If you are interested in achieving excellent positioning in search engines, then the time has come to apply the best Seo Techniques For WordPress, if you use this platform.
This is one of the only platforms that will help your performance in Google's organic search results, and for that reason alone it is used by approximately 62.6% of Webmasters worldwide. There are of course many things you need to do to take your website or blog to the next level.
And to help you with this important task, we prepared this incredible guide where we reveal the best SEO strategies for WordPress so that you can boost your website traffic once and for all. So let's get to what really matters!
Install an SEO plugin:
The WordPress CMS already has many advanced SEO features, but to further improve optimization our recommendation is to install the Yoast Seo plugin. It will help you with many tasks.
With it installed and active, you'll be able to optimize each page or post with the keyword you've chosen for each content. It also offers an analysis based on the latest Google algorithm updates.
And with it you can generate in 1 click a map of your site (sitemap.xml). That will help search engines in crawling your site. To configure Yoast is very simple, go to your WordPress admin panel, then in the left sidebar look for Plugins / Add new.
So in the search bar just search for Yoast Seo, then click Install Now and then Activate. That's it, it is already installed and active and to access it look for it in the left menu.
Keyword search:
Doing good keyword research is essential for you to be able to successfully apply SEO techniques to your WordPress sites. A good search will help in the following questions:
- Create content that your visitors are really looking for;
- Develop a better understanding of the needs of your market;
- Track the development of everything you've ever written and published;
- Get valuable traffic to your website.
Nowadays there are many keyword research tools, some are paid, some are free. The most used ones are: Google Keyword Planner, Semrush, Ubersuggest, KWFinder, and many others.
Several posts can be written using only keyword research, but you must follow some important principles, which are:
- Make a list of keywords that are related to your topic;
- Use the word planner and find out which ones have a good volume and searches and also have less competition;
- Also research your competitors using the keyword search tool and find out which words bring them the most traffic.
- Analyze those keywords that have less competition to compete with them.
- Insert in your content a good combination of short-tail keywords and long-tail keywords, this will enrich your content.
So after creating your keyword list, it's time to craft your content and optimize it.
Enable your search engine visibility:
Within the WordPress admin panel there is an option that prohibits your site from being indexed in search engines. Therefore, it is better to leave this option unchecked.
If you are still creating your website, then you can leave this option checked, but right after the construction is finished, uncheck it so that your content appears in searches.
This is a very important technique, because if your content is not showing up in searches, then this could be the problem. To find this setting and find out if it is active or not, it's very simple, just go to your panel, then settings / reading.
Then slide the screen down a little and there you will see an option whose name is: Visibility in search engines. Leave this option unchecked and then click on Save Changes.
Adjusting permalinks:
When you install WordPress for the first time on your website hosting, then the posts and pages have a slightly strange structure of Urls.
And in turn this default structure is not search engine friendly. For this reason it is good to carry out the configuration. The best option is (post name). So you can include your post's keyword in your url.
And to carry out this configuration, go to your website's panel, look for Settings / Permalinks, and choose the Post Name option.
You can do this using the Yoast plugin, just go to your dashboard, locate Yoast and you will see an option called Redirection. Then just enter the old and new url and it will do the 301 redirect for you in 1 click. If you want, you can also do it using the plugin (Redirection).
Add your site to Google Search Console:
Using the free Google Search Console tool is essential and could not be left out of our tips, as this tool will show you how your site is performing and will also alert you to possible errors.
So adding your website to Google Search Console is very simple and fast. Just search Google for: Google Search Console, and log in with your Gmail.
After doing this, click on Add Property and insert the url of your website, which in this case is your Domain. Our recommendation is that you enter the Url in (Url Prefix). This in turn is the simplest and fastest option to add a website to Google.
There are several ways to verify, but the one I'll show you here is definitely the easiest, fastest and simplest way. Then choose the Alternative Method, and then choose the HTML TAG option.
