The 5 Best Website Builders for SEO in 2022

The best website builders for search engine optimization (SEO) help your website rank higher in Google search results, in turn helping to grow your business. They have native SEO tools and integrations, are built for fast site speed, and offer guidance for how to best optimize your website. While many site builders make it easy to build a website, we analyzed more than a dozen leading platforms to determine which really are the best website builders for SEO.

Based on our research, here are the five best website builders for SEO in 2022:

• Bluehost Builder: Overall best website builder for SEO
• Squarespace: Great choice for online stores looking to generate more organic traffic
• IONOS: Best SEO website builder for small businesses on a budget
• GoDaddy: Top site builder for businesses with international audiences
• Wix: Best free website builder for SEO

Best Website Builders for SEO at a Glance

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*Based on a 12-month commitment
**Renews at a higher monthly cost

Bluehost: Best Overall Website Builder for SEO

Bluehost is a popular name in the world of web hosting as an all-in-one service. From content management to hosting, Bluehost does it all. It’s a WordPress-recommended hosting provider that stands out with affordably priced, all-inclusive plans. Plans include everything you need to build and launch your business website, including WordPress installed and managed for you, a free domain and SSL certificate, and free email addresses on your domain.

Keep in mind that with Bluehost’s pricing, there is a fairly large uptick from the price you pay per month for the first year vs your renewal price. Despite this, with so much included in Bluehost hosting and Bluehost Builder plans, it’s one of the more reasonably priced website building and hosting platforms in the market.

Bluehost Site Builder SEO Features

Similar to GoDaddy’s SEO Wizard, Bluehost has an SEO add-on tool (aptly named “Bluehost SEO Tools”). However, it comes at the added expense of $23.88 per year, regardless of which plan you choose. With that said, this isn’t essential as there are many plugins that enable you to implement technical optimization tactics throughout your website.

For example, adding the free Yoast SEO plugin makes it easy to ensure your pages and articles are search engine-friendly. Adding a plugin that allows you to add custom code to your header and footer enables you to implement third-party apps to track your site’s metrics and further improve its SEO.

If you do opt to add Bluehost SEO Tools to your package, you’ll get a report to see how your website ranks on the Google, Yahoo, and Bing search engines. It analyzes your content and tells you where you can improve based on a scoring system. It’s quite thorough and well worth the price for small businesses looking to rank higher on Google.

Here are some of the SEO features included when you subscribe to one of the WordPress hosting plans that come standard with the Bluehost Builder:

• SEO scoring system
• Search engine submission
• Visitor overview
• Website ranking (via keywords)
• Site issues
• Search optimization for your entire site and its content
• Content delivery network for fast load time worldwide
• Mobile optimization
• Backlink analyzer
• Social media scanner

Aside from Bluehost Builder’s add-on tools, what sets it apart from other site builders like Squarespace, GoDaddy, and Wix is its almost limitless customization abilities. Because it’s built on WordPress, you have access to thousands of plugins, including WordPress’ top SEO plugins like Yoast. This flexibility works for both beginner and experienced SEO users.

Through Bluehost, you can also hire a professional SEO team to handle your site’s optimization and management. Visit its website to learn more about its tools and services, or check out our comprehensive Bluehost review.

Bluehost Site Builder Pricing & Features

*On a 12-month contract

Ease of Use

Bluehost offers a drag-and-drop WordPress website builder. One of the biggest draws of WordPress is that it has an unlimited amount of customization options through various plugins. Combined with Bluehost’s website builder, it’s fairly easy for a beginner to build the site they envision.

Although navigating WordPress (i.e., finding the appropriate themes and plugins) is still more complicated than using a traditional site builder, Bluehost has a very user-friendly control panel (cPanel) that can assist you in getting around. Finally, Bluehost allows more advanced users to inject code into their sites—giving them more freedom and flexibility to build.

