One of the greatest advantages of using WordPress is that it is not only very user friendly, but also search engine friendly. At heart, it is a powerful blogging content management system designed for a constant flow of fresh content — which is exactly one of the things that search engines look for when ranking websites in search results.
Designing an awesome WordPress website with an attractive WordPress theme is a valuable first step, but taking steps to improve your SEO and search ranking are equally valuable. With strong SEO performance, you can drive traffic to your site through organic searches on Google and other platforms. Getting your website to rank at or near the top of search results is key to improving your visibility and reach with your target audience.
As you optimize your site and take advantage of WordPress SEO tools, you will be able to help search engines lead your audience to your site. Here are some best practices to improve SEO rankings with WordPress.
1) Blog:
As a blogging CMS, WordPress is perfect right out of the box for an influx of fresh and new content on a regular basis. Search engines like Google place heavy emphasis on a website’s relevance to its target audience. New, updated blog content can be a key ranking factor by showing search engines that your site is updated regularly.
To ensure your blog helps you rank higher in search, make sure that your content is relevant and useful to your audience. Incorporate keywords throughout the content on your site without making your writing feel spammy or unnatural. Well-written content that is published regularly won’t just improve search engine results — it will also give your audience a reason to keep returning to your site.
2) Structure:
The framework of WordPress is very simple, making it rather easy for search engines to crawl pages on your website and index your content. You can also use plugins that help individual pages appear in search results, or even nest pages like your “about” or “contact” page under your main listing in a search engine results page.
For best results, keep your structure relatively simple. Make sure that each page or post has the proper categorization and URL so that it makes sense for users and search engines as they navigate your content. A sitemap for your website (as well as your WordPress dashboard) can help you keep track of everything.
3) Plugins:
The right WordPress plugin can make all the difference for your WordPress site’s usability. A WordPress SEO plugin like Yoast SEO or All in One SEO offers a convenient dashboard that you can use to quickly improve your WordPress SEO.
These popular WordPress SEO plugins can help you improve your ranking through a variety of features, such as adding meta data to your pages, identifying orphaned content and broken links, optimizing for target keywords, and getting suggestions for other ways to optimize your WordPress website on a page by page basis.
With the help of the Yoast SEO plugin or other WordPress SEO plugins, you can quickly identify how to improve individual pages on your site so they can be better optimized for SEO and appear higher in search results.
4) Staying Up to Date:
As you try to optimize your website, it is important that your theme and plugins remain up to date. Selecting the right theme, SEO plugin, and other plugins aid in search engine optimization by presenting an attractive and functional site for your audience. However, you must ensure that the themes and plugins you select are properly maintained and updated.
Themes and plugins that are still maintained and updated regularly will help your search engine ranking by ensuring your site continues to function properly and securely. You should regularly audit your theme and WordPress plugins to ensure they are still supported so you can deliver a quality experience for search engines and users.
Improve Your Search Engine Ranking with WordPress SEO Best Practices
SEO can seem hard — but WordPress helps make it easy for individuals and small businesses. Getting started with search engine optimization has never been easier, especially with Site Rockstar on your side.
We can help you get going with a beautifully designed WordPress site that search engines and users will love. Strong SEO practices will improve your website rank in search, leading to more traffic and exposure for your business. What better way is there to validate your hard work than to see visitors and leads coming through? Contact us to learn more about how we can drive traffic to your website with best practices for WordPress SEO.
