Overview:
Boost Your Website’s Ranking with WordPress SEO. Whether your goal is to entertain and inform readers, promote your work, sell your products and services, you definitely want to get many visitors and increase your website traffic. But where to start ? There are many ways to increase traffic to your site, but search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the most effective.
SEO is a collection of strategies and techniques aimed at helping your pages rank higher in search engine results. This increases the visibility of your site and can help it really take off. However, we know that the idea of optimizing for WordPress SEO can be daunting for beginners. But don’t worry, it doesn’t have to be complicated. Start here to learn the basics, then you can apply them to your own WordPress site.
Introduction
WordPress is the market leader in website creation. It is what is called a CMS, which means in English “Content Management System”. It is mainly used for its ease of handling and for its infinite possibilities. Whether you have a blog, a showcase site or an online store, it is a tool that adapts very easily to what you want to do.
What is SEO?
In a broad sense, referencing is the action of referencing a thing (products in a store, information, files), that is, providing it in a system. On the internet, the term referencing has been used to define the action of registering a site on a search engine or a directory. Internet referencing is not limited to websites or web pages. You can also reference images, documents (.doc, .pdf, .rar..), videos, products, places or applications.
Referencing necessarily goes through an indexing phase, during which a database is created. Referencing therefore also defines the action of registering a chosen item in a database so that the latter can then be found / consulted.
Why SEO is important
Natural referencing aims to improve the positioning of your website in the search engine results pages and increase your visibility. With a good SEO, your website will appear in the first pages of search engines.
The Basics of WordPress SEO
Whether one is a professional blogger or an amateur, having a small readership is undesirable when writing creative and thoughtful articles on WordPress. But to increase its reach and succeed in convincing with its content, it is necessary above all that Internet users manage to find your blog. This is where Search Engine Optimization (SEO) comes in. Find in our tutorial on SEO for WordPress important tips and tricks for a successful web presence in the world of blogs.
Check your site’s visibility settings
To check your website’s visibility setting, all you have to do is log in to your WordPress site’s admin area, click on Settings, and choose Play. Next, you need to scroll down to the “Search Engine Visibility” section and make sure the “Discourage search engines from indexing this site” box is unchecked. Remember to click the “Save Changes” button to save your changes.
Using SEO friendly URL structure in WordPress
t’s always best to stick to the way WordPress does things and what Google prefers, which is to use the traditional hyphen to separate words in your URLs. Underscores can be difficult to read.
For example use https://example.com/ your-article , instead of https://example.com/ your_article
So even if you prefer underscores, we recommend using dashes as this is the structure preferred by WordPress and Google.
WWW vs non-WWW in URLs
If you’re just getting started with your website, you’ll need to decide if you want to use www (http://www.example.com) or non-www (http://example.com) in the URL.
Because search engines consider these to be two distinct websites, you must select one and stick with it.
Visit the Settings » General page to set your preference. In both the “Site Address” and “WordPress Address” fields, enter your preferred URL.
The Best WordPress SEO Plugin
There are plugins for everything in WordPress, including SEO, which is one of its best features. Since there are thousands of WordPress SEO plugins, choosing the best one can be challenging for novices.
We will assist you in selecting the best free WordPress SEO plugin, so you don’t have to install separate plugins for each SEO task.
Choosing the Best WordPress SEO plugin
With regards to picking the best WordPress Website design enhancement module, you will probably limit your decisions down to the two most famous arrangements: Yoast SEO or All in One SEO (AIOSEO).
Over 3 million websites use AIOSEO, the original WordPress SEO plugin.
We use this plugin on the SAFI Dot Tech website.
TruSEO on-page analysis, rich snippets schema markup, social media integration, breadcrumb navigation, advanced eCommerce SEO support for WooCommerce, local SEO, and an internal link assistant are just a few of the powerful features included.
To put it simply, AIOSEO is in charge of all of your WordPress site’s technical SEO optimization.
We will use AIOSEO for examples and screenshots in this tutorial.
Our comprehensive guide on how to set up All In One SEO for WordPress provides additional information.
We used to use Yoast SEO, but because it is more innovative and has more powerful features, we switched to All in One SEO. For additional subtleties, see 9 motivations behind why we changed from Yoast to AIOSEO.
Add XML sitemaps in WordPress
A sitemap is an XML file that lists a website’s URLs along with other information about each page, such as when the page was modified, how frequently it changes, and the relative importance of each URL.
The sitemap for your site is usually located at the root of your domain, i.e. if your site is www.example.com , your sitemap will be
www.example.com/sitemap.xml.
