Gutenberg and Elementor are two different editors used to develop WordPress sites. The biggest difference between the two editors is that Elementor is a third-party plugin you need to install on your WordPress site to use it, whilst Gutenberg is the latest default content editor in WordPress. This blog compares the two editors to determine which editors work best for our clients and their businesses.

Which is faster? Gutenberg or Elementor

To gain a high search engine ranking and improve your overall SEO,  your website must have fast-loading pages. Search engines determine your website running speeds when offering your website to potential customers in search results, especially for users searching on mobile devices. Also, page speed impacts visitor-to-buyer conversion and affects where you rank in organic searches. Your company website should consider the sizing of images, ideal media formats, and the number of scripts implemented for page speed as well as the impact HTML markup has on the page. Every byte of code added to your company website increases the time it takes to load your website. 

Page builders like Elementor could result in too many elements in your website’s design. Gutenberg Editor on the other hand can streamline HTML code in the backend of your website.

Which editor will allow customers to find your business on Google?

Schema markup is a label made up of code integrated into your website to help search engines give users the information they need. It creates rich snippets that rank highly on search engines and has a higher click-through rate in comparison to regular search results. Schema markup also allows search engines like Google to crawl your website and potential customers with relevant information before they visit your website.

This not only helps in boosting your company website’s SEO but will also make your business stand out from competitors, therefore, driving more customer traffic toward your website. The Gutenberg editor is a great way to implement schema markup. However, the same can’t be said for the Elementor page builder. In comparison to Gutenberg, It is challenging to implement schema markup and structured data in Elementor. 

Which editor is easiest for clients to use?

Once we built custom templates in Gutenberg, our clients were able to easily edit their web pages using Gutenberg’s intuitive block layout. Even our clients with little digital experience were able to take control of their website using Gutenberg. In previous experience, we found that Elementor was confusing for our clients and didn’t let them take 100% control of their websites’ content.

Accessing your Code

Your website should contain valid HTML code with minimal errors to help search engines better understand your business website content. This allows your website to rank better for relevant search queries because it means your website functions and displays properly. To maintain and fix your SEO issues, you will need access to the HTML code on the backend of your website. Elementor only allows for front-end development, meaning you cannot make changes to the existing code on a page. Gutenberg allows you to make changes to your HTML code to improve your onsite SEO. This means that Gutenberg lets you improve your website’s functionality over time by tweaking code.

Gutenberg in action!

MMD has recently developed an educational website using the Gutenberg editor. By using Google’s PageSpeed Insights Test, we can see how the Gutenberg editor has aided performance which will then impact long-term SEO. Our Client, Oriel Square, now has fantastic speeds of 82 and 95 for mobile and browser speed respectively, which is great for customers who usually become disinterested if they are left waiting for web pages to load. Gutenberg websites have had a performance boost of 45-50% on Mobile and 10-20% on Desktop. Google favours websites with good performance and high speeds, which means Gutenberg can help your website rank higher in research results.

The winner is… Gutenberg!

When first released in 2018, Gutenberg didn’t meet the needs of either our development team or our clients. After many updates from the WordPress team, we can now confirm that it was worth the wait. Whilst it is still difficult to develop, Gutenberg has proved itself to be an accessible and easy editor for our clients to use. Elementor sites just don’t compare when it comes to SEO and ease of use.