Your Small Business Guide on How to SEO WordPress — Mike Marko

“Your Small Business Guide on How to SEO WordPress” written by Mike Marko.

Have you been struggling to put your website at the top of Google search ranking?

I know it’s not easy…

As an internet marketer myself, I understand how important it is to rank high on Google search and, of course, how complicated it can be sometimes.

Websites are a vital part of a business. By having a website, you can reach millions of people all around the world and hook them to purchase your products or services.

But what platform should you use to build your website?

Personally, for most websites I prefer WordPress. WordPress dominates 27% of the websites all over the world.

But the truth is, it doesn’t really matter what website builder you use .

What does matter is how you optimize your site to be ranked by search engines (simply called Search Engine Optimization, or SEO).

If you already used WordPress for your website, or if you’re planning to use it, you need to make sure you properly apply proper SEO on it.

That’s why in this blog post, I’ll tackle in length how to SEO WordPress. I will reveal the ultimate secrets to help you perform SEO excellently on your WordPress site.

How to SEO WordPress Sites Easily

Basically, SEO and WordPress complement each other so well. WordPress is so user-friendly that even non-techies can easily implement some simple search engine optimization techniques.

This is also great news for small local businesses which may not have the budget for sweeping SEO improvements or hiring SEO experts, but still want to rank better in local search.

If you really want to make the most of your website, then it’s time that you learnhow to SEO WordPressthe right way.

Now, let’s start by discussing one of the most important aspects of a website… content.

Optimize Your Site’s Content

Content seems like an obvious SEO factor to consider.

Search engine and your readers are the most important part in the content processing. Both of them wants high quality and unique content.

To start optimizing your content, make sure it’s understandable and readable. Your thoughts and ideas should have a nice flow to make it easy for readers to comprehend and relate.

Also, choosing a niche and focusing on it can help in making sure you have relevant content.

Avoid creating random content that could just confuse your audience.

Your content should be written primarily for visitors, not for search engines. Sometimes, authors tend to overuse keywords that makes the whole blog content full of useless words.

Be extra mindful of using keywords. You can choose and use keywords that are relevant to your niche.

To learn more about the importance of keywords and how to use them, make sure to read my blogSEO Tips and Tricks to Achieve Better Ranking.

Using and Exchanging Backlinks

Backlinks make a huge impact on a website’s prominence in search engine results.

A backlink is a hyperlink that links from a webpage back to your own webpage or website. This is considered a very useful technique for improving a website’s SEO ranking.

To make a strong backlink, you must exchange link with websites that have good SEO performance and have with a relevant niche with you. With that, make sure that your content complements the webpage you would link to.

Aside from using backlinks, you can also link a page from your website to another page still within your own site. This is known as interlinking.

When applying backlinks or interlinks, make sure the pages being linked are relevant to each other.

Don’t link every page to all your fresh content.

Put Title to Your Images

Images play an important role in optimizing the content for search engine ranking. That’s why it’s vital that you ensure your photos are high quality.

You also need to place the right images in your content. For example, if your content talks about healthy dogs, then the image you should put is an image of a strong, happy dog, not photos of apples or a workout.

Aside from that, another important thing is to name your images properly. Giving your images the right title (also known as Alt text) is important to boost SEO.

Google also draws images in the calculation of the ranking. Images that are titled with “<img src=”wordpressseo.jpg” alt=”how to SEO WordPress”> works better than <img src=”wordpressseo.jpg” alt=”/>.

That’s an example of how to properly implement keywords of a specific subject in the file name of your images. Always make use the alt text for your images.

It’s important that you include alt text on your images because it helps you improve the SEO and accessibility of your website.

Use Short Permalinks, Including Keywords

Permalink plays an important role on how to SEO WordPress site and get acknowledged by Google. Permalink is the URL to a certain page, post, or an article on your website.

Make sure to use an understandable permalink.
Instead of http://yourwebsite.com/page-id?495/
use http://yourwebsite.com/how-to-seo-wordpress/.

