Wix and Squarespace are heavily marketed as easy ways to build a professional website. And they are easy. But for an Irish tradesperson who wants to rank on Google and generate local leads, they are the wrong tool for the job.
Here is why.
The Code Is Heavy and Slow
Google uses page speed as a ranking factor. Slow sites rank lower, full stop.
Wix and Squarespace generate code that is significantly heavier than a well-built custom site. They load in extra scripts, extra stylesheets, and extra functionality that you do not need. The result is a slower site.
When Google’s crawlers assess your site for ranking purposes, a slow loading speed is a black mark. And when real visitors land on a slow site on their phone and it takes four seconds to load, most of them leave.
Local SEO Tools Are Limited
Both platforms have built-in SEO tools and they look quite capable on the surface. You can edit your page titles, meta descriptions, and alt text. But the underlying structure of how the pages are built limits what you can actually achieve.
For local SEO specifically, the things that move the needle most, such as clean URL structures, proper heading hierarchies, fast load times, and good mobile performance, are harder to achieve on these platforms than on a properly built site.
The Free Plans Are Actively Harmful
On a free Wix or Squarespace plan, your website address is something like yourname.wix.com. Not yourname.ie. That subdomain tells every visitor and Google that you are on a free plan. It looks unprofessional and the domain authority you build belongs to Wix, not to you.
Even on a paid plan with your own domain, some of the SEO limitations remain.
You Do Not Own the Platform
When your website is on Wix or Squarespace, it lives on their servers and their platform. If they change their pricing, discontinue a feature, or go out of business, your website is affected.
With a properly built site on your own hosting, you own the asset completely. You can move it, modify it, or transfer it to a different developer without anyone’s permission.
What to Use Instead
For a trade website that needs to rank on Google, the best options are:
Astro or WordPress on proper hosting. These give you full control, fast performance, and the ability to build exactly the site structure that local SEO requires. This is what we use at ProBizMate.
Properly hosted static sites. Fast, secure, and fully SEO-friendly. Great for trade websites that do not need complex functionality.
The difference in results between a well-built site on proper hosting and a Wix site with the same content can be significant. It is not that Wix is completely useless. It is that for local SEO in a competitive trade market, you are starting with a handicap.
If you are currently on Wix or Squarespace and wondering why you are not ranking, this might be part of the reason.
At ProBizMate, every site we build is on fast, reliable hosting with a clean codebase built for performance and SEO from the ground up.
Written by Maebh Collins
ACA qualified, Dundalk-based. I build websites and write SEO content for trade businesses across Ireland and the UK. If you have questions, get in touch.