Ultimate Webflow SEO Guide for Beginners (Step by Step)

Utilizing Webflow for SEO purposes is a smart choice. If you've already set up your website on Webflow or are considering building it on this platform, you're on the right track. We'll help you optimize your website in a simple step-by-step guide.

Optimizing your website increases visibility on search engines and makes it easy for anyone to engage with your site. SEO is crucial for any website. 

You do not need custom plugins for Webflow. The platform has built-in SEO tools. Do you want to learn how Webflow SEO works? 

Let's find out more. 

Is Webflow Good for SEO?

If you've already set up your site on Webflow or are considering creating your site on Webflow, the CMS is good for SEO. The Webflow editor makes it easy to optimize Webflow sites. 

It has easy-to-use SEO controls. You can update content, add meta descriptions and titles, ALT attributes, manage redirects, and more. 

Unlike WordPress, which uses SEO plugins, Webflow has built-in SEO tools that make it good for SEO. 

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With the Webflow editor, you can optimize your website without hiring a professional. We'll take you through the Webflow SEO checklist to guide you through.

1. Add the Meta Title and Meta Description

The reason why you need a meta description is to help readers understand the content on your webpage. The meta description and title display on the search engine when a user performs a search. 

Internet users read the meta descriptions and decide whether to click on a page or website. To update the Webflow SEO settings for each page, click on the page settings on the control panel. 

Here's how to go about setting up the meta title and meta description:

1. Click on the page panel. 
2. Hover over SEO settings, and add your title in the meta title section.
3. Add a meta description, as well, in the meta description section. 

Webflow allows users to add fields within the title and meta description. For example, if you want to use the blog post name as the meta title, select the add field option on the meta title area and select name from the dropdown list. 

You can create a custom meta title and meta description and optimize each with the keywords. Avoid keyword stuffing and using long meta descriptions and meta titles. 

SEO Webflow settings give you the controls to manage the page meta descriptions and meta titles. The add fields option lets you automatically define the meta title and meta description. 

When creating the meta title, maintain it to under 60 characters and 155-160 characters for meta descriptions. Otherwise, Google will truncate long meta titles and meta descriptions. 

Write attention-grabbing meta descriptions and titles to attract users to click on your web pages. They should also be unique. 

2. Manage 301 Redirects

To permanently redirect users from a previous URL to a new URL, you need a 301 redirect. So, why do you need to redirect users?

1. If you redesigned your site's URLs
2. After changing the domain, for example, from a .com to .org.
3. Changing the structure of the URL

A 301 redirect counters the error 404 message displayed when a user clicks on a previous URL. With a 301 redirect, users are redirected automatically to the new URL. 

Here's how you can create Webflow 301 redirects:

1. Click on project settings and then hosting. 
2. Click on 301 redirects. 
3. Enter the previous URL in the field Old Path.
4. In the Redirect to Page field, enter the new URL. 
5. Add the redirect path and then publish your site. 
6. Test to find out if the redirect is working. 

Webflow does not restrict you to using only one redirect. You can have 2 or more redirects for your site. You may consider having multiple Webflow redirects for your website if you:

1. Want Google and other search engine users to redirect users from a previous URL to a new one. A 301 redirect tells Google that a user is attempting to access a previous URL and routes the user to the current URL. Otherwise, you will have an error 404 if you do not submit the 301 redirects. 
2. You can have multiple Webflow 301 redirects if other websites and blogs refer to your site. For example, if you have a referral link on someone else's blog, you need a 301 redirect for users clicking on the link to be redirected to the new URL.
3. For users with bookmarks on their browsers or when a visitor searches your previous URL on Google, it automatically redirects users to the new path.  

A 301 redirect improves the user experience of your site. With a 404 error, visitors are more likely to leave your site, which affects your website traffic.  

3. Write Image Alt Attributes

As part of on-page SEO, you need to include the ALT attribute for the images on your website. It is easy to add images on Webflow, edit settings, replace, style images and add ALT attributes. 

Adding ALT attributes is part of Webflow SEO. It gives a brief description of the image. It is displayed if an image fails to load and cannot be viewed.

Here's how you add image ALT text on Webflow: 

1. Start by selecting the image.
2. Click on the element settings panel and hover over the image settings. 
3. Click on ALT text and select custom description. 
4. Write the image ALT text on the text area. 

Webflow also allows you to use dynamic ALT text for your images. For example, you can use a blog post text as your ALT text. 

Select the get image from in the image settings. From the get alt text from, select the field with the ALT text for the images. 

4. Generate Sitemaps

A sitemap helps search engines find the pages on your site and shows how they are related to each other. From the Webflow editor, you can edit and submit sitemaps.

The sitemaps are in XML format, that is, your-site.com/sitemap.xml. You can generate Webflow sitemaps automatically or create custom sitemaps. 

To auto-generate XML sitemaps, go to project settings and on the SEO tab, click on sitemap. Activate the auto-generate XML sitemap button. 

