Everyone is concerned with Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Why? Because SEO is the process that improves the volume of traffic you receive from search engines such as Google, Bing, Ask, and many others.
So I’ve put together a list of simple things that WordPress users should do that will give you better SEO results.
- Don’t Block Search Engines – By default WordPress blocks search engines. If you are just starting to use WordPress, make sure you change this default setting. From your admin panel, go to Options > Privacy and make sure it’s set to “I would like my blog to be visible to everyone.”
- Use Images – Having images will maintain the visitors attention, but it also helps with SEO. There is a increased opportunity to get traffic from people searching via Google images. You can use keyword-rich “alt” attributes, “title” attributes and file names. I have several clients that receive as much as 30% of their traffic from image searches.
- Install Google XML Site Map Generator Plugin – XML site maps are SEO friendly and help the search engines spider your site. All of the major search engines support site maps. Installing this plugin will simplify creating a site map for your WordPress site.
- Use Slugs - The “post slug” is the text that goes in the URL when you have permalinks enabled. By default the slug is a version of the post title, but if the title is too long you can change the slug. You can do that by simply clicking the edit button under the post title. I recommend changing it to 3-4 keywords. example ( seo-tips-wordpress)
- Install SEO Plugins – There are two plugins that I currently recommend to improve your SEO, Headspace and All in One SEO. Both of these plugins will work great. Configuring these two will take some time and can be complex, but it’s worth it. Using these 2 plugins will allow you to override page tags, meta tags, keywords, and much more.
- Permalink Structure – Changing your permalink structure is crucial to improving your SEO. By default WordPress will give you a structure like this – http://www.idwpublishing.info/?p=123. You will have better results by changing it. I recommend using the “day and name” setting, http://www.idwpublishing.info/2009/07/30/sample-post/. Search engines give more value to a page that contains your keywords in the post title.
- Permalink Redirect – To make sure that your permalinks work correctly, you will need to install this plugin. It update all of your permalinks after you make SEO changes.
- Use Tags - Once you start using them, each tag will gets its own web page, you’ll generate a lot of your own themed, keyword-oriented internal back link pages.
- Schedule Content – Search engines love new content. Search engines are constantly looking for new content to spider. Personally, I write my content a couple times a week. That doesn’t mean that I publish all of my content on one day, I schedule it over a 3-5 day period. That allows the search engines and my readers to continue to visit my site on a regular basis.
I have a much longer list of other complex tricks to improve your SEO. I will probably revisit this topic in the near future, as my schedule allows.