Journal / Website design
Does Your Website Platform Affect SEO? What 583 Ranking Sites Show
Your platform does not decide your rankings on its own. In a study of 583 business websites on Google's first page, WordPress powered about 69% of the sites in the top three and about 69% of the sites in positions four to ten. What did separate results was how the pages were built: WordPress sites made with the native block editor (Gutenberg) averaged position 4.1, against 5.6 for Elementor and 6.6 for Divi.
That gap comes from design and build choices, not marketing ones. That is why it belongs in the conversation before the first wireframe, not after launch.
Where the numbers come from
The figures come from Visibility Drip's study of 583 Calgary websites ranking in Google's top 10, published in December 2025 and updated in March 2026. The method:
- 70 local search terms, each with more than 100 monthly searches
- The top 10 organic results for each term pulled from Ahrefs, with duplicates and non-local businesses removed
- Technology detected with a custom scanner, then every row checked by hand
- Sites from trades, services, medical, professional services, fintech and real estate
Two caveats before you use it. First, these are local service businesses, not software companies, so treat the data as evidence of how platforms and builders behave in competitive results, not as a SaaS benchmark. Second, it shows correlation. A platform appearing more often in the top three does not prove the platform put it there.
Platform share and ranking position
| Platform | Share of sites | In top 3 | In positions 6 to 10 |
|---|---|---|---|
| WordPress | 69.3% | 35.9% | 40.8% |
| Squarespace | 5.1% | 46.7% | 43.3% |
| Webflow | 2.4% | 42.9% | 42.9% |
| Wix | 2.1% | 8.3% | 50.0% |
Source: Visibility Drip, 583 Calgary page one websites, data collected December 2025.
WordPress is the default, not the advantage. It held about 69% of the top three and about 69% of positions four to ten. If the platform alone moved rankings, that share would shift between the two groups. It does not.
Hosted builders split. Squarespace placed 46.7% of its sites in the top three despite a lower average Domain Rating, and Webflow placed 42.9%. Wix placed 8.3%, with half of its sites in positions six to ten.
The small platforms are small samples. 5.1% of 583 is about 30 Squarespace sites, and 2.1% is about 12 Wix sites. Read those rows as signals, not verdicts.
The page builder gap is the bigger story
Inside WordPress the comparison is close to like for like: same CMS, same hosting options, same SEO plugins. The main difference is the tool used to lay out the pages.
| Builder | Sites in top 3 | Average position |
|---|---|---|
| Gutenberg (block editor) | 53.6% | 4.1 |
| Elementor | 34.9% | 5.6 |
| Divi | 32.2% | 6.6 |
| WPBakery | 23.1% | Not reported |
WPBakery had 61.5% of its sites in positions six to ten. Source: Visibility Drip, December 2025.
Elementor and Divi run about three quarters of the WordPress sites in the sample (47.5% and 29.2%). The editor that ships with WordPress, used by far fewer sites, ranked best.
The study offers likely reasons rather than measured ones: lighter pages, a better text to code ratio and cleaner markup. Those are hypotheses. They also match what you find when you open a typical builder page in your browser's developer tools: one heading wrapped in five or six nested containers, a stylesheet for every widget whether the page uses it or not, and a full icon font loaded to show three icons.
How a design decision becomes a ranking factor
Search engines read the code, not the mockup. Two pages can look identical in Figma and ship very differently.
Designed for a builder
- Every section is a one-off layout
- Three font families and six weights
- Headlines set inside images
- An icon font for a handful of icons
- Sliders and animations on page load
Designed for clean markup
- A short list of reusable components
- One font family, two or three weights
- Real text styled with CSS
- Inline SVG icons drawn on one grid
- Motion only where it explains something
The second page is not plainer. It is planned. A layout built from a small set of components can be produced in the block editor, in Webflow or as a static site, without a page builder stacking wrappers on top. It is the same thinking behind a design system, applied to a marketing site, and the reason we draw icons as SVG on a shared grid instead of shipping an icon font.
Speed is the cheap win most sites skip
Only 21% of the sites in the study had a detectable caching plugin, and 7% used a CDN. Sites with caching averaged a Domain Rating of 21.4 against 16.2 without. That gap more likely reflects better resourced sites doing more things right than caching building authority, but the point holds: most page one sites leave basic performance work undone.
For a product website the fix starts in design, before any plugin: fewer font files, images sized for the slot they sit in, SVG for icons and logos, and no layout that needs a script to look right.
Choosing a stack for your product website
| If your team | Build it as | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Updates a few pages a quarter | Static site (HTML or Astro) on a CDN | Nothing to patch or cache, fastest load, lowest running cost |
| Publishes posts or landing pages weekly | WordPress block editor with a custom theme, or Webflow | Editors get a visual tool without builder markup |
| Already runs Elementor or Divi | Keep the CMS, rebuild key templates in blocks | Move the highest value pages first and measure the change |
| Needs a site live this week with no developer | Squarespace | Held up well in the sample and is easy to replace later |
This is how we approach website design for software companies: design around a component list first, then pick the lightest stack your team can actually maintain.
Questions
Is WordPress better for SEO than Squarespace or Wix?
Not by default. In the 583 site study WordPress held about the same share of top three positions as of positions four to ten, so the platform alone did not separate winners from the rest. How the pages are built and how fast they load matter more.
Does Elementor hurt SEO?
Elementor sites averaged position 5.6 against 4.1 for the WordPress block editor in the same study. That is a correlation, not proof, but heavier markup is a plausible cause. If your Elementor site already ranks well, there is no need to rush a rebuild. Move your most important templates first and compare.
Are static sites good for SEO?
Yes, when the content and structure are right. A static site ships plain HTML with no plugins to slow it down. The 583 site study did not report figures for static sites, so the benefit is speed and low maintenance, not a measured ranking lift.
Should I redesign my website because of its platform?
Only if the platform stops your team from publishing, or your pages are measurably slow. A redesign resets a lot of small signals, so plan redirects and keep your existing URLs wherever you can.
Planning a new product website?
Send your current URL and how often your team publishes. We will suggest a stack and a design scope before we quote.