The uncomfortable truth about site builders

A real look at the trade-offs of using tools like Avada, Elementor and Divi

Site builders like Avada, Elementor and Divi have changed how people build websites. With sleek interfaces, visual editing, and a rich collection of pre-built components, they’ve made web design more accessible to everyone: no coding required.

But for organisations that need to meet high standards for accessibility, performance, visibility, and long-term success, the question isn’t just can you build a site with a site builder? It’s can you build one that everyone can use, that loads quickly, ranks well on Google, and grows with your organisation?

Let’s take a clear-eyed look at the trade-offs.

Why site builders are popular (and why that’s totally fair)

We get it. Site builders are easy. They make designing a website feel like putting together a PowerPoint slide. You pick a block, drop it in, adjust the colours, click publish. Boom, your website is live.

They’re great for:

Getting something out quickly

Giving non-developers editing control

Launching campaign pages or MVPs

For small teams, this kind of speed and flexibility can feel like a game-changer. But once you start making changes and use the website, the cracks begin to show.

Here’s what starts to go wrong

1. The site slows down.
   Those beautiful animations, popups and widgets come with heavy code loaded whether you use them or not. According to the 2024 WebAIM Million study, the average webpage contains 1,257 elements, a 7.1% increase from 2023, with many site-builder pages having even higher element counts. Tests comparing page builders to custom code show site builder pages typically load 40-50% slower on mobile devices, significantly impacting user experience.
2. Your audience can’t use it properly.
   Interactive features often don’t work with screen readers, voice commands or keyboard navigation. For anyone who’s blind, uses a mobility aid, or has cognitive difficulties your website becomes difficult or impossible to use.
3. The editing freedom becomes risky.
   With extensive visual control, editors can inadvertently create accessibility issues. The 2024 WebAIM Million report found that pages with advanced editing features often have significantly more accessibility errors, with 96% of the analyzed websites having WCAG compliance failures. Common issues include inconsistent heading structures (found on 39% of pages) and images missing alternative text (18.5% of all images).
4. Your Google rankings start to suffer.
   Messy code and slow load times are big red flags to search engines. Over time, your content becomes harder to find. Here’s why clean code, and performance matter.

And here’s the kicker: once you notice these issues, fixing them is often more complicated than building the site properly in the first place.

Accessibility matters (a lot!)

Accessibility means building websites that work for everyone, regardless of their abilities, devices, or internet speed.

It’s not just about checking if your font is big enough or adding alt text to images.

It’s about:

• Making sure buttons act like buttons
• Ensuring forms are labelled properly
• Designing pages that can be navigated with a keyboard
• Structuring content so screen readers can make sense of it

If that sounds technical, it is. But it’s also essential. Because if someone can’t use your site, they can’t access your services, apply for funding, find resources or engage with your message.

For sectors like health, education and government, this isn’t just best practice. It’s often a legal requirement.

Let’s talk about speed

Attention spans are short. If your site takes longer than a few seconds to load, people leave.

Site builders often load:

• A lot of scripts and assets by default, even if you’re not using them!
• Images without proper optimisation
• Fonts and icons from external sources, adding extra load to your server

All of this adds up to a slower, clunkier experience. Not only does it frustrate users, it affects how search engines view your site. Slow sites drop down the results list. Your amazing content? It’s buried.

Clean code = clear message

When we build websites, we aim for clean, semantic code. You can say we are performance and best practice obsessed.

That means:

Headings are used properly (no skipping from H1 to H4)

Lists are actual lists

Buttons do what buttons are supposed to do

Content follows a predictable, logical order

This isn’t just a developer’s obsession. Clean, semantic code creates measurable improvements in three key areas:

Accessibility

According to WebAIM’s research, proper heading hierarchy and ARIA attributes significantly improve screen reader navigation. Home pages with ARIA present but improperly implemented had 70% more detectable errors.

SEO Performance

Clean code without unnecessary div structures and excessive JavaScript improves Core Web Vitals metrics, which Google confirms are ranking factors.

Load Time

Recent performance tests comparing site builders showed custom-coded solutions reduced average load time by over 50% compared to popular site builders.

