- It improves your website\u2019s visibility.<\/li>
- It makes it easy for people already looking for what you do to find you. <\/li>
- It increases traffic.<\/li>
- It\u2019s affordable.<\/li>
- Once achieved, SEO results are long-lasting.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n
SEO isn\u2019t your only option for getting more eyes on your WordPress website, but it\u2019s one of the best places to start. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"best](\"https:\/\/www.hostgator.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Wordpress.png\")
<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n15 Steps to Improving WordPress SEO<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
SEO is competitive and can take a lot of time to do well. But many of the most important steps for WordPress SEO are actually fairly simple. Some of these you can even get done today, while for some others you\u2019ll want to create an SEO plan to implement over the coming weeks and months. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
1. Make sure you have the right hosting provider and plan.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Search engine algorithms-the complex code that determines which order websites show up in when you do a search-aim to prioritize websites that provide the best experience to visitors. Now think about how you feel when you click on a website and it takes forever<\/em> for the page to load. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the fast-moving world of the high-speed internet, 'forever'\u009d can actually just mean a few seconds, but that\u2019s long enough for waiting to feel like a nuisance. Search engines are well aware of how people feel about slow loading times, so site speed<\/a> is a ranking factor they\u2019re upfront about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For your website to load quickly, choosing the right web hosting provider and plan is paramount. If your website isn\u2019t delivering the level of speed you need, consider if it\u2019s time for either an upgrade or a switch to an all new web hosting company. Look for one that offers managed WordPress hosting<\/a> and can promise reliable service and site speed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
2. Install an SEO plugin.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Choosing WordPress for your website means you don\u2019t have to deal with HTML when making updates (thank goodness). In its place, you need to find the right plugins that provide the substitute functionality you need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some SEO steps that you\u2019d otherwise use HTML for can be completed via an intuitive interface with the right plugin. Some popular options include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
- Yoast<\/a><\/li>
- All in One SEO Pack<\/a><\/li>
- SmartCrawl SEO<\/a><\/li>
- The SEO Framework<\/a><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n
Many of the next steps on our list are much easier to complete with a good WordPress SEO plugin. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
3. Create a sitemap.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
For a page on your website to show up in a search, the search engine has to first know it\u2019s there. The search engines have bots that continually crawl the web to find and index web pages. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
You can speed up the process of getting all the pages on your website indexed by creating and submitting a sitemap. All of the plugins shared above have features to help with this step. Use the plugin of your choice to generate a sitemap for your WordPress site, then submit it to each of the main search engines<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
4. Do keyword research.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Keywords are the cornerstone of an SEO strategy. You don\u2019t want to show up in the search engines for just any search, you want your website to show up when people are looking for what you do. When you optimize a web page for search, you\u2019re optimizing it for a specific keyword.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To determine which keywords to base your strategy on, use free keyword research tools like Google\u2019s Keyword Planner<\/a> and Answer the Public<\/a>, or paid tools like Moz<\/a> and SEMRush<\/a> to gain data on the terms your audience is using in search. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
You want to identify keywords that get a decent number of monthly searches, but aren\u2019t too competitive to rank for. For new websites and small businesses long-tail keywords<\/a>-terms that are specific and tend to be longer-are usually your best bet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
5. Choose a primary keyword for each page.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
When you have a strong list of keywords to target, figure out the best primary keyword for each page on your website, along with a secondary keyword or two. Every page should have a different primary keyword so you aren\u2019t competing with yourself for search engine rankings. Selecting your keyword is necessary for the next several steps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
6. Customize all your URLs.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
When you create a new page in WordPress, it will automatically generate a URL for it-but one that provides no useful information. It will look something like this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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The URL is part of the page search engines look at to learn what the page is about. Not only is a generic URL like that not useful to your visitors, who will never remember it, it also doesn\u2019t communicate anything to Google about what\u2019s on the page. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Your SEO plugin should provide a field for you to customize the URL of each page, or it may even automatically generate a URL based on the page title you enter. Make sure to fill in a URL that uses your primary keyword and relates to what\u2019s on the page. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
7. Write a relevant meta description for each page.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Meta descriptions don\u2019t have an effect on a web page\u2019s rankings, but they\u2019re still important because they often show up on the search engine results page when you rank for a term. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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The meta description<\/a> is your opportunity to get someone to choose your website out of all the options that appear. Use the brief space you have here (around 155 characters) to make a case for why someone should click. And be sure to include your primary keyword. If your page starts showing up in the results when someone searches for your keyword, it will be bolded in the meta description (as in the example above), drawing more attention. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
8. Use headings strategically.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Another part of the page the algorithms look at to understand what it\u2019s about is the headings you use. With HTML, you would add headings to the page using the <h2>, <h3>, and <h4> tags. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Within WordPress though, you can select a heading each time you add a text block to the page. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Headings are useful for separating the page into different sections that make it easier for your readers to skim. In terms of SEO, they give you more options to include your keywords-but you should only do so if including your keyword in a heading also makes sense for your human readers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
