Search Engine Optimization is a fascinating concept which is advantageous to offer a higher and accurate rank for the site in various search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing etc.

Obtaining a commendable SEO helps to increase one’s WordPress Search Engine Results Page (SERP) ranking.

To get the WordPress link to be at a higher position than the millions of other links available online requires a good SEO strategy for which certain steps are to be followed.

SEO Favorable Title

The title of the WordPress post plays a very crucial role in positioning the post at a higher level and increasing the SERP rank. It is always advisable to keep the title short and sweet and easy to read. The title should represent the content of the article. A smart idea would be to use low-competition keywords in the title but it should be ensured that such words are searched for. The Google AdWords Keyword Planner can be used to check the statistics of the local and global search of keywords and then the unique title can be decided accordingly. The title must be within the 70 characters limit.

Choosing Captivating Keywords

Not just in the title but keywords play a crucial role even within the content of the article. Therefore, conducting a detailed analysis of keywords pertaining to the content in the link and carrying out a research as to which keywords will be effective in generating higher rankings is an important task. Google AdWords keyword planner bestows exceptional assistance in understanding the keyword trends, choosing the appropriate keywords so as to improve the content and make it visible. One should understand the mindset of the qualified visitors so as to know what kind of queries they would type into Google because such queries will help to catch the keywords. The keywords which help to bring organic traffic should be identified and chosen.

Using the Keywords

The keywords that are chosen can become effective only with an intelligent implementation in the article. The entire post should not be stuffed with just one or two keywords so as to gain ranks because it might lead to unwanted redundancy and penalties. Key words that are relevant should be placed in the article. Most of the top search engines give prominence to the initial paragraphs of the text while indexing the page. So, the most important keywords should be mentioned within the first hundred words of the post and it should be seen that there are different keywords spread all over the post.

Internal Linking

It is very vital to give hints to the search engine about the relevant content present in the WordPress blog. This can be made possible with the help of internal linking. This works best when there is an existence of a decent number of interrelated posts in the blog. It acts like a thread connecting the various articles within the blog and helps to create strong context between the new and old posts. It helps the navigation within the site for the users, gathers their attention and prompts them to have a look at the other posts, which leads to a higher website traffic. It is a simple process which can be easily carried out in WordPress whereby one has to choose the link option in the post editor, select the link to existing content option, and pick the desired post from the list of older posts made available.

On-site SEO Elements

Search Engine Optimization can be further strengthened with the inculcation of certain aspects. Title tags play a huge role in depicting the performance of the site. It should be checked that the title tags are unique and they have the targeted keywords but are not over stuffed with too many keywords. One should make sure to use schema markup/structured data markup because an estimate has revealed that over one-third of Google SERPs organize the snippets which are backed by the schema. This is mainly because schema plays an excellent role in providing information in a visually organized and relevant manner.

On-site Optimization

Most of the salient functions for Search Engine Optimization occur within the WordPress blog. In accordance with the saying, ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’, images add a specialty to the blog. When paired with good keywords, it leads to a good search optimization.

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Using above code on the first image directs the search engines to find excellent images based on the keywords specified in their image search. Using compressed the images helps to decrease the page size. People with technical expertise can observe the code of the blog’s theme and analyze whether it can grab more visitors and alter it according to the need. A major contributing factor to SEO is the responsiveness of the site. If the theme is user-friendly, then it helps to invite many audiences.

Off-site Optimization

Off-site Optimization is nothing but the process of link building beyond one’s own WordPress. It is a procedure through which other websites are linked to the WordPress blog. Obtaining links that contain keyword anchor text will aid to get a specific rank for the keywords. There are many ways to build links but the two most preferable ways are through organic links and whitehat. Organic links are the best ones and it will be immensely beneficial if they can be obtained from higher authority sites which are well-recognized. Whitehat refers to quality link building but one should strive hard to obtain this. Link building can be done by activities like presenting guest blogs to prominent blogs of the relevant industry.

