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Ultimate WordPress SEO Guide for Beginners
Table of Contents
What is WordPress?
WordPress, sometimes known as WP or wordpress.org, is a free content management system.
The term “Content Management System” refers to a system that allows you to manage your content.
It’s a PHP-based open-source content management system that works with a MySQL or MariaDB database.
WordPress is a platform for creating and hosting websites. WordPress has a large number of plugins, architectures, and themes.
It’s a popular tool for those who want to create websites and blogs but don’t know how to code.
It is completely free to download, use, and modify.
WordPress was originally designed specifically for the purpose of creating blogs.
Fast forward to now, and the software has advanced to the point that you can now construct whatever sort of website you choose.
You may create professional portfolios, lifestyle blogs, company websites, e-commerce businesses, mobile apps, and membership sites using the platform.
What Is WordPress SEO?
Website owners use SEO, or search engine optimisation, to increase visitors by ranking higher in search engines.
It’s not about deceiving Google algorithm when it comes to SEO.
Major search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo, and others establish guidelines and best practices for these tactics and procedures.
WordPress isn’t a replacement for a solid SEO strategy.
There’s no doubt that the content management system saves you time and makes it easier to follow best practices even if you don’t have any experience.
You must understand that ranking your website on Google or other search engines requires effort.
There are several WordPress plugins available that will make your work much easier.
You don’t even need to know how to code for that.
Benefits of SEO.
SEO is significant for the following reasons:
- Most of the search engine users are more inclined to click on one of the search engine results pages’ top suggestions (SERPS).
- SEO is about more than just search engines, it also improves a website’s usability and user experience.
- It improves the website’s trustworthiness.
- SEO aids in the generation of a high volume of organic visitors.
- Increases sales for ecommerce websites.
- SEO might help you get a leg up on the competition.
Why should you use WordPress for SEO?
There are many advantages to utilising WordPress for SEO. The following are a few
of them:
- With a variety of SEO-friendly plugins and themes, it’s simple to personalise.
- The emphasis of WordPress is on the user experience.
- It helps you to automatically generate a suitable permalink.
- It helps you to add metadata automatically.
- It is simple to optimise photographs for SEO through WordPress.
- Improve the speed of your website.
- Support for social media integration and advertising campaigns.
Let's start with WordPress for SEO.
SEO is dependent on a number of factors. WordPress aids in the appropriate use of all factors. So, let’s look at how to use WordPress to increase your website’s SEO.
Choose a Reliable Hosting Provider.
Web hosting is an online service that allows you to publish your website.
When you sign up for a web hosting service, you are essentially renting space on a server where you may keep all the files and data that your website needs to function correctly.
Finding the proper web hosting service is the first step in the website building process.
To avoid your site having too much downtime, it’s critical to find a web hosting provider that gives a high uptime guarantee.
It’s sometimes easy to just go with the lowest price offered but you should look at the web host’s storage, convenience of use, eCommerce facilities, and customer support services.
For a personal blog or a small company website, shared hosting is adequate. You won’t have to worry about server or related web maintenance since the provider will do it for you.
Most hosting firms will provide you with custom storage, a desired domain name, SSL certificates, relatively decent speed, excellent uptime, support for external CMS (such as WordPress), etc.
Make a choice for your preferred domain.
Your domain name is your website’s online identity. It is a unique address.
You’ll want to choose a domain name that not only matches your company but is also simple to remember and advertise.
Make your domain name as keyword-rich as possible. Keep the name short and easy to remember.
Install WordPress on your website.
You’ll need to install the CMS to link your new domain to your website if you’re using a hosting provider that isn’t WordPress.
The majority of hosting providers allow you to install WordPress with a single click.
You may manually install it on your website.
To install manually, follow the process How to install WordPress.
Install an SEO-friendly WordPress Theme.
You may personalise your WordPress website with one of the numerous themes and templates available, each with a variety of layouts, formatting styles, colours, fonts, and other aesthetic choices.
There are lots of free themes and paid themes on WordPress. You can choose one which is suitable for your business.
Theme installation process:
- In your WordPress dashboard, go to Appearance >> Themes.
- On the Themes page, at the top of the page, click Add New.
- Choose a theme by typing it into the upper right corner’s search box. Once you find your suitable free WordPress themes, click on the preview button to have a quick look.
- To begin the installation procedure, click Download.
- Once you’ve finished, click Activate.
You can also hire a web developer for WordPress development services to customise your own theme.
