Learning WordPress SEO – All You Need To Know

Here is my WordPress SEO Checklist you can use as a guide:

1. Figure out what keyword phrases you want to rank well for and assign 1 or 2 per page.
2. Use the great WP plugin “All In One SEO Pack”.
3. Don’t use the WordPress default permalink structure… I use /%post_id%/%postname%/
4. Get inbound links from high PR authority sites using your keyword phrases as anchor text.
5. Add good H1 or H2 titles and use more h2′s for subtitles throughout your blog post.
6. Include bold or italics or even some bold + italics text on the page.
7. Link out to at least 1 high PR authority site per page.
8. Create interior hyperlinks with a keyword you need for the target page.
9. Make bulleted lists (ordered and unordered) whenever you can.
10. Write in targeted keyword phrases and their derivative variations in your text.
11. Add Alt tags for some images using your target keyword phrases.
12. I always add images to every blog post and static page.
13. Use Google’s drive toward Universal Search to your advantage.
14. Encourage commenting with do follow links and respond to good comments.
15. Be cleaver with your blog post titles and use 3 or 4 word most of the time.
16. Check your robots.txt file to make sure you are not blocking search engine spiders.
17. Update your sitemap.xml file automatically with a plugin.

If you type “wordpress seo” on Google, the first entry on the SERP is from WordPress legend and SEO pundit Joost de Valk. Joost is from the Netherlands and his name is actually pronounced like “yoast”. And that’s why he named his famous and incredibly high (I’ve been to Amsterdam 7 times so far) PageRank 6 website yoast.com.

OK so you can see what one of the brilliant stars in SEO and WordPress says about the subject by going to his site first. Joost is one of the world’s leading WordPress plugin developers and he is almost scary smart. It’s a good article.

We all know Google Loves WordPress right? Well it’s true. The Master Mind Anti-Spam King at Google is Matt Cutts and he himself uses a WordPress blog even though his company makes Blogger. Matt talks about WordPress in positive terms because there are many features that just lend themselves to automatically following the recommended Google WebMaster Guidelines. That being said, here is what you can do to improve the built in linky goodness.

I take a straight forward approach to WordPress SEO that may be simple, but for the person out there who needs help, you can get by on this and maybe get some great rankings that might have otherwise escaped you. As a web design consultant I don’t do this for the sake of art. I build beautiful WordPress sites that rank well on Google, Yahoo, and Bing so my clients can get new prospects from the internet and make millions of dollars. These recommendations are what I do for every professional site I build and maintain.

1.) Figure out what keyword phrases you want to rank well for.

Assign one or 2 phrases per page and know that your homepage and your about us page are going to get the most views and have the best luck getting ranking for your primary keyword phrases. Most websites do best shooting for 1 or 2 primary keyword phrases and a total of 5 phrases all together. Professional SEO’s sometimes will map out 50 keywords on a large website but it takes a lot of work and it’s really for professionals. My personal record so far was a site that I got 34 Google #1 rankings for at one time in English and almost as many in Spanish. I also had a total of 110 Top 10 rankings on that site in English the same month. So it is possible to map 50 or even 100 keywords to a website but it’s hard. Most of you out there would do well to find 1 keyword or 2 and go for it.

2.) Install the plugin All In One SEO currently maintained by Semper Fi Web Design.

Every blog post and every static page on your website should have a custom written meta title and meta description. This plugin will do the job of making these meta titles and meta descriptions automatically for you. It also gives you the option in every blog post and static page to enter your own titles and descriptions. Being a professional full time SEO, thats a big part of my job every day and I make custom titles and descriptions that are way better than the automatic ones the plugin creates. But I’ll tell you about that in another post. For now just know this is the single most important thing you can do for yourself in terms of WordPress SEO. Plugin developers need your support with a small donation every once in a while by the way.

There is a 3rd field that is optional called the meta keyword field. Google does not use it but I think they still look at it and I’m sure other search engines do look at the meta keywords. I enter them. Just add a few words that appear on your page and don’t do any keyword stuffing here. That might give you 1 strike with some of the SE’s.

3.) The WordPress default permalink structure is bad for SEO, don’t use it.

I use this permalink structure: /%post_id%/%postname%/    That gives me keywords right in my url so search engines can grab onto them.

