The first thing that comes to mind when you think of GoDaddy is likely domain registration or web hosting. Maybe you've hosted your website with them in the past. Perhaps you still do. Most people aren't unaware of the company's range of SEO services. That's right. GoDaddy talks a big game when it comes to helping websites rank on the first page of search engine results pages.
But is it all smoke and mirrors?
In this GoDaddy SEO review, we'll uncover the good, the bad, and the ugly to determine whether it's worth the money.
What Is GoDaddy SEO?
For the benefit of those who might be new to the whole SEO game, SEO is short for search engine optimization. It refers to the strategies you employ to improve your website's visibility on Google and other search engines. The ultimate goal of SEO is to help your site rank on the first page of search engine results pages (SERPs).
Now that we've got that out of the way, we can dive straight into GoDaddy SEO.
Sure enough, the idea of bundled hosting and SEO services sounds appealing. However, from our experience, it's always a good idea to peel the layers of whatever gimmicky product you're presented with to ensure you're getting real value and not just flushing precious dollars down the drain.
You can do this in two ways.
The first would be to analyze the product offering, compare it to the competition, and, to put it mildly, see if those services are available elsewhere for free. The second and arguably most important way would be to read honest reviews from past users. Emphasis on the "real." Many companies are notorious for posting fake online reviews to boost their product's credibility. You want to discern between genuine and fake reviews to give you an objective picture of the product.
Armed with that information, we sought to find out what GoDaddy SEO is all about.
GoDaddy has two SEO offerings to improve your website's SEO: The GoDaddy Search Engine Visibility tool and the Managed SEO Services.
1. GoDaddy Search Engine Visibility Tool
GoDaddy defines its Search Engine Visibility product as a web-based search engine optimization and submission tool designed to help users optimize various aspects of their website. For a fixed monthly price, the DIY tool helps website admins analyze and optimize their site pages before submitting them to Google and other search engines and directories.
The tool analyzes your web pages for keywords and phrases based on the subject matter and product offerings. It then suggests additional keywords and phrases to use and the ones to remove that may be hurting your website's ranking. It will also recommend incorporating the target keyword in places like your homepage title and blog post URLs.
Once you've implemented the suggested changes, the tool lets you track your website's ranking on SERPs via the Search Engine Visibility dashboard.
As nifty as this tool might seem, the reality is that it is pretty basic. The internet is chock-full of keyword suggestion and performance tracking tools, many of which are free. Besides, while keyword targeting is essential for search engine ranking, it's only one piece of the puzzle as far as big-picture SEO goes. It is not nearly enough to get you to page one of Google results.
2. GoDaddy Managed SEO Services
Optimizing your website for Google, Bing, Yahoo, and other search engines can be an uphill undertaking, especially if you have no idea where to begin or what to do. That's where GoDaddy Managed SEO services come in. It's the hosting giant's version of an SEO agency where a team takes over your website's SEO management. They'll do a site audit, research your target market, and frequently make SEO updates to improve your website's visibility on search engines.
According to GoDaddy, clients who've invested in their managed SEO services have seen their search engine rankings rise to the top 10 in a few months. Some strategies the SEO team employs include account management, onsite and offsite optimization, content creation, and more.
The service is open to everyone, whether or not GoDaddy hosts the website in question. As far as costs go, the reviews we came across indicate that the SEO services are reasonably priced compared to what a run-of-the-mill marketing agency would charge.
See also: GoDaddy vs. Shopify: Which Is Better for Your eCommerce Business?
What Managed SEO Services Does GoDaddy Offer?
Here's a brief overview of the SEO services you get with GoDaddy.
1. Website Audit
GoDaddy's onboarding stage involves conducting a website audit to identify glaring issues and areas that might be standing in the way of your site's performance. The SEO team will also analyze any existing strategies you might already have in place to assess whether they're working. The results of this extensive site review will help GoDaddy formulate an SEO strategy that delivers optimal results.
2. Keyword Research
The GoDaddy SEO experts will research keywords best suited to your site based on the products and services featured, your target audience, and competition. Keywords are a critical ingredient of search engine optimization, and the GoDaddy experts understand this all too well.
3. Continuous SEO Management
SEO isn't a one-and-done affair. It's an ongoing process that requires regular tracking and review of your website's rankings. While this might be difficult for you to do on an ongoing basis given that you also have a business to run, outsourcing this task to the GoDaddy SEO team allows them to monitor your site's performance on an ongoing basis, make the necessary tweaks required to improve your website rankings, and keep you posted on the results.