Your site is now verified, so now all you have to do is send the Sitemap to complete this process, see the example image below. You will also find the Sitemap in the plugin at: Seo / General / Resources / XML Sitemaps.
Integrating your website with Google Analytics:
To make it even better, it is extremely important to integrate your website with Google Analytics. In addition to the tool being completely free, it will show the complete performance of your site, in addition to presenting detailed data of all the traffic on your site.
Setting up your Google Analytics account is very simple too. Search your browser for Google Analytics, login with your G email, preferably the same email you used to confirm site ownership in Google Search Console.
So just follow the simple and direct step by step that Analytics will show you until you reach the Tracking Code, which is nothing more than a Java Script code according to the model below.
But if you don't have that option, that's okay, just install the free plugin called Insert Headers and Footers.
Make your site mobile-friendly:
Google has just made an official statement informed that they have already started testing their mobile search indexes. This means that they are testing the performance as well as the functionality of their mobile and tablet content, both mobile devices to determine their rating (grade).
So if you are not using a theme that in turn harms those who are accessing your site through mobile devices. Fix this problem now. Choose a good topic that is responsive for mobile devices.
Boost your website speed:
Site speed has always been and always will be extremely important, so much so that one of Google's algorithms takes it into account to rank it better in the ranking. But nowadays it's much easier to turn a slow site into a fast website, just follow our recommendations below:
Get a starting base:
Before you start optimizing your site's speed, you first need to run tests to find out how it really is currently. Therefore, our recommendation is that you use the GTMetrix tool and perform the performance test. This tool will provide you with a complete analysis of current performance, so just see what needs to be improved.
Hosting always up to date:
In many cases, a misconfiguration on the server can also affect the performance of the site causing slowdowns. For this reason, it is good to know how to choose very carefully which company you want to host your website.
Our recommendation is that you use a VPS (Virtual Private Server). Because your website can even start very small, but then it will grow and you will need to migrate your website to a powerful hosting.
Nowadays there are very cheap and very powerful Vps. And never forget to make use of a CDN to distribute your content across the web, which will make your site faster and more secure too.
Always use a caching plugin:
A good caching plugin can never be missing from your sites, as it will generate static HTML files, instead of generating PHP files that are normally needed to run WordPress.
This will minimize the number of requests between the server and the browser the site visitor is currently using. Which in turn will drastically decrease the loading time of your website pages.
The most used caching plugins in WordPress are: W3 Total Cache, Wp Rocket, WP Super Cache, WP Fastest Cache, Hyper Cache, Comet Cache, Cachify and Simple Cache.
The recommended one is Wp Rocket, it is a paid caching plugin, but it is the most powerful of all and has incredible features that no other offers.
Optimize your images:
Obviously you are using images on your blog or website, so they also need to be very well optimised. Optimize your images by following our guidance below:
- Before uploading the image to WordPress, it is always a good idea to reduce the file sizes. And for that you can use a free tool called TinyPNG;
- Try resizing them before uploading them to the site;
- Use a plugin to compress and optimize your images further, such as Imagify. That in addition to compressing it will transform it into a file webp, ideal for the web;
- Also try to use images from free image banks, and also from Google images search, as they have much more quality.
Fix broken links:
I don't know if this is your case, but having broken links on your site is not good. Not for visitors and not for your ranking in search engines.
The broken links made it even harder for Google bots to crawl. But there is a very quick and simple way to look for broken links and fix them.
Just use the Broken Link Checker plugin. It will scan your entire site and find all the broken links and list them for you, then fix them. If you want, you can even remove the plugin after use, but install it from time to time to look for broken links for you.
Focus on just one keyword per post:
This is a very valuable SEO strategy, keywords play a fundamental and extremely important role. So whenever you are writing a new article to post on your blog or website, focus on a single keyword for that content.
