Most people choose WordPress because it is SEO-friendly. Though it is user-friendly, people still wonder how to improve the ranking. Well to do so you need to know the SEO tactics that will grow traffic on your website. If you want to bring a real difference in your ranking and organic visibility follow these measures.
Let’s get an idea of what WordPress SEO is all about…
Do not think that WordPress SEO is a replacement for a robust SEO strategy. It is true that CMS (Content Management System) saves your time but there is no substitute for hard work to pull up the rank of your website. WordPress is not a magic wand. SEO is technically stuffed content but WordPress makes this technical part very easy. Even a novice can initiate his site. But remember the SEO tactics remain the same, only the application becomes easy with WordPress.
This content management system became popular due to its user-friendly nature. It is characterized by flexibility and adaptability. It offers more than 55,000 plugins. To solve minor or major issues there are support forums. With many advantages and a few disadvantages like the requirement of updates and potential vulnerabilities. Keeping in mind the countable parts this platform has shown its worth in SEO success. Read further to know some tips and tricks to boost up WordPress SEO.
1. A reliable hosting platform
Look for site speed, uptime, and security while choosing a hosting provider. Site speed affects SEO and security and uptime affects performance. So don’t opt for cheaper ones without considering the above features.
2. WordPress SEO theme
You will be at a gain if you select a WordPress SEO-friendly theme. There are both free and premium ones available in the dashboard. After selecting a theme, take a dry run in Google’s web.dev tools. This will prevent you from selecting a theme that is loaded with redundant scripts and plugins.
3. The choice of SEO plugin
Yoast SEO and All in One SEO Pack are two main SEO plugins that are very popular. Install these before initiating optimization because plugins aid this. However, you can find many other SEO plugins to install for your WordPress site, but if you want to complete your site on an immediate basis and don’t have enough time to go that deep into the plugins, then Yoast SEO and All in One SEO Pack are the best choices for you.
4. Fix your domain
You can select https://domain.com or https://www.domain.com. These don’t affect the SEO but for Google, these are two different URLs. Maintain consistency in the case of the domain. You need to have an SSL certificate and to run your website use HTTPS. If you haven’t installed the certificate, get connected to a hosting provider or developer.
5. Monitor the visibility settings of your site
WordPress can discourage search engines from indexing your sites. This is required when your site is under development. Go to settings>reading. Untick it if there is a tick in the checkbox. This is often skipped by the site developers which is not good.
6. Select SEO friendly permalinks
The popular WordPress gives you a number of different structure URLs. Select the most SEO-friendly structure. The default one is not SEO-friendly. So choose a custom URL structure at settings > permalinks. Select post name.
7. The art of keyword research
To plan your site content and on-page optimization keyword research is mandatory. This boosts up WordPress SEO as keywords signal Google. Without relevant keywords with proper frequency optimization of your site is not possible.
8. SEO Writing Assistant Plugin
Installation of SEO writing Assistant Plugin ensures that the content is created in an SEO-friendly manner. This also signals the top 10 rival keywords. It is easy to use. Write your keyword and get recommendations to see suggestions that can improve your content. If you want to rank top make sure you do this step. This plugin will organize the structure in an SEO-friendly way and boost up the traffic.
9. Customize URLs
You have to set the URLs as WordPress by default picks up the title as URL which can be too lengthy. So choose to overwrite and choose a custom permalink for the page. By clicking the edit button you can enter your preferred URL.
10. Using optimized page headings
H1 is your page heading which plays a vital role in SEO optimization. The heading is a hint of the content. This attracts both the readers and search engines. This can directly be compared to the title of a book. You should also explore and use H2-H6. These all are essential to simplifying your content and easier to understand for the readers. This break-up also signals Google. Try to include your keyword in the heading and subsequent parts in other texts.
11. The importance of title tags
Title tags are important because they also contribute to WordPress SEO optimization. Title Tags reflect the content of the page which serves as important ranking factors. Use snippet variables, add custom text or use a combination of these two. Try to take guidance on how to optimize each page’s title tag.
12. Meta descriptions as ranking factors
Meta descriptions are not direct ranking factors but they affect the organic performance. Write a meta description around 160 characters along with the title tags to perform well in CTR (click-through rate)
13. Internal linking factor
When you use internal linking within your content you establish relevancy between different pages in your site, and also the users can efficiently navigate.
This addition of internal links in WordPress is very easy.
Just highlight the text which you want to link and select the link button in the toolbar.
Then you can paste the URL or search for pages within your content.
14. Use Optimized file names for images
It is good to use enriched media and lofty images. There is found a direct proportion between the use of images and rankings. But before you upload an image make sure you are using an optimized file name. This adds more value to your page. Merely uploading images or screenshots doesn’t fetch good results. Also, the file name must be relevant to the image. In WordPress, you have the provision to rename images.
15. Addition of alt text
Adding Alt Text to your images is essential because they describe images to the search engines. But again make sure your alt text is relevant to the image and content. Go to the blocks menu and get it done in the image setting section in WordPress. Try to insert unique text for each text.
16. Increase site speed
Site speed also acts as a strong factor to improve WordPress SEO ranking. If you are tech-savvy you can try multiple steps to improve the speed. But the simplest way is to install the cache plugin. This will cache your posts and pages as static files. These static files are served to your users rather than being dynamically generated.
17. Use last updated dates
Keep updating your content and post relevant content. Regarding dates you have to go on changing with mentioning it as ‘last updated’ or ‘modified one’. The readers will get trust in your content seeing the date and also search engines will consider it while ranking.
So, I hope it is now clear why WordPress is the most popular CMS and why WordPress SEO is so important. It is user-friendly and you can implement a whole host of SEO tricks using a good number of plugins. Keep WordPress and outrank your competitors.
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