How to Choose a CMS

Choosing a CMS isn’t just a technical decision. It directly impacts how well your content performs, how easily you can publish, and how fast you can scale.

I’ve worked with dozens of teams that unknowingly limited their growth by picking the wrong platform.

Some CMSs make SEO harder than it needs to be. Others give you the tools to win.

This guide will help you choose the right one based on real-world experience, not hype.

Whether you’re starting fresh or replatforming, the goal is the same: avoid roadblocks and build for long-term growth.

What Is a CMS and Why It’s Critical for Content Marketing

A CMS, or content management system, is the software that powers your website content.

It’s what lets you publish blog posts, update pages, manage images, and organize everything behind the scenes without touching code.

For content marketers, a good CMS removes friction. It lets you publish faster, keep everything organized, and follow SEO best practices without needing a developer on call.

It also shapes your site’s structure, URL format, and performance. If your CMS makes it hard to customize metadata, control indexing, or manage redirects, your content will always be held back no matter how good it is.

The SEO Features That Actually Matter in a CMS

A lot of CMS reviews focus on developer features or technical SEO. That’s not what most content marketers care about.

What matters is whether the platform helps you publish high-quality content efficiently and supports SEO fundamentals without constant developer help.

Here’s what to actually look for — in the order that matters most for content teams.

1. Content Scalability and Organization

Your CMS should handle hundreds or thousands of pieces of content without falling apart.

That means fast search in the admin, category/tag systems that don’t become a mess, and the ability to build topic clusters, resource hubs, or custom content types as your site grows.

A weak CMS might work fine with 20 posts but choke once you hit 200. Look for one that scales cleanly with your publishing volume and lets you organize content without hacking it together.

2. Flexible, SEO-Smart Editing Experience

You need an editor that lets you structure content properly — not just dump words onto a page. That means:

• Clean, consistent H1-H2-H3 formatting
• Easy ways to insert internal links, CTAs, jump links, or tables
• Reusable components like FAQs, product blocks, or lead forms

Gutenberg in WordPress is a standout here. Many CMS editors fall apart once you try to do anything more advanced than a plain paragraph. If it slows you down or limits formatting, it’s a problem.

3. Internal Linking Support

This is where most CMS platforms quietly fail. If it’s hard to insert internal links, view relevant posts, or create “related articles” blocks, your site architecture will suffer.

The best CMSs either automate this (via plugins or logic) or make it easy to implement manually.

Internal linking isn’t just an SEO tactic. It’s how you guide readers through your content and build authority around core topics.

4. URL and Site Structure Control

The CMS should let you fully control your URLs: no auto-generated slugs, no forced subfolders, no weird query parameters.

You should be able to group content by type (like /blog/, /guides/, /resources/) and update URLs when needed without breaking the site.

This also ties into scaling. As your content grows, a logical structure becomes critical for both users and search engines.

5. Redirect Management

Any CMS you choose should have a simple way to manage 301 redirects. Whether you’re updating old posts or migrating from another platform, redirects preserve traffic and rankings. If this requires custom dev work or paid add-ons, it’s a red flag.

6. Control Over Indexing and SEO Basics

You should be able to noindex thin pages, add canonical tags, and edit metadata — either natively or with a plugin. You don’t need advanced SEO settings built in, but the CMS shouldn’t block you from doing the basics.

Bonus if the platform helps you avoid creating junk pages like empty tag archives or filter URLs.

7. Built-In Performance Hygiene

While performance is often a hosting issue, the CMS shouldn’t sabotage you. Some platforms are fast by default (like Webflow), while others need help.

Make sure you’re not stuck with bloated themes, render-blocking scripts, or layout shift nightmares. Page speed and Core Web Vitals matter for content visibility.

WordPress vs. Everything Else: What I Recommend and Why

If you're doing serious content marketing, WordPress is still the best all-around CMS.

I've tested just about everything, and nothing matches its balance of flexibility, scalability, and publishing speed.

WordPress handles content the way marketers actually need.

