What Is WordPress SEO?
While there’s no doubt that WordPress itself doesn’t replace a good SEO strategy, understanding that you need to put some effort into ranking your site means that if you want to see results from using the platform, then you need to be willing to put in the work yourself to rank in Google.
Don’t expect WordPress to be a magic wand just because you installed it. It takes some time and effort. SEO can get technical very quickly, but the beauty of WordPress makes it easily accessible to those who aren’t experienced or even those who don’t class themselves as being technical.
Because you’re using WordPress, don’t assume that the SEO techniques you use will be different than they would if you were using another platform. You still need to create a great type of content, earn great links, and ensure that your site is well-optimized and free from technical issues that could hold it back. With WordPress, you get lots of useful features for free which makes it easier than ever to create an attractive website and help it rank. If you want to know how to properly optimize your WordPress site and start increasing your organic traffic, then before you get started, there are some basic things that you need to make certain you’ve got covered so that you’re confident that you’re building something solid.
WordPress SEO Basics
Choose a Reliable Hosting Provider
Make sure you’re using a good hosting service for your site. Site speed, uptime, and security are all key reasons to think carefully about who you will use as your host.
Poor site speed can negatively affect your WordPress site’s overall Search Engine Optimization performance, which means it could hurt traffic and conversions if not addressed quickly. You shouldn’t be tempted to choose the most affordable solution because you’re more prone to having performance issues when using an inexpensive product.
Install a WordPress Theme with SEO features
You’ll probably be greeted by WordPress’s default ‘Twenty Twenty’ theme when you initially set up your site. However, chances are this isn’t one you will want to use for your site.
You’ll find hundreds of free WordPress themes at the Dashboard, but if you’re looking for something customised specifically for your business then there are plenty of premium options too.
Many themes claim to be “SEO friendly,” but they often include unnecessary code that slows down your site’s speed. Before installing a theme, run its demo through Google’s web.dev tool to get insights on potential performance and SEO issues. This should at least give you the confidence that you are choosing a theme that is not going to hold you back.
Install a Free WordPress SEO Plugin
Before you start optimizing your site, you first need to install an SEO plugin. Luckily, there are a couple of main options which come commonly recommended, both of which are free to install:
All in One SEO Pack and Yoast SEO
A plugin doesn’t automatically optimize your site for you—it just makes things easier for you by making sure you follow best practices when building out your site.
Set Your Preferred Domain
Whether you choose your domain authority as https://domain.com or https://www.domain.com won’t have an impact on your SEO, but you need to make sure your site is accessible on just one of these, as these are considered by Google to be different URLs.
You may select either option for creating a new website; however, if you are planning to replace an old one, be sure to use exactly the same version you have traditionally been using.
Carry Out Target Keyword Research
Without keyword research, you are not going to know which search terms you should be optimizing your site’s content for. When planning an on-page SEO campaign, keyword research should be done before anything else so you know exactly where to focus your efforts.
Knowing which keywords you’re targeting when optimizing pages is essential no matter whether you’re starting from scratch or building out a new piece of content.
Update Your Permalink Settings
A permalink is a permanent URL, or link to a specific post or page, on your WordPress site. If you’re using WordPress by default, then your links will use a random set of numbers and letters at the end of each URL. If you want people who use search engines like Google to find your blog post, then you need to change these advanced settings so they’re optimized for both humans and machines.
With just one click, you can update your permalinks so they contain primary keyword phrases for each page. So, if search engines can read your URL structure, they’ll be able to tell whether your site has the answer to any given search queries.
Optimize Your Images
There are several things you need to consider when optimizing your images for web use. First, you want to make sure they’re properly sized and compressed to maintain your site’s speed and performance. There are two ways to optimize images for Google: manual and automatic. You next need to make sure they include alt text for Google images.
Alt text lets both search engines know what the images are about, which enables search engines to better rank them in image results pages. It can also help your search engine ranking on SERPs since Google now delivers image file results above text-based results for certain keywords.
Alt text also makes your relevant content more accessible to readers with visual impairments or readers using devices with low-bandwidth connections.
Improve your site speed
Even though WordPress has a great performance by default, most websites could benefit from some tweaks for better page load speeds.
Because site speed is such an important part of the overall user experience, it’s crucial for any business owner to pay attention to their web pages’ loading speeds. So, if you want to keep people coming back, then you need to give them something worth staying for.
Why Choose Us?
If all this sounds challenging, then let us do the hard work. At Solomon Designs, we’re Web Performance experts and we take pride in delivering outstanding customer experience and user experience, too. We believe in building long-term relationships with clients because happy customers mean repeat business. Our team works hard to understand your needs and implement strategies that will grow your Online Presence.
We are motivated to offer a consultation for your requirements. Let’s work together on High-Quality content.
