Improving WordPress SEO is the key to getting more traffic to your website. The problem is the process of optimizing your website is often too technical for new users. In this post we shall be taking a quick look at some of the essential things you must do to optimize your website for search engines.
Why is SEO important?
Search engines are the main source of traffic for most websites. Google and other search engines rely on advanced algorithms to understand as well as rank pages appropriately in their search results. These algorithms are, however, not perfect. That is why as much as using the right keywords is the key to getting a great ranking, there are other things you have to do to achieve the best results in WordPress SEO. They include the following.
Check your website’s visibility settings
WordPress has a unique built-in feature that helps you hid your website from search engines. This feature is helpful because it allows you to work on your site before it is ready to go public. At times this option can be checked by accident thus making your website unavailable to the search engines. If you fear the button was checked by accident, you need to uncheck it by going to Settings>>Reading page. Scroll to the ‘Search Engine Visibility’ section and ensure the box next to ‘Discourage search engines from indexing this site’ is unchecked. Save changes thereafter.
Use SEO friendly URL structures
Another important thing you should do to achieve the ultimate WordPress SEO is to use SEO friendly URLs. These are URLs that explain the content of a page and ones that are easy to be read by both humans and search engines. Good examples of SEO friendly SEO are:
https://www.example.com/how-to-optimize-website-for-search/
https://www.example.com/how-to-install-a-plugin/
To start using friendly URLs for your posts, you need to go to Settings>>Permalinks page. From here select the ‘Post name’ and save changes.
Use SEO plugins
The best thing about using WordPress is that there are plugins for everything. SEO is no exception. There are so many WordPress SEO plugins you can use to optimize your website for search. You should, however, remember that not all plugins will give you the results you want. Some of the best SEO plugins are:
- Yoast SEO
- All in One SEO Pack
There are so many other things you can do to optimize your website for search. Others worth mentioning include:
- Adding XML sitemaps in WordPress
- Adding your website to the Google Search Console
- Optimizing blog posts for SEO
- Doing thorough keyword research
- Using categories and tags properly
- Making internal links a habit
The above tips will help you get started in the right direction. It is, however, good to remember that SEO is a continuous process. You have to keep optimizing your website.