That is the third put up in our sequence the place we check the on-page search engine marketing of the world’s hottest CMS techniques.
In components 1 and a couple of of the sequence, we examined Wix and Squarespace. The headlines: Wix gives first rate management of on-page search engine marketing, Squarespace not a lot.
On this put up, we’re diving into Godaddy’s Web site Builder. Once we examined this CMS for the primary time, we had been… nicely… just a little underwhelmed.
That’s why we had been significantly curious to see if GoDaddy had managed to enhance its search engine marketing performance over the previous 3 years.
Learn on to find:
- how nicely arrange for on-page search engine marketing GoDaddy’s Web site Builder is out of the field in 2024,
- how one can configure your GoDaddy Web site Builder web site to rank greater in Google,
- the technical search engine marketing points we discovered on the platform
Let’s get began with a abstract.
In Abstract: Is Godaddy’s Web site Builder good for search engine marketing?
We’re positive GoDaddy. They’re the world’s largest area registrar.
However you may not know — except you noticed the quite a few upsells while you registered your area — that in addition they have a semi-popular CMS you should use to construct your web site.
Why do we are saying semi-popular? As a result of in keeping with w3techs simply 0.5% of web sites run on GoDaddy’s Web site Builder (as of June 2024). Which signifies that WordPress websites (with a utilization share of 43.4%) outnumber GoDaddy websites by 87-1.
However these numbers don’t inform the complete story.
As a result of our guess is that when you think about the variety of spam websites selecting WordPress, the proportion of “actual” companies working on GoDaddy’s Web site Builder can be a lot greater than 0.5%.
The dangerous information?
These companies are going to be critically hampered by the shortage of management over their web site’s on-page search engine marketing.
As a result of the underside line is, there’s simply not a lot you are able to do to optimize your GoDaddy web site. And sadly, GoDaddy hasn’t made any enhancements to their search engine marketing performance within the final 3 years which means that search engine marketing is simply not a precedence for them.
Throw in sluggish load instances and also you’ve received a platform that’s positively going to be holding again your efforts to rank your web site greater in Google.
Like footage? Right here’s a abstract…
How we examined the search engine marketing capabilities of GoDaddy’s Web site Builder
We arrange a small web site on a GoDaddy Web site Builder Premium plan.
We selected a well-liked theme and loaded the positioning with demo content material.
The checks included handbook assessment, working the positioning by our personal search engine marketing audit software, and testing utilizing third-party instruments reminiscent of Google’s PageSpeed Insights and GTMetrix.
GoDaddy Web site Builder search engine marketing: The nice, the dangerous, and the ugly
Earlier than reviewing GoDaddy’s management of on-page search engine marketing elements, let’s run by among the search engine marketing highlights (and lowlights) of the platform.
We’ll begin with the positives.
Good:
Crickets chirp…
Okay, um… it’s straightforward to combine your GoDaddy web site with Google Search Console.
Shifting on.
Unhealthy: Gradual load instances
With Core Net Vitals being a part of Google’s algorithm since 2021, velocity and format stability have turn into much more vital for search engine marketing.
Our check GoDaddy web site had severe points with each.
For instance, this tremendous primary weblog put up…
…had a Google PageSpeed Insights rating of simply 41 and a complete blocking time of 7000 ms.
It additionally had unusual points with format stability (loading then hiding layers), which you’ll be able to see within the timeline beneath.
The sluggish load instances had been primarily brought on by heavy script utilization.
That being stated, GoDaddy Web site Builder web sites can be optimized when websites are constructed the appropriate method.
Within the Core Net Vitals Know-how Report, 78.4% of GoDaddy Web site builder web sites obtain a very good Core Net Vitals rating on cellular. That is up from simply 40% mid 2021.
So, though out-of-the-box, there are some points, there are clearly steps you may take to enhance the CWV of web sites constructed with GoDaddy Web site Builder.
Ugly: There’s simply not a lot you are able to do to optimize your web site
Need to edit a web page’s title and meta description? No drawback… except you wish to do it for a weblog web page.
A few of the different fundamentals, like optimizing alt tags and primary picture optimization are doable too.
Need to get extra superior?
Time to change to a different CMS.
Along with the shortage of superior on-page search engine marketing options, we additionally observed that the belongings you can do are typically hidden behind unconvential discipline names.