This file is very useful for search engines like Google, because it helps to better index your site. You can find your WordPress sitemap by going to the Settings > General menu , then clicking on the “WordPress Sitemap” link.
Add your site to Google Search Console
Google Search Console is known as Google webmaster tools. In this tutorial, I will show you how to add your site to Google Search Console and get the most out of it for your website.
Optimizing your blog posts for SEO
You now have all the keys in hand to optimize your SEO for your blog posts. It is important not to neglect any of the tips we have just given you so that your SEO strategy is a success and that your articles are positioned in an optimized way on Google. Once these are online and to maximize your traffic, promote your articles on your social networks.
Doing keyword research for your website
To find competitors’ keywords, simply enter their site URL and click “Get Ideas”. In a few seconds, the Google Keyword Planner/ Semrush will provide you with a list of keywords that are associated with the page.
WordPress SEO Best Practices
WordPress SEO improves the ranking of a website in search engines and increases its organic traffic. This comprehensive guide to WordPress SEO will help you use several tools and features to optimize your site.
Optimizing a WordPress site involves several steps and methods. This article will walk you through the essentials, from setting up an SEO-friendly website to improving loading speeds and optimizing content.
In addition, we will review the best practices and the best plugins for the SEO of your WordPress site. If you’re not sure you can implement these strategies on your own, we’ll also cover how to hire an SEO professional.
Let’s start by understanding what SEO is and cover the benefits of implementing the following strategies.
Properly using categories and tags in WordPress
WordPress categories and tags help you organize content on your website. You can use categories to group articles that discuss the same subject and use tags to describe each article in more detail.
The tips in this article will help you use categories and tags correctly in WordPress. The only thing you need to do now is decide on your categories and tags and start using them to organize your amazing blog posts.
Make internal linking a habit
Very useful for the Internet user, the internal mesh allows you to navigate from one page to another . It is a connection, or a form of bridge, between page A and page B of the same website.
When the internal linking is done correctly, it makes it possible to create a true architecture of the site .
It all starts with thinking about the categories, products you sell and the different themes you want to address on your site and which will be of interest to your customers.
To establish good internal links within your site, it is therefore necessary to make a study of the targeted keywords for each of the pages.
The internal mesh is an essential structuring element in a website. If you have many pages, it is strongly recommended that you work on it in depth to ensure that it is not biased and that it does not harm your SEO or the experience of your visitors.
Add schema markup and rich snippets
Structured data, in English schema markup, makes it clear to Google that it could use featured snippets.
For example: “It will take 20 minutes to make the pancakes. Best of all, these are low calorie pancakes, around 80 calories per serving. »
Rather than Google trying to extract this information to help the Internet user in his research, you can simply specify this piece of code (simplify) in your page:
There is no point in using JSON-LD tags to display the calories of your recipe if you are an e-commerce site. So, I invite you to go through the process of obtaining eligible rich snippets for your content on the dedicated Google page: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/structured-data/search-gallery
Anyway, here’s what you can implement regardless of your field:
- “How to” markup
- Review markup
- FAQ markup
There are many more options, but they apply to fairly specific website categories like the recipes you saw at the start.
Nevertheless, I suggest you consult the documentation if your domain concerns:
- News, Media & Entertainment
- Books
- Education
- Events
- Datasets
- Job-related content
If one of the categories seems relevant to you, consult theofficial documentation,
Note: Implementing FAQ rich snippets is quite a popular modern SEO tactic to get more pixels on the SERPs. Even though it is listed under the product type, it can be used on any page that has an FAQ section, such as a contact page that is for all websites.
Optimize WordPress comments
Go to Settings > Discussion in the WordPress admin area . Find the Other comment settings section . Check the box next to Split comments into pages with and add a value for the number of comments you want to display on initial page load.
NoFollow external links in WordPress
A nofollow link is a type of link that tells search engines to not pass any link authority from your page to the other website that you’re linking to. You can turn any link into a nofollow link by adding the link attribute rel=”nofollow”
A normal external link looks like this in HTML:
<a href="http://example.com">Example Website</a>
An external link with the nofollow attribute looks like this:
<a href="http://example.com" rel="nofollow">Example Website</a>
Full posts vs summaries (excerpts)
We try to optimize SafiDotTech for a better user experience. We want users to easily navigate the website and find what they are looking for. At the same time, we also want search engines to help users find content on our website. Our approach to managing archive pages is therefore focused on a better user experience as well as good WordPress SEO.
1. Faster loading time
At SafiDotTech, our posts usually contain a good number of images with screenshots. By using excerpts in our archive pages, we dramatically improve the load time of archive pages. Imagine an archive page that displays 10 posts per page (which is pretty standard). Now, if each of those 10 pages has more than 500 words and 5 images, your user will have a lot to scroll through. The page will also load slower than normal. By using snippets, we greatly improve the user experience. Users can load and browse our category, tags, date and other archive pages quickly and easily.
