What is Best Platform to Build Website - SEO in mind

[Prime85]

Hello...

I am going to be creating two new websites shortly that will need to be built with SEO in mind.

These will not be e-commerce sites, but instead will be informational with a couple pages of content on each.

One will be used to get people to input their contact info and that info will be sent to our call center where we will call them back from.

The other site will be heavily used for graphics, but still needs to have room for content (seo purposes)...

Can you guys please recommend what platform i should have these sites written on (and please remember I need to do this on whatever is the most SEO-Friendly)...

Thanks

[jcontraros]

I would recommend using the Thesis Framework for WordPress. It is what you might call a "smart theme" in that it is built with SEO in mind as top-priority. It also allows for very easy customization so that you can create a unique-looking website. Very powerful. It is, however, a premium theme but it is definitely worth the price.

[Prime85]

i'm not looking to make the sites myself, i'm just wondering what platform i should advise the web designer to use...

The wordpress thesis theme looks fairly similar to most wordpress themes..

[jcontraros]

The Thesis theme is meant to be a "blank slate" on which you build designs. If you look at the Thesis Showcase you will see hundreds of websites that use the theme, all of which look entirely different. It also makes work easier for the web developer because it allows easy implementation of PHP hooks to insert design and content elements, as well as easy customization of CSS.

[kdaly100]

There is really no such thing as best platform per sé in my opinion and there is a lot of spin out there about SEO ready and SEO friendly.

At the end of the day if your sites are going to be modest sites with useful helpful information for your clients it doenst make a difference what platform you sue once you follow solid site building and established content creation practices.

Admittedly Thesis and Wordpress (of which I use both regularly) make life easier for you but unlike clothes make the man platform does not make the ranking.

You can as easily rank with a set of static HTML pages as with a CMS as with a custom application for loading up images onto a set of pages.  The amount of technical nous to make your changes will vary however from one to the other.

The sites as you describe sound to me like internal or 'closed' group sites that don't really need to rank so I wouldn't sweat that and go for any of the many CMS that are out there like Wordpress that make the addition of content a lot easier.

[Prime85]

Thanks.... is the wordpress thesis theme CMS?

[kdaly100]

CMS stands for Content Management System and Wordpress is one of the most popular of the many hundreds that are out there.  Thesis is one (again of many) themes that can be applied and modified to a site to give it a look and feel to a site.

[w0lfiesmithUK]

I'd like to add a vote for Wordpress, but nearly any theme which uses standard Wordpress code can be optimized with SEO in mind using a few choice plugins.

I'd actually vote against the Thesis theme though, as it's quite complexly structured code and very difficult to edit if you're not a fan of all those hooks and filters, and you just want to get in there with HTML, PHP, and the default wordpress structure (single, page, archive etc); hundreds of different files for different loops and theme parts.

[jcontraros]

I'd argue that it is structured simply for making adding PHP and HTML so much easier. Rather than having to in and modify template files in a theme to make changes, you can do it all from one file in Thesis.

Not that this has anything to do with SEO, however.

[MassivePrime]

We favor Wordpress but Joomla is just as good, however the real point that should be made is that if the SEO on and off the site isn't done well you won't rank regardless of which platform you use. Since you're creating a squeeze page, which I guess you will supplement by adding a blog, I would use Wordpress

[JohnParker2792]

Joomla has came a long way with being SEO Friendly. I SEO and develop sites on this platform every month. The new version has came out.. which has tons of add on's. I truly believe that Joomla will be your best bet. The sky is the limit.

[Prime85]

Thanks for all of the replies.... The help is greatly appreciated

[Mark_Jay_Apsey_Jr.]

We currently manage over 50 sites and we are using 20 different CMS's.  Wordpress is the best CMS to use. Easiest and SEO user friendly. You can choose any seo template to make it look like yu want it without having to do much coding.

Use SEO Yoast or all in one wordpress plugin for seo. they are both free.

Good luck....Make it happen.

[w0lfiesmithUK]

Joomla is great for community based sites which require forums and members etc. Wordpress is far simpler for the majority of use cases.

[robertdonnell]

I have used Wordpress / Thesis and agree with its being a great platform for SEO.  In fact, I have taken purchased HTML themes and converted them to Thesis only to see the PR grow quickly.

Recently, I have been using Genesis from STudioPress (as I like their themes as a starting point).

Seeing similar SEO results - any observations?

[robertdonnell]

I recently took on the task of performing SEO on a several hunded page Joomla site.  It is truly a nightmare to work on compared to WordPress.

Joomla may have come a long way - but it has miles to go.  I recommend against this platform for anyone who cares about SEO.