For instance, GoDaddy permits you to set a title and meta description for every web page in your web site in the principle editor.
Solely they don’t name it a title. For some purpose, they’ve determined to name it a “headline”.
So why is that this an issue?
Nicely, contemplate a non-technical person who’s simply learn an article (like our search engine marketing audit information) telling them to create an optimized title tag. Isn’t calling the sector “headline” simply inflicting pointless confusion?
Are we nitpicking? Maybe. However this simply appears illogical to us.
On-Web page search engine marketing Fundamentals: How does GoDaddy’s Web site Builder measure up?
Now let’s flip our consideration to regulate of among the basic on-page search engine marketing elements.
Does GoDaddy’s Web site Builder cowl all of them?
Not even shut.
Right here’s our abstract once more.
Be aware: having management of an search engine marketing rating issue will not be equal to its optimization. search engine marketing audit instruments like Seobility provide recommendation on easy methods to correctly optimize every factor and discover errors in optimization which can be holding again your web site. See our search engine marketing audit information for extra data on easy methods to absolutely optimize your web site.
search engine marketing Titles and Meta Descriptions
Management in GoDaddy: partial
A web page’s title continues to be some of the vital on-page rating elements. And a well-written meta description can assist you get extra click-throughs (though Google received’t all the time use it).
On a GoDaddy web site, you may set a customized title and meta description for every “web page”.
However if you wish to do the identical for a weblog put up, you’re out of luck. It can robotically use your weblog put up’s title.
There are two methods you may set the title and outline for a web page.
The primary is in the principle editor, below “Settings > Get discovered on Google”.
The second method is thru the search engine marketing wizard.
To entry the wizard, click on on “Begin Optimizing” below “Settings > Get discovered on Google” on any web page (proven beneath), or select “search engine marketing” from the “Advertising and marketing” dropdown.
From there, you may select to optimize your homepage, or every other web page in your web site.
When you’ve chosen a web page to optimize, GoDaddy will ask you to select a number of key phrases….
You can even add a few of your individual by clicking on “Enter your individual key phrases”..
You’ll then be requested to pick a title on your web page.
Yikes!
Let’s check out that first title (which we suspect many small enterprise homeowners could choose):
Seobility Yoga – Yoga Lessons, Yoga Instruction, Yoga, Yoga Lessons
Seems to be good proper? As a result of stuffing key phrases into your title and repeating the phrase yoga 5 instances is an effective way to spice up your search engine rankings.
*checks calendar
Wait, it’s not 1999 anymore?
Sarcasm is hopefully apparent… However simply in case, let’s be crystal clear. This isn’t a great way to put in writing your web page titles for search engine marketing.
In actual fact, we don’t actually like several of GoDaddy’s instructed titles. However as we’re pressured to pick one earlier than continuing we’ll select the best:
Yoga Lessons – Seobility Yoga
It’s not good. However a minimum of it’s not spammy.
On the following display, we are able to add our web page’s meta description.
After which after one other couple of screens the place we are able to select so as to add our key phrases to our web page’s content material and heading, we’ll get to a ultimate assessment web page…
…and we’re performed.
We don’t discover this search engine marketing wizard significantly useful. However the truth that the web page title strategies are poor, it’s an extremely sluggish method of updating among the most elementary search engine marketing rating elements.
In the end although, that’s simply our opinion. And non-technical customers could desire to replace their web site this fashion.
So we are able to’t precisely name this a unfavorable.
However what we are able to say is a unfavorable is that GoDaddy doesn’t offer you any solution to set a customized search engine marketing title and outline on your weblog posts. The title will all the time be the identical as your headline, and there’s nowhere so as to add a meta description.
This has been the case for years now and we’ve no concept why, however it’s not good.
Study extra about search engine marketing Titles and Meta Descriptions
Web page slug / URL
Management in GoDaddy: partial
We suggest creating quick, descriptive, 2-3 phrase slugs. These ought to embody the first key phrase (or phrase) for every web page and use hyphens to separate phrases.
You are able to do it on a GoDaddy web site, however once more, it’s fairly unintuitive. There’s no discipline for enhancing your slug, however GoDaddy will base it in your web page’s title.
