You’ve just created your first WordPress website. You love the way it looks, but naturally, it’s not getting any traffic. This is where SEO comes in.
SEO or Search Engine Optimization is a form of marketing wherein you engage in a variety of tactics as a means of getting your website to rank high on the listings of search engines like Google. When done right, it can score you substantial amounts of organic web traffic.
Looking to improve SEO on WordPress? Need some help? Here 6 proven tips for you to utilize.
1. Utilize the Right Keywords
Keyword usage is central to SEO. If you’re not using the right keywords on your website, it’s going to have a lot of trouble receiving focused organic traffic.
Let’s say that your website is for your house cleaning service and that you perform this service in the Detroit area. If so, you’ll want to use keywords like “house cleaner in Detroit” or “Detroit house cleaner”. These keywords will inform Google that your website is representing a Detroit house cleaner, thus enabling Google to show your website when someone searches for a Detroit house cleaner.
Think of keywords as the SEO admission ticket. Until you use them, you can’t be entered into the contest. You want to be sure that you enter the right contest, so make sure that you’re using the right keywords.
To help you find appropriate keywords, consider using a WordPress plugin. There are all sorts of keyword research plugins on WordPress, including these ones.
2. Obtain Backlinks
Backlink building is key to SEO. What is backlink building, you ask? It’s the process of getting other websites to link to your website.
The more backlinks your website receives and more authority those backlinks have, the higher your site will rank on search engines. The caveat is that backlink building is difficult, and requires a great deal of time and effort. That said, it can be done.
One method for obtaining backlinks is to write guest posts for other websites. Then, you can place a link to your site within the guest post, thereby giving you a quality backlink.
It also helps to network. Build relationships with others and arrange backlinks swaps so that both of your websites benefit.
Apart from that, you just have to churn out solid content. If you create good content, and if you can get eyes on that content, other websites will link to it.
3. Integrate It With Social Media
Social media marketing and SEO are different things. However, social media management is a key part of any respectable SEO campaign. As such, if you want your website to be discovered on search engines, you have to integrate it with social media.
Link to your social media profiles from your website, link to your website from your social media profiles and use social media to spread your website’s content. Doing this will send social signals to search engines, showing them that your website is active and engaged. This will result in increased credibility for your website, thus giving it a boost in rankings.
It will also help you to get organic backlinks for your website, as more and more people will be exposed to your content.
4. Ensure That Your Website is User-friendly
It’s important for your website to be user-friendly. User-friendliness not only helps to keep visitors on your website but, in doing so, it shows search engines that your website is useful and easy to navigate. This bodes well for your search engine ranking in the long-run.
Now, how do you make a WordPress website user-friendly? For one, make sure that there’s a navigation menu across the top of the screen. For two, utilize calls to action. For three, link to other pages within the content on your website.
These three things alone will make a world of difference. If you want to go deeper with it, you’re advised to hire a professional web designer. There are all sorts of affordable web design services out there.
5. Improve Your Page Load Speed
One of the factors that dictate your SEO success is page load speed. The faster your website is, the more credibility it will have with search engines. Ideally, your web pages will open in under 3 seconds, though the faster they open, the better.
There are a number of things you can do to improve page load speed. You can minimize the size of your images, you can minify your website’s code, you can change your hosting, and much more. Caching your visitors’ data also helps to improve page load speed.
WordPress is chockful of plugins that can help to improve the speed of a website. Some of these include W3 Super Cache, WP Smush, and WP-Optimize.
6. Use an SEO Plugin
When creating content for your website, there are all sorts of rules that you need to follow in order to ensure that it’s SEO-friendly. You need to use your keywords the right number of times, utilize a requisite number of links, optimize your image data, add a meta description, and more.
It can be a little difficult to remember all of these things. Fortunately, there are SEO plugins available to help you manage them. Some of the best of these include Yoast SEO, All in One SEO, and SEO Press.
Install one of these plugins and let it guide you. It will alert you when you’re doing something wrong, helping you to create the most SEO-friendly website possible.
And That’s How to Improve SEO on WordPress
And there it is, that’s how to improve SEO on WordPress. Put these tips into action, be consistent, and soon enough, your website will be ranking for its chosen keywords.
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