adminSearch engine optimization can no more be restricted to link building and keyword stuffing. The growth of SEO has been in leaps and bounds over the years and it will undoubtedly keep evolving further. Though we might be aware of technicalities with regard to website SEO, optimizing WordPress could be a different tale altogether. WordPress SEO Strategies include nuances which if explored could bring out outstanding results for business owners.
So let us delve into such intricacies on WordPress which can help you become much more discoverable and provide you that dreamy SEO outcome!
Checkout Settings:
You might be working on your content for some time. Make sure that you check this option of “discourage search engines from indexing” till you finish with the content, design and other aspects on your blog.
This option is significant as it enables you to hold on the content from displaying until it is complete and done. This prevents confusion with regard to displaying half done content which will impact your SEO ranking.
When this particular option is enabled, it disallows search engines to crawl that bit of content. WordPress also facilitates the usage of rel=”noindex” and rel=”nofollow” so that they don’t get crawled and indexed till you really want them to. This option is specifically useful when bloggers skip tweaking permalink structures resulting in a bunch of 404 errors on Google Webmaster Tools.
Fine Tune Permalinks:
Permalinks have a default structure and WordPress SEO Strategies uses the default structure that is ‘?p=[id]‘ permalinks for posts. These do not search engine friendly which might end up hitting hard on the visibility of your blogs.
A text-based permalink structure like ‘yourdomainname.com/year/month/post-name/‘is ideal but bloggers may incorporate permalink structures based on their own choice too.
Incorporate an .xml sitemap plugin
A .xml sitemap plugin plays a significant role in WordPress SEO Strategies. Providing a sitemap of links to search engines in the XML format can help to ease the complete process of crawling and indexing while saving a lot of time. The most recommended XML sitemap plugin is the Google XML sitemaps.
Use a combination of SEO plugin and rel=” canonical”
Having an SEO plugin in place can and help yourself with getting over with a few SEO related concerns automatically. Eventually, make sure that when you incorporate an SEO plugin, have a rel=” canonical” tag for your blog content as part of SEO plugin onboarding.
By using this tag you will be allowing search engines to find the true source of URLs to your blogs which will in turn help in overcoming concerns due to duplicated content.
There are a variety of plugins to choose from which can feed you with enough information about keyword optimization, canonicalization, Meta tags and also SEO analytics. SEO plugins can help you with metrics about your blog performance, indexation, inbound links and so on.
Read Also: Importance Of Canonical Element In SEO | SEO Canonicalization
Using robots.txt
Robots.txt is used to inform Google bots not to crawl and index specific directories and pages on your website. You could do the same in WordPress too. With WP Robots.txt plugin exclusively for WordPress, you will not even need to insert a WordPress installation directory.
This particular plugin automatically creates a virtual directory that works similar to the original one. This particular option can be enabled by going to “Settings->reading” at any point in time.
Read Also: Robots.txt for Online Search Visibility
Fixing broken links
Fixing your broken links is pivotal as search engines might consider your content to be abandoned if not handled appropriately. The presence of broken links can have a negative impact on your SEO score.
The broken link checker Word Press plugin helps to manage broken internal and external links. Features are mentioned below
- WordPress plugin provides a thorough list of all the broken links along with automatically enabling the “no follow” option for these links.
- Instructs the search engine spiders not to crawl and index these links thereby improving the quality of your content. This plugin also intimates the bloggers through an email notification if a new broken link surfaces.
- WordPress feature further helps in keeping yourself informed about any changes happening on your website.
Read Also: Do 404 errors pull down SEO strategies on websites?
Using the rel=” author” tag
Statistics by search marketing firm Catalyst says that there is an increase of about 150% in traffic when you include a re=” author” markup for your blogs.
What are the benefits of using this markup?
The authorship markup is helpful in authorizing your content. It validates that the content is yours. Coming to SERPs, this markup links to your Google+ profile which further adds value. You could continue delivering quality content and earn a good reputation.
Google would mark you as an authoritative content provider. This is called the Google Author Rank. Once the markup is done, irrespective of the website, your content will automatically stay ahead in SERP due to the Google authorship markup.
Churn out high-quality, lengthy posts
Elaborative and educational content always earns an edge in WordPress SEO Strategies. Based on statistics by SERPIQ, the length of the content is directly proportional to its ranking on SERP.
This doesn’t mean that you need to elaborate on topics unnecessarily. You could do some good research about the topic and try providing useful information which truly adds value and educates the readers.
Finally, you could provide options to share your content on networking platforms which can contribute towards increased traffic. You should also consider building a mobile responsive design as compatibility across devices has become a prerequisite in the present day scenario.
Final thoughts
Implementing these basic techniques on your WordPress blogs would definitely accelerate your SEO ranking. More than anything else keep feeding relevant and useful content on trending topics; spark the interest amongst your readers and attract potential traffic to your content.
Read Also: Benefits of Paid SEO Audit Tools
Thamarai P
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