From what we've seen, they typically do this monthly or quarterly. However, they will notify you of any urgent issues requiring immediate attention.
4. Tracking and Insights
Once you sign up for GoDaddy's managed SEO service, you gain access to a dashboard that lets you monitor your website's performance, traffic, and search engine rankings in real time. You'll gain valuable insights into how well the SEO strategies that GoDaddy has implemented are working and learn about your audiences and their user behavior on your site. You can then leverage this information to identify ways of improving your user experience.
5. Onsite SEO
Onsite SEO is the strategy adopted to optimize a website's web pages and their associated content for search engines and visitors. GoDaddy has the following onsite SEO offerings:
Keyword Recommendations
The GoDaddy team uses the Search Engine Visibility tool to develop keyword recommendations. They then incorporate these keywords into the meta titles, meta descriptions, page URLs, and image alt tags of your site's web pages.
That way, Google and other search engines crawling your website can better understand your content. Before implementing these changes, someone from their team will contact you for approval.
Monitoring Tools Installation
GoDaddy's SEO team will also set up Google Search Console for your website. The Search Console contains Google Analytics and Webmaster tools, providing invaluable insights into your website's performance.
The team will analyze site data over a specific duration, compare it against a previous period, and identify any emerging issues that may negatively impact your website. These tools are also great for detecting errors on your website and recommending the appropriate remediation measures, which the GoDaddy team will do for you.
6. Offsite SEO
Offsite SEO, also known as off-page SEO, refers to the strategies adopted outside of a website to increase the site's rankings on search engines. GoDaddy offers the following offsite SEO services:
Submissions to Google, Bing, and Yahoo
Once the GoDaddy team has worked on your website's onsite SEO, they will submit your website to search engines. To do this, they'll locate your site's XML sitemap before uploading it to Google Search Console. The sitemap file lists all the web pages on your website.
If there's a specific page you want to submit to Google, perhaps a new blog post you've recently published, they'll submit the individual page URL and request indexing on the Search Console to prompt Google to re-crawl your site.
Submissions to Directories
The GoDaddy SEO team will also submit your business website to directories that link to your site. Having several incoming links to your website builds your domain authority, which, in turn, helps you rank among the top search results.
Link Building
Keyword link building involves interlinking from various external websites to related web pages on your website. Doing this signals to Google, Bing, Yahoo, and other search engines that your site is a reliable source and contains information users might find useful.
The GoDaddy SEO team achieves this by identifying non-competitor sites whose content presents link-building opportunities. They then leave relevant comments on these sites with target keywords that link back to your website.
Social Bookmarking
GoDaddy leverages social bookmarking to help build your website's online presence and promote faster indexing on SERPs. The SEO team creates links to your website on popular social platforms like Reddit, Pinterest, Quora, Digg, and similar sites that let users bookmark content they're interested in.
GoDaddy then bookmarks these links and makes them public so everyone can view them. This, in turn, drives more traffic to your website, increasing your visibility on search engines.
7. Content Creation
High-quality, value-ridden content is a critical component of website SEO. It increases engagement, reduces bounce rates, builds brand authority, and allows you to establish yourself as a thought leader in your niche. All these elements have proven effective in propelling websites to the top of SERPs.
GoDaddy adopts two approaches when using content creation for search engine optimization:
Blog Content Creation
Part of the company's managed SEO services involves creating custom blog content tailored to your website and publishing it on related sites. The blogs are typically two paragraphs long and are designed to be captivating enough to attract readers' attention. The GoDaddy team also ensures they've embedded your target keywords in the blogs and linked them to relevant web pages on your site.
Article Content Creation
In addition to the blogs, GoDaddy also creates long-form articles tailored to your website and publishes them on related sites. These longer articles provide more opportunities to embed several keywords and link them to related pages on your website. They are designed to increase your authority in your industry or niche. Some websites where the team submits these articles include Squidoo and Hubpages.
Advantages and Disadvantages of GoDaddy's SEO Services
So far, we've looked at all the SEO services GoDaddy offers. Let's now explore the potential benefits and drawbacks of GoDaddy SEO services to determine whether their offerings are worthwhile.
Pros of GoDaddy SEO Tools
Affordable SEO Services
While GoDaddy doesn't state how much its managed SEO services cost, we have it on good authority that it will likely set you back about $50-$80 per hour. For perspective, the average digital marketing agency in the US bills customers upwards of $130 per hour. You would have to sign up for GoDaddy's SEO service to get a custom quote for your website.
