Improve Performance
Fix Problems
Learn
Audit
Case Studies
Guides
Blog
The best content management systems, like WordPress, HubSpot, Webflow, and Shopify, have SEO features that make your site more visible on search engines. Browse our top picks in this CMS roundup.
Your content calendar is brimming with unique insights and engaging articles that stand out from your competitors. But without search engine optimization (SEO), your audience might miss out on all that great content.
The solution? A top-notch content management system (CMS).
You have a ton of options, but our experience with all of them points to WordPress, Hubspot, Webflow, and Shopify as the best overall choices for value and SEO prowess.
Charlotte Soto is a lead strategist at HawkSEM with nearly a decade of SEO and marketing experience. Here, she walks us through the best content management systems for SEO, including their key features, pricing, and compatibility.
Wondering which one fits your brand’s needs best? Keep reading for our top picks for the best CMS platforms that truly shine in the SEO department.
 WordPress An open-source platform that lets you create any kind of custom site. |  Hubspot CRM platform that offers software, tools, and resources for marketing and content management. |  Shopify Commerce solution that offers customizable templates, apps, marketing tools, and sales channels. |  Webflow SaaS platform that helps you build a website using a visual drag-and-drop builder. | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Features |
|
|
|
|
| Best For | All niches, especially start-ups on a tight budget and established businesses with dedicated development teams for more elaborate design elements | Large SaaS brands | Ecommerce brands | Scaling small businesses and large enterprises |
| Pricing | Free-$59 monthly, depending on subscription; $25,000 annual for enterprise plans | Free-$1,200 monthly, depending on the subscription tier | $51-$517 monthly, depending on the subscription tier | Free-$39 monthly or a custom price, depending on the subscription tier |
Top 8 CMSs for SEO list preview:
Top 8 CMSs for SEO, User-Friendliness, and Visibility
Our favorite CMSs are accessible across various industries, easy to use, and SEO friendly. But some have capabilities that make them an ideal choice for specific industries, such as Squarespace for creative businesses, or Shopify for ecommerce stores.
Next, we break down the leading CMSs and their key features to help you choose the one that’s right for your business.
CMS for SEO: Top 8 Picks for User-Friendliness, and Visibility
Our favorite CMSs are accessible across various industries, easy to use, and SEO friendly. But some have capabilities that make them an ideal choice for specific industries, such as Squarespace for creative businesses, or Shopify for ecommerce stores.
Next, we break down the leading CMSs and their key features to help you choose the one that’s right for your business.
1. WordPress
(Image: WordPress)
It’s not surprising that more than 43% of all websites use WordPress. Savvy web developers love its open-source nature, meaning it is easy to use and optimize content.
Soto gives WordPress a thumbs-up for its efficiency, thanks to a range of plugins that cut down on manual work — including those for SEO.
In the easy-to-use dashboard, you can use WordPress’ SEO features to manage headings, alt text and tags, and custom URLs.
As for optimizing your content? Harness SEO plugins like Yoast SEO or Rank Math (Soto’s favorite WordPress plugins). They offer customizable XML sitemaps that appeal to Google’s crawlers and other SEO elements.
Our favorite feature? Yoast SEO’s scoring system that uses emoticons to rank on-page metrics on your WordPress pages, and offers suggestions for improving the page’s optimization.
Soto also suggests using a plugin like Nitropack or WP Rocket to keep your page speed lightning-fast for your customers. But don’t go overboard with plugins. Stick to around five for your core features. More than that and you’ll risk slowing down your site, which Google definitely doesn’t like.
Features:
- Automatic sitemaps
- Custom titles and descriptions
- Custom design theme integration
- Post scheduling
- Clean URLs (succinct and accessible, without excess characters)
- SSL certificates
- SEO software plugins like Yoast and Rank Math
Best For: All niches, especially start-ups on a tight budget and established businesses with dedicated development teams for more elaborate design elements
Pricing: Free-$59 monthly, depending on subscription; $25,000 annual for enterprise plans
2. HubSpot
(Image: HubSpot)
HubSpot is a marketing and sales software powerhouse, complete with a content management system that lives and breathes SEO. We love its user-friendly interface and mobile functionality for both brands and audiences.
