WordPress and search engine optimization are a power couple. They always go together.
WordPress is the most popular content management system and used by millions across the world. One of the key factors that make WordPress so popular is the SEO friendliness of the CMS.
If you want to optimize an online marketing project for search engine results, WordPress is the perfect platform to start your site.
WordPress is a dynamic platform, fresh new content helps in improving the overall SEO.
All you have to focus is to publish content targeting the right keywords, targeting the right issues, and answering the right questions.
This is a simple quick guide that makes the messy concept of search engine optimization approachable to beginners.
What Do You Need to Know About WordPress SEO?
The concept of keywords changed over time. If you wanted a WordPress site to rank highly ten years ago, you’d use way more keywords than today’s recommended density.
Google got more sophisticated and started measuring the quality of content instead of keywords.
They are still important, since they indicate what the content is about. However, you need to use fewer of them, and they have to fit in the context naturally. Rewriting, paraphrasing and copying doesn’t work.
Your SEO strategy is not a fixed category. It has to be flexible. Google introduces algorithm updates all the time.
It doesn’t tell you what the exact changes are, so you’ll have to figure things out. You’ll notice that after such a change, your old methods aren’t as successful as they used to be.
You’ll need to tweak things up to find better solutions for improved rankings.
“Content is king” may be a cliché, but it’s the one steady rule that never changes in creating content, you must emphasize on offering value through your content.
It has to be relevant to your target audience, reliable in terms of the information it provides, and unique when compared to what the competitors offer.
If you want the golden rule for successful SEO that doesn’t fade away with Google’s algorithm updates, that’s the one.
The Basics of WordPress SEO
If you’re new to the concept of WordPress SEO, you need to cover the basics first.
Even if you didn’t use extra tools for optimizing the content you publish on your WordPress site, there are a few things you have to get on.
The first thing you want to do is choose a host that offers healthy performance.
BlueHost is a great fit for anyone who wants to start a blog. If you already started the site and you chose a web host, it’s good to check the health from time to time.
How is your site performing in terms of speed? Is your hosting plan enough to suit your needs or do you need to upgrade?
Health Check & Troubleshooting is a great plugin to install. It will identify common issues and errors, and it will recommend quick solutions.
Why is this important for search engine optimization? We need to understand that keywords are not the only thing that Google cares about. It’s not even the content as a singled out factor.
It’s the overall package! Even the most impressive content would fail to attract attention when presented on an outdated, slow, and messy website. The site has to be healthy and the content shouldn’t fall short of impressive.
Now let’s see: what can you do to improve the SEO of your WordPress site? We’ll go to the precise steps.
How to Improve WordPress SEO
1. Add HTML & XML Sitemaps
An HTML sitemap serves for a user’s convenience. When someone lands on your website, this map will allow them to navigate through it in the most convenient way possible.
Why is this important for the search engine? When you translate an HTML sitemap into an XML sitemap, you do it for Google.
This is the map the search engine uses to crawl your website and see what’s on it.
2. Create Great Content for Users
Remember that golden standard that never fades out as a rule for WordPress SEO?
It’s the content.
You should create it not for the search engine, but for your users. That’s the main thing that changed since the beginnings of SEO.
At the start, we were only trying to lure in Google to our pages. The content was trash from a user’s point of view.
Google learned how to recognize the trash and doesn’t like it anymore. It likes high-quality content that gives specific solutions to particular issues.
Here are a few tips that make your content work:
2.1. Find out what problems your target audience has. Sites like Reddit and Quora can be really helpful. Just check the questions people ask in your category of interest.
2.2. Optimize your posts to answer those questions. Write outstanding content that gets in-depth. It’s better to provide detailed solutions in a single post than to break it up in several short ones.
If you conduct a Google search, you’ll see it prefers in-depth guides. For example, Google “How to start a blog” and check the length of the posts on the first page of results. They are detailed!
2.3. Make it SEO-friendly. This doesn’t mean you should stuff keywords whenever possible. Choose a couple of keywords for each post and fit them in context.
They should be grammatically correct. The reader shouldn’t even notice they are there for the search engine.
3. Speed Up the Site
If a visitor can’t navigate through your site with ease, they will bounce off. That’s not a good sign for Google.
Make sure to use that plugin for measuring, and improve the site’s speed in every way possible.
You may need to reduce the number of plugins on your WordPress site or change the way they load JavaScript and CSS. You may need to optimize the image size or even change the hosting provider.
Use a fast loading WordPress theme that will give you the extra advantage in terms of speed.
4. Make Your Site Secure
WordPress sports some basic security features, but you need to do something more.
4.1. Start by changing the default username. Admin is too obvious for someone with an intention to hack your site and steal user information from it.
4.2. Perform backups all the time. If anything goes wrong and you lose content, a backup will save its life.
4.3. You can subscribe to a dedicated WP security service. If you want your site to be as secure as possible but you don’t have time to bother with different issues, that’s the best solution.
5. Setup Internal Linking
As you keep building up the content at your website, you should make connections between the posts.
Of course; you’ll only link to an internal post when it makes sense in context. With this strategy, you’ll keep the visitor at the site a bit longer. You’ll encourage them to explore more content.
That’s a good sign for the search engine.
6. Mind the SEO Ranking Factors
No one can give you a list of precise SEO ranking factors. They change over time, and WordPress developers have to figure them out.
Google won’t share the details of its ranking system. Still, we know a few main things to focus on:
If you’re confused by the complexity of ranking factors, using SEO audit software is a good idea.
The program will suggest improvements on your landing pages, fixes on broken links and redirects, image optimization, and more.
7. Install a WordPress-Friendly Theme
The theme you choose for your site makes a big difference. You should opt for one with well-organized code, quick loading times, and mobile-friendly design.
You can go for a well-known theme like the Divi Theme which is created with the best standard to make it SEO friendly and highly secure.
Get 20% extra discount on Divi Theme using our link.
Final Thoughts
We just went through the basics of search engine optimization for a WordPress site.
It’s a topic that unlocks additional questions and issues. For a start, you’re ready to start making improvements.
You’ll be learning more along the way.