• ‍‍The Gutenberg editor lets you build modular content without relying on a designer or developer.
• Internal linking is fast.
• You can use custom blocks, reusable templates, and every SEO plugin you could ever need.

If you're publishing at scale or building a site around editorial content, WordPress just works. That said, here’s how I view the other major platforms.

Webflow: Great for Design, Weak for Content Ops

Webflow outputs clean code and makes it easy to design beautiful, fast-loading sites. If you're building a brand site or portfolio, it’s solid. But for content marketing? It lacks a lot.

Webflow doesn’t support advanced internal linking features. It also falls short with dynamic content blocks, tables, or anything that requires structured reuse. You’ll spend more time hacking your way around limitations than actually publishing.

Shopify: Fine for Ecomm, But Limited for Content

Shopify is great for product management and checkout UX. But if you're trying to build a content hub or scale a blog, it starts to feel rigid. You can blog on Shopify, but it’s clunky. Customizing the blog structure or optimizing it for SEO usually requires a developer.

Wix and Squarespace: Decent for Beginners, Not Built to Scale

Wix and Squarespace have improved a lot. They support basic SEO now and are easy to use. But they’re still better suited for small brochure sites than content-driven marketing. If you're planning to build a library of content, these tools will slow you down fast.

HubSpot CMS: Better Than People Think

If you're already using HubSpot for CRM and email, their CMS might make sense. It’s more SEO-friendly than it used to be.

You can manage redirects, edit metadata, and use their content strategy tools. But you give up some control compared to WordPress. Adding custom features or structured data can get tricky.

It also has some odd buggy quirks that make doing SEO a bit of a nightmare. For example, the URLs that the system uses to track the content performance produces thousands upon thousands of odd URLs that can sometimes get indexed.

Headless CMS Options: High Power, High Maintenance

Platforms like Contentful, Sanity, or Headless WordPress give you total control over content delivery. But you need developers to make them work.

They're great if you're running multiple front-ends like a site, mobile app, and internal tool. But for pure content marketing, they’re often overkill.

Unless you have a dev team on standby, stick with something that works out of the box.

How to Evaluate CMS Platforms (Even If You're Not Technical)

You don’t need to be a developer to make a smart CMS decision. You just need to know what to look for. Here’s a simple evaluation process to follow, especially if you’re comparing platforms for a content-heavy site.

Step 1: Define Your Publishing Needs

Before comparing features, get clear on what your team actually needs. Ask yourself:

• How often will we publish new content?
• Will multiple people be creating or editing posts?
• Are we building a blog, resource center, glossary, or something else?
• Do we need custom templates, landing pages, or gated content?

Your CMS should support all of that without workarounds.

Step 2: Test the Editor and Workflow

Create a demo post. Try adding headings, links, images, and a call-to-action. Is it smooth, or frustrating?

Things to check:

• Can you format content easily without breaking design?
• Can writers preview posts before publishing?
• Is there version control or a staging environment?
• Does the CMS support scheduling or drafts?

If the editor feels clunky now, it will feel worse after 50 posts.

Step 3: Review SEO and URL Controls

Your CMS should let you:

• Edit page titles and meta descriptions
• Customize URL slugs
• Set canonical tags and noindex where needed
• Manage redirects

If any of those are missing or locked behind a paywall, that’s a red flag.

Step 4: Consider Internal Linking and Structure

Can you build a solid internal linking system? Look for features like:

• Easy access to related content while editing
• Related posts or “read next” sections
• Manual control over navigation and taxonomy

Good internal linking improves user experience and helps search engines understand your content hierarchy.

Step 5: Test Performance and Mobile Output

Use a tool like PageSpeed Insights on a sample page. Look for:

• Fast load times on mobile
• Clean, minimal code
• No weird layout shifts or excessive JavaScript

Your CMS should produce lightweight pages that pass Core Web Vitals without needing a developer to optimize every template.

Step 6: Evaluate Flexibility and Growth Potential

What happens when you need something more advanced? Make sure the CMS:

• Supports custom content types or templates
• Offers extensions, plugins, or API access
• Can grow with your content strategy over time

A CMS that feels “just right” today might become a bottleneck in six months if it lacks room to expand.

