Last Updated on March 3, 2024
If you want your WordPress site to get noticed then you have to do everything possible to get it ranked higher search engines. Today we’re going to go over some basic search engine optimization tips for WordPress. It’s not enough to produce and post informative and engaging content or making your site easier to navigate, read, and share via social networks. Driving more traffic to your site can be a challenge but with WordPress and a few of the following tips you can optimize your site and boost your search engine rankings.
[heading color=”black”]SEO Tips for Wordpress[/heading]
Optimizing titles
WordPress, by default, puts the blog title before the title of the entry or post. This may not be favorable if you want to place higher in search engine rankings. An effective strategy to optimize your WordPress site is to put your blog post title first before anything else.
There are advantages to doing so. First, most search engines like blogs where titles of posts come first. Such an order enables them to put importance to keywords that are usually present in titles. Second, an optimized and descriptive title is a significant aspect of page search engine optimization. Titles enable search engines and readers to determine the content of the page before they visit the site.
Using meta descriptions
WordPress automatically generates meta descriptions for every blog using the system. However, you may want to make sure that your site will have effective keyword index for better SEO. To ensure higher search engine ranking, manually type a good description per post. Combine a keyword-rich title and matching description and see how the strategy boosts search traffic.
It is also a good idea to install and use a WordPress plugin specifically designed to enhance search engine optimization. One popular plug-in that comes highly recommended is “All In One SEO”. It is designed to create and post a matching description for each title and post. It also helps optimize your meta descriptions.
Describing post images
Use ‘alt’ and ‘title’ attributes when describing images or posting captions in your blog entries. Adding short descriptions of images using ideal keywords can bolster search engine traffic and ranking. It is a common mistake of many WordPress blog owners to neglect the use of such attributes when posting images.
When saving images, provide a simple and short name with dash in between every keyword. Thus, if you have a photo of a Ford Focus, the image file should be named as: Ford-focus.jpg. Underscore can be used to replace the dash (Ford_focus.jpg).
Use Permalinks
You need to be sure that you are using permalinks on your WordPress site. By default your WordPress software contains web URL’s which contain question marks and numbers inside of them. These links are hard for the search engine web crawlers to attach themselves to. As a result your site will not be indexed as fast as it would normally be. WordPress also, however, does offer you the opportunity to create custom URL’s for both your permalinks and archives. You will be able to find this option under your Administration panel. All you will have to do is to choose the options panel then click on permalinks.
Optimize Titles
In the permalinks section of your WordPress marketing software you have the option of date and name based. This option will place the year, month, date, and post title in your URL. For the SEO web crawlers it is best to have the site of your site appear in the front of this URL. So instead of using the basic URL you should choose the custom URL and create a link that has your site name appearing first.
Pay attention to tags
Tags are a great addition to your site on a SEO standpoint. They will enable the search engines web crawlers’ crawl through your site more easily and also it will allow you to create specific pages for your tags and keywords.
Page titles
You will need to make sure you have good titles on all of your webpages. Just as you put the site name at the beginning of your URL you will need to do the same thing with your page title.
Post titles
The post titles that you choose should be clearly written. Do not stuff these titles with keywords that you are using to target your site or blog. Choose your keywords carefully when you are posting and get those words in your post title.
Ping services
Each time you post or edit either a posting or a page your Wordpress blog can notify a variety of different sites that you have updated your blog. It is very important that you use this step.
Google sitemaps
Google has a tool for you that are called Google Sitemaps. This tool will help you index your site and allows you to tell Google which pages are the most important.
Categories
Categories will help you organize your content. If you have your permalinks turned on, the category names will appear in your URL. This is why it is very important that you name your category names very carefully. Try and make sure that you use keywords to name your categories and do not be afraid to make loads of them. WordPress gives you the ability to use sub categories and sub-subcategories so make as many categories you can. This way you are able to down your focus on certain keyword phrases.
Creating a WordPress site that is SEO ready is fairly simple when you use the proper tools and follow a few simple rules. Using the steps we discussed in this issue can help you create a great SEO friendly site in no time.
Check out our previous articles:
- WordPress Secrets that Enterprise CMS Vendors Don’t Want you to Know
- Do You Have Enough Bandwidth on Your WordPress Host?
- Free WordPress Themes Released in Summer 2012
- How To Add Google Analytics to WordPress Multisite
- Increase Social Media Traffic – 7 Free WordPress Plugins
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