'Best' software for creating SEO friendly websites?

[TheBigCheese]

Hi everyone

*Quick sum up of my woffle below: Does the software you use to create websites impact it's search ranking performance?*

Long woffle...

I have a small amount of experience in creating basic websites using a couple of different packages and now I'm wanting to expand that to create 10+ of my own small, very specific sites but I really want them to be found in their respective categories.

I've previously created a site in Dreamweaver which has done quite well and hit and stayed at rank 1 on Google for it's search term which I am very pleased about. However, I'm not a web designer by any stretch of the imagination and creating a site in Dreamweaver and messing with CSS I find an enormous pain.

I've looked into Wordpress but that seems to be a bit unwieldy for me (or maybe I'm too impatient to learn it!).

I've been looking at the latest version of Netobjects Fusion (version XIII), I used to use back in version 8 or 9 and got some OK results with it.

In my ponderings it suddenly struck me, does the website builder I use make a difference to how it is ranked? I think Fusion used to add quite a bit of junk to the source which could imped rankings but I am talking a good few years ago.

I'd be really interested to hear what you all have to say! I am leaning towards Netobjects as it's easy (or at least it used to be) but it's also not free, which Wordpress is, and I already have Dreamweaver so the SEO aspect will probably swing it for me.

Thanks for reading!

 

[faradaykeynes]

If you are looking for CMS sites , Joomla is good. If you are looking for e-commerce solutions then open cart and prestashop are good.

 

[TheBigCheese]

Thanks for your reply.

I should have mentioned that in the OP, yes it's just a CMS, I won't be handling any payments on the site.

Is there any particular reason why Joomla is good from an SEO perspective? It's something else I'll have to get my head round if I picked up with that.

 

[faradaykeynes]

Joomla, Wordpress, Drupal all these are good for CMS and SEO friendly. They ahave e-commerce extensions as well
Drupal is bit more learning curve and hard coded , Joomla is in between both.

 

[webgeek]

Any and all of the ones mentioned thus far are the 'easiest' of the popular CMS's, which makes getting acquainted with them time consuming, but doable.

Any and all of the ones mentioned thus far are also easy to get it wrong. The plugins for SEO/SEM, Canonical, Meta Robots - all can foobar your site thoroughly if you misconfigure them. Some of them, by default, don't block duplicate content as they should. If the plugins don't get you, then often the theme you pick will be responsible for the demise. Even stupid simple things like putting the same H1 sitewide, in the header of the site, duplicating it over and over again with no way to configure (unless you recode the theme), can cause grief.

Personally, I'd recommend Wordpress.

If you don't have the time/inclination to get familiar with the intricacies, have someone set it up, configure the SEO plugins and turn you loose on making posts. A few minutes time for an experienced SEO to set up these basics can mean the difference between being indexed quickly instead of disappearing into the secondary index for a few months, or more.

 

[seomasters1]

Its Wordpress all day long. The great thing about wordpress is that everyone knows how to use it, develop it and design it. You can save on costs when creating landing pages as its so easy to use and it is great SEO plugins like SEO Yoast which makes it so easy to create good titles and descriptions.

 

[fisicx]

Software doesn't create good SEO websites. Content and navigation makes good SEO websites. Wordpress if badly configured will hurt your ranking.

 

[Ninja Commerce]

Hi Big Cheese.

I would like to add to the long list of people voting for Wordpress. Personally, I think it is the most sturdy, flexible and reliable option and once you have gotten used to it it is very easy to use. You also have lots of plugins which make adding functionality easy.

Of course the honest answer is that the best software is the one you will use most effectively. I would say it is worth the effort to learn wordpress (it will save you tonnes of time in the long run), but if the task is likely to mean that you update your sites less often or spend less effort making them look good / be helpful for your users, then maybe it's not for you.

A fisicx said, the software doesn't make the site good - you do. Choosing the right tool will make your life easier that's all.

 

[CB1878]

First post on here, and another vote for Wordpress. It is really easy to set up, and the system is nice and friendly too. However it is hugely popular and therefore a target for hackers. Keep your updates a priority when they show, and never leave your password as 'admin'. I made that mistake a few times, and have never had a problem when I changed it to something else.

Post regularly and Google will index your content rapidly.

 

[TheBigCheese]

Wow, crikey, thank you all for your replies! I'm sorry I haven't replied to you all earlier, I haven't had a chance to revisit this until now.

Well...Wordpress seems to be the thing doesn't it, though I am slightly dubious about what webgeek said about mucking up the setup and penalising the site before it begins.

I think Wordpress is my second choice if you like. I've tried to get it going and have managed to put something online, but it's not very good and certainly not to my needs yet. Unfortunately these are only side projects and it wouldn't be cost effective to ask someone to build the setup for me, there could be lots of sites potentially that I would be asking that for.