9. Optimize your images<\/a> for search.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Search engine algorithms can\u2019t see images, but there are a few parts of an image file that they can read. That includes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
- The image filename<\/li>
- The alt tag<\/li>
- The caption<\/li>
- The description<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n
You can fill in these sections easily in WordPress each time you add a new image to your media library, allowing you to optimize your WordPress images for SEO<\/a>. Look for the Attachment Details section on the right side of the screen. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Each of these fields is another opportunity to communicate something about your web page to the search engines. Fill in this information for every image you add to your website, including your keyword where relevant. Most of these sections won\u2019t be visible to your average visitor, but the caption will, so make sure anything you add there is useful to your human visitors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
10. Optimize your images for speed.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
We already established how important speed is for SEO. Even with the right web hosting plan, if you add a lot of large, high-resolution images to your website, they can slow your page loading time. But there are a number of tips to make your images load faster, while still looking good. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here are a few suggestions for optimizing your images for speed<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
- Save your images as .jpg rather than .png so they\u2019re smaller<\/li>
- Compress your images with a compression plugin<\/a>. <\/li>
- Set up lazy load. Another option a plugin<\/a> can help with. <\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n
11. Create a blogging strategy.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Blogging is good for SEO<\/a> because it keeps your website current and fresh, and gives you lots of opportunities to rank for different relevant keywords. And WordPress is well designed for hosting a blog on your website. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Use your keyword research as a starting point to create a blogging strategy that targets relevant terms your audience is searching for. Create an editorial calendar to keep you consistent in your blogging and strive to make sure each piece you publish:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
- Is useful to the readers you most want to reach<\/li>
- Is relevant in some way to the main thing your website offers, be it products, services, or a certain type of information<\/li>
- Is written in a web-friendly format. That means lots of white space, short paragraphs, sections separated by headings, and bullets or numbered lists where appropriate (kind of like this one)<\/li>
- Is optimized for search (that just means following all the rules in this post)<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n
Blog posts are a good way to increase your website\u2019s visibility and gain the attention and trust of the category of people you want to reach. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
12. Practice internal linking.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
An internal link is any link on a web page that points to another page on your own website. Internal links are useful for SEO because, by showing Google which pages are related to each other, it\u2019s yet another signal about what your page is about. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And with internal links, you have the power to choose the anchor text you use-e.g. the words that are hyperlinked (those that usually show up in blue and underlined). The more context clues you give the algorithms, the better a job they do of understanding what terms your page should link for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Internal links are also a way to spread link authority around your website. When you add an internal link to a popular page that ranks well now, it makes the linked page look a little more valuable in the eyes of Google. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
13. Build backlinks.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Internal links are nice, but backlinks are where your web pages start to really gain points with the algorithms. A backlink<\/a> is any link to a page on your website from another website. Every backlink from a well respected, relevant website works as an endorsement for your website. Google sees it as confirmation that what\u2019s on the page is valuable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The more high-quality backlinks a website earns, the more SEO authority the website will have. More authority = higher search results. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Link building<\/a> is one of the hardest parts of SEO, but once you have all the on-site optimization covered (which is the category everything else on this list falls under), it\u2019s the most important step for boosting SEO on your WordPress website. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
14. Learn from your analytics.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
This list covers all the best practices for improving SEO for your WordPress website, but the details of what will work best will depend on your particular website and audience. You can use a plugin like the Google Analyticator<\/a> to put some of your most important analytics front-and-center in your WordPress dashboard to easily track how much traffic you get, and which pages are the most popular. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Supplement that information by digging deeper in Google Analytics<\/a>. And if it\u2019s in your budget, you can gain even more in-depth information with SEO tools like Moz or Ahrefs that provide rankings data. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Analyze that data as you go and learn what types of pages and content you create perform best in the search engines. Then apply what you learn to your strategy moving forward. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
15. Perform regular content audits.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Creating new content for SEO takes a lot of time and energy. Make that work go further by performing a content audit<\/a> at least once a year to find opportunities to make your old content stronger. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
High-performing pieces can be updated to make them more current and keep them strong. Low-performing pieces can either be scrapped or improved based on the insights you\u2019ve learned from your analytics. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Don\u2019t publish and forget. Treat the content you have as a living thing-it should evolve and grow over time to strengthen your business and become ever more useful to your audience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Build Your WordPress SEO on a Strong Foundation <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
- Set up lazy load. Another option a plugin<\/a> can help with. <\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n
- All in One SEO Pack<\/a><\/li>
- Yoast<\/a><\/li>