Add a free WordPress SEO plugin to your website.
WordPress Plugins are little bits of software which add functionality and improve the user experience on your WordPress website.
With over 55,000 plugins to choose from, there is something for practically every style of website and user.
WordPress plugins installation process is almost similar to the Theme Installation. Here is the plugins installation process:
- Go to Plugins >> Add new option in your WordPress dashboard.
- Use the search box in the upper right corner to look for a plugin. There will be a vast number of outcomes.
- Click Install Now when you’ve found the plugin in the results. You may also discover additional information about a plugin by clicking its name.
You can install plugins manually also.
Some of the greatest WordPress SEO plugins-
- Yoast SEO.
- All In One SEO Pack.
- Rank Math.
Check the visibility settings on your WordPress website.
Check the WordPress visibility settings. You can easily conceal your website from search engines using the WordPress settings.
When you’re creating or rebuilding your website and don’t want people to see your work in progress, this might be useful.
The option may be accessed in the “Settings” >> “Reading” sections of your WordPress dashboard.
Check the “Discourage search engines from indexing this site” option.
Be sure that you haven’t switched on this feature by mistake, or that you haven’t left it on after you’ve finished your website auditing.
Your WordPress SEO won’t function if it’s turned on.
Enable SEO Friendly Permalinks.
You have a few choices for how URLs are formatted on WordPress, and you need to be sure you’re choosing the most SEO-friendly one.
WordPress utilises URLs like this by default: “https://domain.com/?p=123”
These URLs are not search engine friendly, and there is no way to tell what the website is about just by looking at the URL.
Fortunately, you can customise your URL structure in Settings >> Permalinks. For most websites, the permalinks should be set to “Post name.”
Submit Your XML Sitemap and verify your site with Google Search Console.
An XML Sitemap is a specifically prepared file that contains a list of all of your website’s pages.
This allows search engines to easily discover all of your information.
While including an XML sitemap does not improve your site’s search rankings, it does assist search engines in swiftly locating and ranking the pages.
If you use the AIO SEO plugin, it will generate an XML sitemap for you automatically.
Simply browse to this URL (change example.com with your own domain name) to discover your sitemap.
How to add your website to Google Search Console:
It is just a simple task. You only need to follow some steps. Here, the steps are given below:
- Firstly, you need to have a Google account. If you do not have an account, simply go to the link to sign up for a Google Search account.
- Now go to Google Search Console and login now. If you are already logged in, then just click on the “Start Now” button.
- Under the search drop-down, select ‘Add a property.’
- Click ‘Continue’ after selecting a property type and entering your website URL.
- Then Right Click on the Copy button in order to copy the Full meta tag.
- Now, log in to your WordPress website in another tab of your browser. And install SMNTCS Google Webmaster Tools plugin in WordPress. You can do this part manually or with any other plugins such as Yoast, all-in-one-SEO, etc.
- Now go to the plugins and paste your copied verification code into Google Search Console. Then click on Publish.
- Lastly, return to the Google Search Console tab and select the ‘Verify’ option.
Optimising posts and pages.
You’re ready to start optimising your WordPress site and going through the factors that will make a genuine difference in how you rank after you’ve applied the WordPress SEO principles.
Before providing a variety of sophisticated strategies and methods you can use to take your site to the next level, let’s take a look at how to approach SEO when optimising pages and articles.
Your WordPress website should include the most relevant material on your selected topic at all times.
People are seeking posts that are interesting, trustworthy, and informative to their queries.
Writing good content for your WordPress site starts with your original thoughts or unique perspective on a subject.
However, it also means displaying these concepts in a well-organised and understandable way. This will help you attract the audience you want and keep them interested if you do it all together.
Beginners often believe that just installing and activating a WordPress SEO plugin is sufficient.
If you want to get the best results, SEO is a continuous process that you must keep up with.
Every blog post and page may have a title, description, and target keyword, and all the best WordPress SEO plugins enable you to do so.
It also gives you a sneak peek of what people will see if they search for your website on Google.
To gain the most traffic, we suggest that you improve your SEO title and description.
Do some keyword research.
Consider what search phrases you want to be discovered for before you start producing your content. Then, for each page or post, you should optimise it for a certain keyword phrase.
Many newcomers make educated estimates about what subjects people are searching for and what they should include in their blogs and websites.
It’s the equivalent of launching an arrow in the dark. You don’t need to do that when you can figure out what people are searching for using genuine data.
SEO Keyword research is a method used by content writers and SEO specialists to do research.
