Table of Contents
- 1 Improve Your WordPress SEO
- 2 30+ Ways to Enhance and Improve WordPress SEO Attractive and Effective
- 2.1 1. Utilize Themes and Plug-in that are SEO-friendly
- 2.2 2. Make SEO a Simple Task Using WordPress
- 2.3 3. Installing a WordPress Plug-in is Useful
- 2.4 4. Google Search Console
- 2.5 5. Make Your Website Faster
- 2.6 6. Focusing on a Particular Keyword in Every Post
- 2.7 7. Try to Make the Content Catchy
- 2.8 8. Making a Hyperlink
- 2.9 9. Try to Make a Longer Content With High-Quality
- 2.10 10. Using a Better Webhost
- 2.11 11. Make Sure of the Visibility of Your WordPress Site
- 2.12 12. Blocking Spam Comments
- 2.13 13. Linking New Posts With the Old Ones
- 2.14 14. Remove Shorter Content From the Page
- 2.15 15. Repair and Fix broken Links if Any
- 2.16 16. Optimization of Header Tags is Vital
- 2.17 17. Meta Description Optimization
- 2.18 18. Accurate File Name
- 2.19 19. SEO Audit is Important and Necessary
- 2.20 20. Push Google to Crawl Your Site
- 2.21 21. Linkage of Targeted or Special Content is Required More Within Your Website
- 2.22 22. Give a Twist to the Titles of Your Post
- 2.23 23. Proper Integration of Social media “sharing” Buttons in Your Posts
- 2.24 24. Use HTTP to Your Website
- 3 These Important Steps Must be Followed:
- 3.1 25. Using Alt Text
- 3.2 26. Google SERP Optimization
- 3.3 27. Utilize Shorter URL’s
- 3.4 28. Optimization of Page Titles and Posts
- 3.5 29. Submission of Sitemap to Google Must be Done
- 3.6 30. Search Engine Visibility Should be Turned On
- 3.7 31. Keep on Adding a Newer and Fresh Post on a Regular Basis
- 3.8 32. Have a Backup on a Regular Basis
- 3.9 33. Try to Keep Your Plug-ins and Themes Up to Date
Improve Your WordPress SEO
WordPress SEO as we all know, the race of websites is only for the good rankings from Google. But it is difficult without WordPress. It contains various features and facilities within itself, which helps your WordPress SEO to make more and more powerful ads to get more rankings by the search engines as well. Due to the various features WordPress provides, it has become one of the best choices of people for the best way to improve WordPress SEO.
There are multiple key factors by which one can improve his SEO more efficiently and without using many technical terms. Below mentioned:
30+ Ways to Enhance and Improve WordPress SEO Attractive and Effective
1. Utilize Themes and Plug-in that are SEO-friendly
WordPress consists of many features that are specially built for SEO. Features include a reduction in page loading time due to the use of cleaner base code. It is known that site speed has no direct impact on SEO still has a connection between Time To First Byte(TTFB) and higher ranking sites, but as Google has an obsession with the speed of the site, it has become a vital factor for ranking. So it is important that webmasters to keep an eye while selecting plug-in and themes, that may damage their ranking if not efficient. There are some factors that need to be taken into considerations are;
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- Is plug-in compatible: Make sure a plug-in you are using is not supported to other plug-ins and some themes do support specific plug-in, this controversial factor may cause problems like duplication of page elements, sitemaps.
- Response Time: Making your website mobile-friendly is another important and helpful factor if you wish to increase the website performance. Your website should work on different platforms, like mobiles, tablet, etc. As per Google, websites which are not mobile-friendly may suffer a loss in ranking
2. Make SEO a Simple Task Using WordPress
It is important that your website should get good rankings in search engines; this factor is quite a crucial one. Rather WordPress is the only among many Content Management System (CMS) option that can be used for the effective website. WordPress stands firmly among many other customized platforms like Umbraco, Orchard, and Drupal as it is a true SEO-friendly platform. Many experts have concluded that among various other platforms, WordPress is the best one specially designed for SEO and it is recommended as well.
