Having a great site built around a lovely WordPress theme is useless in the event people do not get to see it. This is why search engine optimization is so important. Unfortunately, most people have no idea what to do and without advanced SEO knowledge it is normally hard to explain all that should be done. With this in mind, here are 7 very simple WordPress SEO tips that will help you.
7 Very Simple WordPress SEO Tips All Website Owners Should Know
Develop Content Readers Will Love
No matter what optimization you do, if the content is not high quality and unique, it will not work. You want to ideally create content that includes text with keywords highlighting overall theme. Everything has to be readable, understandable and you need to use keywords in a wise way. You mainly write for your visitors, not for the search engines, no matter what anyone tells you. Only buy links to the highest quality content you have.
Add Internal Backlinks
It is a shame to see so many WordPress sites that do not add internal backlinks since the link feature inside the CMS editor actually includes a search to make it easy to find relevant content. That feature was put in there because of the high value of internal links. You want to complement the article you post with other articles you wrote and that would add value to the topic you talk about inside the post.
Change Image File Names
Search engines also analyze images when calculating ranking. Images and text are included in Google search results so it makes sense that this is the case. The idea is to use keywords in the file name of your images and to take advantage of image description fields in the WordPress editor. Do not leave the file names with the generic names that appear after using your camera, like DSC001.jpg.
Change Permalinks To Include Keywords
One of the biggest SEO optimization mistakes that beginners make is not changing the permalink structure inside WordPress settings. You want to be sure that the permalinks include the keyword that perfectly characterizes the content. At the same time, the links should not be too long.
Choose Themes That Are SEO Optimized
If you use an older theme there is a pretty good possibility that it is not optimized for search engines. The themes you use include so much code affecting design, layout and even loading speed. The faster performing themes with a responsive design are those that are preferred by all the large search engines. Remember that the theme should load fast and offer the possibility to create a highly useful structure, one that makes navigation really simple.
Create XML Sitemaps
This is really easy to do when you utilize a WordPress SEO plugin since they do this automatically. You need the XML sitemap in order to submit it to Google Webmaster Tools. As you do this every single time your site will update Google will know about it. This prompts the search engine to send crawl robots and index your site in a near instant manner.
Optimize Text Formatting
Google is now mainly thinking about user experience when assigning a quality value to the content that is present on a site. WordPress allows you to easily format your text with headings, bullet lists and much more. Take advantage of this so that your text is easily scanned and read by every single visitor.