5 easy ways to boost Webflow SEO performance
If you’re looking to give your Webflow SEO a kick up the ranks, a little bit of love and attention towards your site can go a long way.
A few tweaks here and there can make a huge difference to your website’s performance and will leave the SEO algorithmic gods smiling down upon you.
You don’t need to do a complete overhaul, and sometimes less is more. But, to help you succeed in boosting your pages to the top of the pile when it comes to SERPs (search engine result pages), we’ve put together these tips to help you on your way. So let’s dive in.
Is Webflow good for SEO?
The simple answer is yes. People ask this common question when first getting to grips with Webflow and the ‘no-code’ revolution.Using a platform like Webflow to build sites can help make sure your website is crisp around the edges, with no messy code or pesky bugs dragging down the speed and overall performance. Search engines love websites that are clean and tidy.
5 ways to improve your Webflow SEO
Let’s look under the hood and see what Webflow SEO tweaks will make your website look sharp, boosting your SEO performance.
1. Use correct URL structures and header tags
Short and sweet. That’s exactly what your URL structures should be. Both real-life browsers and bots will look at your URLs to figure out what your web page is all about.
URL structures
Here are some pointers for your Webflow URLs:
- Make sure your URLs are as straightforward as possible.
- It’s a great idea to have a relevant keyword or key phrase in there.
- Keep filler words and text bloating down to a minimum.
- Avoid repetition of words within the URL structure.
Header tags
With header tags, it’s a similar story. Search engines like a logical format, don’t we all?
So, one of the best ways you can improve Webflow SEO performance is by making sure your headers flow and they’re not scattered around like sheep in a field.
From H1 to H6, these title tags are going to allow the bots (and your readers) to better understand your content. A clear header structure allows you to immediately show what topics are most important and what is less important. All in a clearly defined way.
Relevant keywords can be important in your headers. But, your priority is the user experience and making sure you’ve assigned proper header tags before you even consider trying to stuff in some keywords.
2. Tidy up your SEO titles and strategize with your meta descriptions
You might be noticing a theme here. When it comes to Webflow SEO, the cleaner the better. Just like a tidy room will give people a good impression, so too will a neat and orderly website.
Just to clarify, clean doesn’t mean boring. Your website should still be expressing your values. But it doesn’t take a lot to nicely manicure your site to really make it pop on SERPs.
For your Webflow meta titles and descriptions, head to your ‘Page Settings’ then ‘Webflow SEO Settings’ and remember:
- Keep your titles short, under 60 characters, or Google will chop them down for you.
- Titles and descriptions don’t need to be over complex or jazzy, simple sells.
- Get to the point and don’t waffle, characters are in short supply.
- Use your meta descriptions in Webflow as a one-line, 150-155 character sales pitch to get people to click through.
- Use original and relevant content for every page that needs a meta title and description, don’t copy and paste, it will make your site look robotic.
- Throw in a keyword or two, but don’t overdo it.
3. Include alt texts for your images
This is an area that may feel tedious but it’s a quick win for your Webflow SEO. Sometimes search engine optimisation is all about grabbing the low-hanging fruit where possible.
Add alt text attributes (tags) to your images in Webflow. Alt tags are the equivalent of meta descriptions for your photos and images. Not only do they explain the content of your images to crawler bots, but they also make your website more accessible to every reader out there.
So, including these small text inserts for your images improves your website’s reader accessibility, allows bots to better understand your content, and improves your Webflow SEO ranking. Win-win-win.
Here’s a simple three-step alt text playbook to improve Webflow SEO with images:
- Be descriptive – describe your picture, duh.
- Be consistent – add concise alt text to each snap, no need for lengthy monologues or keyword diarrhoea.
- Be fast – optimise and compress your images to allow your pages to load faster than a game of 8-bit Pong.
4. Make use of advanced publishing options
These sneaky little shortcuts are a great way to toggle your Webflow SEO performance without any heavy lifting.
If you make your way through your ‘Project Settings’ into ‘Hosting’ and then view your ‘Advanced Publishing Options’, you’ll come across some handy sliders.
Straight away there’s an easy win to be found by enabling your SSL certificate. This may not impact some sites like blogs. But, if you have something like an e-commerce store, enabling the SSL certificate should let you leapfrog your competitor websites without it.
Then, choosing to minify the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript code is going to help streamline your Webflow site and give you an SEO uplift. Simplifying and trimming any unnecessary code bloat on your Webflow site is going to make it easier for crawlers to make sense of your pages. It’s also going to help improve the speed of your site, happy days.
5. Link up Google Analytics and Google Search Console
Ultimately, if you want to improve your Webflow SEO, you will have to kneel before the gods who designed the systems.
Linking up Google Analytics and Google Search Console to your Webflow site is going to give you more data to work with as you prod and poke to find areas for SEO refinement.
Raising your Webflow SEO performance isn’t a one-hit wonder. It’s a talent you’ll have to nurture and keep an eye on.
- Google Analytics – gives excellent data and reports that evaluate your site speed and the behavioural flow of your traffic. Plus, you’ll also get access to quality reviews of landing pages and exit pages to find when and why users are bouncing from your site.
- Google Search Console – another tool for your shed, this can give you some great SEO insights. Once connected to your Webflow site, Search Console will show reports for URL inspections and sitemaps. Along with this, you’ll get coverage reports for an overview of indexing or technical errors. And, performance reports to see which pages are hitting the mark.
Amplify your Webflow SEO results
Just like with professional athletes, it’s efficiency and consistency that can really level up your Webflow SEO.
Remember that your website is likely competing for attention against everyone else on the internet. One of the best ways to differentiate your website and make it stand out above the rest on SERPs is to put in the effort and time to make sure you’re site is running like a well-oiled machine.
If you neglect the small details and get sloppy, this is when your website’s SEO performance will suffer.
For the majority of SEO improvements, you don’t need to reinvent the wheel. Think logically and always put yourself in the place of your audience (which includes the crawler bots).
Webflow gives you everything you need to create a smooth user experience, presenting your website to the world in an attractive and functional fashion. Your job is to maintain order, stop your site from getting messy, and keep things uncomplicated.
If you take all this on board, it will upgrade your Webflow SEO skills and hopefully, you’ll notice a catapult up the rankings.
As certified Webflow Enterprise partners at IGNITE, our Webflow agency team would be happy to explore how we could help your organisation use Webflow tools to improve your website’s SEO performance, allowing you to reach more people with your content.
Contact us to start your journey today.
FAQs
Do Webflow sites rank?
Yes, definitely. Some web developers worry that the simplicity and usability of the Webflow platform means that there must be a catch. And the obvious concern is whether the sleek design of Webflow sites will somehow prevent them from ranking highly in search engine results pages (SERPs). Well, you’ll be happy to hear that’s not the case whatsoever.
Is Webflow better than WordPress?
The truth is, this will largely depend on the quality of your website and its content. A finely tuned Webflow website is likely to outperform a lacklustre WordPress site and vice versa.
It’s the finishing touches and ongoing maintenance work that you put into your site that will have a bigger bearing on SEO performance than the platform you use to build your site. What’s more important is which platform you’re able to understand and find your way around, because this is what will allow you to make impactful changes.