SEO – What are the 5 Best Practices in WordPress?
Learn about the 5 Best Practices for SEO in WordPress
The vision of SEO in the not too distant future is something that no one can predict. And it’s all because Google does everything in its power to ensure that the web they have in mind for the next few years will be a much safer and more stable place for those who browse through it. Of course, they will benefit from it ten times more, but who cares? Well, you should, which is why WordPress SEO best practices are so important.
At least if you own a WordPress site and you still want to rank high (or a good rank) under their terms. Well, to offer an improved search experience and get billions of dollars in profit at a future date, Google must keep updating its searching algorithms, much to the distress of SEO experts, so it is not a simple job, and it requires time and dedication.
In previous years, you could have easily gotten to the top of Google by literally “injecting” keywords into your content. That was what happened, that was how SEO experts did it, left, right, and center. Of course, this practice was very well rewarded. Then, Google rewarded keyword stuffing, opening the doors to a universe that was completely unknown. Without a doubt, the ranking of many plummeted, the new era in SEO was born: the era of relevant and valuable content, alt tags, title attributes, and more.
Even so, Google kept the algorithm updates and denied SEOs and webmasters all the juicy information that would have definitely helped their SEO campaign. Today, you just need to step out of line a bit and Google won’t hesitate to hang you out to dry so no one can find you.
But there is still hope that you will see Google show you exactly what to do to get the best ranking. These will be the WordPress SEO best practices, which we’ll describe in this post, so get ready to have fun and build a great SEO profile that will withstand the next algorithm shakeup.
- Research the best keywords:
Keyword stuffing used to work as an SEO technique in the past, but today Google disapproves of this practice. At the same time, the keyword as a ranking factor is not dead. Google and other search engines still rely on keywords to rank websites, which means your SEO strategy should be guided by clever research.
Would you like to rank high in Google for the phrase “WordPress themes” or “WordPress plugins”? A tool like the Google AdWords Keyword Planner can help you determine the competitiveness of your terms, as well as derive keyword alternatives to use in your content. You can also use Google Analytics to check the keywords people use to find your website. Your WordPress site stats are another source of keyword ideas.
- Focus on the content: The King of SEO
Content is still the best practice you can carry out to improve your rank in WordPress, well, not just in WordPress, but on any platform. Unique, valuable, and relevant content is what should reign in your website. In addition to being the best of all SEO ranking signals, high-quality content is, above all, the lifeblood of your website.
A website without content does not exist, and not just a website, it works for everything we do in the digital field. Along the same lines, a website with poor-quality content is like a blunt knife: it can work, but it needs to exert more force. A website with outdated content is dead to both search engines and human visitors.
We just mentioned that your content must be unique, valuable, and relevant. What does this mean? First of all, your content must be unique because search engines, especially Google, do not understand plagiarism or duplicated content. Your content must contribute something, it must be unique if you want to get a good ranking.
Without a doubt, you can extract quotes from anywhere on the Internet, but copying and pasting a whole page will only get you in trouble, so create your own content, get ideas from others but do not copy them, this will only make your job more difficult.
- Use SEO-ready WordPress themes and plugins
WordPress is so popular today because you can have a website up and running in the time it takes to have a hot cup of coffee. Thanks to WordPress themes and plugins, anyone can create a professional website in no time, but you have to be eager and be clear about certain rules. But that’s only true if you choose the perfect theme and plugins. In terms of WordPress SEO, the themes and plugins you choose should be SEO-friendly right out of the box.
Obviously, you can start with any theme and any set of plugins, but SEO-ready ones give you the edge you need to get Google to rank high on search results.
- SEO-friendly URLs
Also known as Pretty Permalinks in WordPress, SEO-friendly URLs are a key component of WordPress SEO best practices, as well as user experience. For example, which URL is easier to remember?
- https://www.yoursite.com/article300152
- https://www.yoursite.com/?p=3424
- https://www.yoursite.com/wordpress-seo
Out of the three, which URL do you think will “excite” the search engine spiders? The third URL on the list is the absolute winner. It’s disheartening to see webmasters use URLs like http://www.example.com/?p=123 when WordPress makes it easy to create SEO-friendly URLs (and where there are great plugins like Pretty Link that you can use to create easy external links to remember).
- Social media signals
The growth of social media in recent years has created a profitable and new channel for WordPress SEO. Even without a fight, you can see the great traffic potential of social media. It also gives you the opportunity to build a community around your brand and/or products.
Search engines use brand and content mentions to determine your rank. The reason behind this approach is simple: if more people like, retweet, pin, stumble across, etc. your content, it must be valuable and vice versa.
However, be careful with social media. You want to open a two-way communication instead of talking to your potential customers. You need people to engage with your brand to “…improve the broadcast value and online word of mouth.”.
Use social media to build your own audience and work hard to drive conversation and user engagement. The more mentions, the better.
Keep in mind that WordPress SEO takes time. After implementing these WordPress SEO best practices, you should allow enough time to see the results. Too bad we still don’t have an SEO solution to set up and go. Also, you should keep updating your WordPress SEO strategy in accordance with the changes in the entire industry. Don’t forget to follow the established SEO guidelines to avoid penalties. In short, create high-quality content and promote your site like crazy.
Which of these practices have you carried out in the last few months?