3. Installing a WordPress Plug-in is Useful
There are many features that are already present in WordPress, but it is highly recommended and works best if you install SEO plug-in, which will surely help to take your website to the next level. The best working and excellent SEO plug-in are Yoast SEO, by which the optimization of every page is possible. New and updated built-in algorithm is used for analysis. Adding up of schema and XML sitemap is also possible with the help of plug-in.
The Procedure to Install the Plug-in Is
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- Use the WordPress dashboard for navigation and select Plug-in and then add new.
- Enter Yoast SEO in the search bar and press “Install Now”
- Once it pops up, click on the “Activate: button.
- A plug-in once installed can be accessed by clicking on the SEO
4. Google Search Console
Google Search Console is used to show, how your website is working or performing and it uses to alert in case of any errors. Installation of Google Search Console is shown below:
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- Firstly, after clicking on the add button, you will see a screen asking for the ownership of your site. Choose the alternate method of the HTML tag.
- Navigate towards your WordPress dashboard after copying the code displayed after choosing HTML tag (Alternate method). Use the plug-in to add up the code to the header. For that go on the plug-in->Click on Add the new-> Find “insert headers and footers”.
- Then complete the installation by activating the plug-in, and then use setting-> and then insert headers and footers.
- The code which was copied by using the alternate method, paste it into a box named as Header and then save it. And then use the Google webmaster tool to use the button for verification.
5. Make Your Website Faster
For better ranking and consumer feedback, it is important that your website must possess proper speed. It can create a bad impact at a slower speed. Nowadays, page speed has also become one of the important factors for ranking. One can easily repair the slow page speed by following remedies; Upgrade the host, by using Content Distribution Network (CDN), or by correctly setting up the media.
6. Focusing on a Particular Keyword in Every Post
As we all know the keyword is the heart of SEO, though the style of utilizing keywords has changed, still keywords play a very vital role in SEO. You must concentration on a specific keyword while writing a post for the website. There are a few things that need to be check before you utilize any keywords, those are:
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- It is important that you add your keyword in the Meta description as well as in your URL.
- Try to include the keyword in the first paragraph, to highlight it.
- Try to utilize the keyword naturally, avoid using it multiple times, to look artificial or bombarded.
7. Try to Make the Content Catchy
It is a human mentality that something that pleases our heart and brain is never forgotten, so in terms of SEO as well, try to make it more and more catchy by using different words so that people will show interest in reading it rather than not paying attention and looking for some another one.
It is also crucial that you must keep on updating your content by adding up new and trendy things. This strategy will surely help to get a prosperous ranking for a longer duration, as it is relevant and the best source for promoting your website.
8. Making a Hyperlink
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- It is very simple to create a hyperlink; the procedure is given below:
- Highlight the text you want to and right-click on the hyperlink button
- Then a link option will be shown by clicking on the gear icon.
- If you wish to change a link, then choose the box that states “open link in new tab”. This results in opening a new tab after every click by the user, instead of re-channeling to your website.
9. Try to Make a Longer Content With High-Quality
Longer but the high-quality content is always welcomed by Google. It is important that one must be aware of the latest ranking levels while writing any content. Content must be unique and high quality, as only the content helps your website to make a difference than others. Longer content helps to get more rankings and backlinks in the search engine. Not every content should achieve this much word strength, but it must guarantee the quality and quantity both at the same time.
One must try to write content after thinking from the reader’s point of view. There are few things to be considered are; whether content will portray information or product descriptions, a current ranking of the page, utilizing the keywords properly in the content. While using keywords, as well, it is important to think what user is going to search, and then those keywords must be utilized in a natural manner without stuffing it beyond limits and making it meaningless and unnatural.
10. Using a Better Webhost
If you are done with trying optimization of code, using Content Distribution Network and utilizing caching plug-in to get your website in speed. It is the right time to switch on to some other web host having a faster server speed. You can surely ask your web host guys about the cause of your website being this slow and if they are not giving satisfactory answers, then you must go in search of the new one.
Try to avoid some things that probably done by new website owners. There are various web hosts that stand the best among others are HawkHost, StableHost, BlueHost, A small orange, and MDDHosting. One can even take help from Webhosting Talk. They are the ones to guide you properly to choose the best and accurate web host.
