WordPress And SEO
If you haven’t heard of WordPress then you probably belong to the Dark Ages. WordPress comes straight out of a box and embraces search engines like a long lost friend. Everything about WP smells of SEO…from features to functions to pages, categories, you name it! Search engine spiders will crawl your blog site like there is no tomorrow and gather and index information pertaining your website on their database for easy referencing.
WordPress software comes with plenty of in-built features that aid SEO. It also have specific SEO tools, besides the ability to use ‘.htaccess’ to make static URLs or permalinks. Some other features include blog rolling, pinging, several 3rd party plugins, hacks etc that can be used for better SEO.
Once you customize WordPress for your use, it is possible that you hurt the search engine friendly features. Therefore, it is important for you to ensure that optimal performance of your WordPress is maintained to attract the spiders. Here’s how:
Keep A Good, Clean Code – Ensure the code is error free and validated by search engines.
Content Speaks Aloud – Did you know search engines don’t ‘SEE,’ rather ‘READ’ a site, any site? Yes! It doesn’t matter if you have the prettiest website on the Internet. What matters is only your content. The content on your website should be informative, interesting, error free, clean, and educative (if possible). Use proper keywords where necessary. Good content SCORES very high on search engines.
Searchers-Oriented Content – Whenever you write content for your WordPress website, make sure you write it keeping in mind your end user – the searcher. Think about the keywords he/she can use to search for you. Use these keywords or key phrases in your Page title, the heading, subheadings and sprinkle them lightly through the content as well. Research the various search engines to understand how your content is scanned and try to fashion your content in the same manner to find favor with search engines.
Content Is King – Even when using WordPress, you must understand that search engines plough through your content and pretty much, ignore the styles and CSS. That’s why most of the WP themes have been designed keeping in mind that the text stays as close to the very top of your unstyled WP page as possible, while sidebars and footers are kept at the bottom.
Tip: Most search engines just scan the top third part of the page before moving on to the next one.
Adding Keywords, Links, and Titles To The Content – By using keywords, links, and appropriate titles to your content you increase your chances of attracting search engine spiders. Your Meta tags, page titles, and image labels should all be keyword driven.
Link Popularity – Solid links to your site are worth their weight in gold with search engines. It’s all about whom else is linked to you and blogrolls, pingbacks, and trackbacks are some of the in-built features of WordPress that help you achieve this. Type link: www.yoursite.com into Google to check the exact number of incoming links your website has received via Google.
As a last word – WordPress is one of the most Search Engine friendly program and you must take full advantage of its built-in SEO features.
SIgn up for SEOintelligence and optimize your Word Press installation to its fullest potential!
By Jeremy Hermanns | July 1, 2008 | Filed Under SEO Advice, Uncategorized
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