When it comes to search engines, Google particularly likes faster page load times.
2. Prevent Duplicate Content
By displaying excerpts on your archive pages, you can avoid being flagged for duplicate content in search engines. For example, WordPress comes with category, tag, date, and author archives by default. If you post full articles to the archive, each article will appear in its entirety on several different pages of your site. Even though search engines are smart enough to come up with a canonical URL for every post, they can still flag duplicate content to the site, which will affect your search engine rankings.
Note: If you are using the full post, just use the WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin and set all archive pages to noindex.
3. Increases page views and reduces bounce rate
People often tend to leave the slow loading website. We have already mentioned that using snippets makes the page load faster. By using snippets, you reduce the bounce rate. You also increase the number of page views because the user has to click through to the full page of the post to be able to read the entire article. These two metrics, pageviews and bounce rate, play an important role in your ad revenue.
Read more tips on: How to Increase Pageviews and Reduce Bounce Rate in WordPress
Speed and Security for WordPress SEO
Even if you follow all the WordPress SEO tips and best practices above, if your site is slow or gets taken down by a hacker, your search engine rankings will take a big hit.
Here’s how to prevent your site from losing search engine traffic due to slow performance or lax security.
Optimize your site’s speed and performance
Research shows that in modern times, the typical human capacity to focus is more limited than that of a goldfish.
Web convenience specialists accept that clients conclude whether they need to remain or leave inside a couple of moments of visiting a site.
This indicates that as the owner of a website, you only have a short amount of time to present your content and engage users. You don’t want to waste this valuable time making your website visitor wait for it to load.
Faster websites are ranked higher in search engine results because user experience is so important. To put it another way, Google ranks faster websites higher.
You need a fast WordPress hosting provider like Bluehost or SiteGround in order to speed up your website.
After that, you need to set up a caching plugin and follow our ultimate guide to making WordPress faster (which includes 24 tried-and-true tips).
Optimizing images in WordPress for SEO
While images load more slowly than text, they are more engaging. Image quality and size can slow down your website if you don’t pay attention.
You want to ensure that you use pictures that are advanced to stack quicker. Check out our guide on optimizing images for the web to speed up WordPress.
Adding descriptive alt tags and titles to your images is another way to make them more search engine friendly. Your image’s subject is better understood by search engines thanks to these tags. Because their screen readers can read the alt text to users with visual impairments, they also aid those users.
When you upload an image to WordPress, you can easily add title and alt tags.
Security and safety of your WordPress site
Google blacklists approximately 20,000 malware- and 50,000 phishing-related websites each week. A website that has been blacklisted will not appear in any search results at all.
This indicates that good rankings depend on the security of your WordPress website. If a hacker gets into your website, you don’t want all of your SEO efforts to be wasted.
The good news is that maintaining your WordPress site’s safety is not difficult at all; our ultimate WordPress security guide provides step-by-step instructions.
We at SafiDotTech use Sucuri to safeguard our website from cyberattacks. Check out our case study about how Sucuri helped us block 450,000 WordPress attacks in three months to see why we recommend this service.
Start using SSL/HTTPS
The technology known as SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) encrypts a user’s connection between their browser and the server. Your WordPress website gains an additional layer of security thanks to this.
The address bar of the browser displays a padlock symbol when a website is secured with SSL. This increases the trustworthiness of your website and is necessary if you use WordPress to run an online store and process sensitive payment information.
All top WordPress facilitating organizations offer free SSL declarations with We should Scramble. For more information, see our guide on how to get a free SSL certificate for your website.
In the event that you need a premium special case SSL declaration or simply a customary testament with security guarantee, then, at that point, we suggest utilizing Domain.com.
A minimum security guarantee of $10,000 and a maximum security guarantee of $1.75 million are included with their SSL certificates. Additionally, you receive a TrustLogo site seal that you can use to boost your website’s credibility.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, WordPress is a CMS that allows you to create a multitude of websites with different purposes. If you are looking for an easy-to-use showcase or e-commerce site builder, WordPress is the solution! Despite these limitations, it will allow you to set up intuitive and sophisticated websites. The modifications, in the administration area, are very simple. Boost Your Website’s Ranking with WordPress SEO You will not need to have any knowledge in web development. If you want to customize your site, have difficulty starting your project with WordPress or fully manage your digital project, contact the SafiDotTech.Com. We will know, you listen and accompany you from the ideation to the completion of your project.