Elementor is one of a dozen popular WordPress page builder plugins that enable you to create highly customized page layouts really easily. With all these different page builders it brings up the question of the potential negative impact that these plugins may have on your website, like how it affects SEO. Does Elementor hurt SEO? Does it help? Does it limit my SEO?
Lets discuss in-depth how the use of Elementor affects SEO on your website the potential ways Elementor can be used to help or hurt your SEO performance.
The impact of using Elementor on SEO
Installing and using Elementor does have affects on your SEO, but in very subtle ways.
How Elementor hurts SEO
Performance
There are many factors when it comes to your SEO rankings, and performance is one of them. A fast loading website helps you in the search results while also improving the user experience.
Unfortunately like most WordPage page builders, installing Elementor can have a negative speed impact which does hurt SEO. When you compare the Elementor to the other page builders it comes in as one of the slowest with the highest page sizes.
With that being said, just because it’s one of the slowest page builders doesn’t mean it should be completely avoided. The impact it has on speed is only marginal, and a website with Elementor installed can easily be fast-loading enough for any user and for SEO performance. Just note that with most plugins you can install in WordPress, they may a negative speed impact.
Its in your hands
Elementor is probably the best builder to quickly build the pages you envision for your website. With such a strong builder everything like layouts, colours, fonts, and mobile responsivity become your responsibility. This can be bad if you don’t know what you’re doing when it comes to web design and user experience.
I’ll tell it to you straight – if you make shitty-looking pages with Elementor it’s your fault if people don’t like or want to stay on your website. This can also be done with other page builders but Elementor makes this a lot easier to become a victim to because it allows you to easily customize almost every elements styles which can lead inexperienced users to make pages that just aren’t effective.
When users don’t like your pages they leave and have a negative experience on your website – which you guessed it, is something Google measures for SEO and therefore can hurt you.
How Elementor helps SEO
A more engaging website
In contrast to one of the noted negative impacts of Elementor, Elementor allows you to create highly customized, modern, and engaging pages with less coding, especially for inexperienced users.
Quick access of technical SEO standards
With Elementor you can choose what HTML tag you want each of your headings or text content to be. This is especially important when it comes to the more technical side of SEO.
If you want to follow the best SEO HTML tag practice, make sure each page follows these rules:
- Each page should have only one H1 heading. This H1 should describe what the entire page is about. For example, if you had an about page on your website then the H1 should be something like “About” or “About Us”. Your about page should not have something like “We like to work and play hard” because then Google would assume that page is specifically about “Working and playing hard” – not about your company.
- H2 headings for primary topics under the topic of the H1
- H3’s for sub-topics of the H2’s
- H4’s for sub-topics of the H3’s
Lastly, H5’s and H6’s are not used often as content doesn’t tend to get that deep into the headings hierarchy. H5’s and H6’s are commonly used as decorative headings placed above other primary headings. As a general rule of thumb, the H5 and H6 headings don’t get much use so you don’t have to worry about them.
Overall impact of using Elementor on SEO
Overall Elementor isn’t going to hurt your website – if you are confident in your skills to create a decent looking page, it can only take your site further and promote you to make more content. At worst installing and activating the Elementor plugin can impact the speed of your website making it slower which can affect your SEO, but that shouldn’t be enough to make any difference to your current rankings.
I recommend only using one page-builder plugin per website to minimize the speed drawbacks of WordPress plugins, but if want to use 2 or more make sure your website speed is fast enough as not to hurt your SEO.
If you’re interested in speeding up your website without installing more plugins, I made a step by step guide on how to speed up your WordPress website without plugins.
Do I need Elementor Pro for optimal SEO results?
No, you don’t need Elementor Pro for further improving SEO. Considering SEO is mostly about content and not the technical side that everyone gets obsessed with, what page builder you use and if you have the pro version or not isn’t going to give you better or worse results.
Does Elementor work with Yoast SEO?
Yes Yoast SEO works with Elementor. They are completely separate plugins that don’t affect each other.
Considering editing pages is different when you use Elementor, you have to edit your page normally (as opposed to editing with Elementor) to find the page’s Yoast SEO snippet settings.
To do this, instead of clicking “Edit with Elementor” you click the basic “Edit” button.
Conclusion: Should I use Elementor with SEO in mind?
If you aren’t using any other page builders, the addition of Elementor will definitely help you create quality pages for your website that will make you rank better.
If you want to learn more about SEO, you can browse our SEO articles that answer common questions about SEO.