4.) Get inbound links from relevant high PR authority sites using your keyword phrases as anchor text.

Don’t pay for them from cheap outfits – that will get you caught and it won’t get you banned, but it won’t help you. Don’t ever get involved with any linking schemes – they don’t work anymore. Those “you link to me and I’ll link to you” schemes are terrible… your PR out and PR in negate each other. You get a tiny bit of credit but it’s simply not worth your time to do it any more. The single best way to get inbound links from high PR authority sites is to use paid directories like Best of the Web and Yahoo Dir. If you have a huge spend available then buy every directory listing that gives you a do follow link that you can find. Avoid any directory that links to a lousy community of course.

5.) Add a good H1 or H2 title as the opening characters on a blog post and use more h2′s for subtitles throughout your blog post.

6.) Add some bold or italics or even some bold + italics text on the page. Use secondary keywords for these.

7.) Link out from the page to at least 1 high PR authority site. You can link out to a hand full but try not to go over 5 for an average post. If it’s a list of some kind then by all means link out like crazy. If it’s a site you like and trust, use do follow outbound links. It’s going to take PR from your page whether you use a do follow or a no follow anyway.

8.) Use at least one interior hyperlink with a keyword you need for the target page. You can use 2 or 3 internal hyperlinks if you want but remember each takes a percentage of the potential PR on that page.

9.) Add bulleted lists and ordered lists when you can. I try to get one per post at least.

10.) Use targeted keyword phrases in your text. Use them several times and especially at the very top of the page where they are deemed “prominent”.

11.) Add Alt tags for images using keyword phrases. Don’t over do it with alt tags. I don’t use them on every photo but I do use them maybe once or twice on a page.

12.) I always add images to every blog post and static page. I don’t know if this helps much with ranking but I think it must because it makes the blog posts more robust.

13.) Play the Universal Search game.

Google loves to find references for search phrases in meta titles, on page text (especially in H1 or H2 tags), anchor text from inbound links, in alt tags, and in Podcasts and Web Videos. It’s called Universal Search when Google includes all forms of media. Get yourself some web videos that are relevant and use keyword phrases you are trying to hit for in their titles.

14.) Encourage commenting and respond to good comments.

Allow Do Follow on good and relevant comments but strictly do not allow spam comments. If surfers know they can get a good do follow link from you they will more often than not leave you a good comment. Spammers and spam bots will feast on it if you let them. Use the Akimet plugin developed by Matt Mullenweg and delete all spam comments frequently. I eyeball every comment and delete all except for the 1 or 2 decent comments from real people and friends. When your WordPress site is popular enough you can just do away with the do follow and go to the default of no follow.

15.) Be cleaver with your blog post titles.

On WordPress sites I have that are “heated up” where they have been around a while and I post to frequently… my post title goes to #1 on Google within a few minutes of me submitting the blog post. That’s not just because I’m a good SEO, but also because I use 3 or 4 word titles that I carefully construct that will get me hits for my keywords but will not be competing with IBM or HP for top ranking on 1 or 2 word phrases. Trying to rank top 10 for a title like “web hosting” is nearly mission impossible. Trying to rank top 10 for a title like “cheap reseller web hosting” is doable.

16.) Check your robots.txt file every once in a while to make sure it is not blocking bots and search engine spiders.

The robots.txt file is an ascii text file at the root level of your WordPress site that gives specific instructions to search engine spiders that they may or may not abide by.  Usually the directives tell bots where they are welcome to look and where they are not welcome to look. The big SE’s will usually agree to your robots.txt directives but sometimes in the search for images even the big bots will ignore exclusion directives here. You can even try to tell “bad bots” to stay away from your entire site, but that rarely works. You can also specify the location of your sitemap.xml file.

User-agent: *
Disallow: /cgi-bin/
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /wp-includes/
Sitemap: http://www.example.com/sitemap.xml

17.) Keep your sitemap.xml file updated, and since it’s so time consuming, make sure you do it automatically.

Search engines look at the sitemap.xml file on your WordPress site to see if you have added a new file. They also spider the site and discover files but they will get the new content faster if you automatically update the sitemap every time you add a new blog post. I use a couple different plugins for this on different sites but mostly I use the “Google XML Sitemaps” plugin by Ann Brachhold and I recommend it.

(I was not paid by any persons or companies listed in this post – Cheers – Mal)