And to layer on the confusion, we don’t imply search engine marketing title (bear in mind, GoDaddy calls that “headline”), we imply the “title” you select while you create a brand new web page:
So within the instance above, we’d get a slug that appears like this:
yourdomain/yoga-tips
In case you replace this title, the URL will even replace.
Which is form of high-quality we guess. However a discipline for slug/URL may need made it just a little less complicated to understand?
As for the weblog, you’ll be caught with a slug based mostly on the title of the weblog put up itself. So if we’ve a weblog put up titled:
Yoga Suggestions For Newcomers: Right here’s How To Get Higher At Yoga FAST
We’ll get a slug that appears like this:
yoga-tips-for-beginners-heres-how-to-get-better-at-yoga-fast
And there’s nothing we are able to do to vary it. Not perfect.
Be aware: one thing we did uncover is that in the event you change a broadcast weblog put up’s title, GoDaddy will preserve the previous URL. So we suppose you would initially create the weblog put up with a brief, 2-3 phrase keyword-targeted title, then change it to an extended title afterwards in the event you needed a workaround.
Study extra about URL slugs/permalinks
Canonical URLs
Management in GoDaddy: no
On smaller websites, you most likely received’t want to fret about this.
However when you’ve got a sequence of comparable pages in your web site — i.e. focusing on the identical key phrases, or with very small variations in content material — there could also be instances while you’ll wish to set a canonical (grasp) URL.
This helps to keep away from duplicate content material points.
There’s definitely no apparent solution to set canonical URLs in GoDaddy’s Web site Builder. So potential fiddly workarounds excepted, we’re going to say that this isn’t one thing you may management on a GoDaddy web site.
Study extra about canonical URLs
Index management (robots meta tag)
Management in GoDaddy: no
The robots meta tag instructs Google to both index (1), or to not index (2) a web page:
- – index this web page please Google
- – ignore this web page please Google (however comply with the hyperlinks on it)
You don’t really want the primary one as (assuming your web page meets their high quality requirements) indexing is Google’s default motion. But it surely doesn’t do any hurt to have it in place.
We couldn’t see any easy solution to noindex a person web page on a GoDaddy web site.
Study extra about index management
Heading Tags (h1, h2, h3 and so on)
Management in GoDaddy: no
Heading tags (h1, h2, h3, and so on) assist Google perceive the construction, and subject(s) of your web page.
They need to be correctly nested.
For instance, an h1 tag would typically be the principle subject (degree 1), an h2 might be a subtopic (degree 2), and an h3 might be a sub-sub subject (degree 3), and so on:
(subject of the web page)
Goldfish
(subtopic)
Caring on your goldfish
(subtopic of goldfish)
Clear your fish’s tank commonly
(subtopic of caring on your goldfish)
Cats
(subtopic)
Caring on your cat
(subtopic of cats)
GoDaddy’s Web site Builder fails miserably right here. You’ve received just about zero management over headings.
At first look, we thought maybe they had been doing their funky naming conference trick once more and calling heading tags “Types” or changing them to sizes like “XL” and “XXS”. However we had been incorrect.
Seems the dropdowns within the picture above are actually for controlling the type and dimension of the heading. There’s no solution to change the precise heading tag itself.
So that you’re caught with no matter GoDaddy feels is one of the best match for a specific heading tag. Which wouldn’t be fairly a lot of a problem in the event that they had been selecting the best ones…
…however (a minimum of in our checks) they’re not.
Within the instance above, we’ve skipped straight from H2 to H4.
How about on a weblog web page?
Nicely, all you are able to do is choose “T” within the textual content toolbar.
Which turns the highlighted textual content into an H4. Desire a subheading? Robust, you’re getting one other H4.
(H4 wasn’t even the appropriate tag right here, it ought to have been an H2)
So there’s simply no solution to create a correctly structured web page.
Poor.
Study extra about heading tags
Schema Markup
Management in GoDaddy: no
Schema markup is a sort of structured knowledge that may assist Google perceive:
- the kind of content material on a web page (i.e. recipe, assessment, product, article),
- the entity behind the web site (i.e. group),
- and can be used to indicate extra search options (wealthy snippets)
In case you’re not acquainted with structured knowledge and its affect on search engine marketing, we suggest studying our wealthy snippets information.
There’s no easy method so as to add schema markup to a web page on GoDaddy.