With automated sitemap creation and insightful content optimization recommendations, HubSpot ensures your content gets the rankings it deserves. Not sure how to kickstart your SEO web page audit?
The Hubspot CMS gives you the 411 on each and every page’s SEO scores, offering recommendations to boost low scores along the way.
Plus, you can keep tabs on plenty of vital metrics for your brand through HubSpot’s comprehensive web analytics, like bounce rate, contact to customer, page views, and CTA rate.
But too many features and SEO capabilities? It can be intimidating.
To truly maximize HubSpot’s potential, recruit a marketing pro like the experts at HawkSEM. Once you do, your content will dazzle on the SERPs, just like it does for big-name HubSpot clients like eBay, Randstad, and DoorDash.
Features:
- Custom domains
- Drag-and-drop page editing
- Google Search Console integration
- Automated themes
- Automatic XML sitemap generation
- URL mappings
- A/B testing
- Advanced SEO recommendations
Best for: Large SaaS brands
Pricing: Free-$1,200 monthly, depending on the subscription tier
3. Shopify
(Image: Shopify)
Your ecommerce biz thrives on two main pillars: kickass product pages and a steady stream of web traffic.
Enter Shopify, the most popular CMS for ecommerce web content, offering customizable HTML (basic web layout) and CSS coding (more stylistic elements) for ultimate personalization and branding.
The system makes it easy to add products, organize images, and pick from dynamic layouts from various free, responsive templates. Soto emphasizes the importance of responsive templates for a solid user experience (UX) — a prominent ranking factor.
Shopify’s CMS is loaded with SEO features to help potential customers find your online store with ease, like automated XML sitemaps, keyword tags, and intuitive navigation menus.
Keyword tags are a must for proper taxonomy, says Soto, as they streamline the user journey and help your audience quickly navigate your site.
Do you have an active company blog? Great! Shopify’s ecommerce website makes it easy to create, publish, and manage your blog.
With meta descriptions, tailored tags for ecommerce SEO, and custom templates for desktop and mobile devices, your content is optimized for the platforms your customers use most. After all, one-third of Americans buy ecommerce products from their phones these days.
Shopify makes it easy for them to find and buy from you.
Features:
- Auto-generated canonical tags to avoid duplicate content
- Theme editor
- Site structure index
- Technical SEO audit (add-on)
- Title tags, keyword tags, and meta tags
- Sitemap.xml (file with your website’s essential webpages for Google’s crawlers)
- Robots.txt files (file that tells Google which webpages it doesn’t need to crawl)
- Social media linking and sharing
Best for: Ecommerce brands
Pricing: $51-$517 monthly, depending on the subscription tier
4. Webflow
(Image: Webflow)
Dynamic websites and technical SEO elements without the need for coding? That’s what you get with Webflow, a website-builder, hosting service, and CMS hybrid. What sets Webflow apart is its niche SEO features, like custom schema markup to help Google’s crawlers understand and index your site.
Plus, it’s one of the best content management systems for local SEO. The localization add-on helps with local audience targeting, translation, and localized page elements.
Webflow is trusted by brands ranging from SaaS giants (like Dropbox and Monday.com) to digital marketing mavens (like Rakuten). So if you’re a smaller brand looking to make a big impact in your niche, consider adding Webflow to your content marketing toolkit.
Features:
- CMS API for endless apps integrations
- Drag-and-drop design editor
- Sitemap controls and indexing
- 301 redirects management
- Alt tag editing
- Customizable schema markup
- Headings, metadata, meta descriptions
- SEO scores
Best for: Scaling small businesses and large enterprises
Pricing: Free-$39 monthly or a custom price, depending on the subscription tier
5. Wix
(Image: Wix)
Is your marketing director notoriously picky about design? Satisfy their aesthetic cravings with over 800 professionally crafted web templates from Wix, perfect for showcasing your brand’s web and blog content in style.
