When it comes to creating a website as a small business owner there’s a lot of different options. Many opt for a simple to use Content Management System (CMS), or an eCommerce platform if they would like the ability to sell products online, instead of a custom-built website.
As a result, there are many different CMS and eCommerce platforms that provide this functionality, such as Wix, WordPress, Webflow, Shopify, and more. This post dives into Wix’s Website Builder and its Search Engine Optimization (SEO) functionality – therefore if you have a website built using Wix I would stick around to find out if you are maximizing all of the SEO features that Wix offers.
Step 1: Begin with the SEO Setup Checklist
It’s one thing to build and publish a website, but in order to ensure your website gets seen there’s a few technical details that cannot be overlooked. Below you will find all the essential steps that Wix provides to help get you started.
Wix SEO Wiz
Wix provide a step-by-step plan to setup your site, this is the best place to begin. Wix have provided the steps on where you can access the plan:
Go to your SEO Dashboard.
Scroll down to Tools and settings.
Click Get Started under SEO Setup Checklist.
Click Start Now.
Follow the steps in your SEO plan.
The SEO Setup checklist tile can be viewed in the image below:
The step-by-step plan forms three steps and helps walk you through the necessary changes that are required to optimize your site. The three steps are shown below:
1. Get the homepage ready for Google Search
The first step is fairly straight forward, and will require that the home page has been created and populated with relevant copy. The final item on the checklist is to “Connect this site to Google Search Console” - detailed instructions on how to connect Wix and Search Console can be found in the next step.
2. Optimize the site pages for search engines
Similar to the first step, this expands the same process as step 1 for the additional pages that you may have created. You can return back to this step at a later date when you have created more pages.
3. Keep building on this site’s progress
This will be your first introduction to the SEO Assistant, as well additional resources that Wix provide. This includes a link to their SEO learning Hub, and access to SEO partners that are listed within the Wix Marketplace.
You will see more of the SEO Assistant throughout this blog post, as it can help provide guidance throughout the website building process.
Step 2. Connect & Integrate External Tools
Google Search Console & Bing Webmaster Tools
Connecting to Search Console is an important step, similar to setting up Google Analytics, for those that love to interact with data and learn how users are accessing their site.
Google verification is simple and included as part of the setup process. But if you want to know how, here are a few steps that will connect Wix site with your Search Console property.
Click on the Marketing & SEO link in the sidebar.
Select the SEO link from the dropdown.
Scroll down to Tools and settings section.
Click the Site Verification link.
Here you can connect to many different search engines - I would recommend starting with Google and then moving onto Bing if you are already familiar with Google.
Wix provide a step-by-step process on how to verify your site with Google, here: https://support.wix.com/en/article/verifying-your-site-with-google-search-console-6081361 Google Analytics
It’s possible to connect Google Analytics from within the Marketing Integrations page, along with many other different platforms:
Click on the Marketing & SEO link in the sidebar.
Select the Marketing Integrations link from the dropdown.
Click the Connect button within the Google Analytics tile.
On this page you can find the steps required to connect. Worth highlighting here that a Premium plan is required to connect to Google Analytics.
Step 3: Website & SEO Settings
The next step involves understanding the default search engine optimization settings that have been pre-selected for your website. These can be viewed and managed under the SEO Settings page, this can be accessed here:
Click on the Marketing & SEO link in the sidebar.
Select the SEO link from the dropdown.
Scroll down to Tools and settings section.
Click the Go to SEO Settings link.
Here Wix provides the ability to set site preferences for the different types of pages (main pages, blog posts, blog categories, etc...) and edit by page type. You will be accessing this page a lot, so I would recommend getting comfortable here by exploring the different options available.
Settings for Main Pages
1. Customize Defaults
This section is important if you are wanting to control how pages are setup and would fall into the advanced SEO category. If you’re unsure about structured data markup or robots meta tag I would research these topics before making any changes to the default setting.
The main page default settings that can be adjusted are:
Basics & social share
Structured data markup (JSON-LD format required)
Robots meta tag (noindex, nofollow, etc...)
Additional meta tags
2. Edit by Page
Editing by page, as expected, provides a lot of versatility and it’s simple to add/edit the required SEO meta tags, such as:
Page title
Meta description
Canonical
Structured markup (JSON-LD format required)
Robots meta tags (noindex, nofollow, etc...)
Settings for Blog Pages & Categories
1. Blog Pages: Customize Defaults
The default settings are similar to the Main Page settings, but there are additional options like Page URL and Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP).
2. Blog Pages: Edit by Page
If you have published blogs on your Wix site and want to edit the settings for individual blog posts, this is where there is a slight deviation from the main page settings. In order to edit blog posts you will have to navigate to the following page:
Click on the Blog link in the sidebar.
Select the Posts link from the dropdown.
Scroll down to SEO Settings.
Click the Go to SEO Settings link.
After selecting the Posts link, you will find a page similar to that shown below. Here you can view the blog section of Wix where you can create, draft, and schedule blog posts to be published.
