
What do you understand by the term WordPress SEO?
SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is a phrase that refers to the technique of optimising a website for better representation in search engine results. These approaches and procedures are often based on major search engines’ guidelines and best practices such as Google, Bing, and others.
WordPress is an SEO friendly platform that helps the structuring, managing and publishing of the content easy. This is what makes WordPress the best Content Management System for SEO. SEO aims to create web pages more easily accessible by search engines and ensure appropriate indexing of web pages with relevant information.
WordPress already is a very search engine friendly content management system, and when further optimised by changing specific settings or utilising WordPress SEO plugins could help in the SERP’s. WordPress sites that are already SEO friendly when further optimised for SEO could only make the content more easily accessible and indexed correctly by search engines.
As we all know, having SEO-friendly content helps in the better ranking of web pages on the search engines results page. It is not always true that a site with solid SEO techniques would rank higher in search engines or receive more visitors. However, search engines remain an essential source of traffic for websites; therefore, websites must adhere to all the SEO principles.
How to improve SEO on WordPress?
One thing that always comes to the mind of someone with a WordPress site is how to improve SEO for WordPress. Below mentioned are certain ways that could be an answer to your question regarding how to improve SEO for WordPress, which are:-
1. Choosing a Hosting Provider who is responsible-
It is essential that your website gets hosted by a reliable service provider. The site’s loading speed, uptime, and site security are certain vital factors that need to be kept in account while making this decision. Poor Site speed directly influences the SEO performance of your WordPress site and having a lousy uptime or security vulnerabilities could lead to site quality concerns. Thus, it is better to select a hosting provider that fulfils the needs at all these parameters and not just go for the cheapest option. Doing so might lead to some performance issues.
People thinking about creating a website or someone with an old website with a poor hosting provider may consider switching to a more reliable hosting provider. You can either go for a WordPress specific hosting plan or choose from the three hosting providers that WordPress suggests himself.
2. Installation of an SEO friendly WordPress theme on your website-
One of the most significant decisions you’ll make for your WordPress site is the theme. It affects the design and layout of your site, may add new features, and plays a part in its SEO. Imagine you select a theme that has a lot of unnecessary coding that impacts the site’s loading time which, as discussed earlier, might ruin the ranking of your site. The manner a theme was created is also crucial since clean codes offer the best chance in the SERPs.
3. Usage of dedicated SEO plugins-
Install an SEO plugin before you begin optimising your site. Fortunately, there are a few primary choices that WordPress itself frequently recommends. Plugins are certain small pieces of add-on software that can be installed on your site, providing it with new functionalities and features. There’s a plugin for you to do just about anything, including helping your site rank higher in search engines. In reality, there are several plugins available that are mainly designed to boost the SEO of your site.
These plugins might provide limited, focused features such as sitemap creation. You may also use a comprehensive SEO plugin to get even better-targeted results.
4. Edit your Permalink-
These are permanent URLs that direct visitors to particular articles, pages, and other material on your website. These are what people will use to refer to and connect back to your website. Therefore their look is essential. Clear, detailed links that define their content are easier for search engines to understand, thus making it easier to improve their rating.
5. Usage of Heading tags throughout the content-
You will need the usage of heading tags as this helps crawlers understand and make a better sense of the content. Heading tags are formatting options that can be applied to showcase heading for different posts and pages.
When you use these headings to arrange your text, you accomplish two things. It adds visual interest to your content by splitting it up and making it simpler to read. Crawlers also pay close attention to headlines, utilising them to determine how your material is arranged and what it is about. Don’t forget to use WordPress’ header choices frequently and consistently while building posts and pages.
6. Structure your content while keeping keywords in mind-
Beginners often don’t know about this and just try to concentrate on how to improve SEO for WordPress? Keyword research is an essential task that you need to accomplish before writing content for your site. Without keyword research, you won’t be able to use words that your potential customers use to find stuff related to your business or service. Thus, making keyword research a prominent part of content writing for better on-page optimization.
Whether you are writing content for a new site or creating content for an old web page, it is essential to know and use the most relevant keywords to your business/ services content.
7. Optimizing the site’s images-
Images are essential for almost every website. They provide aesthetic appeal and context to the text and help break it up, making it more readable. Before uploading a picture to the WordPress media library, be certain to use optimal file names — this helps to provide more context to a page. Rather than /image121.jpg for an image of a three-headed dog, use /three-headed-dog.jpg. It will give a reference to the picture with the content.
I hope these ways answer your question about how to improve SEO for WordPress.