- Simple SEO for WordPress
Simple SEO for WordPress
There a few really simple things you can do to make your blog ‘bounce’ up the rankings to be that magic Number 1 in the Google SERPs.
- Check your dashboard settings and be sure that in:
- Settings/Privacy you have “I would like my blog to be visible to everyone” checked.
- Settings/Writing you have “Atom Publishing Protocol” and “XML-RPC” enabled; and that there is at least one reference like “http://rpc.pingomatic.com/” showing in the “UpDate Services” window.
- Settings/Permalinks you need to have “Custom Structure” set as “/%category%/%postname%/”
- Keywords and Key-Phrases
Be sure that your site keyword appears in the Blog Title, in the Blog description, and hopefully also in the URL. Use it too as your prime category name, and use your next most important keywords as the other category names.
If your site is about various wifi widgets then the ideal URL for your post about antennas should then look like this:
http://widgetfactory.com/wifi-widgets/G3-wifi-widget-antennas/
Your vital keywords have appeared in the URL(widget), in the category (wifiwidgets) and in the postname (G3 wifi widget antennas). These are worth great karma, and of course even more link ‘juice’ is added when they are used as the ‘anchor text’ in links back to your site.
- Internal Linking
Write your first post with your prime keyword as the subject, and link back to it from your subsequent posts. You can also link from it to “longtailed (subsidiary) keywords” that appear in later posts. This ‘internal’ link structure (I call this keyword coherence ’site synergy’) is important because it adds to the ‘authority’ of your keyword and will net you extra SERPs for each search term as your site grows.
- Back-Links or External Linking
Back-Links or External Linking is the single most important factor in your site SERP performance. The easy way is to find and utilize the value of CommentLuv sites to raise quality keyword anchored links, or you can use one of the tools that locate high PR do-follow blogs. Whatever you do, try for anchored links from ‘authority’ sites – preferably those with good PR.
- Post Structure
Use your keyword (or key phrase) in your Post Title, again (in BOLD) in your opening paragraph; and in the closing par. You can use it once more in a short post, but probably not more than once a paragraph. If there is an “English” spelling, or alternative spelling (e.g. check-cheque) use that too, as well as any synonyms you know of . Keep the post on topic for added authority, and you can also link to recognized authority sites. Weave in any associated long-tailed keywords with appropriate links to posts that discuss them.
- Double Indexing and Tags
A second post on the same topic with the same keyword in it will get you a “Double Listing” in Google. This looks impressive to surfers, and also pushes one of your competitors off the top 10 page. Don’t forget to add a tag for your keyword in the post, as well as tags for the other important long-tailed (LTK’s) keywords. Google indexes WP tags as well as post titles and links, so that is an extra result for each keyword. Get this simple SEO for Word Press right and you will be able to rocket your site to No 1 in Google
Tags: back-links, double listing, Google SERPs, Internal Linking, link juice, longtailed keywords, Number 1 in the Google SERPs, Permalink Custom Structure, post structure, SEO for WordPress, site keyword
Hey Rhys,
I love Wordpress for its always changing and improved features that are blogger friendly.
I have tried all the steps that you have mentioned for my blog, and yes they worked amazingly.
Thanks for posting this information.
Reply to Make Quick MoneyMake Quick Money´s last blog ..5 Tips to Becoming a Better Leader
I like your blog it’s very informative. Just bookmarked it and subscribed in a reader. Your article is very informative about seo. I am bookmarking it for my future reference.
Reply to AmanAman´s last blog ..How Do Secured Loans Work?
Nice tips! All are very useful for newbies because you presented it in details. I didn’t know this, not until I read everything.
Reply to Michael FrostMichael Frost´s last blog ..Choosing a Layout for your Kitchen
I would also add noindex on category and archive pages. I like also to use the “Similar posts” plugin to have all posts in a category interlinked. A Google XML plugin is a nice addition too
Reply to Stan The ManStan The Man´s last blog ..How To Grow Taller – 7 Basic Tips
Hey Stan – ‘Back up’ there man, I think using no-index on category and archive is wilfully robbing yourself of legitimate Google SERPs. In fact, I’ve just posted about this in build-more-wordpress-traffic
Reply to RhysEven some tips you giving out there are very basic but its very helpful for blogger. However I am just wondering if you have any tips for how blogger who are using blogspot as their platform to increase their SERP.
