In 2025, 68% of all online activities began on a search engine, predominantly Google. This might not be news to you – the majority of marketers are familiar with the stats and already have an understanding of the importance of SEO and good website design. However, in our experience, few business owners, or marketers for that matter, have a firm grasp on how to actually choose the CMS from which to conduct their online business. This is where our guide to the best CMS for SEO comes in.
In this article, we take a close look at 10 of the best CMS options for businesses aiming to rank, weighing up their pros, cons and SEO compatibility – all so you don’t have to. When time, money and resources are at stake, you need to be confident in your investment. After all, your CMS is a business tool you’ll be using on a daily basis. Hence why we’ve poured in the hours of research.
The CMS featured in our review at a glance
- WordPress – the frontrunner when it comes to customisability (think builders, integrations & plugins).
- Shopify – best choice for e-commerce brands looking to scale, thanks to shopping features and speedy page loading.
- WooCommerce – It transforms a standard WordPress site into a fully functional online store and inherits many of WP’s SEO-friendly features.
- Adobe Commerce (powered by Magento) – a bit more technical than Shopify, but equally geared towards e-commerce, albeit for larger businesses with more complex needs.
- Squarespace – incredibly user-friendly and requires little to no technical skill, so a great option for DIY builds.
- Wix – simple functionality and easy-to-use; however, less customisable than other options.
- GoDaddy – beginner-friendly and robust, but the downside is that the SEO features are premium add-ons.
- HubSpot – Ideal for those already using HubSpot’s other products, as you can integrate all the SEO tools and marketing insights into one handy dashboard.
- Drupal –Built for developers, so highly technical, but equally customisable.
- Joomla! – A middle ground between WordPress and Drupal in terms of intuitiveness and customisability, free and open source.
Methodology
Now, you might be wondering how on earth we’ve ordered our recommendations and what criteria they needed to hit in order to make the list. Good thinking. For the utmost transparency, here’s what our assessment covered:
- The SEO-related pros and cons for each CMS
- The key elements of CMS functionality to look for, including:
- On-page optimisation and technical SEO features
- Ease of use and freedom to customise design elements
- Blogging and analytics tools
- Overall user experience
Full disclosure: While your chosen content management system isn’t the largest ranking factor (any CMS can rank with the right dedication and customisation), getting it right can help you simplify the optimisation process and prioritise your needs – not to mention, avoid headaches later down the road.
With that out of the way, let’s jump into our side-by-side breakdown.
Our top 10 SEO Content Management Systems for small business
1. WordPress
Since its founding back in 2003, WordPress has gone on to dominate the CMS market. Attesting to its popularity, it has a 43.5% market share across all websites and 61.3% among those with a CMS (as of April 2025). So, what drives this appeal?
Our WordPress pros and cons are listed below in full, but here are several key advantages of using this CMS for an SEO head start:
- An intuitive user experience, having pioneered the drag-and-drop web design process
- The largest developer community, choice of page builders, free integrations and plugins designed with SEO in mind
- Flexible pricing depending on the needs of your business
| WordPress Pros | WordPress Cons |
| Most widely used platform with a large developer community, choice of integrations, and plugins. | As the largest and most well-known CMS, WordPress is regularly targeted by hackers and bots. We strongly recommend only using legitimate/proven integrations and plugins. |
| Designed for creating SEO-friendly websites, with SEO plugins ensuring SEO best practices. | Use of plugins and themes requires management, such as frequent updates to maintain website functionality. |
| Excellent user experience (UX) with dashboard layouts and tools that make it easy to customise technical elements such as; permalinks, metadata, and alt descriptions. | Out of the box, WordPress is relatively basic. You’ll need to add plugins (some free and some paid for) for a greater level of functionality, including SEO and conducting website audits. |
| Website theme customisation tools make it easier to make inclusive, site-wide modifications. | Although WordPress maintains excellent online resources within its knowledge base, there’s no access to a dedicated customer account/support manager. |
| Mobile optimisation – most themes have mobile optimisation built into them, making your job much easier. | While there are plenty of experienced developers available, you may need assistance from an experienced web designer to get the most out of it. |
| The majority of WordPress themes now integrate / support HTML5. | |
| Extensive resources for customer/technical support. | |
| Start for free! – download from WordPress.org and build for free. Then all you need is a domain and host. | |
| Self-hosting options allow you to own and control your data, making server integration a simple process. |
WordPress is an ideal choice for any virtual or, indeed, hybrid business, but especially those looking to grow online. Your site can be built to do and look like pretty much anything. Truly, the options are endless!
2. Shopify
Shopify has a strong reputation as a builder of reasonably priced e-commerce websites, but it can be used to support SEO efforts too. On top of a whole host of e-commerce tools, Shopify is recognised as one of the best CMS for SEO, given its advanced features and ability to integrate with essential external tools, such as the likes of Google Search Console (for site analytics) and Google Merchant Center (for connecting your product data between both platforms).