Take a look at how to build your very own website with the Bluehost Website Builder step-by-step. If you do choose to build a WordPress site with the Bluehost website builder, spend some time checking out templates as you can’t change to a new one without starting over.

Our Expert Opinion

Bluehost is the best SEO website builder for small businesses overall and one of the easiest ways to build a WordPress website. It includes everything you need to build a WordPress website, including SEO tools to help anyone from beginners to experienced users optimize their sites for search. Plus, WordPress has thousands of available SEO plugins to help you rank higher on Google.

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Squarespace: Best SEO Website Builder for Online Stores

Squarespace is a great choice when it comes to the best website builders for SEO, especially if you’re interested in building an online store as well. While the editing interface involves a little bit of a learning curve, it does a good job of baking in SEO features so that anyone can rest assured their store has what it needs to be able to be crawled (and understood) by Google.

Granted, using some of these tools will require at least a basic-to-intermediate understanding of SEO practices. If you’re not an SEO expert, and not looking to learn the basics, Wix may be the better option for you.

Squarespace SEO Features

Squarespace has basic built-in SEO features that you should definitely take advantage of. To make the most out of Squarespace’s SEO tools, check out its handy optimization guide. You can even insert code to give your website more customization and better optimization. However, this isn’t a useful feature for beginners who have no coding experience.

Below are some of the built-in SEO features that Squarespace provides:

• Page title
• Google and Bing integration
• Alt tags
• Meta descriptions
• 301 redirects
• SSL encryption
• Social media integration
• Ability to add code for third-party apps

While Squarespace offers some advanced SEO features, it still can’t compare to the enormous list of SEO tools and plugins WordPress offers. If you’re something of an SEO expert (or looking to hire one), you may want to consider using Bluehost to build a site quickly on WordPress. Alternatively, Wix has a number of easy-to-use SEO tools that come standard, even on its free plan.

Squarespace Pricing & Features

*On a 12-month contract

Ease of Use

The Squarespace website builder has a live drag-and-drop editor with prebuilt content blocks for building out various page sections. Though fairly user-friendly, it still involves a bit of a learning curve—but as you spend more time with the editor, it becomes easier to use.

Get more insight into what’s involved with building a Squarespace website. Alternatively, if you’re short on time or a beginner, a sectional editor where you can choose from layouts and blocks—like GoDaddy or IONOS—might be a better choice for you.

Our Expert Opinion

Squarespace is both a top ecommerce platform and one of the best SEO website builders—especially if you have some experience with search engine optimization. If you’re a complete beginner and OK with a slight learning curve, it’s still a terrific site builder that gives you the ability to build a professional ecommerce site that looks like you hired a web designer to build.

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IONOS: Cheapest Website Builder for SEO

IONOS may not be the most well-known name in site building, but it’s certainly one of the cheapest website builders for SEO. With plans starting at $1 per month for your first year, you’d be hard-pressed to find a more affordable option.

Granted, in the Starter plan, the template selection and sectional interface aren’t as modern as the offerings of Squarespace or Wix. However, IONOS’ features are more than enough for any business to build a search-optimized website.

There are two site editors available to you with IONOS. The Starter plan includes the MyWebsite Now site editor, which offers the fastest site-building experience. Alternatively, the Pro and Plus plans come with the more versatile MyWebsite Creator site editor, which allows for far more customization and has more predesigned templates and design elements.

IONOS SEO Features

IONOS’ built-in SEO covers on-page essentials such as the ability to add meta descriptions and titles to your site and its pages, and to add alt text to images and videos. In addition, IONOS provides built-in site analytics and Google Analytics integration as well as image optimization and Google PageSpeed for faster loading times. You can also add custom HTML and make use of Google integrations like Search Console to crawl and index your site.

