Creating a WordPress website is easy, thanks to its easy to use features. But optimizing them for SEO, well you need to put in some effort. We largely depend on Google to market our WordPress website and it can be pretty tricky to employ the best methods to get the best results, with all the algorithm updates.
Luckily, WordPress has a few tricks up its sleeve and we will show you how to exploit them along with some bonus tips to optimize your posts for SEO.
Focus on your keywords
Keywords are the informative flags that visitors to your website look for. In a competitive niche, the keywords that you choose are going to set you apart. That said, the quantity of keywords that you use while setting up blog posts is not going to turn the tables. In fact, they do more harm than good for your SEO. Turns out that search engines might think you are keyword stuffing. Not cool!
The solution is to employ a more natural approach to keyword inclusion in your posts. This is where a well thought out keyword research comes in handy. A good SEO optimization is one where the focus is on one or two keywords per blog post. To that end, long tail keywords are more efficient simply because it gives more organic traffic and directs the right type of visitors.
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Tip- WordPress SEO by Yoast is a free plugin that helps you choose focus keywords suitable to your post. Here is a full tutorial on using Yoast SEO for WordPress.
Where should I use these keywords?
Probably the question running through your mind after discovering a few keywords. There are four important areas where your keywords can play key roles:
- Title
- Headers and body
- URL
- Meta description
Writing a SEO friendly title:
A title or heading is the first thing that appears on the search results page. It may be an understatement to say that a title may play a key role in encouraging people to click your link. Here are a few pointers on crafting a good post title-
- First things first, it should be comprehensible to layman, so to speak, without compromising on being catchy.
- Your Keyword should be present within the first 65 characters of your headline to avoid it being cut off from the visible region of the result page, no matter how long your title.
Strategically placing it in the body:
While adding keywords to your content, keep in mind the problem of keyword stuffing.” How much is too much” You ask? There is no right number. But there is right way.
- Limit your keyword density to a more natural, reader-friendly level.
- Focus on creating content that adds value to your blog and the visitors reading them. Give importance to answering the question or doing justice to the topic and not ways to include your keywords.
These have proven to naturally optimize SEO by giving due diligence to your keywords.
Optimize your URL:
URL offers an excellent opportunity to place your keywords where a search engine actually looks for it. It is a lesser known fact that search engines crawl the text attached to the domain name for keywords relating to the search query of the user. URLs also help users comprehend what the page is about, search engines appreciate that. Including a long tail keyword might just do the trick.
Learn more about URL structures from this article by Moz.
Not to miss the Meta description:
Let me give you an advice you can ignore. “Meta descriptions tags are redundant nowadays. Search engines seldom rate them”. While this may be true, a Meta description is still something people read before deciding to click as it says a lot about your post and also comes in handy when sharing your blog on social media.
- Keep it as relevant and convincing as possible while adhering to the 155 character limit.
- Include long tail keywords.
On topic tags and categories
Including tags and categories is a great way to keep your blog content organized. It goes well with the users and the search engine. But as always, overusing them is going to land you in a spot of bother.
To explain this, let me use an analogy. Every tag leads to a page where all the content linked to that tag is compiled. If the same content is tagged with similar tag names, it so happens that the search engine views them as the same content copied many times over throughout the blog. A worthy case for penalization by Search engines.
The solution? Limit the number of tags to those that are completely in sync with your blog. Also, tag your posts to only those that resemble your keyword.
Internal linking is the habit to have
Internal linking is the art of redirecting your customers to relevant, older posts in your blog as a means of giving them a more detailed sum of explanation to facts in your current post. It is a great way to send traffic to your blog, encourage people to spend more time on your blog and advertise other relevant pages to search engines.
Utilizing WordPress for Internal linking:
WordPress, again, has a trick up its sleeve. It gives you an option to Insert/edit links to your old/relevant posts right in your article. An intuitive option called “Or link to existing content” comes with the link button in the post editor. It allows you to perform a live search for older posts using key terms from your new post.
Wrap up
Search Engine Optimization is not just one-time thing. Just like success is a journey, SEO is a process that constantly evolves and has scope for personal touches. What matters most is that every post plays a role in bringing traffic to your blog. By incorporating the above tips, one is sure to see positive signs in no time.
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