FAQs:
Wix SEO Frequently Asked Questions

• • Is Wix good for SEO?

    Simple answer, no.

    While they have certainly made vast improvements with different design elements and their SEO Wiz tool from what they previously were, Wix still lacks a lot of core, fundamental elements that (especially from a technical standpoint) help your website propel to the top of Google search results. They also are notorious for providing bad SEO advice.

    
    

    Before we dive into why Wix is not a good platform, let's discuss how this negative perception originated. To be fair, all of the website related issues have since been fixed.

    • Poor URL Structures:
      • Wix previously would add random characters to URLs. For example, www.test.com/#!test-page/.
    • No ability to add image alt tags
    • Not being able to optimize blog posts with page titles and meta descriptions
    • They used to use flash (not good for SEO)
    • No ability to add canonicals
    • No structured data
    • Providing bad SEO advice

    Since they've covered some of the basics, Wix has definitely positioned itself as serviceable, from an SEO standpoint, but definitely not ideal for the reasons below.

    
    

    1. Speed

       Wix website's are designed with a ton over overhead and other components within their code that will slow your website down. Speed is a Google ranking factor and has shown to heavily influence conversion rates. If you're looking for a fast website or, just to keep your users happy, Wix probably isn't for you. Fun fact: Wix's own website performs poorly in Google's page speed test (RED FLAG).

    2. Non-Customizable Sitemap or Robots.txt

       Sitemaps and robots.txt files inform search engines of which pages to crawl and index. While it's great that they exist, you cannot customize them, which is a problem for SEO experts.

    3. AMP is Not Supported

       AMP, or Accelerated Mobile Page, is a stripped down HTML page that is designed to be fast and easy to read on mobile. Google says it's not a ranking factor, however, if you do not have AMP on your website, you won't populate in Google's news carousel atop results. It is designed for publishers so, if you're not a news publisher, this might not be a huge deal for you.

    4. Lack Of Structured Data

       While Structured Data isn't necessarily a ranking factor yet (although Wix thinks it is), it can heavily influence click-through rate (CTR) in search and enhances results in SERPs. On several other platforms, you can markup almost everything.

    5. Inaccurate Character Limits For Page Titles and Meta Descriptions

       Wix currently allows you to add up to 70 characters for page titles and 320 characters for meta descriptions. While 70 for page titles is technically correct, most SEO's know you should stick to 55-60 due to page titles being truncated on mobile devices. However, they are way off on the meta description. The current restrictions allow for around 160 characters. It hasn't been in the 300s since 2017! This is an issue for two reasons. One, too long of descriptions will be truncated. Two, if Google doesn't think your meta description is relevant enough, it will dynamically pull text from the content of the page. This often will not read right, which more than likely will diminish your CTR in search.

       If they haven't updated that since 2017, I wonder what else they've allow to fall by the wayside.

    6. The Wix SEO "Wiz" Isn't a Powerful Wizard

       The Wix SEO Wiz tool covers the basics of page titles, meta descriptions, content (to ensure keyword placement), image name, and word count. Super simple.

    
    

    These are just a few of some very important, high-level SEO issues with Wix. Again, while yes, they have certainly improved, if you're looking to run a successful SEO campaign, you're much better off choosing a different platform.

  • What are Some SEO Tips?

    
    

    1. Conduct Extensive Keyword Research

       This is true for any platform. Before you create content or start measuring success, develop comprehensive keyword research to ensure you're targeting the correct keywords.

    2. Set-Up a Clean and Simple Hierarchy and Navigation

       The hierarchy of your website influence a plethora of things. It tells the search engines which pages are the most important on your website and how they relate to each other. It also improves the crawlability of your website. If the pages have a clear parent-to-child flow, search engines will easily find and crawl the content on your website. Also, from a user's standpoint, a clear, easy navigation will prevent users from being frustrated, which will enhance the probability of them converting.

    3. Write Keyword-Rich and Unique Page Titles and Meta Descriptions

       This is SEO 101. Page titles are a ranking factor and both page titles and meta descriptions heavily influence your CTR in search. You want to make sure both of these are relevant to the content of the page and are targeting main and synonymous keywords.

    4. Submit an XML Sitemap

       Sitemaps inform search engines such as Google of which pages you wish to have crawled and indexed within search results. Making sure this is accurate will help improve the crawlability and indexability of your website and will use your crawl budget efficiently.