Check out some recommendations and tips for better optimization of the chosen word:
- Use the main keyword in the title (h1) and also in the subtitles (h2,h3) but be careful not to over-optimize your content;
- Insert your focus keyword in the very first paragraph of your text, and its possible in the first line;
- Also put your main keyword in the url of your post, and also in your meta description;
- Try to make a good distribution of your keyword throughout your text, in a natural way, but do not overdo the optimization. Also use semantics and synonyms.
Yoast will facilitate this task in your strategy, because whenever you are writing an article, you will have to fill in a field called (Keyphrase of focus). And while you write the article, the plugin in turn will be analyzing your text helping you with optimization.
Create quality content:
I don't know if you know this, but the truth is that Google loves quality content. Just take a quick look at the top 10 results on the first page. All content without exception has two super important points, which are:
- The content is high quality and long;
- The content fulfills the intent of the search.
Long, well-written content is great, but you might not know what the search intent is. So keep this in mind: search intent is the intent behind the keyword.
When you're creating content, do some research and see what's currently ranking best, and of course try to understand why that content is listed in that position.
Often, content is ranked by domain strength. But however if each site has similar authority, the content will be the tiebreaker for better ranking.
To give you a better perspective on the keyword and what searchers are looking for, then ask yourself the following questions:
- Is the researcher looking for information or content about the product?
- Do they want something deeper? Or just a quick read?
- Why ranking current pages?
- What type of content will respond best to the keyword?
Now that you have a better understanding of the keyword, the top ranking pages and what the user is looking for. You are already prepared to create incredible content.
Always create long content:
As already mentioned above, long-form content ranks better in search engines. Recent research and studies by Moz show that longer content gets much more shares on social media and also gets more backlinks, meaning better positioning.
Another survey also found that most of the content that occupies the first page of Google search results has more than 2000 words or more. This does not mean that all your posts necessarily have to reach this length, but of course this should be your focus.
But be careful, because this means that you shouldn't be filling sausage with useless and unnecessary words to try to reach content with 2000 words or more.
The tip is, always try to focus on the intent of the keyword, because in some cases you can write fewer words and save your energy for other larger texts when you need it.
Try to create updated content:
Updated content is a potent weapon for attract traffic, and in turn should not be left out at any time. Updated content will always have more relevance over others as it does not depend on information that is timely.
See a simple example for you to understand better. Imagine a post like this: The Ultimate Guide to Ranking Your Site, and imagine something like: Learn all about Google's latest algorithm update.
Note that the first example will be relevant for a long period of time, while the second example is based entirely on real-time information.
This doesn't mean publishing your content once and forgetting about it forever. Instead, you constantly update the content to reflect new aspects that are relevant to your topic.
Updated content is invaluable as it will never lose its relevance. So that means you can share, promote and curate backlinks to this content.
This type of content tends to remain at the top of search engine rankings for years to come. Of course, such content is much more difficult to create, but the results will be satisfying for many, many years to come.
Point links to quality and authoritative sources:
Always try to link your article to a quality source, this will not harm your Seo at all, on the contrary it will help. Because when you link to other authoritative and high-quality sites, you will be informing Google that the content linked to yours is similar.
And by doing this you are improving the visitor experience, providing them with much more important information about the topic. Never let your website become obsolete on the internet, sharing the link is always good. Point out links to useful sources, as this only tends to improve your credibility more and more.
Now that you know that link bonding is important, you need to do it right. So in order for you to avoid sending the reader off your site, it is necessary that the external links open in a new window, or new tab. And to carry out this process is very simple, see an example below:
Create a hyperlink:
Creating a hyperlink is very simple, just highlight some part of your text that you want to link to and click on the hyperlink button as shown in the image below.
Change link opening options:
A small text box will appear for you, then just check the option (open link in new tab).
Use internal content linking:
The internal linking of your website content is extremely important and should never be left out of your strategy. Apply it whenever you can. This SEO technique is very powerful and simple to apply, in addition to bringing numerous advantages to your project, such as:
- Internal linking makes it easier for Google's robots to crawl your site;
- If your content is not receiving links from other sites, then the internal linking will;
- You will be helping Google to better understand the context of your page or post content by using a related hyperlink;
- This way you will also be able to make visitors stay longer on the site, visiting and reading other content. This will reduce your bounce rate.