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@Online Money
Most of the above applies to Blogger – I’m not sure if you can use categories as folders though.
Best advice, get your own domain name with the keyword in and some cheap hosting.
Reply to RhysHi Rhys,
Reply to Seattle Heating and CoolingI set all my blogs to have this structure: “/%postname%/” I always have excluded “/%category%/”. Do you think it’s that important when the category isn’t indexed anyway?
Just wondering,
Dave
Seattle Heating and Cooling´s last blog ..13 Step DIY Furnace Installation Part 13 of 13
Gidday Dave – Good question. I’m working out a post as we speak that covers this point.
I think having the category/postname URL structure is vital to getting the multiple listings in the SERPs that qualify you for Google Trust Rank.
I don’t follow this; “Do you think it’s that important when the category isn’t indexed anyway?“; because the category (and tags!) shows in my urls.
Look at this Google SERP and expand the PLUS sign to see it in action.
Reply to RhysHi Rhys,
Reply to Seattle Heating and CoolingI use the all-in-one-seo plugin and if i remember correctly, by default it sets the categories to nofollow to avoid duplicate content.
Dave
Seattle Heating and Cooling´s last blog ..13 Step DIY Furnace Installation Part 13 of 13
Hi Dave -
I don’t bother with AllInOneSEO anymore because WP Permalinks makes such a brilliant job of displaying keyword rich URLs.
There’s only one thing better than having the prime site keyword, and the post keyword displayed in the URL, and that is having them both repeated in the anchor text! (I.E., as in CommentLuv)
Reply to RhysGreat information!
Reply to Bratwurst RecipesI agree with you in every thing you said.
You mentioned very good points here, Very detailed and they are definitely very useful. Especially about Keywords and Key-Phrases.
If everybody follows what you said they will be able to help their site to rocket in #1 in Google.
Thanks for the advice. I didn’t know yet that I need to set “custom structure”.
Reply to bookmaker footballAnother possibility for external links are to submit your site into directories and you can also write articles and submit them to article directories. Often you are allowed to place a link in the article.
Great information again from the master. I have been following you for about a year and everytime I learn something new. I looked up my own blog and see that I missed a couple of the items you recommended. Once again thank you.
Reply to McKinney Real EstateHey McKinney RE!
You surely know how to make me purr! Thank you very much for the kind words.
Reply to Rhys.
Good seo tips for wordpress. Double indexing and tags are helpful for ranking.
Reply to Management TrainingI’ve seen most of this before, except the double / multiple listing. I’ll definitely try that.
Reply to pressure washerspressure washers´s last blog ..Bosch Aquatak 115 PLUS
I love the way you explain and detail everything about it. Looks sooo simply when you say it! I have a blog and I’m going try about right NOW to put all your advice into practice!thanks mate!
Reply to Caro RencontreCaro Rencontre´s last blog ..Eviter les disputes, c’est dur !
Helpful article.I think for editing word press we should pay some money to word press right ? or it is free ?
Reply to Mathew@Matthew
You are free to edit the code in any way you like, the only caveat is that WP like you to keep the credits in the footer intact – that’s only fair anyway!
Reply to RhysRhys
this very interesting article. on the Web is a constant struggle to increase the page rank and to have more faces
Reply to aumentare senoThe link exchange is a bit outdated, but the page rank is always useful
Reply to feromoniNice tips! All are very useful for newbies because you presented it in details. I didn’t know this, not until I read everything.
Reply to waimaoseoYou’ve provided a wonderful list of simple SEO techniques for WP. Based on my observation, the most commonly used among the list are internal and external link building.
Reply to Jack CourtneyThese all tips are appropriate for boost up the PR for any site on search engine. By using this tips we can optimize out site from there is not need to any SEO service.
Reply to karaly@dell laptop repairs sydneythanks for the information. I personally believe that the best way to increase the page rank of a page is just to have good and valid contents!
Reply to erezioneNot only valid content. We have build quality links and have to submit our site to social bookmarking sites.
Only content cannot helps you getting PR. We should also have to focus on off page optimization
thanks.
Reply to Link buildingyou are really open my mind, actually before i had read your article, i don’t notify that wordpress has setting up seo for us, i just add seo plugin, and use my keyword on every menu like baliinformations | new bali news, etc. you have this done for us, and how about editing the theme, is it will made use of seo ?? furthermore i found that helloworld.php which is include in wordpress has really impressive, the first things that shown in search engine was it, if you want to boost your pruduct i thing it will be good if placed the product on it, isn’t i correct???
