WordPress SEO Part II – The Advanced Basics

In terms of the SEO benefits, WordPress is deemed the cream of the crop. This is largely due to the fact that it is a well optimized platform in its own right, allowing the indexing of every single page on your website. Yet, optimization is a lengthy process with peaks and valleys that can put off inexperienced adventurers. One cannot afford to cut corners, as there is no such thing as a shortcut here: A holistic approach to SEO requires you to infuse it in all digital marketing and PR efforts. We have already covered some strong points of this tool, and now proceed to analyze other aces up its sleeve.

A fine line

Now, WordPress can be intimidating to newcomers, but it also involves some no-brainers like optimizing the titles for SEO. Namely, the titles of the page’s title tags are one of the most prominent factors affecting the visibility in search results. They represent the title of the tab or browser window, and the first line someone sees in queries. So, a bulk of blogs tailors the titles so that they are comprised of blog title, archive and keyword-rich post title. As for the order of appearance, one should remember that search engines value early keywords more, preferably near the start of the page.

Moreover, people viewing pages will first notice those early words as well. Those who possess little experience of this aspect of good SEO can take advantage of various plugins that integrate SEO section in the admin. They make Title Templates available for each post type and taxonomy. There are also many variables in title and meta descriptions one must grasp, and steering clear of duplicate site is highly advisable. Once you get a hold of these steps, you may continue optimizing individual posts and pages.

Key to the land of plenty

Here, special attention must be devoted to meta descriptions. The search engines can use them to show in the snippet (black text beneath the URL), and they are also put into play when they contain the keywords the user was looking for. Note that some plugins put the first, introductory sentence of the post in the meta description, although this is not the most prudent choice. Therefore, webmasters should strive to always forge hand-written descriptions, the only good ones there are.

Ultimately, they must incline the people to click and give them a good idea of what they can expect once they arrive at the landing page. When it comes to meta keywords, the situation is clear. Search engines do not treat them as ranking factors, so they are of very little value to you. Feel free to avoid them altogether and focus on things that will actually help move up in the online realm.

The image of success

It is not wise to overlook image optimization, for visuals play a big role in the world of SEO. Here, I do not mean just the image quality, but things like writing solid alt tags and naming the files. This ensures that you witness more traffic from image search engines. The list of solutions for boosting your online presence goes on: one can change the permalink structure, for example, because the default one is not particularly revealing. It is best to include a post name and/or category name, just note that the WordPress will no longer handle all the redirects for you.

Furthermore, try to stay on top of rising trends in the app market. The good news is that the rapid developments in this area have enabled small businesses with limited technical and virtually no coding knowledge to harness the power of applications. They can opt for a customized mobile app builder, which allows users to utilize pre-made templates or start from scratch when creating native iOS, Android, or mobile websites. Integrating the website with app functionalities is an absolute must in order to drive more traffic.

Finally, there are many activities that can prove to be tedious, and one of them is eliminating stop words such as “a”, “the”, “and”, etc.  Fortunately, killer plugins automatically remove them from the slugs once the post is saved and spare you those long, unsightly URLs. Another benefit is that the ordeal of modifying after the post goes live is avoided altogether. If the permalink must be changed, however, then the post must be redirected manually. Just remember to make good use of XML maps to notify Google about changes made to the websites.

Into the future

Webmasters have no better tool than SEO to maximize the incredible potential of WordPress and let their online presence fully shine. The most popular content management system on the globe will not leave you disappointed, provided that you invest time and resources in it. Powering numerous blogs and websites, it is considered future-proof, similar to the practice of SEO. Nevertheless, the only constant thing here is change, so do not fall behind on latest novelties and updates that search engines launch from time to time, causing much stir in the online community.