The WordPress platform makes internal linking between content very easy. Whenever you're writing a post, simply highlight the piece of text you want to link to and click the hyperlink button.
Then just select the icon, as we've already shown how to do in the previous topic on creating hyperlinks. Which will show your link options.
Optimize your page as well as your post titles:
Your title tag is your most important tag on your website. It is what will tell Google what your page is about and, in turn, will influence readers to access your website, blog or virtual store. Let's take a simpler example. The title tag is the name of your page or post (article).
Carefully follow our guidelines below and further optimize the tag of your titles, this is essential and must be applied. Here are the techniques:
- Always put your main keyword in the title, if possible put it at the beginning;
- Try to create a tag that has a maximum of 56 characters, so it will be shown in full in search results;
- Craft a catchy title that makes people want to click on it. This will increase your click through rate (CTR).
Creating a super-optimized, clickable title tag is extremely simple to do. And if you are using the Yoast plugin we recommend, it will be even easier.
Then to change your title tag (if you have already posted the content) or to create a new title tag (if you are yet to create the post). Enter your post and scroll to the bottom of it.
There you will find a section called (Sample Preview). Just like in the image below. And it is in these fields that you will fill in your SEO title tag and make it optimized for search engines.
Optimize header tags:
To further improve your Seo it is also important that you optimize your header tag. Because they are the ones that will tell the robot what your content is about. It is essential to use these tags throughout your content, so it will be much more readable and optimized for search engines.
You should only have a single H1 tag in your posts, which would be the header tag. And then divide the subtitles by hierarchy between: H2, H3, H4 to H6. But usually up to H3 is used.
Your H1 tag will be the main title of your post or page, it will be the main heading. For this reason, it is important to insert your focus keyword there. And for the rest of all your header tags (subtitles) look to use a variation of your keyword as semantic targeting. If possible.
Only do this if it makes sense, you also need to think about the good experience of the user who will read the text. Within the WordPress text editor itself, you can simply and easily add your header tags as shown in the image below.
Use short urls:
When the subject is url, so the smaller it is, the better. Try to do your best to keep your urls short. And so they don't show directories or categories either.
Include only your focus keyword in your url and get rid of everything else. WordPress by default takes the H1 title (header) and makes it your url. But you should change that leaving only the keyword.
Of course, using a long url won't hurt your rankings, but it can make your url too long and broken. Looking like a spam link. Which will lower your click-through rate (CTR).
In case you have already changed your permalinks as we teach in one of our topics in this article, this will help you to have greater control of your url structure. Follow this guideline below to create search engine friendly urls:
- Try to use a short url whenever possible;
- Always insert your focus keyword in your url;
- Make a good combination of titles and urls;
- Make your urls human-readable;
- Avoid as much as possible to show categories, folders and directories in your urls.
This will make it much easier and simpler to edit your urls on your website or blog. Just click on put edit as shown in the model below and edit.
Optimize the meta description:
The meta description is nothing more than that gray text that appears under the blue links when you perform a Google search. It, in turn, has no direct connection with the positioning factor, but it will certainly help to improve the CTR, which is the click-through rate.
Having a well-filled and attractive meta description will certainly draw the attention of the searcher to a possible click on your post. Instead of clicking on other results shown in the search.
It's simple to understand, if you have a high CTR rate, then Google will consider that your page can be much more relevant than the others, and yes it can. improve your ranking on Google. Optimizing your meta description is also easy, just implement the techniques mentioned below:
- Put your keyword in your meta description as Google will highlight it in bold. Which will draw even more attention from those who are conducting the research.
- Imagine your meta description as a sponsored ad, where you will be using the persuasion for the searcher to click on it and not on other posts from other sites.
Schema Markup: Why Include?
You may have already heard or read the name Schema Markup in another article, which means markup scheme. And even may have already seen it in action but didn't know what it was. This is additional code that helps search engines provide data to their users.
