WordPress is a low-cost, highly
effective publishing tool to use for
internet marketing. In a matter of
minutes, you can have a fully
functioning website without
knowing HTML. To get the most
out of WordPress, it's best to
spend some time optimizing your
content for the search engines.
Here are a few ways to improve
the SEO for your WordPress blog.
1. Permalinks
WordPress will automatically create
permalinks (URLs) for your posts
that contain numbers and question
marks. Search engines have a hard
time categorizing these types of
URLs. As a result, this will prolong
the indexing of your website. If
your site's not indexed, your
information is basically invisible to
the search engines. Therefore, it's
best to create a custom URL
structure for your pages through
your Administration panel. For
example, a structure of /
%postname%/ will use the post title
in the permalink. This is great for
search engine optimization
especially when you include
keywords in your titles.
2. Page Titles
The page title in WordPress will
appear at the top of your browser
window. Pages in WordPress house
your static content. FAQ, contact,
and about information are
commonly published as pages.
Including these types of pages on
you website are good for SEO
because they add to your
credibility as a legit online
publisher. Even so, you can further
optimize these pages when naming
them. Instead of your contact page
simply having the page title of
"contact", you might include a
keyword phrase reflecting your
expertise. A good example would
be "contact SEO writer".
3. Post Titles
Post titles should include your
keywords whenever possible.
However this is not a reason to
stuff titles with keywords that do
not read well. Remember post
titles are listed in the search
results. So you not only want them
to attract the search engines, but
the attention of web searchers as
well. Also use the slug feature of
WordPress to optimize your
keywords in the URLs and to
eliminate unnecessary words such
as "and", "the", and "to".
4. Tags
Although not absolutely necessary,
tags are an added benefit for SEO.
Tags help search engines and
readers to navigate through your
site easier. They allow you to use
detailed phrases to identify
content without creating hundreds
of categories. So if you write a
post about baking sourdough
bread to be listed under your
cooking category, you can also add
the tags baking and sourdough.
Now readers can quickly scan your
tag cloud for the information they
want without needing to scroll
through posts. Plus if you use a tag
cloud plugin on your site, then all
your tags will be visually displayed
and easily accessible in the sidebar
of your front page.
5. Google Sitemaps
Adding a sitemap to your website
also improves SEO. A sitemap is
exactly what it sounds like a map
on a single page that displays the
structure of your content. Google
Sitemaps is a free tool that will
create a sitemap for you. Another
SEO benefit of sitemaps is your
ability to tell Google which pages
are the most important.
SEO for WordPress is simple when
you know how to do it correctly.
These five tips provide a good
starting place and will better your
chances of higher search engine
rankings.
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