We all want search engine friendly websites. But sometimes when you’re busy, it’s easy to post a new blog post and move on to the next thing on your to-do list.
Over time, this can harm your SEO efforts. That’s why I’ve put together this short list of things you can do to boost your SEO in WordPress.
Schedule these tasks in your calendar to increase your blog traffic!
1) Post new things regularly
Google has a bias towards new content. Part of Google’s algorithm looks at how new content appears and gives preference to newer results. So posting original content on a regular basis is important.
Size also matters when it comes to content. Longer content generally ranks higher than shorter content. So try to make your message no less than 500 words.
2) Create a keyword list
If SEO is a priority, you will need to develop a keyword list. This is basically a list of keywords and phrases that describe your products and services. These keywords should include words from search terms that are most likely to be used to find your offers online.
Google has some great tools to make keyword research easier including Google Search, Google Suggest, Google Instant, and Google Wonder Wheel.
Tip: If you want a truly targeted keyword list, hire an SEO expert!
3) Install the SEO plugin
This will allow you to assign custom keyword-rich titles and meta descriptions to your posts for search engines.
A number of popular SEO plugins to consider are All in One SEO Pack and WordPress SEO by Yoast.
Again, this is something your web designer or SEO specialist can easily install for you.
4) Submit your hand to search engines
What good is a website if no one can find it? This is why listing in Google and other popular search engines and directories is one of the most effective ways to get free targeted traffic to your website.
You may have seen a lot of automated submission services where you pay a small fee to submit your site to hundreds of search engines. Not only will these services help you – they can actually hurt you.
Almost all of these free directories do not send an actual visitor to your website, and getting links from them can harm your ability to rank in real search engines like Google and Bing.
The best practice is to manually submit your site to the search engines yourself. WordPress makes this easy by simply creating an account with Google, Bing, and Yandex Webmaster Tools.
If you are not sure, just ask your webmaster or SEO specialist to set up these accounts.
5) Add tags to your posts
WordPress, right out of the box, is ready to embrace search engines. Tag features is one of the SEO features that you should take advantage of.
Make sure to add relevant keyword-rich tags to every post you publish.
6) Leave comments on other blogs
Start linking to more other people’s posts on their blogs and encourage them to link back to you.
One of the search engine factors that Google considers is backlinking. A website with more backlinks is considered an authority site and gets higher rankings.
7) Block unwanted comments
When people leave comments on your blog, they count as Google content. So, if you have a website about DIY crafts and someone leaves 5 comments about “cheap booster pills” that ruins your keyword relevance and damages your ranking.
So preventing spam comments from posting to your blog will improve your SEO – as well as delight your real blog readers.
8) Interconnection
One easy way to get more traffic is to add internal links to your blog posts.
For example, if you have an article about overcoming your resistance to blog writing, at the bottom of this article you can post links to Other Related Articles You May Enjoy: 4 Content Marketing Trends for Business Owners in 2017 and Other Related Articles. WordPress SEO by Yoast does it automatically for you as you can see at the bottom of this post.
9) Use alt tags for images
For every image you use in your post, be sure to add an Alt tag to help it rank better in image searches. This is another excellent place to put relevant keywords.
Google has an image search function that works in exactly the same way as searching a web page using keywords and importance. So adding Alt tags helps Google find and include your images when someone searches for images.
10) Edit blog post titles
If you’ve written quickly headlines for your blog posts before, take time to review them first before posting.
Your blog post titles are very important to your SEO rankings so compare your used keywords with your keyword list and make your blog titles more keyword rich.
11) Add social media sharing buttons
When Google sees that a blog article gets a lot of posts and shares on social media, it boosts that blog post’s ranking.
So, making it easier for readers to share your posts helps others to Tweet and share your great content!
12) Update your theme
Not all WordPress themes are SEO friendly and free WordPress themes may harm your search engine ranking because of it.
Having a premium WordPress theme ensures that your content will be indexed by search engines, as the developers have taken special time to improve every aspect in terms of security and SEO.
It’s smart to make sure your theme programming isn’t bloated with inefficient code that slows down page load times. We find this a lot with purchased themes which is why we only offer WordPress themes designed and built specifically for our clients.
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