google. Since Google appreciates relevant and up-to-date content, a CMS focusing on content creation and publication gives it an edge in search rankings.
What Makes WordPress a Good CMS for SEO?
WordPress’ strength is its versatility. Designers and practitioners have access to countless customizing tools to give their websites a unique look and user experience. When it comes to SEO these, features stand out:
1. Plentiful SEO Plugins
WordPress offers many easy-to-use plugins to customize your website. Some of these plugins are specifically built for SEO and can help optimize your pages. This means higher visibility and more website traffic.
2. Easy to Manage Metadata
Metadata is information on your webpage that helps search engine crawlers, like Google, understand the content on your webpages. Think of it as a SparkNotes of your webpage:
Example of optimized metadata for webpage
When you include keywords in your metadata, Google is able to quickly interpret your webpage and match it up with a relevant search query. This means your page is more likely to rank when someone searches for a topic that you’ve written about. When utilizing WordPress, metadata can be easily updated via plugins such as Yoast SEO.
3. SEO-Friendly Themes
Themes are a major part of why WordPress is the best CMS for SEO. Metadata isn’t the only thing that search engine crawlers are looking at when they review your website. They’re also looking at the design of your website.
A good website design or theme is another benefit of WordPress for SEO. Many of the pre-existing themes within WordPress are built with SEO in mind. This means you can simply choose a theme from their library to build your site around. This eliminates the need to build a site from scratch and sets your new site up for better SEO success.
4. Stronger User Experience
One of the main reasons why WordPress sites rank well is because they blend their themes and plugins for optimal user-experience.
When a company has an attractive, user-friendly website, visitors stay longer. Clear navigation and valuable information land more visitors for longer. This improves your time-on-site and page-per-session metrics, decreases your bounce rate, and improves overall SEO performance.
5. Faster Load Times
Page speed is a big factor in Google’s ranking algorithm. Not only does a slow website frustrate users, it also impacts your search engine rankings.
WordPress offers a number of plugins to improve site speed optimization. Whether you have large files that need to be compressed or want to utilize a caching plugin, there are plenty of options to help speed up your site’s load time.
6. Mobile-Friendly
Since Google’s “Mobilegeddon” update in 2015, mobile search has grown exponentially, and in turn, so has the need for mobile friendly websites. With this shift, WordPress has made “going-mobile” extremely easy for their users. The company offers a large number of themes that seamlessly convert your desktop site to a mobile-friendly user experience.
Let Gemini Build Your New WordPress Website
WordPress is the CMS we trust for our clients. By utilizing a platform that offers an array of SEO-friendly plugins, features, and tools, we can be sure your site works its way to the top of search results. If you still find yourself wondering, why is WordPress so good? Or if you’re ready to get started with the best SEO-friendly CMS, we can help. Get in touch with Gemini today to make your site, out of sight!
