Is GoDaddy’s Web site Builder Good For search engine marketing In 2022?

Final up to date on February 1, 2022

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 elements 1 and a pair of of the sequence, we examined Wix and Squarespace. The headlines: Wix provides first rate management of on-page search engine marketing, Squarespace not a lot.

But when Squarespace hoped for a comfort “wood spoon” in our on-page search engine marketing sequence they’re going to be disenchanted.

As a result of on this put up, we’re diving into Godaddy’s Web site Builder…

…and the low bar simply bought an entire lot decrease.

So buckle up, and skim on to find:

• how nicely arrange for on-page search engine marketing GoDaddy’s Web site Builder is out the field,
• how one can configure your GoDaddy Web site Builder website to rank increased 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?

No.

You have been anticipating extra? Okay then…

We’re certain you realize GoDaddy. They’re the world’s largest area registrar.

However you won’t know — until you noticed the quite a few upsells whenever you registered your area — that in addition they have a semi-popular CMS you need to use to construct your web site.

Why do we are saying semi-popular? As a result of in keeping with w3techs simply 0.3% of websites run on GoDaddy’s Web site Builder (as of February 2022). Which signifies that WordPress websites (with a utilization proportion of 43.3%) outnumber GoDaddy websites by 144-1.

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 operating on GoDaddy’s Web site Builder might be a lot increased than 0.3%.

The unhealthy 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 website.

Actually, what you can do is just about summed up on this video:

We’ll prevent time watching and summarize. To optimize your GoDaddy website you need to use a flowery wizard to:

1. Generate an search engine marketing title straight outta 1999
2. Add a meta description
3. Change your H1 tag
4. Spam some key phrases into your textual content
5. Revenue?

We made up quantity 5.

In a nutshell:

You’ve bought about as a lot management over your web site’s on-page search engine marketing as Donald Trump has over his hair in a powerful wind.

Throw in gradual load instances and also you’ve bought a platform that’s positively going to be holding again your efforts to rank your website increased in Google.

Like photos? Right here’s a abstract…

How we examined the search engine marketing capabilities of GoDaddy’s Web site Builder

We arrange a small website on a GoDaddy Web site Builder Premium plan.

We selected a preferred theme and loaded the positioning with demo content material.

The exams included handbook assessment, operating the positioning by way of our personal search engine marketing audit device, and testing utilizing third-party instruments comparable to Google’s PageSpeed Insights and GTMetrix.

GoDaddy Web site Builder search engine marketing: The great, the unhealthy, and the ugly

Earlier than reviewing GoDaddy’s management of on-page search engine marketing components, let’s run by way of a number of the search engine marketing highlights (and lowlights) of the platform.

We’ll begin with the positives.

Good:

Crickets chirp…

Empires rise and fall…

The solar slowly melts away the rocks over thousands and thousands of years…

Okay, um… it’s straightforward to combine your GoDaddy website with Google Search Console.

Transferring on.

Dangerous: Unconventional naming of fields, no search previews outwith wizard

GoDaddy has a wizard you need to use to “optimize” every web page in your website. We don’t discover it significantly helpful, however we’ll come onto that later.

Outdoors the wizard, they’ll allow you to set a title and meta description for every web page in your website in the primary editor.

Solely they don’t name it a title. For some motive, they’ve determined to name it a “headline”.

So why is that this an issue?

Nicely, contemplate a non-technical consumer 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 sphere “headline” simply inflicting pointless confusion?

Are we nitpicking? Maybe. However this simply appears illogical to us.

You’ll additionally be aware from the screenshot above that you just received’t get a search preview in the primary editor (you’re going to get one within the wizard).

Ugly: Sluggish load instances

With Core Net Vitals being a part of Google’s algorithm since 2021, pace and structure stability is turned much more vital to search engine marketing.

Our check GoDaddy website had severe points with each.

For instance, this tremendous fundamental weblog put up…

…had a Google PageSpeed Insights rating of simply 23 and a time to interactive of 15.4 seconds.

It additionally had unusual points with structure stability (loading then hiding layers), which you’ll be able to see within the timeline under.

The gradual load instances have been primarily brought on by heavy script utilization.

Ugly: There’s simply not a lot you are able to do to optimize your website

Need to edit a web page’s title and meta description? No downside… until you wish to do it for a weblog web page.

Need to get extra superior?

Time to modify to a different CMS.

