In its default state, WordPress is well configured for search engine optimization. It’s not perfect, but the non-optimal defaults can be changed fairly easily if you know what you’re doing.
SEO is a technical topic that’s prone to misunderstanding (and misrepresentation). It’s possible to invest significant amounts of money, and frequently you’ll see positive results for hiring a well-reputed SEO, but the basics of search engine optimization are something that any blogger or small business site owner can handle.
In this post, I’m going to cover five basics steps that every new WordPress site owner should take. They won’t guarantee you a place at the top of the SERPs, but they will help put you on an even playing field and set foundations for future efforts.
Install An SEO Plugin
As I said, WordPress is a solid content management system from an SEO perspective, but their are several glaring defects in the deafults. Installing an SEO plugin will make it easier to fix those problems, and provide functionality that makes ongoing optimization more efficient.
There are a couple of SEO plugins that lead the market. Probably the most well-regarded (although how well regarded is open to debate) is WordPress SEO by Yoast. Yoast’s major competition comes from the All In One SEO Plugin. They offer much the same functionality, with some differences when it comes to specific implementation of SEO techniques.
My personal choice is WordPress SEO by Yoast, and any examples in this post will use that plugin.
Configure Permalinks
Ideally, permalinks (web addresses) for the pages on your site will contain meaningful information about the content of the page. Unfortunately, the WordPress devs appear to differ. The default permalink structure is not helpful to either search engines or users.
If you install Yoast’s plugin, it will let you know whether your permalinks are well configured and help you get them shipshape. If not, you can do it manually under the “Settings” entry on the WordPress admin menu.
Create Unique Meta Description And Title Tag Content
Title tags and meta description tags are import indicators of topic for search engines. Many sites make the mistake of using identical descriptions and titles across all their pages, which obviously isn’t the best approach when it comes to giving Google and the others help in determining the relevance of a page to queries.
Yoast’s SEO plugin will provide interface elements on the editing page for articles and pages that make it straightforward to edit both according to SEO best practices.
Activate XML Sitemaps
XML sitemaps help Google to figure out when a site has been update and what has changed. You don’t have to worry too much about them. Just turn them on in the Yoast plugin and they’ll be generated automatically.
Install W3 Total Cache
All things being equal, a site’s performance can have a negative or postive effect on search engine rankings relative to competitor sites — Google uses performance as a ranking signal. All things usually aren’t equal though, so unless it’s woefully bad, page speed signals are probably minimally important. Nevertheless, WordPress isn’t super-fast on its own, and giving it a little help to improve load times doesn’t hurt either SEO or user experience.
W3 Total Cache is my preferred caching plugin. It makes page load times quicker by storing the results of dynamic page generation so that when other users request the same page, it can be delivered much more quickly. It has numerous other tricks to improve performance up its sleeve as well.
These five tips aren’t going to rocket your site to number one in the SERPs. But provided you also invest in quality content, social media, and other audience building techniqies, they will help give you a solid foundation.
About Author:
About Matthew Davis — Matthew works as an inbound marketer and blogger for Future Hosting, a leading provider of VPS hosting. Follow Future Hosting on Twitter at @fhsales, Like them on Facebook and check out their tech/hosting blog, http://blog.nexcess.net/.
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