Selecting a post allows you to dive into the builder to craft the blog post as desired. Wix provides an extensive range of options to help build a rich experience for users, including the ability to add authors, blog categories, blog tags, add related blog posts, and more.
3. Blog Categories: Customize Defaults
If you intend on publishing blog posts that cover a range of topics, categories act as a great solution that buckets all of the posts for each category and provides a category menu for users to navigate.
Wix provide in-depth instructions on how to create blog categories, here: https://support.wix.com/en/article/wix-blog-creating-and-managing-blog-categories These pages can become easy to automate, if you plan on creating several categories, by incorporating Variables into the page titles and meta descriptions.
There are many different variables that can be selected, but if you have created a Site Name and Category Label already these can be added as placeholders to dynamically populate where added. This is a simple way of optimizing pages that require a consistent approach that also keeps up with branding. I would recommend testing with variables to determine how they can help increase the efficiency when optimizing category pages.
Last tip on variables – these can also be implemented on all edit by page type default settings, which includes Main Pages and Blog Posts.
Step 4. Add & Edit Blog Post Meta Tags
This section covers the SEO Settings that are found when selecting the SEO icon in the sidebar when editing a blog post. But first, let’s cover how to add a blog to your Wix site.
How to Add a Blog to Your Site
Here are the steps required to add a blog to your site:
Click the Add in the Editor, Editor X or ADI.
Click Blog (in ADI click Apps first).
Click Add to Site.
SEO Assistant
The Assistant can be found when editing a blog post – providing it with a focus keyword will allow the assistant to provide a list of items to complete to optimize the post for search engines and readers, ranked by priority.
After running through the SEO Assistant several times it will become clear that there are recurring requirements that can help with learning about how to optimize content on the web.
SEO Basics, Advanced, and Social Share
The options available under the Basics, Advanced, and Social Share headings are similar to those covered in the first section. The main difference is that each of the meta tags will be applied directly to the selected blog post and you also have the added AI Text feature that will generate text for you. This is exclusive to the Title tag and Meta description text box.
Wix states that it generates the AI-generated title tags and meta descriptions are generated using the following information:
Page content , Page type
The page’s target keyword
Your business’s name
Your business’s location
Etc.
You can read more about their AI meta tag creator, here: https://www.wix.com/seo/learn/resource/wix-ai-meta-tag-creator Step 5: Additional Settings
SEO Assistant
The SEO Assistant will continue to offer guidance as you create more pages, providing you with Issues, Recommendations, and showing Completed tasks when you view the SEO page.
In order to view and access these a Premium plan is required.
Sitemap
You can access the sitemap(s) here:
Click on the Marketing & SEO link in the sidebar.
Select the SEO link from the dropdown.
Scroll down to Tools and settings section.
Click the Go to Sitemaps link.
Robots.txt
You can access the robots.txt here:
Click on the Marketing & SEO link in the sidebar.
Select the SEO link from the dropdown.
Scroll down to Tools and settings section.
Click the Go to Robots.txt Editor link.
The robots.txt file will be visible and changes can be applied by simply typing, or pasting into the text box.
Implement URL Redirects
Wix provide a simple to use URL Redirect Manager that allows users to easily implement a permanent re-direct.
You can access the URL Redirect Manager here:
Click on the Marketing & SEO link in the sidebar.
Select the SEO link from the dropdown.
Scroll down to Tools and settings section.
Click the Go to URL Redirect Manager link.
All of the redirects will be saved here for future reference, and can be deleted. This can be used to help retire old URLs that are no longer required or have been moved to a new URL, reducing the likeliness of 404 error pages appearing for users.
Site Inspection Tool
You can access the Site Inspection Tool here:
Click on the Marketing & SEO link in the sidebar.
Select the SEO link from the dropdown.
Scroll down to Tools and settings section.
Click the Go to Site Inspection link.
In order for the Site Inspection Tool to work the site must already be connected to Google Search Console.
This tool extracts the data gathered in Search Console, providing insightful data into the index status of each web page. Here you can troubleshoot issues that may relate to crawling, indexing, and mobile usability.
If you’re unfamiliar with Search Console this is a great place to start, as it strips away a lot of data and gives you the fundamental knowledge on whether the site is being indexed by Google, or not.
Structured Data
Wix provides “out-of-the-box markup" that applies to many of their vertical pages, this includes:
Product pages
Blog posts
Local business homepages
Event pages
Booking pages
Forum posts
When selecting a type of markup Wix will use a pre-determined set of properties. If you would like to customize the properties, this is possible by accessing the SEO Settings for the page type and selecting structured data markup. Here Wix allows you to modify the default markup.
This is worth exploring further if you intend on exploring and implementing several types of markup on your site.
Conclusion:
This guide scrapes the surface on all of the SEO related options that are available to those using Wix to build a website. If you would like to dig deeper, Wix provides great documentation, guides, and videos that can be found on their SEO Learning Hub.
If you have a Wix site and would like advice on how to improve your organic visibility within the search results, reach out to us at info@codemastersinc.com and we will be happy to provide guidance and support.
If you have experience working with Wix already, consider moving onto researching link building tactics to grow your domain authority.