WordPress is the most popular website designing platform which is used to run most of the websites that are present on the internet. WordPress is easy to use and doesn’t require any developer or prior knowledge to create a website. It has a simple User Interface that makes it easier to develop the site.
Simply creating a WordPress website is not enough. It has to be optimized in many aspects so that the site works perfectly and no glitches are seen. Also, the page load should be smooth without any lags. Once the best practices are implemented to the site, it gets a good rank in search results.
Here you have two options: to make sure you know how to perform proper SEO optimization for your website or to hire a professional SEO consultant to do the job.
Use SEO Friendly Theme
WordPress has a huge range of themes that can be used based on the developer needs and type of site is developed. While using a theme, developers should check for any added script and plugins that might be linked to that theme. Avoid using those themes as it may slow down the speed of the website. The theme should be WordPress SEO friendly so that it doesn’t affect the overall performance of the site. One can use Google’s web.dev to run the demo of the theme and check on the performance issues(if any).
Use a Free WordPress Plugin
Using a good WordPress SEO plugin is highly necessary as they are capable of providing good pointers and suggestions to optimize the site to great extent with best practices. Yoast and All in One SEO are the top ranking SEO that is widely used across the globe. These plugins can be used to optimize the images, suggest adding the keywords in title and descriptions, suggest page linkage, etc.
Optimize the Images and Videos
It’s good to have high-resolution images on your site. But one should keep in mind that the more the quality, the more the size of the image and hence the slower the site. All the images and videos should be optimized by using a good WordPress SEO plugin so that the image size is reduced but the quality remains the same. The same is applied to the videos.
Do Keyword Research
A keyword is highly essential when developing a website. It depends on the main purpose for which the site is built. The keyword has to be chosen in such a way that it can be used effectively on all the pages of the site and can be added in most of the descriptions without any extra effort. Keywords should also be properly added in the meta description as well. It will be really beneficial when a person searches for something and he gets the result that has the keyword added in the description. This way, the faith develops in the visitors to the site and they provide constant traffic to the website.
Choose Custom URL for Pages and Post
WordPress generally suggests URL based on the page title. But they can be lengthy sometimes which may not be easy to recall at times. Thus, it’s important to create a URL that is easy to remember and should be short so that the WordPress SEO can effectively use it and improve the page rank in search results. Suppose a new page is created with the title”Top 20 mid range phones for the year 2021″. Now WordPress SEO will create a page with a URL like “www.domain.com/top_20_mid_range-phones_in_2021”. Insead, its better to edit this link and use a custom URL like “www.domain.com/2021_midrange_phones” which is more convenient, short and easy to remember.
Page Titles and Description
Each page should have a well-balanced title and description that describes the main features of the page or product that is listed. It should also have a good amount of keyword usage, which is highly essential to fetch the page in search results and have good WordPress SEO performance. The description should be to the point always. It should not contain long text that may make the reader feel bored. Also, the meta description that is shown as the description in search results should describe the page and product details effectively along with the keyword.
Category and Tags
Each page should have sufficient tags and should be linked under the proper category. This has 2 advantages. One, the pages are properly assigned based on the topic/category they are defined in. Second, the site map will be clear to understand and easy to deduce. The tags will help during the search engine result paging and improve the page rank. It won’t appear clumsy in any manner. This way the WordPress SEO will be more optimized for better results.
Internal Linking
Each page should be interlinked properly based on the topic and sub-topic. one should keep in mind that there should not be any dead links present that may lead to a “Page not found” error. If the site often faces a page not found error or error 404, then the site’s rank is reduced sharply in the search results. It’s better to check that all pages are having a proper linkage and all hyperlinks are active. Using a good WordPress SEO plugin can help to detect any broken links present. Also, external links can be used to describe the topic in a broader way. But one should keep a regular check that the external link is active and not a broken one. This again will affect the page’s rank in search results.
Image Text and Names
It’s also a good practice to name the images based on the content it’s showing. A picture of apparel should be named “jeans.jpg” or “shirt.jpg” rather than “A0101.jpg ” or something like that.
By using appropriate names for the images, it will be beneficial when the user is browsing the site over slow internet and the image doesn’t load properly. they can easily identify that the image that is to be shown here is for a shirt or any other apparel. Also, when the images are named in this manner and are tagged properly with the page, they can be easily seen in the image search results.
They will have a hyperlink showing from which page this image is pulled and users can refer to that link to land on the page.
Select a Good Host
If the target audience is huge, it’s best to host the website on a private server rather than on a shared one. This way, the site will be more safe and secure. Also, WordPress SEO performance will be good as the speed will be optimum on private hosts.
WordPress SEO techniques have to be implemented properly to get the best out of your site. It can be used along with many plugins depending on the needs of the business. It has a huge number of themes that can be used based on the requirement and matching with the type of business or page that is to be created.
