Setting up a website on WordPress is easy. The platform itself is ideal for beginners and those who don’t have extensive knowledge of coding. There are unlimited themes, plugins and amazing designs to make a beautiful WordPress website, but what good are they when they aren’t optimized for search engines? Consider using SEO (search engine optimization) to make your website more visible to viewers.
Google, Yahoo, Bing and other search engines don’t care about your pretty photos, they want to present a website with great user experience to those who search for it. Your website is useless if it’s not optimized for the SERPs.
Because WordPress itself is a very SEO-friendly medium, you just have to perform these basic functions to ensure your pages are indexed. It is better to start with on-page SEO, because that way you can make sure your website is ready for some organic traffic.
Search engines are also programs which have a specific language, if you understand this language and optimize your own pages with it, your pages will also speak that language. Optimizing the site for search engines is just like giving positive signals to search engines that you understand the rules of the game.
Let’s look at some of the top SEO tactics for WordPress:
1. Install a good SEO plugin:
WordPress users can take advantage of these great plugins which make life really easy. One of the best plugins out there is Yoast WordPress SEO plugin. Even if WordPress is good with SEO, you can always make your WordPress site look even better. This plugin will improve your website’s SEO on each level. It will take care of technical optimization, writing better content will be easy and Yoast will actually help you focus on a keyword when writing an article.
It’s page analysis functions checks simple elements for SEO which website owners often overlook. It will remind you to fix your images, permalinks, meta tags and stay focused around a keyword. Therefore, having a good SEO plugin like Yoast is going to be a good guidance system while you pay attention to your content strategy.
2. Add meta titles:
The meta title field is crucial for SEO. Your top pages should have them at the minimum, and it will be even better if most of your pages have meta titles. Blogposts should also contain meta titles. These meta titles are fed to Google search results and perform a key role in driving clicks to the website’s main pages.
- Meta titles can be as long as 30-60 characters and after that the search engines don’t consider them.
- Be a little creative when writing these titles so that “You will not imagine what these neighbors did when they got to know about..” is changed into “10 neighbors we should all learn from”
- Meta descriptions match your content with user intent. This means that your content can even be highlighted by Google to present to the search audience.
- Ensure the wording is great and people can understand easily enough to click the post through meta titles.
3. Add image alt tags:
Originally, image alt tags were made to help the visually impaired. Keeping that original idea in mind, tag your images using alt tags. Search engines use alt tags when users search for images, so you can benefit from this tip for SEO.
These alt image tags should be 2-5 words in length and should describe the image. If you are facing any kind of trouble in describing the alt tags on the images on your site, it means that your images are not relevant. Keep relevancy and use high-quality images to do the job.
4. Use 301 redirects:
If you move a page, search engines will think that you have an empty page with no considerable equity. What’s worse, the old page will be listed in the SERPs as ‘404 page not found’ and it is equal to disaster for your site in terms of SEO.
Fix this glitch by using the 301 redirect option so that search engines know you got backup on site. The page will be listed as the same page which moved, and not taken as a broken and inefficient page. Nobody likes to hit a dead end in the shape of 404 page not found, because it makes the site look untrustworthy and poor.
5. Fix site load speed:
Website loading speed matters a lot, because users don’t like to stick around for long if the website doesn’t load. Few years ago, website performance and SEO were very different things, but now Google has brought these two things together. Faster sites improve user experience and also work efficiently in data management. You can speed up your WordPress site by:
- Minimize HTTP requests
- Reduce server response time
- Enable caching in browser
- Optimize images
- Use a content delivery network
- Compress all media
You should also check with your hosting provider and see if they have stuffed a lot of websites on a single server. Shared hosting is good in the initial phase of website launch, but it is better to move to dedicated hosting as it improves website performance manifolds.
6. Test your site on Google:
Google is paying special attention to mobile-friendly sites in its ranking algorithm, so you better start making your website mobile-friendly. More mobile searches are happening now, compared to desktop searches. Also, having a mobile-optimized site is guaranteed way to rank higher, so why not?
Therefore, run a test on your website using Google’s site test and see where you stand. The Google test is enough to make your website look credible in search results. You will also gain some insights to make your site work better.
Last word:
The list can go on and on, because nobody really knows search engine algorithms, but for the sensible, these are some basic tips that always work. You should always keep improving these elements via trial and constant checks.
Minimize duplicate content, always credit sources, link out to credible websites with higher domain authority, and stay active. Consistency is key in SEO. Lastly, create great content. Content alone does more than half of the promotional work for your website.