It helps you in identifying terms that people use to access information, goods, and services in your sector using search engines.
You may then employ those terms and phrases to drive additional search traffic to your WordPress website.
You may utilise a variety of keyword research tools (both free and premium). We suggest SEMRush, Ahrefs Keyword Explorer, and KWFinder since these can help you select keywords and even find out which keywords your rivals are ranking for.
Use Optimised Page Headings.
Header tags are beneficial to both users and search engines. They provide your users a sneak peek at the stuff they’re going to read.
Header tags are used by Google to obtain information about your page. This isn’t to say you should try to cram keywords anywhere you can.
Don’t be obnoxious, but don’t be spammy. Many of the header tags in this post include keywords, as you’ve already seen.
Optimise your header tag to correspond to a long-tail voice search term. Then, using <p> paragraph tags, respond to the question right below.
Optimised Title Tags & Meta Descriptions.
In the header of a web page, title tags and meta descriptions are HTML code. They aid search engines in deciphering a page’s content.
When a page appears in search engine results, the title tag and meta description are generally shown.
The most crucial on-page SEO aspect is your title tag. This is because your title tag provides a high-level description of what your website is about to search engines.
The ideal title length is 50-60 characters, according to Google.
The keyword has greater weight with search engines the closer it is to the beginning of the title tag. Your keyword doesn’t have to be right at the start of your title.
It isn’t always practical to do so. However, the closer your title is to the beginning of the title tag, the better.
The description element is designed to provide a brief overview of the web page’s content.
While the title tag is restricted, a meta description allows you to inform consumers more about what you’re selling and provides a compelling cause for them to click through to your website.
The length of a meta description should be between 150 and 160 characters.
Use Internal Linking.
Any link on your website that connects one page to another is considered an internal link.
Links are used by both users and search engines to locate the material on your site.
Your visitors utilise links to browse around your site and discover the information they’re looking for.
Links are also used by search engines to browse across your WordPress website. If there are no links to a page, it will not be shown.
You must boost the authority of your website in order to improve your WordPress SEO.
The number of internal links to your pages, articles, blogs, and other material is one of the primary ways search engines judge your site authority.
Your visitors and Google will be directed to your most crucial pages if you use the right internal links. That’s why experienced SEO specialists link to key sites wisely.
Enhancing the image
Images are more interesting to look at than words, but they take longer to load. Image sizes and quality might cause your website to load slowly if you aren’t attentive.
You must use photos that have been optimised for quicker loading. See our tutorial on optimising photos for the web to speed up WordPress.
The size of your website may substantially grow if you utilise a lot of photographs and rich media in your content, however, this is usually due to graphics that are not adequately optimised.
Using a picture that is significantly bigger than the size is a regular problem.
You may speed up a website by using a compressed picture file. Converting your file to WebP (for images) or WebM (for video or audio) is a good idea for a fast website.
For images, use optimised file names.
When it comes to SEO of images, it’s vital to apply relevant keywords that will help your website rank higher in search engines.
Image optimisation requires keyword-rich file names. Not only do search engines crawl the content on your website, but they also crawl the names of the picture files.
It’s all too simple to submit a screenshot or picture with a worthless file name, and it’s something we don’t usually think about, but should.
The file names will usually be something like “IMG 957119” or something like that.
It’s the equivalent of ordering from a menu in a foreign language. It’s not going to benefit Google.
To assist search engines to comprehend your picture and boost your SEO value, change the file name from the default to a long-tail keyword.
Add Alt Text to Images.
When a browser is unable to show pictures correctly, alt tags are used to provide a text substitute.
The alt property, like the title, is used to explain the contents of an image file. When an image fails to load, an image box appears with the alt tag in the upper left corner. Make sure they go with the image and add to the overall impact.
It’s also a good idea to pay attention to alt tags as part of your overall on-page SEO strategy.
All other optimisation areas should be in place, however, if the picture fails to load for any reason, users will see what the image is meant to be.
By linking keywords with pictures, adding proper alt tags to your website’s images may help your website obtain higher search engine rankings.
The importance of alt text in photographs has even been acknowledged by Google. It gives Google relevant information about the image’s topic.
This data is used to help us choose the best picture to return in response to a user’s inquiry.
First, upload or drag and drop your picture into the Image block to add the Alt tag. The alt text may then be changed on the right-hand side of the page.
You may also update a picture’s alt text by going to Media >> Library and clicking on the image.