When a project is published, the sitemap.xml is automatically updated. To create a custom sitemap, you must deactivate the auto-generate sitemap.xml button. 

In the text area, write your custom XML and click on save changes to publish the sitemap. The next step is to submit the sitemap for search engines to crawl. 

This step is for users with custom sitemaps. Add the generated sitemap to the robots.txt file. On the project settings, click on SEO and select indexing. 

You can also generate and submit your sitemap using the Google search console. Do not submit your sitemap if you're using the auto-generated sitemap to avoid duplicates. 

Although Google can easily find your site automatically, submitting your sitemaps makes the process seamless and faster. It also alerts Google Spider about the pages to crawl and how to crawl them. 

5. Add Schema Markup

As part of Webflow SEO, you need schema markup to make it easy for search engines to understand the website content. 

The advantage of schema markup is that it enables search engines to serve users with relevant information based on their search. 

Search engines understand schema markup more than plain text. As a result, your website content is more likely to appear on rich results based on the searcher's query. 

The primary goal of using schema markup is to help search engines understand and represent your site content.

Webflow SEO vs WordPress SEO

You can use Webflow or WordPress to create your website. With WordPress, you need SEO plugins to optimize your site. The CMS does not have built-in tools like Webflow.

Webflow SEO is slightly different from WordPress. WordPress has plugins, while Webflow has built-in SEO tools. 

There are multiple plugins you can use for your WordPress site. Yoast and Rank Math are the best SEO plugins for WordPress websites. You can hire an SEO agency to optimize your site if you do not have the optimization skills. 

All the tools you need for SEO are easily accessible from the Webflow editor. You can optimize content, add sitemaps, create meta descriptions and meta titles, and manage 301 redirects.

If you're to compare WordPress to Webflow SEO, they both create optimized websites, only that WordPress uses plugins while Webflow has built-in tools. 

Another difference between Webflow SEO vs. WordPress is that Webflow delivers clean, semantic code that is easy for search engines to crawl. 

WordPress uses multiple plugins, unlike Webflow, which has a simple editor. WordPress and Webflow allow you to create responsive websites optimized for SEO.  

Tips on How to Improve Webflow SEO

As a beginner, you want to drive traffic to your site and rank on search engines. Therefore, you have to optimize your website for SEO. 

You can go through the Webflow SEO course at Webflow University to learn tips about SEO. For Webflow SEO help, you can work with Webflow SEO experts or Webflow SEO consultant. 

The Webflow blog and Webflow university have the resources to help you get started with Webflow. 

Earlier in this guide, we looked at the SEO features. Here's the Webflow SEO checklist to improve your site's SEO. 

Conduct Keyword Research

Keywords improve your visibility when a user searches the web using a keyword you're ranking for. Add keywords in your meta descriptions, title, content, image ALT text, and blogs.

However, be careful with keyword optimization to avoid stuffing. Keyword stuffing makes you lose the flow of content. So, how do you carry out keyword research?

It is simple. Use keyword research tools like Moz, Google search console, Ahrefs, etc. These tools help you find the keywords to rank for your website. 

Your Website Should Be Mobile-Friendly

Google has a free tool to check if your site is mobile-friendly. Your website should be responsive for easy access on mobile devices. 

To test if a site is mobile-friendly, you need to paste the website URL on the mobile-friendly test tool. If your website is not mobile-friendly, you can hire an expert to redesign it.

Connect Your Site to the Google Analytics

Google Analytics helps you monitor your site's performance. It is free to use. You can check how visitors interact with your site, bounce rate, devices users use to access your website, and more.

It helps you discover information about your audience. You can use the information to make changes to your site. 

Optimize the Structure of Your Website

A website should be simple to navigate. When designing your Webflow website, ensure that the important pages are close to the homepage. 

Organize the pages on your site to improve the user experience. For example, if you have an eCommerce site, it should be easy to access the product page, cart, and checkout page. 

Disable the Webflow.io Subdomain

Webflow has a staging domain for users to create their designs and make changes before publishing the site. Once your site is live on your custom domain, deactivate the Webflow.io domain to avoid having a duplicate for your site. 

Google discourages having duplicate content. To deactivate the webflow.io domain, toggle the disable subdomain indexing button. 

Improve Your Site Speed

A slow website increases your site's bounce rate. If you have a slow website, you can optimize the size of the images and remove unused code. 

Is your website taking more than 5 seconds to display? Then, you need to optimize the website for speed. For Webflow users, you can apply various settings, like a lazy load from the image settings. 

Connect your website to the Google Search Console

Google Search Console helps you understand your site performance on Google search, fix any issue and learn how to improve performance on Google search results.

You can also submit your sitemap on the Google Search Console for Google and other search engines to crawl your site. A sitemap alerts search engines that the pages on your website are important to crawl. 

From Google Search Console, you learn how Google crawls, indexes, and serves websites. To use Google Search Console, you must verify your site's ownership first. 