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 a number of the elementary on-page search engine marketing components.

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 is just not equal to its optimization. search engine marketing audit instruments like Seobility provide recommendation on the way to correctly optimize every component and discover errors in optimization which can be holding again your website. See our search engine marketing audit information for extra info on the way 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 one of the crucial vital on-page rating components. And a well-written meta description might help you get extra click-throughs (though Google received’t all the time use it).

On a GoDaddy website you’ll be able to set a customized title and meta description for every “web page”, however for a weblog put up, you’re out of luck.

There are two methods you’ll be able to set the title and outline for a web page.

The primary is in the primary editor, which we already lined above.

The second approach is thru the search engine marketing wizard.

To entry the wizard, click on on “Begin Optimizing” below “Settings > Search Engine Optimization” on any web page (proven under), or select “search engine marketing” from the “Advertising” dropdown.

From there, you’ll be able to select to “optimize” your homepage, or some other web page in your website.

When you’ve chosen a web page to optimize, GoDaddy will ask you to explain it in a single or two phrases….

…which they’ll use to generate an inventory of associated key phrases. You’ll be able to choose two or three of probably the most related phrases to your web page.

After a immediate to insert these key phrases into your content material (which you are able to do if you want, however we’ve skipped) you’ll be requested to pick a title to your web page.

Yikes!

Let’s check out that first title (which we suspect many small enterprise house owners could choose):

Seobility Yoga – Yoga Courses, Yoga Instruction, Yoga, Yoga Courses

Appears good proper? As a result of stuffing key phrases into your title and repeating the phrase yoga 5 instances is a good way to spice up your search engine rankings.

*checks calendar

Wait, it’s 2022 not 1999.

Apparent sarcasm is apparent hopefully. 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 2022.

Actually, we don’t actually like all of GoDaddy’s steered titles. However as we’re compelled to pick one earlier than continuing we’ll select the only:

Yoga Courses – 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 remaining assessment web page…

…and we’re finished.

As we alluded to earlier, 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 gradual approach of updating a number of the most simple search engine marketing rating components.

Finally although, that’s simply our opinion. And non-technical customers could desire to replace their website this manner.

So we are able to’t precisely name this a destructive.

However what we are able to say is a destructive is that GoDaddy doesn’t provide you with any technique to set a customized search engine marketing title and outline to 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.

We’ve no concept why that is the case, but it surely’s not good.

Be taught 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, together with the first key phrase (or phrase) for every web page. Use hyphens to separate phrases.

You are able to do it on a GoDaddy website, however once more, it’s fairly unintuitive. There’s no area for modifying 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 whenever you create a brand new web page:

So within the instance above, we’d get a slug that appears like this:

yourdomain/yoga-tips

Should you replace this title, the URL may also replace.

Which is form of fantastic we guess. However a area for slug/URL might need made it just a little less complicated to know?

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 have now a weblog put up titled:

Yoga Ideas For Rookies: 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 excellent.

Be aware: one thing we did uncover is that in case you change a broadcast weblog put up’s title, GoDaddy will maintain the previous URL. So we suppose you might initially create the weblog put up with a brief, 2-3 phrase keyword-targeted title, then change it to an extended title afterwards in case you wished a workaround.

Be taught 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 website — i.e. focusing on the identical key phrases, or with very small variations in content material — there could also be instances whenever you’ll wish to set a canonical (grasp) URL.

This helps to keep away from duplicate content material points.

There’s definitely no apparent technique 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’ll be able to management on a GoDaddy website.

Be taught 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:

1. <meta title=”robots” content material=”index, observe”> – index this web page please Google
2. <meta title=”robots” content material=”noindex, observe”> – ignore this web page please Google (however observe 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. Nevertheless it doesn’t do any hurt to have it in place.

We couldn’t see any easy technique to noindex a person web page on a GoDaddy website.

Be taught 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 matter(s) of your web page.

They need to be correctly nested.

For instance, an h1 tag would typically be the primary matter (stage 1), an h2 could possibly be a subtopic (stage 2), and an h3 could possibly be a sub-sub matter (stage 3), and so on:

<h1>Pets</h1> (matter of the web page)

<h2>Goldfish</h2> (subtopic)

<h3>Caring to your goldfish</h3> (subtopic of goldfish)

<h4>Clear your fish’s tank often</h4> (subtopic of caring to your goldfish)

<h2>Cats</h2> (subtopic)

<h3>Caring to your cat</h3> (subtopic of cats)

GoDaddy’s Web site Builder fails miserably right here. You’ve bought just about zero management over headings.