11. Make Sure of the Visibility of Your WordPress Site
There are various factors that must be taken into consideration while writing or publishing WordPress SEO. But the main factor is that your site or blog must contain the proper visibility on the internet, instead of which, is not possible that viewers will find your website and blog. You need to look for the below-mentioned steps to check the visibility of the site;
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- Go in the plug-in option and log in
- Select a setting by opening a navigation menu.
- Find Reading, and select it, and then find “Search Engine Visibility”
- Be sure of the checkbox which is seen next to “Discourage search engines from indexing this site” is not checked.
12. Blocking Spam Comments
It is possible with the latest versions of WordPress to prevent the unwanted links posted by users in the comment section. Sometimes it happens that user posts links that have no linkage with the topic of the blog and it is just put there for annoying others. The Search engine does not like this confusion.
It is possible that your page may get a flagged remark due to the unwanted links that have been posted by users with no relation to your blog. So, it is better that you must avoid interfering with spammers to make some bad things to your page.
13. Linking New Posts With the Old Ones
The linkage has been an important factor in order to feed more relevant information to your website. It works as a navigator to show the directions for the relevant information required to the user. It works well for both the user as well as to the bots. It is called Interlinking and it is the traditional way of getting a higher rank in the search engines.
One can use manually chosen anchor text for linking rather than just notifying your older post name in the related posts plug-in. Interlinking also helps to get much more traffic to your new as well as older posts.
14. Remove Shorter Content From the Page
It is important to remove the page with less than 300-word count and does not have much clear content about the topic. These pages do not provide many benefits to your website.
It is not worth having more unwanted pages on your site, rather try to make the content more prosper which is already healthy.
15. Repair and Fix broken Links if Any
Broken links are not good for your page rankings and to your users as well. It makes difficult for Google bots as well to crawl the site. You can use Google Search Console to check for any broken links by clicking on “Crawl Errors”. And then by opening every error, you will get to know about the broken links. After finding the broken links, it becomes easy for you to fix them one by one.
16. Optimization of Header Tags is Vital
The header tag is necessary; as it directs the crawler bots to know what the content is all about. Using this for all of your content will be useful to make it more read-worthy and properly optimized for search engines.
There are various types of headings available which can be used in SEO to make it more readable and sorted. Heading 1 can be used once and remaining heading types can be used below that. Heading 1 will become a title of the content; targeted keywords can be used for all the remaining headings. Avoid putting the keyword in Heading 1, as it does not make any sense to put it in the heading as it is actually a keyword.
17. Meta Description Optimization
The Meta description is nothing but a text that has written below the search results appeared, it helps a viewer to have an idea about details of that particular page. Meta description helps to develop Click through Rate (CTR) of the search engine; it does not directly impact the ranking of the website. CTR i.e.; Click through Rate and ranking are connected with each other, which means if you have higher CTR, you will get more rankings. There are certain tips which can be utilized to optimize the Meta description are;
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- Put your main keyword in the Meta description. Google makes it bold to keep it different from other listings.
- Make your Meta description like the way promotion is done through advertisements. Your purpose is to attract the reader to open your page link.
18. Accurate File Name
For the image ranking factor, your particular image file name helps to get the ranking and as a result, it helps to gain more traffic.
Many times, the original name of the image file is very lengthy and tedious and has no connection with the actual topic. So it is important to consider the image file name while uploading it. You can simply put the name of the targeted keyword or can give a name that specifies the aim of that image. In the language of Google, hyphens specify spaces, so if more than one word is being used in the image file name, and then make use of the hyphen.
19. SEO Audit is Important and Necessary
There are website auditing tools available SEOSiteCheckup is a free tool helps to give you the analysis of your website by checking 50 various ranking factor checks. You can use this tool if you are not confident about the proper optimization of your website. Instead of going to perform everything on your own, you can surely opt for these auditing tools. Another name for the auditing tool is the Varvy SEO tool, which will analyze the proper alignment of your website with Google guidelines.