This process gives you a practical way to compare CMS platforms without falling for marketing fluff. If two platforms seem close, go with the one that makes publishing easier and SEO cleaner. That’s what pays off in the long run.

How to Use Ahrefs to Vet a CMS’s SEO Performance

Before you commit to a CMS, you should know how well it handles real-world SEO. Ahrefs gives you the data to find out.

Whether you're comparing platforms or auditing your current site, here’s how to use Ahrefs to make smarter CMS decisions.

1. Crawl the Site With Site Audit

Run an Ahrefs Site Audit on a site built with the CMS you're considering. This could be your own site, a competitor, or a live demo if one exists.

When you actually click into one of the individual site audits, you will see a bunch of data that will likely scare you. Don't be alarmed, this is usually normal.

Pay attention to:

• Broken internal links
• Duplicate titles or meta descriptions
• Missing H1s or alt text
• Crawl issues or inaccessible pages
• Core Web Vitals warnings

These problems often reflect how the CMS handles structure and performance.

2. Analyze URL Structure and Depth

Look at how URLs are formatted. Are they clean and readable, or full of query strings and folders you can’t control?

Also check crawl depth. If important content is buried four or five clicks deep, the CMS might not support good internal linking or navigation.

3. Review Sitemap and Indexing Behavior

See if the CMS generates a proper XML sitemap and whether it includes pages that should not be indexed. Ahrefs will flag issues like:

• Noindex pages listed in the sitemap
• 3XX or 4XX pages included
• Sitemap not updating with new content

Poor sitemap hygiene is often a CMS-level problem.

4. Check for Duplicate or Thin Pages

Some CMS platforms automatically create duplicate content, like archive pages, tag pages, or printer-friendly versions. Ahrefs can flag this.

If you see lots of pages with duplicate titles or thin content, the CMS may require manual cleanup to avoid bloating your index.

5. Spot Performance Bottlenecks

Ahrefs can pull Core Web Vitals data from Google Search Console. Use this to see how fast the CMS delivers content across your site.

If most URLs are failing for metrics like Largest Contentful Paint or Cumulative Layout Shift, your CMS might be part of the problem.

Ahrefs won’t tell you which CMS to pick, but it will show you how a CMS performs in the real world. Use it to confirm whether a platform is helping or hurting your SEO before you invest time and content into it.

Pro tip: If you don't know how to or want to do this, we offer site audits as part of our technical SEO services.

Real-World CMS Wins and Cautionary Tales

It’s one thing to compare features. It’s another to see what actually happens when companies switch platforms. These real-world examples show how much your CMS choice can impact SEO, performance, and growth.

Backlinko: WordPress to Headless for Speed and Scale

Backlinko started on WordPress but ran into performance issues as their content library grew. They switched to a headless setup using WordPress for content management and Next.js for the front end.

The result? The site loaded three times faster and passed Core Web Vitals across the board. That speed boost contributed to stronger rankings and better UX.

But it only worked because they had the development resources to build and maintain a custom stack.

Takeaway: Headless can be powerful, but it’s not plug-and-play. If you don’t have dev support, it will slow you down.

Simms Fishing: Magento to Shopify With a 126 Percent Traffic Increase

This ecommerce brand moved from Magento to Shopify and used the migration as a chance to clean up their SEO. They improved category pages, added more content, and simplified the site structure.

A year after switching, they had more than doubled their organic traffic.

Takeaway: Sometimes a simpler CMS enables better SEO execution. Shopify worked because it gave their team the tools to move faster and optimize smarter.

Wix: From Laughingstock to Legit Option

Wix used to be the butt of every SEO joke. Poor URL structures, missing alt text, and locked-down settings made it a tough sell. But they’ve improved dramatically. You can now customize metadata, edit URLs, and manage SEO settings without needing to touch code.

There are examples of Wix sites ranking number one for competitive local terms. Not because Wix is magic, but because the marketers using it knew what they were doing.

Takeaway: You can succeed with almost any CMS if you apply SEO best practices consistently. That said, Wix still wouldn’t be my first choice for content-heavy sites.

