There are a lot of different plugins and techniques discussed regarding SEO for WordPress. Sometimes it can be confusing to know which approach is best to get your blog started properly and quickly. You also want to maintain a clean look to your blog to make it visitor friendly.
Here are 10 SEO tips that will help you get all these accomplished.
SEO Tip # 1: Use Targeted Keywords in the Post Titles.
Post titles should make use of targeted keywords and should be mentioned every so often in the article. The titles should not be used again as another post title on the same site since this can confuse the search engines and influence your rankings.
It is a good idea to make a list of keywords you would like to focus on and have them handy for your post titles.
You can find best keyword by usning this tool https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
SEO Tip # 2: Make Page Titles Interesting and Keyword-Rich.
These should be carefully thought out. Use appropriate keywords that you want to target. It is especially important if you are going to have a list of pages appear on the front page of your site.
Make your titles appealing and interesting in the first couple of words. Avoid unnecessary words like "a" and "the" at the beginning of the title, as you have a limited number of words to grab the attention of the person searching the search engines for a topic.
SEO Tip # 3: Use a Google Sitemap.
This is a tool that can get your site indexed faster by Google, and it is a must-have for any WordPress site. It helps Google find out what pages are on your site.
You can make a sitemap with a Google XML Plugin plugin that allows you to turn on the sitemap at the flip of a button.
SEO Tip # 4: Ping Your Posts.
Every time you make a post you can ping your post to a number of different websites. This will give you added exposure and help you develop backlinks if your post is linked back by webmasters. Every post should be pinged.
SEO Tip # 5: Customize Your Permalinks.
This is one of the most important things you can do for a WordPress blog as far as SEO goes. You want to get the title of your post in the URL itself. You can do this by customizing your permalink structure. Simply type in /%postname%/ in the custom option and the blog post name will appear.
If you do not make the changes, the default structure will appear in the URL, which consists of numbers and question marks. This does nothing for SEO, and your posts would not be picked up as quickly, and would not rank as well.
SEO Tip # 6: Create Tags.
Creating tags helps the search engines when they are crawling your site. They are only one or two words that briefly describe what your post is all about.
Search engines use tags to help categorize, index and find your posts faster. Tagging can be done as soon as you complete a post, and only takes a few seconds to do.
SEO Tip # 7: Do Some Linking.
You can cross-link your posts to other posts you have on your blog. You can either do this manually, or by using a plugin.
If you have a post that you think is important, or a sales page on your blog, you can link to it and make the post or page have an importance level of its own.
SEO Tip # 8: Set Up Categories.
Categories will tidy up your site into a neat and orderly presentation of content that is good for both your visitors and the search engines. It is like cataloguing a file cabinet full of loose papers into separate piles of information that are readily available.
If you have the permalinks turned on for your blog, you will see the category listed in the URL as well as the name of the post. This helps with SEO, and your visitors will appreciate seeing what is on the post directly from the URL.
SEO Tip # 9: Include Related Posts.
You can add posts that are related to a post under any postings that you do. You can get a plugin that will place a number of posts that are related via their tags.
You can configure how many related posts you want to show, which makes it easier for the search engines to make their way to your older content.
SEO Tip # 10: Use an All-In-One SEO Pack.
This plugin generates META tags automatically, or you can set any META keywords and descriptions you want. It works well with other plugins, and gives you the flexibility to try ranking for different keywords if you are not being properly recognized for one.
Many webmasters would not consider doing without this one SEO plugin and have seen dramatic results by using it. It can be added to pre-existing sites as well if you want to try boosting your rankings.
There are other things you can do to help optimize your SEO on a WP blog; but if you follow the recommendations listed above, you will be well on your way to having a blog that the search engines would love and pay attention to.
These guidelines will set up a nice clean blog pattern that can be duplicated time and time again as you build more blogs. It is easy to set up, and you can gradually add more plugins and items to get your site in an even better position to make it to the top.
