Wednesday 14th December 2011
by davidWordPress SEO just isn’t entirely made for SEO. Lets have that one out there in the air. It is a platform that’s built for bloggers that only want to submit their content, get it live out there in the real world. Let us accept it, if WordPress may be centered on SEO, it would only serve to be a restricting factor in the popularity of the platform, as much people simply would not understand it. That’s a fair statement too. With all that being said however, what steps could we take to be certain that our WordPress blogs are up to scratch for the search engines?
Perfect Meta Tags On Page
The cabability to add meta tags such as descriptions and titles is given with the use of particular plugins. All In One SEO, Yoast SEO, Headspace, these are all popular plugins that offer the webmaster the opportunity to add these tags in manually on a per page basis. Remembering to not just insert keywords where necessary, but also using these tags as a means to promote within the search engines. Consider checking out the competing pages for the search query that you are targeting, and ultizing some effective sales copy in an effort to attract more website visitors to visit your page than anyone else’s.
URL Optimisation
It is not enabled by default in WordPress, this is exactly why a stock WordPress blog uses strange URL’s that use question marks and numbers. To be able to optimise your URL, you need to edit your permalink settings in your WordPress SEO administration area. In doing so, as a general rule of thumb, I am going to use just the post title in the URL, and even then I will shrink it down when creating an article making sure that I could get rid of certain stop words that could have an adverse effect on how well the page ranks. You may also use categories as well, however it is really an individual choice.
On Page Optimisation
It is the easy part. Normally, anything over a keyword density of 2% (that is, 2 uses of a keyword within 100 words) will work contrary to you. I’ll generally try to stick around the 1 – 1.5% mark, plus use other related keywords within the text as well. In addition to that, however I will also link out once to an external page using the keyword, plus utilize the keyword in a minimum of 2 heading tags on page. This is extremely important, as this demonstrates to Google that you are relevant for that certain search query.
This is merely an introduction today, as well as doesn’t also begin to cover the complete spectrum that is WordPress SEO. There are a number of methods which may enhance your status in the search engines such as link building and viral marketing, but at the end of the day, it all commences with relevancy, that is in very large part what I am talking about with you today. The more relevant your page is, the better it’s going to perform when it comes to game day in the search engines.
Tags: internet marketing, seo, WordPress SEO