Meta Description

The Meta description is an ingenious feature which gives an understanding of the WordPress blog to the search engines and informs them as to what the page is all about. Therefore, it becomes a significant part of SEO. Meta description refers to a brief snippet, tagged in the HTML, which provides the gist of the content of the page. A Meta description should be designed in such a way that it is helpful and informative to the user and stays within 155 characters. The relevant keyword should be used in both the title and Meta description because keywords are bolded by Google in both the title tag and in the Meta description and this will help the search results to be specifically visible to the user when searching for a particular term.

Research, Analyze and Monitor rankings

To ensure a long term success for the WordPress website, it is vital to know and understand the Google ranking algorithm and analyze the ranking pattern. One can monitor the ranking position of his/her website by using tools like Authority Labs and Google Analytics. Authority Labs helps to track the rankings of Keyword for a website where as Google analytics enables to find out what keywords people use to reach the website in search results and also helps to know more about the visitors to the website.

Incorporate Social Media

Social media opens the doors of the website to a countless audience. So, it will be a brilliant strategy to integrate social networking websites such as Facebook, Twitter etc. in the website. This can be done by including social media sharing buttons for the posts. The posts with good social reactions are highly prioritized by search engines in SERPs. To obtain and enhance the user engagement, exclusive social media accounts can be created for the blog and be maintained regularly to attract thousands of visitors to the website. One can try to dominate in the Google search by using Google+ because when logged in to Google+ personalized search results are displayed based on the friends made in the social media account. This means more popularity on Google+ leads to higher influence for the website in personalized search results for those following the account.

Provide Best-in-Class Content

Providing high quality and unique content in every post is indispensable to gain a good rank in relation to SEO. Website visitors and search engines are attracted to exceptional content. Availability of more content in the website ensures that visitors shall keep coming to the website and search engines would place many of the website’s pages in the search index. The inclusion of infographics, podcasts, videos, blog posts etc. contribute to the creation of quality content. It should also be seen that posts are being made frequently into the website as that would help to get the attention of search engines.

Boost the Performance

The speed of the website can be boosted in a significant way with the help of a caching plugin. Caching plugins help to reduce the load on the web server and enable to make the website faster. Decreasing the loading time of the webpage is directly related to the improvement of user experience. Medium to large sized websites can employee Content Delivery Network or CDN which performs the operation of caching the static content among many servers on its network and then provides the content to the users through servers that are placed in a closer location to them. This also helps to speed up the page’s performance.

Personalize the Permalink structure and robots.txt

There is a default setting of‘?p=[id]‘ Permalinks for posts in WordPress. This format should be changed because such a structure is not search engine friendly and it will not allow using important keywords in Permalink pertaining to the posts. In this case, it is better to opt for a text-based Permalink structure.It helps to improve the SEO of the page. To restrict the Googlebot from visiting and indexing certain directories or pages on the website, robots.txt can be used.

Plugins Installation

One of the must have plugins for a WordPress website is a .xml sitemap plugin. It is a very useful tool which provides links to all the pages on the website to search engines and enables them to index the site content in a faster and simpler way. Another important installation is a good SEO plugin, which will automatically help to maintain the SEO aspects for the website. After installing search plugin, the rel=”canonical” tag should be enabled for the pages because that will help to eliminate duplicate content from WordPress site and determine the real URL source of the website content. Implementing the rel="author" markup in the web page shall display a colossal 150% increase in the organic traffic and this has been revealed by various statistics.

Eliminate Unnecessary Elements

Basically, all unneeded aspects should be removed from the website so that the main content will remain highlighted. It should be seen that links which are not useful to the search engines, unrelated to the website and are not from a trustworthy source are immediately unfollowed. For the sake of a clean website, it is best to block spam comments, otherwise, the website may be penalized by search engines. One should make sure that the broken links on the website are discovered and repaired immediately because search engines always encourage properly maintained websites.

By following all the important procedures, making the required amendments to the WordPress website and generating a remarkable content, one can successfully earn a higher and reputable ranking in SEO.