The best rules, plugins and strategies for SEO on WordPress. Is your site online, and the first page of Google results is your top to reach? To start the climb, you need SEO.
SEO is precisely the procedure of optimizing a site for positioning on the SERP.
Let’s clarify one point immediately: Google is a search engine that reads sites and indexes them all in the same way.
Therefore, the approach to SEO is always the same for each site, whatever the platform on which it is published.
What varies are the tools and possibilities offered by the different platforms.
An example? If you have built your site on WordPress, then to do SEO, you can use the various tools offered by the program itself.
Before seeing how to do SEO on WordPress, we want to give you 3 general rules to follow to optimize your content.
3 General Rules For Doing SEO
There are many aspects to pay attention to when building an online project, and if it comes to SEO optimization, these are 3 tips that we would like to give you to start getting results right away.
- Write for your readers first and then for the search engines.
- Remember that although Google positions your site and your pages, it is people who read your content.
- So, don’t pepper your texts with keywords to position yourself better.
- It would ruin the user experience and make them run away from your site, resulting in the opposite effect of what you intended.
- Format the text to be readable by mobile
- Since we all now navigate from a smartphone, the text must be formatted to be perfectly readable on a small screen.
- No walls of text. Yes, to titles, paragraphs, bolds and bulleted lists to facilitate reading.
- Make sure that the person reading this does not have to strain to get to the bottom of the page. It wouldn’t; it would probably leave your site after reading the first few lines.
- Give as much information as possible on the subject.
- Once you have found the keyword you want to write your content on, try to provide comprehensive information and in-depth material, such as images, videos or downloadable pdfs.
- The more the information you give is valuable and exciting, the more the chances that the user will remain inside the page are significant. Consequently, Google will position that page higher on the search results.
Keep these 3 rules in mind even before moving on to SEO optimization on WordPress.
SEO On WordPress: How To Do It?
Here we are on WordPress. To start SEO, start here: the theme, the contents and the images. What does it mean?
Let’s see them together specifically.
WordPress Theme Choice
When you create a site with WordPress, one of the first things you need to do is choose a theme.
To choose a theme from an SEO perspective, follow these directions:
- I Prefer A Paid Theme. This option will give you much more confidence about its configuration, quality, and updates, and you will be entitled to fast and continuous assistance;
- Responsive theme. It is a fundamental aspect to make sure that the article is responsive, therefore adaptable to any device;
- Choose a theme in line with your project. WordPress directly recommends the pieces best suited to your category. You will be able to evaluate articles for photography, restaurant, design, magazine, e-commerce sites and so on;
- Make sure you have control over all the features of the theme. Choosing a specific theme means being able to change everything at will or not. You will be able to make changes only to certain aspects while others will remain unchanged.
Note that WordPress also allows you to experiment.
This will give you an idea of how the layout works and how all the sections are arranged.
SEO On Content
Content is the heart of a website.
Doing SEO on content does not only mean improving them for optimization, but it means publishing:
- regularly _
- contents of quality
- consistent content.
These are the very first SEO rules.
What does it mean? It means that Google mainly considers the quality of your production, the site’s authoritativeness, and its updating frequency.
Then work on your editorial plan and on writing the articles.
And remember that the more articles you write to learn more about the topics you have chosen, the more you have the chance to position yourself on the first page on Google.
SEO Optimization Of Images
Give great importance to the visual content of various types.
Images also need to be optimized to be read by Google.
You need to fill in the title and alternative text spaces to improve reading.
In both, you must enter the keyword; on the alternative text item, add a detailed description of the content of the photo.
SEO Optimization Of URL
The URL – the links – of the articles and pages also play a fundamental role in SEO.
To do SEO on WordPress properly, you must also optimize the links.
To write a URL, follow these 3 rules:
- the URL must coincide with the title of the article and, therefore, with the keyword (you do not need to enter the entire label if it is long, add the most significant words);
- it must be short ;
- keywords must be separated with hyphens, and no particular signs or accents must be added. If you use Yoast SEO, the URLs will be automatically optimized in this sense.
3 Plugins To do SEO on WordPress
There are many plugins to do SEO on WordPress.
Some help you by acting directly on SEO; others optimize the site in general, indirectly affecting the improvement for Google.
- Yoast SEO: is the most used plugin for optimizing blog posts. It helps you in the layout and the insertion of keywords and any other detail concerning the text.
- Super Cache: plugins of this type, that is, for the cache, help speed up the site, a fundamental aspect of being in the top positions of the SERP.
- Akismet: This plugin acts on spam, blocking suspicious comments.
Google Tools for SEO
As we said at the beginning of the article, when you publish your site online, it will be automatically indexed by Google, which will go on to visit your pages and scan images and contents.
To be ready for this moment, take advantage of the support that Google provides you with.
Google Search Console
Create a Gmail account and sign up for Google Search Console if you don’t already have it.
Once your account is activated, enter your site’s domain and its sitemap.
Google Search Console is a tool that helps you index, preventing errors such as 404 errors and other problems, and allows you to monitor the progress of the site and the search terms used to access it, the queries.
Google Analytics
It is the tool par excellence offered by Google to monitor traffic on the site.
It is completely free and installs quickly: insert a code into the site.
Once installed and configured, it allows you to record critical data on your site, such as the number of pages viewed by users, their time on the site, their actions, the device used in navigation, and much more.
Another essential tool for monitoring and analyzing traffic trends.
Does optimization seem too burdensome to you?
Start by following these guidelines, and you will have already done a lot of the work.
Finally, remember to monitor your site periodically, keep making improvements and apply good SEO in the articles and in every new element you put on the site.
Also Read: The Importance Of SEO For Your Website