Our Shopify pros and cons are listed below in full. But, before that rundown, there are several key advantages of using Shopify for SEO you should stop to drink in:
- Excellent e-commerce features – one of which is unlimited product listings – of interest for businesses planning on selling online
- Advanced SEO features, from schema markup to metadata fields
- Fast page load speeds and mobile-optimised themes
| Shopify Pros | Shopify Cons |
| Good UX – Shopify has an intuitive interface and ‘options’ screen, making it easy to use on a daily basis. | Beyond the initial free trial, Shopify throttles certain functions, such as indexing. |
| Advanced SEO features – Shopify automatically generates canonical URLs, robots.txt, and sitemaps. | Limited customisation of URLs, once they have been set. |
| All Shopify themes are responsive and on-page elements load quickly. | In comparison to WordPress, Shopify offers limited customisation in terms of design elements and site functionality. |
| Shopify’s integrated CDN (a network of servers that cache data & content) greatly improves page load speeds. | Some users have reported issues with the use of the auto-generated canonical tags feature. |
| Shopify is able to generate a robots.txt file and XML sitemap (note: unable to edit within Shopify). | Pricing – the Shopify Free Trial is limited to 90 days, paid monthly thereafter. |
So, is Shopify worth it? Absolutely! Compared to marketplaces like Etsy, you have an unrivalled opportunity to put your brand story front and centre, allowing your business to scale. And because of its intuitive dashboard and built-in tools, the learning curve isn’t quite as steep as beginners might expect.
3. WooCommerce
Because WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin, it inherits many of the platform’s SEO merits and currently powers millions of stores its own set of optimisation tools.
Allowing extensive customisation options through themes, plugins and code modification, WooCommerce is ideal for those who like the utmost control of their site. Hosting, security and updates are all top-notch.
Don’t overlook these benefits:
- Seamlessly integrates with WordPress, inheriting its strong SEO foundation
- Offers complete control over your store’s design, structure and metadata
| WooCommerce Pros | WooCommerce Cons |
| Built on WordPress, so it benefits from all of WordPress’s SEO plugins and features. | You’ll need to manage updates and compatibility issues between WooCommerce, your theme and plugins. |
| Highly customisable – from product pages to checkout flows – and SEO elements can be tailored. | Not an all-in-one solution – requires external hosting and setup, which can be technical for beginners. |
| Strong community support and extensive documentation for troubleshooting. | As your store grows, so do your technical and performance demands – you may need dev help down the line. |
| Supports schema markup for rich results, especially with the right plugins. | Some advanced SEO features (e.g. multi-language support or advanced filtering) require paid extensions. |
Given its WordPress plugin status, it’s not a big leap to assume that WooCommerce is the SEO CMS for businesses already using WP for their site. On top of that, it’s pretty scalable, making it a solid option for both small to medium-sized companies and much larger enterprises.
4. Adobe Commerce (prev. Magento)
Recently rebranded as Adobe Commerce, Magento is similar to Shopify in that it’s a CMS with robust e-commerce features designed to increase website engagement. More importantly, with its array of SEO tools and extensions, Adobe Commerce (powered by Magento) is highly SEO-friendly.
The pros and cons are listed below, but in our eyes, the key advantages of using Adobe Commerce for SEO are:
- Top-rated e-commerce features, ideal for digital-first stores
- Allows for more technical tasks to be carried out manually, without the need for SEO extensions
- Good UX, with some manual features more suitable for technically experienced ‘SEOs’
| Adobe Commerce Pros | Adobe Commerce Cons |
| Powerful SEO features. Users can optimise metadata and URLs (including automatic redirects & canonical tags), and check for duplicate content across all web pages. | Adobe Commerce does not offer necessary SEO tools as standard, requiring users to add integrations and SEO extensions. For example, no blogging features are included as standard. |
| Ability to create XML sitemap is included as a standard feature. | Many of the advanced features are technical in nature and more suited to experienced SEOs or developers. |
| Robots.txt files can be generated using the Google Content API extension. | Lengthy onboarding process with multiple features not related to SEO. |
| Excellent e-commerce features, some of which relate to SEO ranking factors, e.g. product page features designed to increase ‘dwell time’. | |
| Access to substantial & growing integration marketplace – marketplace.magento. |
Adobe Commerce offers all of Adobe’s design brilliance alongside powerful SEO features, but since it does also come with a steeper learning curve than other CMS, it might not be the best choice for beginners. In this instance, businessowners may want to consider working alongside an e-commerce website developer.
5. Squarespace
Our Squarespace pros and cons are set out below in full. First, though, here are the key advantages of using Squarespace for SEO:
Squarespace initially gained popularity as a website building application, partially down to its relentless (complementary) YouTube sponsorship campaign. Over the years, however, Squarespace has added additional functionality and now serves as a fully-fledged CMS with a growing number of SEO options.