Reply to bali informationsThank you for you post.
Reply to led lampeYou shoult also not forget to set tags to nofollow. In this way you can delete double content.
Best Regards
@led lampe
totally disagree with you – having do-follow switched on has really livened up the comment interaction on this blog – anyway the Big G is smart enough to sort out actual duplicate content from double linking.
Reply to RhysRhys
very nice tips.. will try it to improve my ranking in google search result.. what’s better : internal linking or external linking (backlink) ?
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@Investasi
Reply to RhysFor proper ‘keyword coherence’ you need both – internal linking goes to internal site authority – like each internal link reinforces the keyword; and external links build ‘trust rank’ as well as showing authority for your content.
Rhys
This is what is nice with Wordpress, it has so many plugins that can automate things. The only downside that I see is you need to invest money for the hosting and domain packages before you can use WP.
That’s why I am still using the Blogger blogs its FREE and you are not left behind in terms of SEO. You just have to do it manually though…
Reply to Oes TsetnocOes Tsetnoc´s last blog ..Oes Tsetnoc SEO Strategies updated Tue Oct 20 2009 9:08 am CDT
@Contest SEO –
Thank you for your thoughtful comment here. BTW, I have deleted all your previous generic comments, because they added nothing to this discussion. [Comment Junkies please take note - you will be marked as SPAM!]
I try to keep the plugins down to the barest minimum to keep this blog fast loading, but mainly because with version updates to WP every few weeks, it takes the hassle out of plugins [and widgets] breaking under upgrade.
Blogger is free, and like everything else in this world, you pay for that with hidden costs. Consider this, Google owns your content and your site and can delete or banish you at their whim. You can’t sell your blog, so if your blog becomes successful, you have a real problem trying to take real ownership of it. There are other reasons too…..
The manual SEO for WordPress [as described in this post] is really easy, and believe it or not, Word Press blogs get listed faster than Blogger blogs – This is odd, given that G owns Blogger, but it is true in my experience. I set up a couple of Blogger blogs to compare, and they don’t work anything like as well as this WP one. Whatever I post in here is listed in minutes in the G SERPs – Magic!!
Reply to Rhyswhat puglin do you use for seo? I tried headspace but not working with wordpress last version. Now I use All In One Seo…what you thins about it?
I love your blog
thanks
BusinessOggi
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@Franscesco!
I don’t bother with SEO plugins any more, I use the built in SEO factor of Settings/Permalinks (set up as above). Coherent Keyword link anchor text, combined with good linking to relevant, related content does the job!
If you Google for any of my post titles (the main keywords) you will see them in the top ten, usually Number 1, and with both double indexing, and the Trust Rank + sign too! How cool is that???
Rhys
Reply to RhysGood basic tips. While it takes a lot to dominate the search engine rankings, there are a lot of little things that can be done to ensure higher rankings. In the end it is a battle of who can attain better backlinks. So make sure you dedicate plenty of time to this step. Building links is an ongoing process that is never truly complete.
Reply to Laptop Briefcase@LB
The three essential and fundamental ingredients are “content’, ‘backlinking’ and ’site SEO’, and I hesitate to put one factor as more vital than either of the others. You can find advocates of one or the other everywhere.
I believe that to neglect any one of these is to needlessly cripple your site, and therefore I think I would have to say that you need to give all three your best shot to achieve overall success!
Reply to RhysRhys
While I can’t 100% agree that backlinking is the single most important factor, I’d have to say that it’s way up there on the list. But it’s so important that it’s highly abused as well. There’s nothing wrong with backlinking, just be sure that you contribute to the conversation as well.
I’ve read somewhere that it doesn’t matter if it’s do follow or no follow. What’s your thought on this?
Reply to Jason HommelI started writing my beginner’s guide to WordPress SEO a while back, and have since done a load of posts on the subject, an article in the Search Marketing Standard, newsletters, and presentations…..
Reply to kirra apartmentsBreadcrumbs is now also becoming a major part of the SERPs, you might wanna cover it up on your next post. Thanks.