    5. Utilize Local SEO

       Locality is one of the top ranking factors in Google search results. Meaning, when users search product/service related queries, more than likely local results will populate towards the top of results. To ensure you grab these top spots, you'll want to set up local listing accounts for your business on all the top local platforms (especially Google My Business). You need to make sure all of your information is accurate, consistent, and up-to-date. Plus, you'll want to have this information on your website, along with other localized content (assuming the local market is part of your targeting strategy).

    6. Utilize Images and Image Alt Text

       While written content is certainly great and needed, it's 2019 and people are looking for other, more visual forms of it. When writing content, add images to break up text and deliver your points more effectively. When you use images, be sure to add image alt text. This is because when Google crawls an image, it doesn't know what the image is about. Image alt text provides context to Google about what the image is. Be sure to make the image alt text as accurate as possible.

    7. Utilize Video

       Video marketing continues to be one of the most growing areas of digital marketing and specifically SEO. That is because video is easier to rank for, shows up high and search, and reaches a new, often younger audience. Be sure to capture video, optimize it, then post it on YouTube and embed it on your Wix website.

    8. Write Valuable Content

       Don't create content for search engines, create it for your users. Yes, you want to make sure that your content is optimized and is targeting the right keywords/topics. But, if it's no good, it won't rank, be shared on social, or gain you any backlinks. Content is king. Start creating great content and you'll start seeing fantastic results.

    9. Start Earning Backlinks

       Backlinks are one of the most important ranking factors in Google search results. However, you want to make sure you're not implementing any black hat methods (link farms, comment section linking, spammy directories, buying links, etc). You need to create quality backlinks from authoritative websites through partnerships, getting involved, and most of all, creating amazing content that people want to link to.

    10. Make SEO a Continual Process

        SEO isn't a one-stop-shop. It's a process. You'll need to analyze your results and adapt accordingly. Be sure to follow algorithm updates and search trends to ensure you're on top of things and targeting the correct terminology.

  • Do I have to sacrifice design for performance & SEO?

    No, you don't.

    In today's world of high-speed internet and all of the amazing things you can do with JS & CSS, performance and SEO does not need to dictate design. As long as you are starting with a well-structured document and apply a little know-how … you can fine tune your performance and keep that SEO optimized while maintaining the visually appealing design that your users have become accustomed to.

  • How do I optimize images for performance?

    According to the Google Lighthouse recommendations, you should be serving next gen image formats (webp) instead of the normal jpg and png files you may be familiar with. The new webp format offers lossless compression that far surpass the others, keeping your images at a low file size while keeping the high quality. Unfortunately, the support for this format isn't there yet. While this format may provide faster download speeds, the browser support is lacking. So, unless you are ready to count out Internet Explorer, you may just have to rely on the jpg and png formats you currently use.

    
    

    JPG optimization

    Using a tool like jpegoptim can help you to reduce the size of your jpg images, while maintaining as much quality as you can.

    • First let's strip off the meta data stored in your jpg files
      • jpegoptim --strip-all - will parse the jpg image and strip off any extra camera data or meta data that is stored inside the file.
    • Next, let's limit the quality of the image
      • jpegoptim --max=85 - We have found 85 to be pretty good (on a scale of 0-100), this tells jpegoptim to reduce the quality of the image to 85 if that would provide a better file size
    • Still too big? Let's limit the size
      • jpegoptim --size=250 - This will tell jpegoptim to keep on optimizing the image until the file size is below 250k. If needed, jpegoptim will reduce the quality of the image to hit the target size.
    • Now, combine all of that into one command
      • jpegoptim --strip-all --max=85 --size=250 /path/to/image.jpg - This command combines all of the parameters
      • On Linux, it may be beneficial to find all jpgs at once and convert them before deploying. This can be done with a command similar to 'find . -name '*.jpg' -exec jpegoptim --strip-all --max=85 --size=250 {} \;' This will find all jpgs in your current folder and then optimize them with the same settings.

    
    

    PNG optimization

    Currently, we have found optipng to provide what we need to optimize png images. Optipng is completely lossless.

