Could your blog use a boost in its search engine rankings? Are you unsure of how to make that happen? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered.
Keep reading to learn some great SEO WordPress tips!
What Is SEO?
Before we get into improving your SEO, it’s important to understand exactly what SEO is.
First of all, SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization.
Basically, by optimizing your blog so that it shows up in search engines like Google, you can bring more traffic to your site. Ideally, good SEO practices will cause your site to show up earlier in the list of search results, meaning more people will click on it.
10 SEO WordPress Tips
It’s never too late to start improving your SEO game. Whether your site’s been around for years or you’re just getting started, you will definitely benefit from these SEO WordPress tips.
Focus On Content And Keywords
Nobody is going to want to visit your site if your content isn’t unique and high quality. Make sure your blog posts contain relevant keywords and are easily readable.
While keywords are important, make sure you don’t overuse them. If your blog posts are stuffed with keywords, it will be obvious you’re writing for search engines rather than for actual people.
Use Links
A good mix of external and internal links will also help increase your website’s rankings.
External links are hyperlinks that direct your readers to other relevant websites.
Internal links, on the other hand, are links that direct readers to other pages on your site.
Just like with keywords, you don’t want to overdo it on links, especially internal ones.
Adjust Your Permalink
The permalink (the permanent URL for your post) matters a lot more than you might think. An understandable permalink — one that uses words rather than series of numbers and letters — can make a big difference in your search engine rankings.
Make sure your post’s permalink is short and readable. A few words that summarize the post’s content will be more effective than a bunch of random numbers.
Keep in mind, too, that Google only cares about the first four words in your permalink.
Highlight Keywords And Other Important Content In Your Post
While you shouldn’t go crazy and highlight everything — nothing seems important if everything is highlighted — emphasizing key words and concepts can help boost your site.
Bolding and h1-h6 headings can go a long way in making your content more easy to read. They make it easier for search engines to capture the overall idea of your post, which means it will be more likely to show up in search results.
Don’t Try To Trick Google
As stated above, keyword stuffing and filling your post with an excessive amount of links are two big no-nos. Search engines see these behaviors and assume that you are trying to trick them into giving your site a higher ranking.
Some other things you should avoid — known as black hat techniques — include article spinning, duplicate content, and invisible text.
Install A .XML Sitemap Plugin
One of the best and easiest SEO WordPress tips to try is installing a .xml sitemap plugin.
A sitemap is essentially a list that you provide to search engines like Google. The list is formatted in a special way — .xml format — so that search engines can index your website’s content faster and easier.
If you’re neglecting the tag and category options in WordPress, you’re missing out on a simple way to optimize your site.
When you use the tag and category options — also known as taxonomies — regularly, search engines gain a better understanding of the keywords that are most relevant to your site.
Install An SEO Plugin
An SEO plugin takes a lot of the guesswork out of the process. It also will let you know how well your posts are optimized and what you can do to improve.
There are a variety of SEO plugins to choose from, including paid options that help you with things like keyword selection.
No matter which plugin you choose, you should be sure to enable the rel=”canonical” tag. This will help with duplicate content issues because search engines will be able to determine the original source URLs of your blog posts.
Optimize Images
Your blog posts matter, yes, but so do the images you use in them.
Optimize your images by compressing and resizing them. When you reduce the size of your images, you decrease the page size overall and improve its loading performance.
Even the file name for your image makes a difference. For example, instead of just a using the random series of numbers that automatically appears as the file name, take a second to rename it. Include keywords relevant to the image and your post, and it will get a higher ranking.
You should also make sure you are adding image tags so that your images rank better in image searches. You can take things a step further as well by adding additional keywords through alt tags.
Search engines take into account a post’s popularity on social media. The more likes and retweets a post has, the better it will rank.
When you integrate social media sharing buttons into your site, you make it easier for your readers to share your posts and, therefore, optimize your blog.
As an added bonus, when you make it easy to share posts on social media, you will drive more traffic to your site. This, in turn, will also improve your search engine rankings.
Find Out Where Your Site Stands
As you start working on improving your SEO, it’s a good idea to figure out where you currently stand. Check out your search engine rankings today, and then you’ll have a better idea of what you specifically need to work on.
Contact Me To Learn More
Still feeling a bit lost when it comes to applying these SEO WordPress tips? Just need some general guidance?
No matter what your specific concern is, I can help. Contact me today to start improving your site’s rankings!