- Excellent website builder
- Offers a number of essential SEO features
- Outstanding blog and content creation features
| Squarespace Pros | Squarespace Cons |
| Essential SEO features included, including the ability to optimise page titles, metadata, and URLs, create 301 redirects, enable SSL encryption. | Free plans unavailable. |
| Squarespace can automatically generate an XML sitemap. | When compared to other CMSs, Squarespace’s themes and templates have slower load speeds. |
| Squarespace is an excellent website builder, with a minimal UI and design menu that’s comparable to WordPress’s dashboard. | Squarespace only allows 1 level below the main menu/navigation, making it less suitable for expansive websites with deep menu hierarchies. |
| Large choice of mobile-optimised themes and templates. | |
| Outstanding blog & writing features, including the ability to schedule blog posts. Additional content creation tools include apps such as Unfold, for creating social media content. | |
| It’s simple to add ecommerce functionality, by integrating a shopping cart extension into your website or blog. |
Squarespace is an excellent website builder with a minimal UI and essential SEO tools included; however, it’s less suitable for expansive websites with complicated menu hierarchies. This being said, it’s a great option for those interested in getting the ball rolling with a DIY build.
6. Wix
Thanks to its intuitive user interface, Wix is one of the most popular drag-and-drop website builders amongst users with limited coding and/or technical expertise. Wix also offers many SEO tools on the side, so consider that a win-win!
Our Wix pros and cons are listed below in full. For those in a rush, the key advantages of using Squarespace for SEO include:
- Popular CMS for solopreneurs and small businesses, thanks to the intuitive user interface
- Its extensive SEO knowledge base, known as its ‘Learning Hub’, helps ensure SEO best practices become habit
| Wix Pros | Wix Cons |
| Essential SEO features such as a robots.txt editor, canonical tags, bulk 301 redirects, and image optimisation are available through the Wix dashboard. | Although there is a large choice of templates, Wix’s no-code philosophy means it is less customisable than other open-source Content Management Systems. |
| Access to a large knowledge base for learning the best practices. | Not all of the site templates offered on Wix are mobile-responsive. |
| Wix can generate an XML sitemap that can be submitted to Google Search Console with 1 click. | Site templates cannot be changed once applied. |
| Mobile optimisation capabilities and Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) via the Wix Blog, which also integrates with Google My Business, bringing local SEO benefits. | Slower page load speeds, on average. |
| All Wix websites are SSL encrypted, as standard. |
Wix is a straightforward website builder with essential SEO features included as standard; however, website templates and design elements are less customisable than other open-source CMS options.
7. GoDaddy
Thanks to its infamous advertising campaigns, GoDaddy is well known for its domain and web hosting services. GoDaddy now also serves as a CMS, offering a website builder with built-in marketing and SEO tools.
Our GoDaddy pros and cons at a glance are…
- Easy-to-use website builder with add-on marketing and SEO tools
- Good page load speeds
- Ability to upgrade plans to unlock additional features, depending on business needs
| GoDaddy Pros | GoDaddy Cons |
| GoDaddy’s website builder is easy to use, with the ability to add a range of marketing and SEO tools. | Plenty of sections (content holders) to choose from, but limited customisation of sections / design elements within the website builder. |
| Within GoDaddy Search Engine Visibility, the guided SEO wizard provides suggestions for enhancing your website’s SEO. This tool recommends and enables you to monitor your website’s ranking within the SERPs. | No app marketplace, both add-on SEO tools (Search Engine Visibility & Insight) are paid subscriptions. |
| GoDaddy Insight can compare your website to indirect competitors on key SEO metrics and generate action plans based on your selected objectives. | GoDaddy’s link building system has been criticised for content spamming. |
| Good page load speeds. | SEO tools offered cover fundamentals, rather than advanced or specific SEO needs, such as those for local organic promotion. |
| Various plans available to suit business needs, e.g. ‘Ecommerce plan’. |
GoDaddy offers an easy-to-use website builder, but necessary SEO tools are add-on subscriptions and not as comprehensive as competitors’. This means it’s perhaps a better choice for smaller businesses just starting out than those seeking serious growth opportunities.
8. HubSpot
HubSpot includes smart SEO recommendations, content strategy tools and built-in analytics. You don’t have to install extra plugins when it’s all baked into the system. This said, it lacks some of the control, tailoring and scalability that other software like WordPress can offer.