These are some of the built-in website SEO features IONOS site builder has:

• Customized headlines
• Meta descriptions
• Title tags
• Alt text for images and videos
• SSL encryption
• 301 redirects
• Ability to add code
• Content delivery network for fast load time worldwide
• Google PageSpeed optimization

IONOS Pricing & Features

*On a 12-month contract
**For the first six months

Ease of Use

IONOS is a pretty straightforward website builder, especially when using the MyWebsite Now editor that comes in the Starter plan. Both of its site editors have a section-based editing interface, similar to GoDaddy.

Both IONOS site builders are very easy to use. They also don’t allow you to mess up too much, so if you’re an absolute beginner to site building, then it might just be the perfect website builder for you.

IONOS doesn’t have an app store, but we did notice that there’s a menu item for this in the MyWebsite Creator site editor that says “coming soon!”—so (fingers crossed) more native integrations may be available in the future. For now, if you want a very custom site in both design and features and a large third-party integration marketplace, give Wix a shot.

Our Expert Opinion

The editor that comes with IONOS’ Starter plan lacks things like a powerful drag-and-drop editor and sleek templates. However, it offers value-packed plans for the price that you pay. With its free domain, free professional email, and built-in SEO tools for as low as $1 per month, you’d be hard-pressed to find a cheaper SEO website builder.

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GoDaddy: Best SEO Website Builder for International Websites

GoDaddy, one of the most well-known names for business domain name registration, also offers a beginner-friendly website builder. The SEO Wizard will give you a guided walk-through of what your site needs to rank on Google after you’ve published your website. While this service doesn’t come with the free or first-tier plan, both still have essential SEO features so you can optimize your website and content.

In addition to its guided walk-through service, GoDaddy stands out for international businesses with customers around the globe, as it offers data centers in North America, Europe, and Asia. Its ultra-fast hosting service helps your site load quickly, which is a factor in Google’s search algorithm as it lends to a better user experience and, therefore, a higher quality search result.

GoDaddy Website Builder SEO Features

Although GoDaddy was started before SEO, as we know it today, was even a thing, it has adapted to include SEO features that you may eventually find a use for. Its website builder includes site and page-level settings for titles and descriptions, enables alt tags with images, and includes helpful checklists and guidance on ways to improve your site’s ability to rank on Google.

Let’s take a look at some of GoDaddy’s SEO tools and features:

• Built-in SEO (e.g., titles, meta descriptions, image alt-tags)
• Free SSL certificate
• Website analytics Google Analytics integration
• Connect to your Google Business Profile
• Connect and post directly to social networks
• SEO Wizard and website basics checklist
• Built-in website optimizer

Note that some of the features available depend on which premium plan you choose. With the free and Basic plans, your SEO is limited to just page titles and descriptions. As you upgrade, you get better offerings for your business, and yet GoDaddy doesn’t allow URL customization on any of their plans (instead, you’ll have to change your page’s title to change its URL).

GoDaddy Pricing & Features

*On a 12-month contract

Ease of Use

GoDaddy prides itself on how easy it is to use. Beginners with no experience in building websites can set one up quickly and easily with GoDaddy’s customizable interface. There are also numerous templates available, including premade designs for specific industries.

The site editor is a breeze to use and your site will be 100% responsive, so it looks great no matter what device your site visitor is using. GoDaddy selects a template for you based on your answers to setup questions, so you don’t have the ability to choose which template you want to use during setup (or afterward). As a section-based editor, you’ll also have less design freedom than with Wix.

Our Expert Opinion

GoDaddy is perfect for small businesses looking to reach international audiences. It has a built-in site optimizer, SEO-friendly features, mobile-responsive templates, and fast loading speeds no matter where you are in the world. For more details, learn how to build a GoDaddy website or check out our expert GoDaddy review.

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Wix: Best Free Website Builder for SEO

Wix is a very popular website builder known for its true drag-and-drop site editing interface that provides a ton of design flexibility. With hundreds of templates available, Wix covers every business niche and can give you everything you need to build a good-looking website. While GoDaddy is a bit easier to use for true beginners, you won’t have any trouble learning how to create the website you envision for your business with Wix.

