Reddit is a platform many SEO professionals take to to ask questions and spark debates. Recently, one such thread took the platform by storm when Google Search Advocate John Mueller responded to one of the questions put in on a thread. The user wanted to know if WordPress is better for SEO as compared to any other website building service. John refuted the possibility of WordPress being better for SEO, or any other service, for that matter. He said that while WordPress has other benefits, and is more convenient for people with no experience or zero interest in coding, it doesn’t mean it is better for SEO, too. It is merely one of the many ways to build a website, which ranks on Google on its own merits and that doesn’t include what platform it is built using. Let’s take a look at what the question was and what was John’s reply to it.

So, does WordPress produce better search results? No, but..

The viewer wanted to know:

“Is WordPress better for SEO as compared to any other other option?”

To which John replied:

“Not for SEO, but you can focus more on the content if you don’t spend all your time creating a new CMS for yourself. (some people prefer making a CMS, so YMMV).”

It means that all the time you could be spending coding the website from scratch and creating a CMS could be utilised in a better manner, like creating quality content or performing extensive On-page and Technical SEO. But that doesn’t inherently make WordPress better for SEO. It is better. However, it is important to remember that it is only beneficial to the website owner, and makes no difference to Google on what CMS the website is built on. But we believe WordPress has other advantages that makes the arduous process of SEO a whole lot easier.

But WordPress is better for SEO in indirect ways. How?

• It is a self-sufficient CMS for amateurs and doesn’t require them to extensively code to get the website designed, and up and ready.
• It has many themes and plugins that work together with a little fine-tuning to create a website that not only looks professional but is user-friendly and attractive, thereby decreasing your overall bounce rate.
• It allows you to create attractive permalinks that can help improve your search rankings. That and it makes metadata very easy to manage, helping search engines understand what your website is all about and how relevant it is.
• It allows you to optimise your images by allowing easy access to ALT Text space as well as resizing them according to your website’s theme so it doesn’t slow down the page load time.
• Many of the WordPress themes are optimised for mobile users. It matters because Google’s mobile-first indexing approach will help your new website get indexed faster, assuming other factors are met, too.
• It has many SEO plugins that makes SEO a breeze for even those who have no technical know-how of the practices. It makes it easier for you to set keywords, primary and secondary; make use of XML sitemaps, which means every time you publish a post, search engines are automatically notified about your site’s new content.
• It is very easy to integrate WordPress with social media platforms. There are many plugins that allow you to share content upon a click to different platforms at one go. You can even keep track of how many times a piece of content has been shared.

All these may not directly contribute to improving your site’s SEO, but they sure go a long way in making sure your getting there doesn’t take long.