WordPress SEO: What You Need to Know?

If you build it, customers will come to your site! Nope, it does not work that way. Customers need to be able to find your business in the search engines.  That starts with being a SEO-friendly website.  

WordPress is one of the most popular website builders.  According to WordPress, 42% of the internet is built on WordPress.  That makes WordPress SEO (Search Engine Optimization) important to helping customers find your business online. 

There are a few things you need to know about WordPress SEO to have your website found, increase your sales opportunities, and grow your revenues. 

Pick an SEO-Friendly WordPress Theme

A WordPress theme is a group of files with graphics, CSS style sheets, and HTML code that determine the appearance of your blog or website.  Look for themes with good load speed and high performance on desktop and mobile devices.  Test the demo theme to measure the site performance before making a purchase. 

Plan the Architecture of Your Site

In its simplest form, the architecture is the hierarchy of the website structure and navigation. A good rule to follow is that no page or post should need more than three clicks from the homepage. Make it easy for your potential customers to find the information they need to take action. 

Install and Configure a WordPress SEO Plugin

A plugin is a piece of code that connects to your WordPress site.  Plugins add new functionality or extend existing functionality on your site to create any kind of website. SEO plugins make it easier to implement SEO best practices. 

Select then configure a SEO plugin such as All in One SEO plugin, Rank Math plugin, SEMrush plugin, or Yoast SEO plugin.  Add the new plugin, install it, then activate it on your site.  Within the plugin, provide information about your site, connect to social media profiles, add breadcrumbs, content types, and more. 

Find a Quality WordPress Host Provider

Pick a host provider that is compatible with WordPress.  Check for high uptimes or site availability, SSL certificates, local servers, and great support. WordPress also has a list of recommended host providers. 

Use Post Categories Correctly

Categories are the method used to group content on WordPress sites.  Organize your blog posts in logical groupings.  It is also recommended that you optimize each of the category pages.

Write SEO-Friendly URLs

Enable SEO-friendly permalinks on your site.  Permalinks are usually the domain and a description of the content of the page. For example, https://blog.dabrianmarketing.com/how-on-page-seo-can-put-you-on-page-one-search-results The URL should help the reader understand the content on the page. 

Complete the Technical SEO Configuration

Make sure your site has “search engine visibility” by enabling “indexable" in the WordPress settings. 

Set up the SSL Certificate to encrypt your site so you rank better in the search engines. 

Enable the breadcrumbs to improve how users navigate your site. 

Pick what web address format you want to use (www vs.non-www). Update the address format in the general setting of the site in the WordPress address and Site Address fields. If you change the address format, make sure that you implement the necessary redirects. 

Use schema markups on your site. Schema markups are codes that help search engines to understand your content and better represent it in the search results. They are often used on blogs, articles, events, etc. 

Use featured images and optimized images to enhance the contents, mood, or theme of the page. 

Optimize Your Content 

Content is still king and it should be tailored to your audience and optimized for the search engines.  This is often called on-page optimization. Start by implementing the local SEO basics such as keyword research, unique page titles and descriptions, internal links, and optimized images with alt tags that describe the image.