Reply to Sikat Ang PinoySikat Ang Pinoy´s last blog ..Arnel Pineda Ng Maynila
@Sikat…
Breadcrumbs are enabled automatically on standard WP themes. I don’t have too much sympathy for those folk using fancy themes that have the breadcrumb page navigation disabled. I just go away from blogs that don’t have some visible navigation.
On this subject, I find that the content Index plugin is really well used, on some blogs it is the top ranked page
Reply to RhysI think pinging only with pingomatic.com or pingoat.com is enough already to be used as your Wordpress pinging service to prevent you as a ping spammer when you have a long list of pinging services.
Reply to cigarette awarenesscigarette awareness´s last blog ..International No Smoking Symbol
I am creating a simple easy to use with visual instructions program for new seo users. It will be ready at the end of August , this program will be affordable and will be able to be adapt to any business
Reply to kirra apartmentsEven some tips you giving out there are very basic but its very helpful for blogger.
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@TH
Reading the comments thru BEFORE you rush in to leave your link is very basic TOO! Every simple Blogger would benefit from that!
– Rhys
Reply to RhysI think that SEO is a real mystery! is very difficult to find qualcunoc he really knows this business, and the few who know do not want to teach!
Reply to vivere all'esterovivere all’estero´s last blog ..finalmente penserò al Duomo con simpatia
Excellent post. I do have SEO All in one installed but am questioning now if I need it based on this post. I am really enjoying your posts and how much information they provide!
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@Jane
I see it as redundant now, just more load on the server, so leave it out…..
Reply to Rhysi have a wordpress blog installed on my webhost. i am planning to change my blog title but im afraid to negatively affect my SEO for it.
Reply to Dave Domain HostingDave Domain Hosting´s last blog ..Make profit with web hosting
By applying SEO is an effective way of increasing the number of visitors
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[...] your part is to post relevant articles, with the properly linked keywords that make up the simple SEO for WordPress. free adsense [...]
in the permalinks, i use only /%postname%/ structure, i need your opinion if this is ok or harmful in any way?
Reply to Florencei also need a permission from you regarding the commentluv premium backlink post – i want to translate the main message that you gave us into bengali language for the users in india and bangladesh. since commenting on that post is closed, i am asking here. can i go ahead with translation?
Florence´s last blog ..ফিডবার্নার URL’এর স্থানে নিজের ডমেইন নাম দেখান
@Florence
1. I have answered this question here in the Comments
2. You are very welcome to do a translation of this article for your site. Please show a link back to here
– Rhys.
Reply to RhysWhy do you recommend people have their permalinks set to /category/postname? I just use /postname. If you could share your opinion on why it’s important to have the category too, I’d really appreciate it. Thanks and great post!
Reply to Botox Merced@Botox Merced
Your whole Google position is dependent on G’s perception of the RELEVANCE of your page. This is determined largely by your keyword structure. Your page rank and trust rank are a function of (the inward links) + (relevant content), and links are rated by the anchor text, and the URL.
Therefore: Using categories enables an extra KW. So your url structure looks like this:
<a href=”://siteKW.com/main-KWs/long-tail-keywords/”>anchor-text-LTKs</a>
– Rhys
Reply to Rhysnow i understand the importance of /%category%/%postname%/. maybe this also helps to get “sitelinks” in google in the long run? is it true?
Reply to FlorenceFlorence´s last blog ..ব্লগে সর্বোচ্চ ভিজিটার এলো গত পরশু!
@Florence
My understanding of qualifying for sitelinks is:
authoritive content; focused logical site structure; obvious, simple navigation; and powerful incoming links as well as well defined keyword coherence
- so I guess it will help for site-links.
– Rhys
Reply to RhysPretty informative post i have come across.Thanks a bunch for sharing such a great and informative post with us. It is very interesting article and quite impressive one.Keep blogging.
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[...] site deals with SEO (search engine optimisation); web-site design; and with keyword coherence (a logical keyword [...]
On-page SEO is important but in the end it’s the number and quality of links pointing to your site that makes the difference.
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@Kirra
Backlinks are important, but I still think that having a good foundation to build on is the most important….
– Rhys
Reply to RhysYour article is very informative about SEO for WordPress. I am bookmarking it for my future reference.
Reply to amanaman´s last blog ..How Do Secured Loans Work?
Thanks for Nice post. Wordpress is very good for get serp and google ranking. you are right content is king. first we need quality content for website.
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