SEO For WordPress

SEO is key for any website. Grabbing top rankings in Google is essential for seeing profits and bringing traffic to your website. SEO for WordPress websites and blogs is often much easier than trying to optimize a website of other stature. WordPress has a lot of things going for it. Having the ability to upload content quickly and efficiently is huge in the game of SEO. But how do you optimize the most efficiently for WordPress and other blog websites?

SEO For WordPress And Blogs

WordPress SEO is not much different than regular SEO. You need to remember that WordPress has a few quirks that are not present on most websites. Every time you add a tag, WordPress creates a new page with duplicate content. The same applies to categories. Make sure you have a theme that does not display the entire article on these newly created pages. Alternatively, get familiar with rel=canocial so Google knows which page contains the original content.

Standard WordPress SEO Tips to Keep in Mind:

  • Pick Good Keywords – Think of what users search for
  • Keep Your Content “Fresh” – Update at least once per week
  • Title Tag / H1 Tag Optimization – An SEO Plugin can help
  • Install Google Webmaster Tools – Watch for crawl errors
  • Utilize Google Analytics – Learn from your current traffic

Keyword Research

First you must know the keywords that are easiest to rank for and will bring in the most profits. You want to find keywords that people actually search for in order to drive traffic to your website. The Google Adwords keyword research tool is the easiest way to find what keywords get searched for the most. It is fast efficient and the data is entirely accurate because, well Google runs it themselves. Use exact match search for Google Adwords in order to get an accurate reading for the searches per month.

Tools for Keyword Research

  • Google Adwords Tool
  • SEMRush
  • SEOMoz
  • UbberSuggest

Remember more popular keywords are harder to rank for and will require more time, money, and resources. Using tools such as MajesticSEO can help you find the keywords that get high traffic and low competition from the search engines. Finding the correct keywords to rank your WordPress website is crucial in getting top rankings.

Keeping Fresh Content

Since Google rolled out the “Freshness” Algorithm updates, updating frequently is vital for top rankings.

Making sure you update and post fresh content to your WordPress or blog daily is great for the search engines. Google loves a page that updates their website consistently. Be careful not to copy any content though as your website will receive a penalty in the rankings for plagiarizing others.

Title Tag and H1 Tag Optimization

You must optimize your website and all of the subpages in order to appeal to Googles web crawlers. They must be able to read the pages quickly, efficiently, and most importantly, effectively. You should make sure to use the keywords you want to rank for in your title and h1 tags. Googles crawlers look specifically at these tags to see what the page is about. Not only are title and h1 tags important but subheadings within the content are important as well. Keeping your h2 tags informative as well is crucial. H2 tags should include your keyword or keyword related terms to keep your website on topic. Google will know exactly what the page is about just by looking at your heading tags. Further make sure your content is organized neatly. Using subheadings to break up your content is important not just for Googles crawlers but for readability from the users.

Installing Google Webmaster Tools and Analytics

Install the Google webmasters tools to your website. It will give you the advantage of checking crawl errors directly from Google. Further you can check the traffic that your website receives by Google Analytics and also view how your website is ranking. Keeping track of the data that your website can collect is crucial in seeing how you need to improve your SEO strategies.

Further installing plugins can be very helpful in optimizing each page for the search engines. Yoast is a great WordPress plugin that will allow you to optimize every post and new page that you create manipulating meta tags and such. It will scan your content and tell you keyword density, readability, and various other factors that make up a good page.

Using SEO on your WordPress websites and blogs is crucial in driving traffic to your website, and depending if you are selling merchandise or not, is a great way to watch sales go through the roof.