At first look, we thought maybe they have been doing their funky naming conference trick once more and calling heading tags “Kinds”. However we have been unsuitable.

Seems the dropdown within the picture above is actually for controlling the fashion of the heading. There’s no technique 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 have been selecting the best ones…

…however (a minimum of in our exams) 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. Need a subheading? Powerful, you’re getting one other H4.

(H4 wasn’t even the fitting tag right here, it ought to have been an H2)

So there’s simply no technique to create a correctly structured web page.

Poor.

Be taught extra about heading tags

Structured information (aka schema)

Management in GoDaddy: no

Structured information (also called schema) might help 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 may also be used to indicate extra search options (wealthy snippets)

Should you’re not conversant in structured information and its influence on search engine marketing, we suggest studying our wealthy snippets information.

There’s no easy approach so as to add schema markup to a web page on GoDaddy.

Be taught extra about structured information 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 measurement (smaller = sooner = higher)
• File title (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 whenever you add a picture GoDaddy will create (and serve) a WebP model — a light-weight picture format that’s advisable by Google.

They’ll change the filename of the webp (we’d somewhat they stored it the identical), however total we’re fairly pleased with how GoDaddy handles picture search engine marketing.

Be taught 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 in 2022 there’s actually no excuse for any website to nonetheless be operating over HTTP. However any search engine marketing advantages, it’s unsecure.

So we’re happy to say that each GoDaddy website (whether or not on a customized area or not) runs on HTTPS.

Be taught 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 website.

For instance, you might need a piece with consumer generated content material that you just don’t need crawled or listed by Google.

Sadly whereas GoDaddy will create a default robots.txt file to your website, there’s at present no technique to edit it. They clarify why right here.

Sadly, no, you will be unable to edit the robots.txt straight on GoCentral. It’s a proprietary GoDaddy product and all server facet entry is managed by GoDaddy. The shopper has no direct entry.

Be taught extra about Robots.txt

XML Sitemaps

Generated by GoDaddy: sure

An XML sitemap helps Google discover (and index) all of the pages in your website.

GoDaddy robotically units up and maintains an XML sitemap to your website (pages, weblog posts, and so on), nonetheless, there isn’t a technique to edit it.

Be taught extra about XML Sitemaps

Are GoDaddy websites mobile-friendly?

One phrase reply: sure

When designing your website on GoDaddy, there’s a very good likelihood you’ll be specializing in the way it appears to be like on desktop.

However cellular visitors overtook desktop visitors in 2017. And Google now prioritizes the cellular model of your website for crawling and indexing.

The excellent news is that GoDaddy websites are absolutely responsive, and (pace points however) work nicely on cellular.

Simply ensure that to preview how your website appears to be like on each desktop and cellular. And bear in mind it’s the cellular model of your website that Google will index and rank. So when you’ve got a function that shows on desktop however not cellular, then Google received’t take it into consideration for rankings.

GoDaddy provides you with a preview of how your website appears to be like on cellular.

However we’d nonetheless suggest testing by yourself machine after going reside.

If Google does discover any points with the cellular model of your web site, they’ll let you realize in Search Console.

So maintain a watch out.

In conclusion: GoDaddy Web site Builder’s search engine marketing is critically missing

Our mom instructed us that if we don’t have something constructive 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 exhausting to conclude something apart from GoDaddy’s Web site Builder is poor for search engine marketing.

Should you’re on the platform, you’re going to be hampered by the shortage of choices for optimizing your website/content material. And the gradual web page load instances are going to see you lagging your opponents each actually and metaphorically.

However with that being stated:

Should you at present have a GoDaddy website and don’t wish to change to a extra superior CMS — an motion we truly discovered GoDaddy help engineers recommending in lots of their very own assist threads! — our recommendation could be to:

• run a full search engine marketing audit (you’ll be able to observe this information),
• allocate time to fixing points and optimizing your website (the place attainable),
• give attention to creating high-quality content material that helps your customers and absolutely solutions their search queries,
• construct your website’s authority by incomes top quality backlinks (try our advisable hyperlink constructing techniques right here)

Within the different elements 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 remaining roundup put up, the place we additionally revealed one of the best CMS for search engine marketing in 2022.

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