When you implement this markup on your site, you make your search engine listings much more attractive. And that can raise your CTR and bring a lot more traffic to your site.
Some WordPress themes already have this scheme implemented, as is the case with the theme we use on this blog where you are reading this article now. The theme is called OceanWp and we highly recommend it.
To find out if your site already has a markup scheme, test this tool clicking here. It's a free tool from Google itself.
And if you still don't have the Schema Markup implemented, just add the Schema plugin accessing here. It's a free plugin and easy to configure. It will practically do the automatic configuration on your website.
Optimizing the site for Google serp:
Chances are, you've already seen boxes that appear at the top of Google search results. If you haven't seen them yet, they look like this:
Until today there is no way to prove how to get the much-desired first place, but applying some techniques correctly will certainly increase your chances, which are:
- Implement Schema Markup on your site;
- Answer the question contained in the keyword at the beginning of your post;
- Format your answer as an ordered or unordered listing.
Optimizing your images for search engines:
Using good images in your articles is definitely part of SEO, as it will create a much better reading experience. Not only will it help keep visitors more engaged with your content, it will also provide positive impressions of your site's performance.
But it's not enough just to insert images, you need to optimize them in order to improve even more, There are only 3 ingredients that you will use to better optimize your images, follow example:
The post image title text:
I don't know if you know, but the title of the image is not crawled by search engines, but it is a very important factor for the visitor's experience. When the user hovers over the image of the content, then the text of the title of the image appears to him.
And to change the title text of your image is very simple, easy and fast. Go to the post editor where you inserted the image. Then just click on the image, and then click on the pencil icon, which in turn will open the image editor. Follow the example below.
A little further down in the image details you will see an option with the name (Advanced options). It is in this field that you will enter the title of the image. Model below.
Image alt text:
The attribute (alt text) or alt text of your image will provide an indicator to the Google bot what your post is about. So in the first image of your article, you should always insert the text counting your main keyword. And for the other images in your post, try to use keywords related to them using variations, or describe the image.
To change the alternative text of your image, follow the previous step by step shown above. And once again click on the image and then click on the pencil that will open the editing option.
Look for the field called (Alt text), or alternative text, and there you will enter your main keyword, or a keyword related to your image. Example below:
Optimize image filename:
The filename of an image can and will help your image rank in Google image searches. Which could result in a lot more traffic to your website.
However, the vast majority of image file names are confusing or too long, and not related to the topic of your article.
So always before sending (uploading) an image to your WordPress, rename your image with your focus keyword that you are targeting in your content.
And another important detail is: if you are using several words in your file name, try to divide them with a hyphen. Because Google reads hyphens as a space.
Leaving the links as nofollow and sponsored:
If you work as an affiliate on the internet, which is an excellent way to earn money at home working honestly, surely your website uses affiliate links to track your commissions by referring products.
However, using too many of these links on your blog or website is frowned upon by Google. So if this is your case, you can easily camouflage them and make sure they are not followed by the search engine. To do this, just install a link redirection plugin called Pretty Links, which is free.
It is a very used and useful plugin, which will provide you with a unique and exclusive url containing the following attributes: Nofollow (do not follow) and Sponsored (sponsored) in all your affiliate links. This plugin also offers tracking so you know how many clicks your links are getting.
And to install this free plugin is very easy, go to the Plugins tab / Add new and search for Shortlinks by Pretty Links – Best WordPress Link Tracking Plugin.
Just check the two configuration options which are: Enable No Follow and Enable Sponsored, check them and that's it. Your plugin is configured and you are now within the standards required by Google.
After performing this configuration, just start creating your links in the Add new link option. This is also an excellent SEO technique as it will make your site compliant with the search engine.
Make your website more secure by adding an SSL security certificate – Https:
The SSL Security Certificate (Secure Scokets Layers) also known as HTTPS has become a mandatory item on your website since July 2018.