20. Push Google to Crawl Your Site
Normally, it is known that the crawling of your site is dependent on the intensity of the new content that is being published. Apart from that, there is one way to make Google see you immediately. The steps are;
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- Make use of Google Search Console, find a crawl, and click on the button called “Fetch as Google”, put the URL of the post just published and then click on “Fetch”.
- Go and click on “Request Indexing” and you are done. Google will index your URL. It works definitely faster than waiting for Google to crawl your site, as it does not happen instantly.
21. Linkage of Targeted or Special Content is Required More Within Your Website
There is some post which you want should be given more importance, as you have worked harder to gather information about it and framed it with efforts so as to provide great value to all your followers and readers. Linking of those posts can be done in your new posts, or sidebar can be used to give search engines a hint that the post is unique, special, and it should get more importance. Just like you can link some other important post, in your one of the posts, by using the sidebar to let search engines get aware of it.
22. Give a Twist to the Titles of Your Post
Of course, every time reader or anyone searches for the title of the post, as it helps to tell the details of what the article talks about in a shorter form. So, if you wish to get your page a higher ranking at Google search engine, try to make the title of your post catchy and unique, due to which reader may get attracted to read your post. Most of the people read the title first and then go for further post if they find it interesting.
Try to make the title will important and targeted keywords. You can also use lower importance keywords in your title efficiently. Google knows synonyms of English words, but you must use the phrases or words which can be shown up by Google with proper balance.
23. Proper Integration of Social media “sharing” Buttons in Your Posts
When you read any post and press a like button, or you like a link on Facebook, or share a favorite post on your blog, then you must have noticed by Google search engine. Nowadays, Google gives more importance and priority to the posts which have like by many people using social media websites like Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc. The Special reaction is provided with increased priority in SERP’s.
So it is beneficial and rather necessary that you must include proper sharing buttons in your posts. People are going to use social media in the future as well, so it is going to be the best option to grab the reader’s attraction.
24. Use HTTP to Your Website
It is better to stay upgraded in terms of your website. As HTTP is an official ranking aspect, it gives you an advantage in terms of ranking. It allows you to make a proper and secure connection with the website and uses for encryption of data among them. Switching of WordPress to HTTPS is shown below:
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- Your present host must be supportive of HTTPS or SSL. Do not forget to check that before anything.
- You can get the SSL certificate, and make its installation on your host.
- Verification of SSL should be done, whether it is properly working or not, and once done turn all your HTTP traffic and make its linkage with HTTPS.
- Even Google has enforced the use of HTTPS for all websites as different browsers will throw a warning in the absence of HTTPS. If you are running a single domain WP site, then Comodo Positive SSL is an ideal choice for your site. It is a cost-saving investment for your website security.
These Important Steps Must be Followed:
25. Using Alt Text
Alt text helps Google by indicating every detail of your page. When displaying the first image in the post, it should be relevant to the targeted keyword of your post. For the remaining images, you can use various keywords that are describing in the image. Steps to use Alt text are given below:
- Navigate your visual editor in order to change image alt text and then float on the image you have inserted.
- Go on the pencil option which will show up the “Edit” option. The pop-up box contains image details. And then search for the field known as “Alternative Text”. Use a keyword in that box once the field is displayed.
26. Google SERP Optimization
The boxes that appear at the top side of the Google search results. The positioning of these boxes is almost zero, so they can give your blog more ranking results. There is no actual procedure or process to get this spot, but by using below-mentioned procedures, you will likely get the increase in your rankings:
- Schema plays an important role, so do not forget to add up schema markup to your site.
- Ask the questions, which were previously asked in your post. You can make your answers either in sequential or non-sequential listings.
27. Utilize Shorter URL’s
Try to make your URL shorter so that it will not show any other and multiple directories. You must try harder to make your URL smaller. It is just that, you include the target keyword in it, and nothing else should be included.
The main purpose of having a shorter URL is, it does not directly affect your rankings, but it may look like a spam link and can affect your CTR. Permalinks help to have proper control over a URL structure of your website.
For the shorter and friendly URL, you can try the following tips:
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- Use the target keyword in the URL.
