Joomla and WordPress are two popular content management systems used in Australia, both capable of managing websites of nearly any size or type. Which one is better for SEO? Well, it’s hard to say with absolute certainty.

Let’s take a look at some key differences between the two platforms and how they might impact your SEO implementation going forward.

Pricing difference

It’s free to download and install WordPress, but you have costs on hosting fees, plugins and web design fees. In total, the cost of building a new WordPress website can range from $2,500 to $10,000, or even higher.

For Joomla, it’s also free to download and install, but there are also extra costs initially. Joomla’s ongoing maintenance cost is slightly higher than WordPress because the development fees and maintenance fees are higher due to a relatively less market share.

Ease of use

Although WordPress and Joomla come with the robust interface and intuitive designs, Joomla requires more technical knowledge and patience for beginners due to its design of control panel.

However, they both have helpful documentation and communities so there’s no need to get frustrated if you don’t understand something – there are many people willing to help, just a Google search away.

Plugins

WordPress has 59000+ plugins. By downloading and installing a couple of plugins you can configure your site for optimal search engine results. Jetpack, which is free, will optimize your permalinks and site structure to help with Google indexing.

Yoast’s WordPress SEO plugin is one of the users’ favorites because it helps you create optimized titles, meta descriptions, headings, and more. It also has plenty of powerful features such as tracking keywords in real-time, finding broken links that are affecting search rankings, and even creating XML sitemaps.

WordPress SEO and Joomla SEO

Many functions in WordPress contain SEO features such as permalink optimization, creating tags (in Joomla this function is only available with an extension).… And you can use the plugin Yoast as we mentioned earlier to get great control over SEO more easily.

Joomla is also an SEO-friendly platform, with the functions such as making search engines friendly URLs, editing meta descriptions… But if you’re a beginner, it works better if you have an SEO expert to help with Joomla.

Security problems

Every once in a while, you’ll hear horror stories about hacked Joomla or WordPress sites. This often leads people to think that Joomla and WordPress are inherently insecure—that they have gaping security holes. While it’s true that both platforms can be vulnerable if not properly configured, these platforms also hold up very well against hackers.

Both these 2 platforms are constantly updated with improved security measures—WordPress has plugins such as Really Simple SSL to secure users’ websites, while Joomla has its own Joomla Force SSL for security (without downloading extra plugins). You can also check WordPress’s security limitations in this articles. And both Joomla and WordPress are widely used for managing millions of websites worldwide.

To sum up

For beginners, WordPress works better for SEO and other usabilities. If you’re technical-savvy, Joomla might be a good option as well. Also, besides Joomla and WordPress, there are many other CMS (content management system) platforms, for example, Drupal, Shopify, Squarespace, Wix, etc.

Read more on WordPress Vs Shopify SEO, and WordPress Vs Wix SEO.

If you have any questions about platforms and SEO, you can contact our professional SEO team.