You can customize your links right at the topmost part of the ‘Write a Post’ section below the ‘Edit Post.’

In your permalinks, only the first four words are important to Google. If you have a page title that is longer than 4 words, make use of keywords to your permalink structure.

Good permalink structure doesn’t only help in boosting SEO of your site, but it also helps in catching readers. When you have a simple permalink, your readers can easily identify what your link is all about.

Make Use of SEO Themes

Themes are the foundation of a good quality website. It can even make up and break up a WordPress site. That means if your site is dull and slow, it may not attract internet users. On the other hand, beautiful, organized, and fast websites get better attention.

When choosing your WordPress theme, make sure that you use fast performing designs. WordPress-enhanced themes are good for your Google ranking. It helps in getting your viewer’s attention and interest.

To identify if a theme is fast-performing or not, you can look up on their codes. Some themes use a lot of codes to create the layout and design.

The more code you have, the less content and keyword density. This makes your theme unproductive for your WordPress site.

It’s also a factor to choose themes according to your website’s niche. You can use themes that are minimalistic, but not too boring.

You can also use colorful themes. However, make sure that it’s not too bright. It’s important that you don’t use themes so “bright” such that you can read the text.

Create a Sitemap in XML Format

XML sitemap (Extensible Markup Language Sitemap) is a list of your website’s URLs. It acts as a roadmap to tell search engines what content is available for ranking.

XML sitemaps also help search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, and Ask.com to better index your site, or to better determine a particular site or location of the site. Make use of a plugin that supports all kinds of WordPress-generated pages as well as custom URLs

To make your creation of Google XML Sitemap an easy task, you can use Google XML Sitemaps. You only have to install the app Google XML Sitemaps plugin.

Upon activation, go to Settings » XML Sitemap to configure the plugin.

Link Posts to Social Media

Using social media is one of the most effective strategies to gain leads and drive traffic quickly. It is also one of the biggest help in boosting SEO to your Website.

One post on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter allow you to get recognized by search engines. Posting on social media increases the visibility of your content—which is ultimately the goal of SEO.

With that said, it’s vital to link your posts to social media to build brand awareness. The more you share on your social media, the more you get authentic readers and visitors.

There are also social media plugins like Sassy Social Share and AddtoAny you can find on WordPress. A preview of your posts from Facebook, Instagram and Twitter will immediately be posted on your WordPress home.

Update Your Posts Frequently

Once your WordPress site is active, it’s vital that you keep your posts coming. It’s more of keeping your visitors and readers entertained than keeping them waiting for more content.

Aside from that, Google’s algorithms also consider the frequency of content when deciding how to rank your pages. That means, the more you post new content, the more chances Google boosts your site.

You can post at least twice a week to update your website with new content. Remember, newer, ‘fresher’ content gets better Google boosts.

So, aside from frequently publishing content, you also have to make sure that your content is unique and original.

Final Thoughts on How to SEO WordPress

What I’ve shared with you today is your ultimate guide on how to SEO WordPress site. WordPress dominates of the websites across the world. But it still needs optimizing to make the most of your WordPress performance.

Setting up WordPress sites is easy, but properly optimizing them for SEO isn’t. But if you have the right tips on how to leverage it, then you can definitely score a good WordPress site.

If you still have more questions on how to SEO WordPress, just leave it a comment below.

You should also check out the blog post, Common Website SEO Mistakes Made by Consultants and Small Business Owners.

If you need help with your SEO, be sure to check out the SEO services offered by IM Consultant Services.

If you need help in getting traffic to your website or ranking in Google, then feel free to contact me and we can talk about the different consulting options we offer. Or use the link below to apply for your “Results in Advance” free consultation and let’s get started right away:

P.S. – If you like this post, feel free comment down below and/or share on Facebook.

Have questions and want to connect?

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http://www.Facebook.com/mike.marko.37

Author: Mike Marko
Click here to contact Mike

If you want help marketing online, then check out our services at IM Consultant Services.

Article: Your Small Business Guide on How to SEO WordPress

Also published on Medium.

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