Make sure you’re using SSL and HTTPS.
Historically, adopting SSL (getting an HTTPS URL and a green padlock icon in the browser URL bar) was an optional tactic.
Many sites, arguably, didn’t need the extra level of security that SSL provides. Google has mentioned that HTTPS is a ranking signal.
In addition, it’s generally good practice for all websites to use SSL to prevent hackers and third parties from intercepting requests and data.
Additionally, many modern site speed and performance techniques require a valid SSL/HTTPS setup.
To take advantage of new, faster web technologies like HTTP/2 and the upcoming HTTP/3, browsers like Google Chrome and Firefox need the website to have a valid SSL certificate.
Choose WWW or non-WWW.
Consider if you want your website to appear as www.example.com or just example.com. Make sure the version you wish to show up is appropriately represented in your general settings, under Settings >> General.
From an SEO standpoint, there isn’t much of a difference. Furthermore, most hosting and server configurations will automatically redirect requests for the ‘wrong’ version to the one you’ve chosen.
There isn’t much of a difference from a technological standpoint, either. Some installations may have minor issues if the ‘www‘ component is omitted, although these are becoming more infrequent.
Make Schema Markup for Your Pages
Schema markup (schema.org) is a structured data language that allows search engines to better interpret the information on your website and provide more relevant results.
If you have an eCommerce business website then you must have SEO Schema markup, it is most important for eCommerce SEO.
These markups assist search engines to understand the meaning and connections of things on your website. As a result, schema markup has become a popular local SEO subject.
By providing context to your content and data, schema markup may help you improve your SEO efforts.
It aids Google in comprehending your material and presenting it in a variety of beneficial ways, enhancing the searcher’s experience.
Simply told, providing context to your sites increases the likelihood of not just ranking better but also receiving clicks when your page obtains impressions.
Make sure there are no duplicates content
When search engines meet many URLs with the same or extremely similar information, duplicate content concerns arise.
As a consequence, search engines are unable to determine which URLs should be ranked higher, resulting in decreased ranks for everyone.
The majority of the time, the cause of duplicate material is technical, and it might occur without your knowledge.
Some content management systems, for example, use session IDs or parameters to monitor URLs.
Alternatively, you may have both www and non-www versions of a page indexed. As a result, you’ll have many URLs that display the same information.
Your articles may be scraped or duplicated by others for a variety of reasons, including technological ones.
As a result, try to stay away from them. There are lots of paid and free SEO tools to check for plagiarism, check plagiarism checkers by small SEO tools.
Use Nofollow External Links
When you create internal links to your site’s pages, you’re granting yourself authority.
You are also assisting your visitors in gaining authority when you externally link to your sources or other pieces of content you feel they should read or experience.
So you might argue that external linking is beneficial to your own SEO, but it also benefits the SEO of the sites you link to on your website.
These links not only avoid content spam on your WordPress website but also prevent search engines from following those URLs to the sites you’re referring to, ensuring that you’re just increasing the rating and authority of your own site.
You may add a No-follow link manually to your WordPress site, or just type “no-follow” in the “Link Relationship” form area when adding a hyperlink to your keywords or phrases.
In the plugin library, you’ll find a variety of No-follow plugins for your WordPress site.
Regular updates
You should update your evergreen material on a regular basis to keep it current and relevant, but a common concern is whether you should change the original posting date of your pages and posts, remove dates entirely, or do something different.
One approach is to use the terms ‘last changed’ or ‘updated on’ to indicate when your material was last updated, providing readers and search engines confidence that the information is current and relevant right now.
Thankfully, the latest modified/updated information can be readily added to your WordPress pages and posts utilising the
Conclusion
This article has showed you how to accomplish a number of things with your WordPress site. It covers everything from technical SEO to conversion optimisation, content optimisation, conversation optimisation, and everything in between.
If you want to rank for highly competitive phrases, you’ll have to perform the majority of the work yourself and develop excellent content in the process. SEO is a lengthy procedure.
As I previously said, the purpose of excellent SEO is to improve the SERP (Search Engine Results Page) rating of your website.
In most cases, it takes 6 months for your website to appear at the top of Google’s search results.
It may take more than 6 months to show you the greatest performance in certain competitive niches and conditions.
You must be patient and continue to practice SEO on a daily basis. Implementing a couple of these WordPress SEO tactics should result in an increase in traffic within a few months as the search engines digest your adjustments.
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Online Markrting Help.co.uk
Melissa McMurdock
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