HubSpot CMS: Great Workflow, Limited Control

One SaaS company moved their blog and landing pages from WordPress to HubSpot CMS. They loved the integrated workflow and built-in SEO prompts. But they ran into issues when trying to implement advanced schema and had limited control over HTML output.

They still saw solid traffic growth, but some technical SEO improvements had to wait for feature updates or workarounds.

Takeaway: HubSpot is strong for marketing teams that want an all-in-one system. But if you need deep customization, you’ll hit some walls.

Every CMS comes with trade-offs. What these examples show is that the best platform is the one that aligns with your skills, your workflow, and your content goals.

Final Checklist and Pitfalls to Avoid

By now, you know what to look for. But when it comes time to actually choose and implement a CMS, most mistakes happen in the details. Use this checklist to stay focused, and avoid the common traps that can quietly sabotage your SEO.

Can your team publish quickly without dev help?‍

Test the editor and workflow. Slow content creation is a long-term traffic killer.

‍Does the CMS support clean URLs and custom slugs?‍

Avoid platforms that force you into weird folder structures or parameters.

‍Can you manage redirects, noindex tags, and canonicals?‍

These are non-negotiable for preserving SEO when pages change.

Are internal links easy to add and manage?‍

You need to guide users and search engines through your site. Make sure the CMS helps, not hinders.

Will the platform handle hundreds or thousands of posts without breaking down?‍

If you plan to scale, performance and organization matter just as much as design.

Do you have access to plugins, templates, or tools to support growth?‍

Flexibility now saves headaches later.

Is the mobile output clean and fast?‍

Run a test with PageSpeed Insights. Mobile performance is no longer optional.

Pitfalls to Avoid While Picking a CMS

1. Picking for Design Over Function

It’s easy to get sold on visuals, especially when a CMS shows off flashy templates or animations. But if that platform makes it hard to manage content, publish at scale, or optimize for search, it’s the wrong tool. Choose a CMS that supports growth, not just aesthetics.

2. Trusting the “SEO Friendly” Label Blindly

Just because a CMS claims to be SEO friendly doesn’t mean it actually is. Some offer only the basics, while others hide key features behind paywalls or require developer workarounds. Always test how easily you can edit metadata, manage indexing, and structure content before going live.

3. Forgetting About Redirects During a Migration

Migrations are where traffic gets lost. If you don’t set up 301 redirects from your old URLs to new ones, you’ll break existing links and lose rankings overnight. Before launching on a new CMS, plan and implement redirects carefully. Use tools like Ahrefs to check for leftover 404s.

4. Overloading With Plugins

Plugins are powerful, but too many can slow your site, create conflicts, or introduce security issues. This is especially true on WordPress. Stick to well-supported tools that serve a clear purpose. Audit your plugin stack regularly and remove anything that adds bloat without real value to your workflow.

5. Ignoring Indexing Bloat

Some CMS platforms create low-value pages by default, like empty tag archives, date-based indexes, or filtered category views. These pages clutter your sitemap and can drag down site quality in Google's eyes. Review what your CMS publishes automatically, and use noindex tags to keep junk out of the index.

6. Failing to Train the Team

Even the best CMS can fall flat if your team doesn’t know how to use it. Writers, editors, and marketers need to understand workflows, formatting standards, and SEO basics. Invest time in onboarding and documentation. A trained team means better content, fewer errors, and a smoother publishing process.

Conclusion: Pick the CMS You Can Actually Use Well

Your CMS is not just a technical choice. It’s the engine behind everything you publish.

And if that engine breaks down every time you try to scale, you’re going to lose momentum fast.

The best CMS is the one that helps you publish consistently, organize content intelligently, and optimize without jumping through hoops.

For most content-driven teams, that means WordPress. It has the right mix of flexibility, control, and proven success.

But no platform can do the work for you. You still need to plan, execute, and refine your content strategy over time. A great CMS makes that easier. A bad one slows you down.

Choose the system that matches your needs today but won’t limit you tomorrow. Then focus on what really drives results: creating content that people want to read, link to, and share.