Notably, Wix includes SEO tools even in the free version. Among these are the ability to add your Google Analytics ID for site tracking, set page title and meta descriptions, add alt tags for images, and more. Wix will even analyze your site based on your industry and goals and provide you with an SEO checklist to better optimize your site.

Wix SEO Features

One great plus of Wix is that essential SEO features are built in. That means not having to mess around with coding and other plugins—Wix has everything you’ll need for basic optimization prebuilt into their dashboard. Wix also has the Wix SEO Wiz tool, which is basically a checklist for you to go through to make your website as optimized as Wix can make it.

Let’s take a look at Wix’s SEO capabilities:

• On-page SEO (e.g., title, meta description, alt tags, and so on)
• Site Booster with all paid plans except Combo to ensure your website gets found online
• Mobile and tablet-friendly templates
• SSL encryption
• Built-in 301 redirects and canonical tags
• Built-in social media integration

Wix Pricing & Features

*With a 12-month contract, or pay monthly at a higher rate

Ease of Use

Wix’s ease of use is famous all around the web, and it has hundreds of templates you can choose from—all conveniently located within categories for their specific niches. Simply click on the elements in the editor and change them as needed. To get started, read our step-by-step instructions on how to build a Wix website.

As a true drag-and-drop editor, Wix is seamless and hassle-free. To make things even easier, Wix has an artificial design intelligence (ADI) feature that does everything for you. Take note that the ADI feature doesn’t have the drag-and-drop editor, and instead provides you with customizable sections.

Our Expert Opinion

Wix is the best free website builder for SEO for small businesses and startups looking to jump-start and grow an online presence. Many SEO features are built in so you don’t have to worry about coding or extra plugins (although connecting both Google Analytics and Search Console is a good idea). Try it risk-free using the free version before committing to a long-term plan.

Try Wix

How We Evaluated the Best Website Builders for SEO

There are dozens of site builders, and they all claim to be the best option for building a small business website. So we put them to the test and analyzed them across several evaluation criteria—from pricing and features to ease of use, design, the quality of available support, and our own expert opinion based on hours of firsthand experience to discover the five best website builders for SEO.

Click on the tabs for more information on how we analyzed the best SEO website builders.

Ultimately, we concluded that ranking is easiest with a WordPress site built using the Bluehost Builder. Its plans are affordable and you get access to all the optimization tools that WordPress offers—without the difficulty of learning WordPress. With Bluehost’s drag-and-drop WordPress builder, anyone (even complete beginners) can build a highly optimized business website that ranks in search results.

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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Can I create a website by myself?

Gone are the days when you need technical knowledge to create a website. There are numerous all-in-one website builders that you can pick from to do everything from hosting to designing—no coding required. In addition to the best website builders for SEO listed here, you might also want to consider our lists of the top cheap website builders as well as the best free website builders.

If you need some extra help or if you have the budget for it, consider hiring a professional through sites like Fiverr or a full digital team from Hibu. Hiring a professional doesn’t have to be prohibitively expensive either—prices on Fiverr start as low as $50 for a professional freelance web designer.

Why does my business website need SEO?

Optimizing your website is a measurable way of getting more traffic from your target audience, which is essential for increasing sales and scaling your business. SEO doesn’t guarantee this, but it gives you the best chance possible to rank in online searches and grow your brand’s online presence. Learn more about how to get found online and grow your business with our guide to search engine marketing.

Do I need to hire a professional for SEO?

It’s easy to learn basic SEO, and there are many online courses for basic and advanced SEO, including free SEO courses from HubSpot Academy. However, SEO involves a lot of details. So if you don’t have the time (or interest) in learning SEO, it’s well worth your money to hire a pro. If you’re on a budget, try platforms like Fiverr, where you can hire an SEO specialist to optimize your site or write search-optimized copy for it starting from $5 to $10.

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