Study extra about structured knowledge and wealthy snippets
Picture search engine marketing
Management in GoDaddy: sure
The three most vital components of picture search engine marketing are:
- Alt textual content (description of the picture for display readers and search engines like google and yahoo)
- File dimension (smaller = sooner = higher)
- File identify (we suggest utilizing descriptive file names)
GoDaddy’s Web site Builder performs moderately nicely right here.
It’s straightforward so as to add alt textual content…
And while you add a picture GoDaddy will create (and serve) a WebP model – a light-weight picture format that’s beneficial by Google.
They’ll change the filename of the webp (we’d relatively they saved it the identical), however general we’re fairly proud of how GoDaddy handles picture search engine marketing.
Study extra about picture search engine marketing
HTTPS
Do GoDaddy websites run over HTTPS? sure
HTTPS has been a confirmed Google rating sign since 2014.
And at the moment there’s actually no excuse for any web site to nonetheless be working over HTTP. However any search engine marketing advantages, it’s unsecure.
So we’re happy to say that each GoDaddy web site (whether or not on a customized area or not) runs on HTTPS.
Study extra about HTTPS
Robots.txt file
Management in GoDaddy: no
A robots.txt file permits you to cease search engine bots from accessing sure areas of your web site.
For instance, you may need a piece with user-generated content material that you just don’t need crawled or listed by Google.
Sadly, whereas GoDaddy will create a default robots.txt file on your web site, there’s at present no solution to edit it.
Study extra about Robots.txt
XML Sitemaps
Generated by GoDaddy: sure
An XML sitemap helps Google discover (and index) all of the pages in your web site.
GoDaddy robotically units up and maintains an XML sitemap on your web site (pages, weblog posts, and so on), nevertheless, there isn’t a solution to edit it.
Study extra about XML Sitemaps
Are GoDaddy websites mobile-friendly?
One phrase reply: sure
When designing your web site on GoDaddy, there’s a very good probability you’ll be specializing in the way it seems to be on desktop.
However cellular visitors overtook desktop visitors in 2017. And Google now prioritizes the cellular model of your web site for crawling and indexing.
The excellent news is that GoDaddy websites are absolutely responsive, and (velocity points however) work nicely on cellular.
Simply make sure that to preview how your web site seems to be on each desktop and cellular. And bear in mind it’s the cellular model of your web site that Google will index and rank. So when you’ve got a characteristic that shows on desktop however not cellular, then Google doubtless received’t take it into consideration for rankings.
GoDaddy will provide you with a preview of how your web site seems to be on cellular.
However we’d nonetheless suggest testing by yourself gadget after going reside.
In conclusion: GoDaddy Web site Builder’s search engine marketing is critically missing
Our mom informed us that if we don’t have something optimistic to say, then don’t say something.
But when we caught by that rule… nicely, you’d be a clean web page right here.
As a result of it’s fairly arduous to conclude something apart from GoDaddy’s Web site Builder is poor for search engine marketing.
In case you’re on the platform, you’re going to be hampered by the shortage of choices for optimizing your web site/content material. And sadly, this hasn’t modified in years, so we don’t have a lot confidence that GoDaddy will enhance their search engine marketing performance anytime quickly.
However with that being stated:
In case you at present have a GoDaddy web site and don’t wish to change to a extra superior CMS — an motion we truly discovered GoDaddy help engineers recommending in a lot of their very own assist threads! — our recommendation can be to:
- run a full search engine marketing audit (you may comply with this information),
- allocate time to fixing points and optimizing your web site (the place doable),
- deal with creating high-quality content material that helps your customers and absolutely solutions their search queries,
- construct your web site’s authority by incomes top quality backlinks (try our beneficial hyperlink constructing ways right here)
Be aware: This CMS assessment has initially been written in 2021 by David McSweeney and has been up to date for 2024 by Bram Vergouwen. Bram is a search engine marketing specialist with greater than 6 years of expertise working with firms throughout completely different international locations and industries, offering custom-made search engine marketing options and methods that improve on-line visibility.
Within the different components of this sequence, we reviewed the on-page search engine marketing of Wix, Squarespace, WordPress and Joomla. And we’ve in contrast the search engine marketing professionals and cons of every CMS in a ultimate roundup put up, the place we additionally revealed one of the best CMS for search engine marketing. We’ll publish the up to date variations of those articles within the coming weeks, so keep tuned!
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