Taking it back to what I was thinking about originally - Netobjects Fusion. It's not free but as I was a customer years ago I can get a discount on an upgrade, I have a good idea how to use it (unless it's massively changed in the past few versions) and it's pretty easy to get going with something basic.

I just wonder if anyone know if using that software, or software like it can add a load of junk to the code which may affect the ranking or if Google et al bypasses what's in the code these days and just looks at the content.


Thanks very much.

 

[StevePoster]

An SEO friendly website will depend on its On Page Optimization and quality content will be the best asset of the site to drive targeted traffic.

 

[WebMeUp]

Does the software you use to create websites impact it's search ranking performance?*

NO website making tools will help make your site rank high. Yes, they can help you create more search-engine friendly pages, but not more.

Anyone who has been in this industry for some time will tell you that SEO has never been about simply creating a page optimized for your keywords.

Each page of you website should not only be technically sound and well-integrated with the other website pages. It should also be filled with great content, be socially popular, have lots of backlinks, and... there are tons of other important factors that go into it as well.

This is especially true today when the engines are starting to focus on things like user intent and personalization. So to rank high, you can’t only create a page that’s better in the eyes of the engines, it also has to please your site visitors who are humans. Remember about that.

 

[mary2222]

I would also recommend Wordpress because of the following reasons:

1. Easy to use and manage for beginners
2. Absolutely SEO-friendly
3. Has a lot of free plugins for your site- and this includes an extensive list of SEO-related plugins

 

[Martinly Tran]

If you are looking for e-commerce solutions then open cart and prestashop are good.

No, I think Magento is the best platform for E-commerce

 

[TheBigCheese]

Thanks for the additional posts folks.

The general consensus seems to be Wordpress so I think I'm going to have to look at some tutorials on working with it!

Thanks again for all the helpful replies.

 

[Noridc]

Wordpress, only wordpress!

 

[Birmingham]

+1 for wordpress. especially if you delete the contents of the robots.txt file (which slightly works against seo). even if you don't though, you can't beat wordpress. if you can't beat it, join it. as a developer capable of making sites from scratch without software like wordpress, i still prefer to use wordpress and make minor tweaks to it for best seo.

 

[fisicx]

Complete Tosh.

Wordpress is no better or worse than anything else. If you want a highly optimised site hand code everything and don't use a CMS. Wordpress isn't going to make things better if you have rubbish content and navigation.

 

[mcb247]

Has to be Wordpress, use the plugin called SEO Yoast for Wordpress its free and will help you greatly with your SEO ... and of course Google loves Wordpress ... hope this helps you

 

[fisicx]

Once again that is so wrong. Wordpress is NOT the answer. Great content and navigation is the key to success. All Wordpress does is provide a container for the content.

 

[mcb247]

Totally agree fisicx having great content is always a must.... 100%

 

[sirearl]

If you use wordpress.

That will be your first mistake.

Your second will be thinking software equals good SEO

 

[CB1878]

Depends on what you want to use the website for also. We run a number of ecommerce sites, all bespoke built. We also run a number of authority sites (information only, no retail activity) all built in Wordpress.

The retail sites are much larger, lots of individually built content. These naturally rank quite well.

The Wordpress sites still rank well, and one key point being that we can get new content indexed by Google in a matter of minutes on the Wordpress sites. Google sitemaps plugin is a must.

Wordpress sites are fine, easy to set up and maintain. As others have said though they are not giving any particular benefits SEO wise from others.

However a Wordpress site can be built for next to nothing, our retail sites can be anything up to £10k each. We decided against using Wordpress for our ecommerce sites because I would have a mortal fear of hacking. Some of our rivals do use Wordpress for their retails sites, rank well and do not appear to have been attacked yet.

So Wordpress - ease of use yes, cheap and simple to set up yes, SEO benefit no evidence as far as I can see either way.

 

[zigojacko]

Totally agree fisicx having great content is always a must.... 100%

If you agreed with @fisicx's last post, then you're completely contradicting your first post in this thread!

 

[Birmingham]

Well fisicx, if you believe i'm talking tosh, show me a site you've handcoded and let's see if I can't find seo flaws that WordPress inherently overcomes.

 

[zigojacko]

and let's see if I can't find seo flaws that WordPress inherently overcomes.

Such as?

There is nothing that Wordpress does that can't be replicated with a completely bespoke (handcoded) website...

 

[mcb247]

@zigojacko I was agreeing that great content is a must that's all nothing about Wordpress or anything else

 

[fisicx]

...seo flaws that WordPress inherently overcomes.

Like Ziggy said, there is nothing wordpress can do that a hand coded site (or any other CMS) can't. It's not about the software you choose or how you code a site, it's content and navigation that matters.