Here are the standout features:
- Built-in SEO recommendations and optimisation tips as you create content
- Seamlessly integrates with your CRM and marketing tools
- Secure, fully hosted platform with automatic updates and monitoring
| HubSpot Pros | HubSpot Cons |
| Great for marketers, offering in-line SEO suggestions, keyword planning, and performance tracking. | Less flexible than open-source CMSs, which means limited customisation for advanced technical SEO needs. |
| All-in-one dashboard that connects content, analytics, CRM, and automation. | Runs on a premium pricing model, thus more advanced features are locked behind higher-tier plans. |
| Secure and hosted, so there’s no need to manage updates, patches or plugins. | Not ideal if you want full ownership or control of your data and hosting. |
| Excellent documentation and customer support. | Learning curve can be steep for those new to the HubSpot ecosystem. |
HubSpot, one of the biggest names in the marketing game. Their CMS is also a pretty big deal. With the option for premium cloud hosting and powerful security features, it’s a great option for SEO-conscious businesses who are on the rise.
Given its sophisticated integrations, this CMS is a great option for those already using HubSpot’s other products, as you can access all of the features included in your customer platform through one simple dashboard.
9. Drupal
Drupal is a free and open source CMS, designed for developers. As such, it’s prized for its flexibility, scalability and strong community support. Unlike some of the previous examples, Drupal isn’t as beginner-friendly; rather, it’s a better option for websites and apps on the more complex end of the spectrum.
Here are some of the SEO benefits to take note of:
- Fully customisable, so it can offer some truly bespoke solutions
- You get full control over URLs, meta tags, schema markup and page structure
- Handles multilingual sites, advanced permissions and many content types
| Drupal Pros | Drupal Cons |
| Highly customisable and secure, perfect for complex, enterprise-grade websites. | Requires developer knowledge and is not suited for beginners or low-code teams. |
| Strong SEO tools: clean URLs, detailed metadata control and structured data integration. | Maintenance can be time-consuming and may require agency support. |
| Excellent for multilingual websites, complex taxonomies and permission settings. | Slower initial setup and steeper learning curve. |
| Open source with a large and active developer community. | Fewer prebuilt themes or plug-and-play SEO features compared to WordPress. |
The lowdown is that Drupal is an excellent option for those with the time, budget and know-how, but it’s not beginner-friendly. For this reason, it’s best left to your web devs or outsourcing to the specialists.
10. Joomla!
Neil Patel describes Joomla as the middle ground between WordPress and Drupal, and we can see why. With more functionality than WordPress, it’s very handy for more complex website requirements, but with complexity comes a steeper learning curve. This said, it’s easier for a layman to grasp than Drupal.
Just like our other entries to the list, Joomla has plenty of SEO capabilities baked in. We’re talking metadata customisation, site map builders and helpful caching systems that support website speed.
The go-to advantages we want to spotlight are:
- It’s open source and free to use
- Fully extensible and flexible, with support for thousands of extensions
- Offers advanced SEO tools out of the box
- Supported by a global developer community
| Joomla! Pros | Joomla! Cons |
| Free and open source, which is great for businesses that want full control without licensing fees. | The interface and terminology can be confusing for non-developers. |
| Decent SEO features are built in, including metadata editing, SEF URLs and sitemap tools. | Fewer themes and extensions available than WordPress. |
| Flexible content management structure with support for multilingual sites. | Requires regular updates and some dev experience to avoid compatibility issues. |
| Thousands of extensions available for enhanced SEO, performance and functionality. | Community is smaller than WordPress, so support may be harder to come by. |
Because it’s free, Joomla is understandably appealing for budget-conscious teams and/or businesses. You don’t need to pay licensing fees, and you can host it anywhere, giving you full control over your website setup. This said, you need a certain degree of experience to dig into its nuances.
Features to Keep an Eye Out For
At beefound.agency, we’ve worked with a wide range of CMS platforms. We’ve found that the features that consistently move the needle are the ones that make SEO easier, not harder.
Things like clean, customisable URLs, fast-loading templates and built-in meta fields have helped us drive stronger results not just for our own site, but for clients across different industries. We’ve seen firsthand how simple features – like automatic XML sitemaps or mobile-friendly layouts – can have a tangible traffic impact when combined with a solid content strategy. When we recommend a CMS, we’re always thinking about how its features translate to search performance.
Pop these in a list and see how your shortlisted CMS fare – your best shot is finding one that meets your business requirements and hits all of the SEO must-haves.
Do I Need to Work with an SEO Agency or CMS Professional?
The best CMS for SEO can be used to optimise so much more than simple on-page elements. They also offer features related to page load speed, indexability, crawlability and canonical URLs. Ideal if you are looking to boost your technical know-how and SEO repertoire.
Equally, though, your choice of CMS doesn’t have to be founded on a deep level of SEO understanding. Nowadays, there’s a whole market for beginner-friendly, zero-code providers, allowing anyone – and we mean anyone – to create a functional site. If targeted visibility online is at the top of your agenda, however, it might be a good idea to get in touch with the professionals.
Really, your choice comes down to a comfortable balance of business objectives and budget – so which CMS are you going to choose?