- Humans should be able to read out your URL. Try to make it Human language friendly.
- Do not use more than one category or folders
- Try to remove words who are nothing but the fillers, removing them will shorten your URL, which ultimately helps to increase CTR.
- WordPress provides the facility to make modifications in your URL among itself. It is just that you click on the “Permalink section” and do the remaining procedure.
28. Optimization of Page Titles and Posts
Your post’s title tag plays an important role in making your post visible to the reader. It helps Google to know what your page actually tells about. The Title tag is just a name of your post or a page; Optimization of title tag can be done by using the following steps:
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- Use a targeted or focused keyword in your title tag to make people aware of the summery of the remaining blog or a post.
- Try to create a catchy title that lets people want to click on it.
- The Title tag must contain at least 60 and at the most 70 characters. You can easily make your title shorter yet interesting to read. It is easy with Yoast Plug-in
- Your title tag can be changed by using a section called “Snippet Editor” which appears below your post after scrolling down.
29. Submission of Sitemap to Google Must be Done
For better crawling of bots, sitemaps are used by search engines. You can even crawl a website without using a sitemap, but submitting a sitemap to Google allows reporting data which you want a search engine to crawl.
By submitting them, you can give an assured priority to your pages which you think are more valuable. It is easy to create and submit a sitemap by using Yoast Plug-in; Steps are shown below:
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- Go in SEO, then General, and then features, you need to scroll down then for “XML Sitemaps”.
- After that use a link that says “See XML Sitemap”, which will help you open a sitemap. The submission must be done to Google, before going to the Google Search Console and clicking on “Sitemaps”
- Click on the option on the right side, called Add/Test Sitemap. Enter the URL of your sitemap and then submit. After that, the crawling of your sitemap is regularly done by Google.
30. Search Engine Visibility Should be Turned On
If you wish to hide your website from search engines, then WordPress contains some option which lets you hide your site. This works great when you are creating or modifying your website. Steps are:
Find a setting option and then Reading in the dashboard. After scrolling down, a section will appear called “Search Engine Visibility”. Do not forget to keep the box unchecked, and then click on the “save changes”.
31. Keep on Adding a Newer and Fresh Post on a Regular Basis
Google normally prefers to give more priority to the recently updated post or new posts. It is recommended by Google if you edit and publish new posts frequently, which ultimately helps in increasing SERP’s.
32. Have a Backup on a Regular Basis
Taking a backup on a regular basis will help you in a difficult time or an emergency. If you have stuck in a crisis, and everything else has vanished, then back up will help you to get over this situation and you will not need to start from the beginning again.
Have a proper schedule of your backup, so you will not miss it. And it will be useful to you during the crisis time.
33. Try to Keep Your Plug-ins and Themes Up to Date
It is important to keep your WordPress version updated, but it is more important to keep plug-ins and themes o the version up to date. Every feature is going to help your SEO improve effectively, and every new version contains more features and facilities than the previous one.
Conclusion:
By the time now, you must have gotten the fact that there are numerous factors which needs to be taken care of while optimizing your website in a proper way. These aspects work magic for the most sorted and friendly WP SEO. There is a strong co-relation consistent while doing a WP SEO, which means the more you take an effort, the more positive results you will see for sure.
Utilizing these factors in your SEO properly will surely help to get the good results from readers to your blog.
Thanks for sharing the post as it is more informative to know the basics for beginners. A great learning experience.
Keep on sharing…..
This is a really very nice post. We have followed your guide and have seen a significant increase in our traffic – thank you, admin 🙂
Hey Arnaud, Great article, Very useful to beginners on WordPress SEO.Thanks for sharing this.
Cheers.
Such a good post! I’ve been using WordPress for many years and I even use the All in One SEO plugin, but this post really opened my eyes to a couple of things I ought to be doing beyond the basics. Thanks!
Thanks for the valued info, i am a newbie in blogging and this will helps me alot in having my objectives.
This type of desirable post! I’ve been using WordPress for many years and i even use the multi function seo plugin, but this post really opened my eyes to a couple of things I need to be doing past the fundamentals. thanks!