Wix is a cult favorite website builder and CMS popular among entrepreneurs and new businesses seeking visually stunning web designs without breaking the bank.
But don’t let its affordability fool you—Wix packs an SEO punch into its offerings. Image SEO optimization, search engine bot log reports, and automated meta tags save SEO marketers ions of time.
We’re especially fans of the Google Business Profile integration to rank higher for local audiences. And if you need an extra edge in keyword research? Wix’s Semrush integration has you covered, helping your content reach every member of your audience on the SERPs.
Features:
- Foundational, search-engine friendly site architecture
- Easy drag-and-drop editor
- Custom meta tags
- Custom URL structure
- Structured data markup
- Instant Google indexing
- Patterned meta tags
- Google Search Console integration
Best for: Restaurants, ecommerce brands, fitness centers, digital marketing agencies, and small businesses
Pricing: $15-$149 monthly, or custom custom pricing
6. Squarespace
(Image: Squarespace)
Creative businesses can’t get away with a minimalistic blog page or bland text posts. Your audience is eager to see how your creative flair translates into the services you offer. Your content pages and website? They’re your very first impression.
So which CMS do creative businesses flock to? Squarespace.
Aesthetic appeal comes in every premade blog and web template on the platform, no coding required. No matter where your audience is, they’ll easily find and appreciate your content, thanks to Squarespace’s built-in SEO tools.
The platform even provides an integrated infographic with Google Search Console, so you can view all your key metrics in the same dashboard you already log into every day.
Designer and SEO friendly? It’s why photographers and creative entrepreneurs swear by it.
Features:
- Customizable templates
- Drag-and-drop design editor
- Clean URLs
- Optimization for mobile devices
- Sitemaps
- Automatic markup
- SEO translations
- SSL security
Best for: Creative businesses like photographers, stylists, digital agencies, freelancers, and bloggers.
Pricing: $16-$49 monthly
7. Drupal
(Image: Drupal)
Drupal is a fantastic, open-source content management system that can significantly boost your SEO rankings with the right web development support.
While you’ll need to install an SEO module (plugin) for web page optimization features, it’s worth it for brands craving custom content and page types. Just look at flagship organizations like NASA, the White House, and The Economist—all are Drupal clients.
Once you’ve mastered the back-end components of setting Drupal up as your CMS, you’ll gain access to SEO functions like keyword management, content reports, and XML sitemap generation. These tools will help you secure high-SERP status for your brand’s website.
Features:
- Keyword research, management, and extraction
- Content tagging
- Drag-and-drop layout builder
- Internal linking and permalinks management
- Page titles and metatags
- Path and global redirect
- Content reports
- XML sitemap
Best for: Enterprise businesses
Pricing: Free as-is, with extra costs for web development, modules, and maintenance
8. Showit
(Image: Showit)
Showit is as user-friendly as CMSs come. The black-and-white interface features an abundance of expertly designed website themes that look like you paid thousands of dollars for the design.
Luckily, pricing plans are a budget-friendly maximum of $34 per month—talk about value. You can use the easy drag-and-drop editor to move around text, customize colors, and even play with creative animations without using code.
Rest assured, Google will see the same beauty (and authority) as your customers with your Showit site. The platform puts all text and media into an XML file for Google to crawl and rank easily.
However, Showit says that SEO needs vary from site to site, and an extra hand from a top-3% digital marketing agency like HawkSEM can take your content to the next SERP level.
Features:
- Page title
- Meta description
- Drag-and-drop editor
- Title tags
- XML file
Best for: New, creative businesses on a budget
Pricing: $19-$34 monthly
We’ve covered the best CMSs for SEO, but are they absolutely necessary for modern businesses?
What is a CMS?
A content management system, or CMS, is software that helps you create, post, and manage digital content. You don’t have to be a coding wiz to use a CMSs.