Our secret weapon: smart blocks, built for scale

When evaluating WordPress editors, Gutenberg offers significant performance advantages over traditional site builders. A 2020 performance comparison by GutenbergHub showed that Gutenberg-built pages were substantially smaller in size (24.9KB vs. 400-700KB) and required fewer HTTP requests (8 vs. 15-36) compared to popular site builders like Elementor and Divi, resulting in faster load times.

Why? Because it gives our clients the best of both worlds:

• Flexibility to build and manage pages
• Guardrails to keep everything accessible, fast and on-brand

No messy design choices. No broken layouts. No guessing.

Our editors get exactly what they need: intuitive blocks for common content types, styled correctly, accessible by default, and scalable across the site.

We’ve built this way for:

• Australia’s leading health research institutes
• Government departments with strict accessibility requirements
• Large not-for-profits who need to speak to everyone
• National data and research hubs managing thousands of resources

And end with:

“I can’t believe how easy this is to manage now.”

What about SEO?

A lot of people think SEO is about keywords. But when it comes to site builders, three critical factors matter more:

Page Speed: The #1 SEO killer

Site builders load unnecessary code that slows down your site dramatically. WP Rocket’s 2025 testing shows Elementor and Divi pages load in 2.7-2.9 seconds, while custom solutions load in under 1.6 seconds.

This matters because Google’s Core Web Vitals are direct ranking factors. According to the same study, Elementor scored 75/100 on mobile performance while Divi scored just 64/100. Both popular builders fail Google’s recommended 2.5-second threshold for Largest Contentful Paint.

Code Bloat: What Google actually sees

Behind every beautiful site builder page is excessive HTML that confuses search engines. The WebAIM Million Report found the average webpage contains 1,257 elements (a 7.1% increase from 2023), with site builder pages typically containing even more.

Additional testing by GutenbergHub found that Elementor pages had nearly twice as many HTTP requests as Gutenberg pages, with significantly larger page sizes. This excessive code dilutes your content’s relevance signals.

Mobile Performance: Where rankings are decided

With Google’s mobile-first indexing, site builders face a significant disadvantage. Their JavaScript-heavy approach creates poor mobile experiences with layout shifts, slow load times, and resource-intensive pages.

Backlinko’s research confirms that pages failing Core Web Vitals metrics are significantly less likely to achieve top rankings, while a Search Engine Journal analysis emphasizes how site builders’ complex HTML markup creates particular challenges for mobile optimization.

Put simply: an accessible, well-structured site is an SEO-friendly site.

When you build with clarity, inclusivity, and performance in mind, you’re not just ticking boxes. You’re giving your site the best chance of being found and used.Click here to learn more about boosting your site’s SEO.

Is a Site Builder Right for Your Project?

Consider a site builder when:

• You need a simple website launched within days
• You have no technical team and limited budget
• The site serves a temporary purpose
• Accessibility compliance isn’t a legal requirement
• You’re building a prototype to test concepts

Invest in a custom approach when:

• You need to meet WCAG accessibility standards
• Site performance is critical to your business goals
• You’re building a platform that will scale over years
• Your content requires complex structured data
• SEO performance is essential to your strategy

What we recommend

If you’re using a site builder now, we’re not here to shame you.

But if you’re:

• Seeing poor performance
• Struggling with accessibility audits
• Frustrated by content inconsistencies

…it might be time for an audit.

We offer in-depth reviews that highlight what’s working, what’s not, and where things can be improved, all with clear, human language and practical steps.

And when it’s time to rebuild?

We’ll do it with:

• Accessibility built in from day one
• Speed and structure that Google loves
• A CMS experience your editors will actually enjoy

The Data Behind Our Recommendations

WebAIM’s 2025 Million Report: Found that 96% of home pages have at least one WCAG accessibility error, with complex pages containing significantly more issues. Accessibility experts note that pages with many dynamic elements are particularly problematic.

Performance Testing: In comparative testing by GutenbergHub and WP Rocket (2024-2025), site builder pages consistently showed larger page sizes, more HTTP requests, and slower load times than custom-built solutions:

A great website should work for everyone, including your team, your audience and your future.

READY FOR A WEBSITE THAT ACTUALLY WORKS?

Let’s build something better

If your website is central to your organisation’s mission, it needs to be fast, accessible and built to last. We’ve delivered high-performing, inclusive sites for some of Australia’s most trusted organisations and we’d love to help you do the same.

Book now