Dedicated Account Manager
Keeping up with your website's performance as far as SEO is concerned is nothing short of a full-time job. You have to keep up with the latest updates to Google and other search engines, figure out whether those developments are likely to help or hurt your website, and make the necessary tweaks to stay competitive on SERPs.
When you sign up for GoDaddy's managed SEO services, they assign a dedicated account manager to handle everything related to your website's performance on search engines. You can also track your site's performance through the account dashboard just to stay in the know.
Hands-Off SEO Management
Building on the previous point, GoDaddy takes the tedious work that goes into SEO management out of your hands. That way, you can focus on what really matters – running your business.
Content Development
GoDaddy goes a step further to offer content creation and link-building services in its managed SEO toolkit. In addition to leveraging keyword research and various onsite and offsite SEO optimization strategies, you can plug into GoDaddy's vast network of high-authority websites to send more traffic your way.
Cons of GoDaddy SEO Tools
The DIY SEO Tool Could Be Better
Don't get us wrong. While there's nothing inherently wrong with GoDaddy's Search Engine Visibility tool, there are a few features we weren't entirely onboard with.
For starters, where onsite SEO is concerned, it provides users with the "the-optional-but-highly-recommended" suggestions to update your webpage meta title and optimize the alt tag of "at least one image."
News flash: These should not be "suggestions." They are mandatory for SEO and must not be left as a mere recommendation.
Outdated Offsite SEO Strategies
Over the years, Google has become more intelligent and efficient in discerning good links from low-quality ones. It used to be relatively easy to rank using somewhat spammy back-linking techniques like embedding links to your site in the comment sections of high-domain authority website blogs. You could even rank by simply purchasing links (most of which were low-quality) from link farms.
Those days are long gone.
These strategies are ineffective today, and some could hurt your website's ranking. Google actively fights link spam and even penalizes sites that feature them.
A prominently featured link-building tactic GoDaddy employs is to link back to the client's site through posting hyperlinked keywords in the comments sections of relevant sites, also known as comment spamming. This technique is no longer practical for SEO.
The same goes for adding websites to directories. With all the listings already there, submitting your site to them is like adding a drop of water to a raging ocean, expecting to make a difference. It won't.
With regard to social bookmarking, again, this strategy may have worked in the past, but not anymore. Search engines recognize these backlinks as no-follow links and don't use them as an indicator of domain authority.
In short, GoDaddy's offsite SEO strategies are unlikely to impact your website's SEO. If anything, some of them might end up doing more harm than good, so keep that in mind and proceed with caution.
See also: GoDaddy eCommerce Explained – What You Need to Know.
Is Investing in GoDaddy SEO Services a Worthwhile Expense?
Admittedly, GoDaddy's SEO services have some serious downsides to them. However, one might argue that its low price compared to that of standalone digital marketing agencies more than makes up for its flaws, right?
Wrong.
Drawing this conclusion would be fatal to your dream of one day ranking on the first page of SERPs. Before launching into why this would be SEO suicide, let's bring up some GoDaddy SEO reviews from past users of the service.
Review #1
Review #2
Review #3
Review #4
Based on these and several other reviews we sampled, customers haven't had the best experience with GoDaddy SEO tools and services. Those who were satisfied with the results gave positive reviews on the basis that the Search Engine Visibility tool offered basic functionalities that any other SEO tool, including several free ones, could deliver.
What is concerning, though, is that GoDaddy uses low-quality links in its link-building strategy. One of the reviews (#3) indicated that the SEO team created a landing page with poor-quality content and stuffed it with keywords before linking it back to the client's index.php page. This is a complete SEO faux pas. Ultimately, the client had to shut down their website entirely due to the irreversible damage the landing page did to their SEO.
So, is investing in GoDaddy SEO services a worthwhile expense?
Unfortunately, the answer would have to be no. Until GoDaddy completely overhauls its SEO strategies, particularly when it comes to offsite optimization, we would strongly urge you to reconsider before wasting money on these outdated practices.
Worse, some of those tactics could permanently harm your website. While GoDaddy's domain registration and hosting services are pretty competitive, their SEO offerings just don't cut it.
Alternatives to GoDaddy SEO
We've already established that GoDaddy isn't the go-to for SEO. The next logical question would be: What SEO service should you use instead?
We recommend using a digital marketing agency whose core offering is SEO. While this might stretch your budget significantly compared to GoDaddy, it's worth it. You don't want to take any chances with your website's SEO.
Here's what to look for in the best SEO agency when choosing the right partner:
- It should have a track record of successful projects, especially those in your niche.
- Do your due diligence by reading testimonials from past clients to get a feel for their experience working with that particular agency.