Most have a user-friendly, plug-and-play interface where you can easily manage all your content and web elements.
When it comes to picking the right CMS, Soto suggests prioritizing:
- User-friendliness
- Cross-page SEO growth
- Responsive UX templates
Soto says you’ll also want to consider if the CMS requires extensive development capabilities like:
“Making content changes on the fly, SEO on-page optimizations, building new landing pages, and utilizing widget libraries for UX.”
Not an SEO pro with time to spare? Soto recommends looking for a CMS that makes it easy to update meta descriptions, meta titles, alt-tag image placements, and URL slugs.
As an industry-leading SEO agency, we’ve worked with clients across various industries, including retail, SaaS, apparel, and software, which means we’ve worked with just about every CMS.
Why you need a CMS for SEO
SEO is a tremendous undertaking requiring daily check-ins.
Think back to your recent to-do lists. Did you find time to add image tags, create schema markups, map URLs, or A/B test content combos? These are just a handful of the endless SEO and content tasks that a CMS can tackle.
Sure, you may have an in-house specialist, but Soto says a solid SEO-focused CMS can be a game-changer.
“CMS for SEO [allows] SEO teams to focus on other initiatives (ex. overall SEO strategy) not supported by a sophisticated CMS.”
So instead of spending hours dealing with technical SEO tasks like backfilling sitemaps or on-page SEO, your team can focus on what really matters: creating content that resonates and drives epic results.
The right content management system is the perfect complement to a robust SEO strategy, the kind that expert marketing agencies like HawkSEM can hone to help your brand nail its performance goals.
But what if you already have a CMS? And how do you know if it’s truly serving your brand’s SEO needs? Here are some tell-tale signs that it’s time to update your CMS to a more SEO-friendly option:
- SEO growth has hit a screeching halt.
- Your SEO reports consistently suggest changing your CMS
- You notice trends showing top-performing competitors on a certain CMS (WhatCMS.org delivers these insights)
- Google flags consistent Google Search Console errors
The takeaway
There are many SEO-friendly CMS platforms out there, but the crème de la crème boast features like custom schema markup, automated XML sitemaps, responsive web templates, and a clean, intuitive interface to satisfy Google’s SEO appetite.
But choosing your CMS is just the beginning. As Soto explains, you’ll need to monitor your progress on Google Analytics over the next four to six months:
“Baseline your previous performance vs. your new CMS. Assess keyword rankings, site traffic, CTR, average time on site, and conversions. Did the new CMS or migration help your ultimate bottom line? Has revenue grown in this time frame?”
If the answer is no? HawkSEM’s expert SEO strategists are here to help. We’ll narrow down the best CMS for your brand’s marketing goals and conduct a thorough site audit to find the obstacles keeping you from that coveted first page of search results.
Our superior blend of multi-niche experience and technical prowess helps us deliver an average of 4.5X ROI across all our SEO efforts.
Ready for your content to charm Google’s algorithms? Let’s grab the ROI you deserve.
FAQs about content management systems
How much does a CMS cost?
CMS pricing plans vary from free to hundreds or even thousands of dollars per month. Pricing depends on how dynamic your website is, the number of web pages, features and plugins, and whether you pay a developer to help set up your site.
For example, Squarespace’s plans range from $16 to $49 per month, while Shopify’s plans can exceed $1,200 plus developer fees.
How long does it take to see results?
You can use a CMS to get your site and blog up and running within minutes. But SEO results (like increased organic traffic and high rankings) can take at least a year to fully realize.
Even with premium SEO features from your CMS, you’ll need to go beyond with a solid, data-backed SEO strategy and regular, optimized content to maintain it.
How do I choose the best CMS option for me?
When selecting a CMS, consider how many manual hours you can save by migrating to or adopting that particular system.
If you’re a global brand, look for features like hreflang tag insertions (pieces of HTML code that guide language and location targets for your website). Additional considerations include long-term maintenance plans, budget and performance reporting capabilities, and the potential for your CMS to grow with your brand.