Make Use of 301 Redirects

A 301 redirect signals a permanent redirect to a new URL from an old URL. With a redirect, a user does not notice the change. It automatically routes visitors to the current URL. 

For instance, if you made changes on a page on your site, you should redirect users to the new page instead of having a 404 error. 

Optimize Your Blog for Webflow SEO

Visitors will click your Webflow blog for additional information about a topic. Therefore, you should have high-quality content that offers value to the target audience. 

Your Webflow blog should have quality content that is easy to read, has internal links, is optimized with keywords and header tags, and has images. 

A website with an authoritative blog attracts backlinks and can easily rank on the first page on SERPs. 

Create a Unique Website 

As part of Webflow SEO, your website should be easy to use and responsive. It should have a flow of pages, from the landing page and homepage to other pages on the website. 

Webflow has templates that you can use to create a design. These templates have clean CSS, Javascript, and HTML code. 

A website with unused code is likely to be slow. To counter this, you can use the templates and only have the necessary integrations on your site. When it comes to Webflow page speed, optimizing your website for faster loading times is essential for user experience and SEO.

Optimize Your Site's URL

Your website URL should give information about a page, blog, or website. A website URL should offer a hint about the page content.

For instance, you can use the blog title as part of the URL. If it is too long for the URL, you can rephrase the URL to match the content on the blog. 

Otherwise, using numbers on the URL can be difficult for users and search engines to understand the content on your blog. 

Your URLs should be like this: https://webflow.com/blog/webflow-seo-tips. That way, Google and users understand that the blog is about Webflow SEO tips. 

Otherwise, if the URL was https://webflow.com/blog/123-6567.html, it's not easy to understand what the blog is about.

Use Header Tags

Our SEO checklist cannot be complete without the header tags. Headings range from H1 to H6. Your website page should have one H1.

However, for H2s and H3s, you can have multiple in one blog. Here's how to use the headings:

1. H1 - use H1 for the title. For example, if you're using it in a blog, the title should be H1. 
2. H2 - it is used for the main topics. The topic headings within the blog. 
3. H3 - H6 - for subtopics within the H2. 

Make sure that you include your keywords within the header tags. Search engines use header tags to understand the blog or website content. 

How Does Webflow Implement SEO?

Webflow implements SEO in multiple ways. First, the website builder creates responsive designs that are easy to view on mobile and desktop devices.

A responsive website design improves user experience as anyone can access the site using any device. The number of mobile phone users keeps increasing by the day. 

Currently, more than 6 billion users are using mobile phones. With the growing trend in mobile phone users, website developers should ensure that sites are easily accessible on all devices. 

Clean Code

Webflow designer uses Javascript, CSS3, and HTML5 to create website designs with clean and semantic code. You can use Webflow templates or create a design from scratch.

For web developers, the Webflow designer allows you to add custom code. A clean code is easy for search engines to crawl. 

Intuitive Webflow Editor

The Webflow editor lets you create content, make changes and publish with a click of a button. You can optimize content from the Webflow dashboard since Webflow has built-in SEO tools. 

For instance, if you're publishing a blog post, you do not need additional plugins to optimize your blog. You can upload images and add a meta description and title.

How Do I Add SEO Keywords to Webflow?

As mentioned earlier, keywords play a huge role in Webflow SEO. If a user searches the web with a keyword you're ranking for, you are likely to appear on top searches on search results. 

But the question is, how do I add SEO keywords to Webflow? That is easy. After keyword research, ensure that you use the keywords within your site. Include the keywords in the content, headings, meta descriptions, ALT tags, etc. Avoid keyword stuffing, as it affects content readability. 

Does Yoast Work With Webflow?

Yoast serves as an SEO optimization plugin, available for free with the option of a premium plan offering advanced features. When optimizing a WordPress website, Yoast is a necessary plugin. However, when it comes to Webflow SEO, the platform offers its own set of integrated SEO tools, rendering the use of external plugins or integrations unnecessary.

That said, Webflow does have the capability to integrate with the Yoast plugin through Zapier. This integration allows for the seamless transfer of information between the Yoast plugin and Webflow. Specifically, Yoast can trigger actions upon the publication of a new post, while Webflow automatically incorporates the newly published item into a designated collection. 

And That's it

Should you require assistance with SEO, consider enlisting the services of a Webflow SEO company. Webflow, serving as a versatile CMS, website builder, and hosting platform, distinguishes itself from WordPress in terms of SEO, primarily due to its incorporation of built-in tools.

Webflow proves to be well-suited for SEO endeavors, offering opportunities to optimize content, meta descriptions, titles, image ALT attributes, and sitemaps, all while emphasizing the use of clean code. Our comprehensive checklist provides every essential detail for enhancing your Webflow SEO. Ultimately, a well-executed SEO strategy enhances your visibility on search engines, translating into increased website traffic and the potential conversion of prospective clients into valuable customers.