Along with WordPress, Shopify, Magento, and a couple of other big names, Wix has established itself as one of the most popular website building CMS platforms available. Wix caters to every kind of user needing a website, from hobbyists building their first website just for fun using the built-in templates to professional web developers who use Wix to develop custom build websites using JavaScript based code via Velo by Wix (built-in to every Wix website) for their clients. The drag and drop interface make it easy for users to manage their website using Wix, while Wix apps mean that there are always new features and capabilities available.
However, there is an ongoing controversy regarding Wix sites and SEO. If you search for anything to do with Wix and SEO, you'll find articles that denounce Wix as being bad for SEO, alongside other pieces that enthusiastically sing its praises. The truth is that many of those negative articles was correct way back when they were written but if read today, they are based on outdated information. Wix has taken enormous strides in recent years to improve its default SEO features and provide users with various Wix SEO tools to take things further if they want.
This article examines the state of Wix's current SEO capabilities and whether their push to make managing SEO as simple as possible could pose a potential threat to SEO companies in the long run.
Why do some people think Wix is bad for SEO?
In the past, Wix was criticised for only providing users with the most rudimentary SEO tools. Users could set their own titles, meta tags, etc., for each page on their website, but they had no control over the front-end code. Some SEO professionals have expressed frustration at this situation. They claimed that bloat in the HTML code underpinning every Wix website, along with the need to load redundant, unused scripts and styles, was slowing down Wix sites and damaging their SEO scores. However, you should note that these issues are also present in WordPress and other similar website building platforms; these are not problems unique to Wix.
Has Wix solved these problems?
Wix has definitely taken much of the harsh criticism it has faced for its lack of SEO features on board and worked to address user concerns. The mission to make Wix a more SEO-friendly platform culminated in the release of Wix SEO Wiz, which is free to all Wix users. This free tool works like a personal SEO assistant. After the user answers some basic questions about their website, SEO Wiz suggests an SEO action plan tailored to the user. This tells the user what actions they need to take to boost their rankings in Google, Bing, and a few other search engines. Moving on from the basics, Wix also includes a suite of advanced SEO tools which gives you control of adding structured data, setting up 301 redirects, tweaking the Robots.txt file, setting up all your SEO patterns, and even a built-in log file analyser, plus much more.
What about the code bloat?
Page load speed is a significant factor in assigning a website an SEO score. Websites that are sluggish and take a long time to load will experience higher bounce rates. Google is keen to ensure that the top-ranking websites in its search results perform well on a technical level as well as provide high-value content. The fact that Wix was measurably slower than other website building platforms, including its biggest competitor, WordPress, led many SEO professionals to caution against using Wix.
Fortunately, Wix has addressed these concerns by optimising code in several areas. Wix websites are now no faster or slower than those built with other platforms. However, Wix still limits its user's ability to tinker with the code embedded in every Wix website by default. Some people still grumble about this, but this is true for every website built using a closed-CMS platform.
You can read this Wix Core Web Vitals case study which explains exactly how the Wix Engineering team have not only put Wix on the same level as other CMS platforms, but surpassed them as far as performance is concerned.
How easy is it for a layperson without SEO experience to manage SEO for a Wix website?
This is the big question for many people debating whether Wix is right for them or not. Of course, you will always get the best SEO results from working with specialist Wix SEO professionals. Still, every website owner should also aim to manage the most essential aspects of their SEO independently. The aforementioned SEO Wiz is an excellent tool; no one really has a bad word to say about it.
As well as enabling users to manage the most fundamental SEO features, Wix also has some handy tutorials and SEO guide that explain how to handle everything involved in language that anyone can understand. The Wix Help Centre is an invaluable resource for any Wix website owner, but it's helpful for users who are new to the world of SEO. It explains basic concepts and defines important terms in clear and concise language without talking down to the reader.
If you however want to take your Wix SEO knowledge to the next level, you can work through our very own Wix SEO Course which simply guides you through seven steps along with set action points to get your website ranked at the top of Google.
Has Wix made SEO companies redundant?
No. Definitely not. Wix should certainly be commended for the effort they've made over the last couple of years to turn things around and regain the trust and support of SEO professionals. They should also be applauded for making it easier for new and relatively tech-illiterate users to publish their websites and immediately appear in Google search results via the Wix SEO Wiz. However, while Wix has made it easy for its users to manage their basic SEO, and gives you some amazing, advanced SEO features, an SEO professional will take those built-in advanced Wix SEO tools and used their years of knowledge and apply that to their clients websites.
SEO professionals can still provide valuable advice and guidance to Wix users. For example, most people don't know how to conduct keyword research or reporting via Google Search Console and Google Analytics, both of which are utterly essential to effective SEO.
Even with all the tools and support that Wix offers, most people jockeying for a high ranking for more competitive keywords will need the help of an SEO specialist to have any chance of succeeding. Wix is a long way from making SEO companies irrelevant. Still, the Wix SEO development team should be commended for their efforts to make SEO management more accessible for the average person without much tech experience, along with giving the advanced SEO specialists the tools to do their job.