- Steer clear of agencies that engage in unethical (Black Hat) SEO practices.
- Be wary of firms that guarantee first-page results. SEO has several moving parts, so no agency can make such bold proclamations.
- Pick an agency that stays up-to-date with the latest happenings in the industry and changes to search engine algorithms.
- If it's cheap, it will probably cost you more than you bargained for in the long (and short) run.
- Choose an agency that delivers value and quality and has earned the recognition of thought leaders in the SEO space.
According to Forbes, some top SEO agencies worth looking into include:
- SmartSites
- Victorious
- WebFX
- OuterBox
- SEO Brand
Reasons to Consider Investing in SEO
So, should you invest in SEO? Here are five reasons why optimizing your website for search engines can be hugely beneficial for your business's long-term growth and success.
1. It Will Increase the Amount of Quality Traffic to Your Website
Notice we said "quality" traffic. It's crucial that the consumers you're targeting find your brand and products. Several statistics indicate that 80% of consumers research products online before making purchase decisions. SEO will help put your business in front of your target audience so customers interested in your products can easily find you.
2. It Will Increase Brand Awareness and Credibility
Attracting visitors to your website is only one piece of the puzzle. It's not a one-and-done affair if you are in it for the long haul. The idea is to keep them coming back for more.
Establishing a loyal consumer base is the key to your brand's longevity. Several SEO strategies focus on content marketing. You can use short and long-form blog posts and informational articles to create helpful content that delivers value to customers and positions you as a thought leader and authority in your industry or niche. Over time, customers will grow to know and trust you.
3. It Will Improve Your Customers' User Experience
Search engines rely on user experience when determining which sites to rank at the top of SERPs. They assess a website's user experience using factors like the website bounce rate and how long visitors spend there.
Implementing SEO strategies focused on improving your customers' user experience ensures they find what they're looking for in the shortest time possible. This signals to Google, Bing, Yahoo, and other search engines that your website delivers a positive user experience and rewards you by ranking it higher among search results.
4. It Will Improve Your Digital Marketing ROI
The goal of any digital marketing strategy worth its salt is to deliver a tangible return on investment (ROI). SEO has successfully boosted conversions across various online channels when implemented alongside other marketing strategies. More conversions equal higher revenues.
5. It Will Boost Your Business's Long-Term Success
Unlike your run-of-the-mill marketing campaigns, SEO is a long-term strategy. It requires continuously staying up-to-date with the latest happenings in search engines and regularly optimizing your website to maintain visibility and attract more customers.
In most cases, you will continue to reap the fruits of your SEO efforts years after you first implement it, allowing your business the opportunity to grow exponentially in the long run.
See also: GoDaddy to Shopify Migration Checklist.
Final Thoughts
There you have it – a comprehensive and objective GoDaddy SEO review. While GoDaddy has its benefits when it comes to search engine optimization, it does have its fair share of drawbacks as far as its managed SEO services go.
The Search Engine Visibility tool is pretty standard and offers the same basic functionality as many other (free) SEO DIY tools you might encounter online. However, it is an excellent tool for beginners who are just dipping their toe into the SEO pool, although it lacks the advanced features required to take your business to the next level.
As for the managed SEO services GoDaddy, you're better off contracting a reputable SEO agency to optimize your website and boost your brand's visibility on search engines.
Are you looking to migrate your online store from GoDaddy to a more SEO-friendly platform? Are you worried about losing your position on search engines? Cart2Cart has got you covered.
Our automated shopping cart migration tool will transfer your website to your preferred eCommerce provider in a few easy clicks. The best part is that we can also help you migrate your SEO to your new store, so you don't have to worry about losing our search engine rankings.
Want to learn more? Sign up to Cart2Cart for a free demo today.
FAQs
Can I do SEO with GoDaddy?
Aside from domain registration and hosting, GoDaddy has two search engine optimization offerings, each aimed at improving your website's search engine rankings. They are GoDaddy Search Engine Visibility and Managed SEO Services.
Is SEO on GoDaddy worth it?
While the company does offer managed SEO services, it isn't to the scope you would get from a full-service SEO agency. Moreover, their DIY Search Engine Visibility tool is pretty basic and similar to many optimization tools that are freely available online. In our opinion, GoDaddy SEO isn't worth the money.
How much do SEO services GoDaddy cost?
The most basic pricing package for GoDaddy's Search Engine Visibility Tool starts at $6.99/mo. If you're interested in their Managed SEO service, you would have to sign up first to get a custom quote for your website.
April 25, 2024 