    • optipng -o7 /path/to/image.png - Is what we currently use to utilize maximum compression of png images without any loss of information.
      • On Linux, it may be beneficial to find all pngs at once and convert them before deploying. This can be done with a command similar to 'find . -name '*.png' -exec optipng -o7 {} \;' This will find all pngs in your current folder and then optimize them with the same setting.

  • Should I be using Structured Data?

    Yes, you should.

    If you want rich snippets in your SERPs, then the answer is undoubtedly … YES. Take a look at the current rich snippets gallery that includes a list of currently supported rich snippets you have available on Google's SERPs.

    
    

    What if I don't have any content that fits these guides?

    Doesn't matter, use structured data anyways.

    The benefits of structured data far outweigh the overhead … even if you don't qualify for rich snippets. We look at this way: Structured data helps you plan your document structure by providing context for your content. Think about it like this: Google must come crawl your site and then use a very extensive algorithm to determine the context of your content. Your page may be optimized for `Wix SEO`, but Google must then determine how your page relates to that term. Google must read the content, and then figure out if your page is `for` or `against` Wix SEO, it must determine what kind of intent a user would have for that page to appear in a SERP. Structured Data does just that. It provides context for your content and can connect the pieces of your site in a more cohesive way. With a name like "Structured Data" … does it sound like something you DON'T want on your website?

    
    

    What parts of my site should use Structured Data?

    All of them.

    Visit schema.org to see what is available - but trust us, everything on every page can have structured data associated with it. Images, Videos, Blog Posts, Articles, Sections, Navigation, Breadcrumbs - it should all be marked up with structured data and tied together using itemprop attributes.

  • Why is Google not rendering my site properly in the Google Search Console?

    Your robots.txt is incorrect.

    This is a relatively new problem. At some point, Google up and decided that they wanted to change the rules of the robots.txt. Relax, nothing major, you just need to make some adjustments. More specifically, you need to make sure that all of your images, css and js are crawlable by the search engines. In the past, developers would deny access to these resources in the robots.txt file … but, Google has changed that and now wants access to all those resources.

    
    

    All about that screenshot

    If you are using the Search Console, then you have been using the 'URL inspection' tool. This tool lets you visit a URL on your site, check for crawling errors & submit the page for indexing. By default, the inspection tool will use data that is already in the index. If you want to see the current version of your page, then you must click the 'TEST LIVE URL' button. The benefit to testing the live URL is that Google will now show you a screenshot of your page. So, take a look and see if it looks like what you want. If you are blocking CSS and JS in your robots.txt file, the screenshot will be rendered without any styling. There is no way for Google to determine if the page is 'Mobile Friendly' if the CSS does not load. So, before you submit the page for indexing, go back and edit your robots.txt file until the screenshot looks correct.

  • What tool should I be using to measure my website's performance?

    Google Lighthouse

    While that seems obvious to us, we guess the topic deserves a little more explanation. It stands to reason that the tool provided by the same company that you wish to rank your content on would be the way to go. However, misinformation and the massive abundance of other tools can get confusing. Which tool should I be using? What metrics should I be concerned about? Well, let us simplify it for you - use Google Lighthouse to perform your performance audits. Considering the metrics tested in Lighthouse are the very same metrics that Google uses to determine mobile friendliness & basic page speed, it is very clear that getting the right results in Lighthouse will directly help your ability to rank on Google.

  • What about the Wix performance tool?

    Just like our name says … we hate it.

    While it may provide great results (i.e. the results you wish you had), it isn't clear what metrics they are measuring and how they are measuring them.

    
    

    If we run the competition's home page through their tool, we get a result like this:

    

    Wow, that actually looks great. And, as we mentioned in our Google Lighthouse blog post, it does appear to account for the most important metric - which is 'time to interactive'. But what is really under the surface here? Is this accurate?
    
    Let's run it thru Lighthouse and see what we get.

    

    We would say that looks a lot different than the previous results. Wix indicated a 'time to interactive' of 4s and Google shows it at 24.1s. That is a huge difference & helps pose a very important question - Is the Wix tool accurate or is it designed to make you think you have the right numbers? Well, since it is obviously not based on Google Lighthouse, we would go with a giant uppercase NO. It also doesn't allow you test a site on any other platform, something that would prevent us from using the platform at all, because there is no way to know the real value of migrating from another platform to Wix. We have no method of knowing the before and the after and therefore cannot consider Wix as a valid choice in this arena.

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