It is officially a major ranking factor of your placement in search results index rankings. In addition to making your site safe, it will help to improve the positioning. So since he is an important factor, he should definitely apply.
The SSL certificate will allow the browser to make a secure connection to any website you are connected to. And it will also encrypt all data sent between them. To install an SSL – HTTPS security certificate on your website is very simple:
- Please contact your current host. Surely they have a certificate to sell you;
- Buy a Let's Encrypt Command SSL;
- Install the certificate;
- Check if it's working. If it is working correctly, a LOCK will appear at the beginning of your url.
Build backlinks to improve your linkbuilding:
Backlinks are among the main factors in the positioning of a website, for this reason they should never be left out of your strategies in your projects.
For this reason, the more links from authority sites you have pointing to your website, the better your chances of being well positioned in the results of organic searches.
Keep in mind that this is not a post that will teach you how to create and get high quality backlinks, as it would be impossible to talk about all the strategies in detail here. But here are some tips to guide you on the subject and help you get backlinks:
- Always create high quality content, as this will make other sites and blogs link to you;
- Try writing articles on other blogs as a guest so you can link to yours;
- Internal backlinks are also backlinks (we mentioned this in the internal linking thread);
- Make comments on other blogs in the same niche as yours;
- Create profiles on common social networks that already exist and also on new social networks that many are still unaware of, to disseminate your content, which is also a way to get backlinks;
- Use analytics tools and websites to research your competitors and see how they are building backlinks.
Monitor your backlink profile:
By monitoring your backlinks, you can see if your Seo-Off Page efforts are having an effect on your project. External backlinks are therefore among the most important factors in ranking rankings, and for that reason it is an item that requires frequent checking.
Seeing a growing number of sites linking to you is certainly great. But keep in mind that it's not just the quantity of links that matters, but their quality. That's why getting backlinks from authoritative sites is more than essential for your techniques and strategies to have the success you so desire.
Nowadays there are many tools available for you to monitor your backlink profile. One of the most used is aHrefs. It will provide you in detail with the quantity and quality of sites that link to you, the number of referring domains and much more.
The tool is paid and you can try it for 7 days paying a small fee of $7 dollars, and your monthly plan starts at $99 dollars. But it is definitely worth every penny.
Force the Google bot to crawl and index your site quickly:
Your website is crawled according to how often you publish new articles. But there is a way to make the crawl robot index it in the search index much faster.
Just go to Google Search Console and in the top left corner you will see an option called (Url Inspection). Just click on this option and insert the url of the article you just published and hit enter, or click Test Published Url.
Google will do a quick check on your url and then just click the (Request Indexing) button. Soon your url will be sent to a queue and soon it will be indexed in the search index.
Of course, this doesn't happen as quickly as you might imagine, but it's much better to do that than waiting for indexing naturally, which can take days.
Long tail keywords:
Depending on your niche, ranking your page among the top positions in search results for certain keywords can be very difficult.
Many of these positions have been conquered by older sites with content that in turn has been optimized over a long period of time. Not to mention the excellent backlink profile that helps them even more. In that case, you'll need to rethink your strategy and continue targeting smaller keywords.
They are termed as Long Tail Keyword, which are known as long tail keywords. In a simple example, try to understand what a searcher is looking for before purchasing the product.
After that, use a tool like KWFinder to get an estimate of the difficulty of positioning and the volume of monthly searches that the word has, make a list of all the options that offer the greatest potential and then publish your article. This will bring a much higher flow of qualified traffic to your website.
Conclusion:
Just saw how much you have to take into account to optimize a site for search engines. We sincerely hope that this article with the best SEO techniques for WordPress was very useful for you. And that you apply these strategies in your projects and start optimizing your website today.
It's a long-term job, always remember that. So the greater your effort, the more results you will get. And of course they saw it over time.
We're done here, success and until the next post?
Read too:
? How to Increase My Site Visibility on Google?
? Know What Are The Best SEO Plugins For WordPress.