A Definite Guide from the Industry Expert to Get WordPress SEO On Point

When it comes to choosing the right content management systems (CMS) for any website, WordPress is the leader of all. From a functional website to a plethora of options for customization according to the requirements of your business, there is hardly any alternative for WordPress.

Just because you have designed and developed your site on WordPress platform doesn’t mean that your job is done. WordPress SEO is a place where you have an enormous scope of improvement. To keep your website performing better and getting higher ranking in the SERP, you can never let the website become static. You have to keep working on it, pushing it towards perfection. 

Running an internet marketing agency has given me a chance to explore many avenues for such development and from that experience, I am offering you a definitive guide that can help you get your WordPress SEO on the right track. Take a look at the following points to get enlightened.

Before We Start…

WordPress, as I have mentioned before, offers many options for customizations. That happens with the help of plugins. WordPress offers Yoast SEO plugin which has been widely used all over the world and has delivered remarkable results. Now, when you are planning to get such results for your brand too, the recommendation will be to opt for Yoast SEO plugin and follow these tips as they apply for it specifically. However, if you are using some other plugin, these tips will be applied to them too. Now, let’s jumpstart the discussion.

Get the Basic for Your WordPress SEO Site

Before you start working on changing your site for better, you need to work on the current state of your website first and take it from there. For that, begin by check the health of your site. Figure out the hardware and software your site is running on, the hosting plan and your budget. You can visit the Side Health section of your WordPress website for that. Make sure your site is running on the modern version of PHP, MySQL, and HTTP Support. 

PHP 7.0 version is available for a year already. Upgrade your site to that to boost the site speed more efficiently with the modern development features and much secure environment. Get SSL certificates for improving the performance and preventing the site from getting penalized. 

Check the site setting for more customizing options. Check the permalink structure too to ensure that your users get to see the page detail in the URL itself before even clicking on it. The digital marketing agency you are hiring should guide you through this process.

Optimize Your Content

When you are creating your website, it is the content that will be getting the traffic to it. The textual and visual content that you are using on your website should be properly optimized too. For that, you need to do the following things.

1.  I am assuming that you have already figured out your target audience. So, conduct research on what they want from you. Depending on their demands, start creating content.
2. Write error-free original unique content that is informative and compelling, catering to the intent of the users.
3. Now, you need to optimize each page and post it on your website. If you are using different categories for your blog, optimize each of them. Optimize the images too that you are using. With the Alt Tag and keyword optimization to get indexed.
4.  Maintain the quality of the content you are creating. You must make sure that the content is never duplicate. Use software to check whether the blogs, articles, and website content you are writing are 100% unique of not. Don’t rely on article spinner software. Invest in high-quality content writing that a reputed agency offering online marketing services has to offer.
5. Maybe you are using local keywords for the content or serving to market-based locally. But your content should support the international audience and their search intent too.

Speed Up and Secure Your WordPress Website

If your website is slow to load, you are risking losing the audience and increasing the bounce rate. Users don’t stay on a page if it takes more than an average of 3 seconds to load. So, you must ensure that you are measuring your website in the first place. There are numerous tools offering the measurement of your site speed.

We prefer PageSpeed Insight from Google that will give you a clear idea where your site stands in terms of loading speed. Now, improving site speed can be a bigger endeavor. There can be many bottlenecks that you first have to identify. And then work on them. From tweaking themes, plugins, and performance to investing in better hosting and utilizing CDN, do everything that you should for improving the website speed.

Now, when you are getting your WordPress website up and running, you must not ignore the aspect of making it more secure too. Being the major CMS globally, (powering 37% of the websites all over the world), WordPress websites are a popular target for hackers. To secure your website,

• Choose complex username and password
•  Make regular backups so that your business doesn’t face  downtime if your website is hacked
•  Harden your setup with a better hosting provider, by protecting cookies and password and protecting configuration from the “Editor” tab in “Appearance.”
• Regularly monitor your WordPress website and its logins with tools like WP Security Audit Log.

Don’t Forget Your Mobile Audience

Now, users access any website from their mobile devices on the go. So, when you are planning your WordPress SEO, don’t forget what they are looking for.

•  Choose a mobile-friendly theme for your site

•  Create a responsive design that seamlessly loads on any network and OS

•   Focus and research on the needs of your mobile audience

• · Use effective and functional CTA for a mobile website like Call Button, Purchase      Button or Social Media Buttons

• ·  Use Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)that work for both static and dynamic content

Getting all of these technicalities right can be overwhelming for anyone. Hire the best internet marketing company in your location or the ones that offer global services, and set the ball rolling.

About the Author: 

Mitali Purkait Ghosh is the CEO and Co-Founder of Digital Concepts, an emerging internet marketing agency, serving customers all over the world. Here she writes on getting WordPress SEO right with the help of online marketing services.