It is important to know how to improve SEO on WordPress. That’s why we designed this blog post to help you understand this concept better.
Assume you run a delectable gluten-free restaurant in Boston. If someone searches “gluten-free café in [insert Boston area]” on Google, it’s logical to assume you want your WordPress website to appear towards the top of the results, right? People looking for gluten-free cafés in Boston are likelier to come across your website, click on your information, and become clients (whether online or in-store).
You may have your website rank at the top of a search engine results page (SERP) if you work hard on your search engine optimization.
In this post, we’ll go over seven recommended SEO practices and share tips to help you answer how to improve SEO on your website.
A Guide on How To Improve SEO on WordPress SEO: 7 Ways To Improve
Examine Your Search Engine Visibility Options
In WordPress, there is an option that, when ticked, basically kills your website’s SEO by preventing Google from crawling your pages. And if Google is unable to index your pages, they will not rank.
This may be found under Settings > Reading > Search engine visibility:
If you wish to have a chance at ranking, leave this unchecked.
Set Preferred Domain
Google considers domain.com and www.domain.com independently; therefore, you should select a preferred version for your site. You may do this by going to Settings > General. Simply change the WordPress Address (URL) and Site Address (URL) to the version you want.
It doesn’t really matter which version you use for a new website. However, if your sites are available via both URL variations, choose the one with the highest backlinks.
The beauty of WordPress is that it immediately redirects the other version to the selected version, allowing search engines and people to reach your site solely through the preferred domain.
WARNING
If your site has been up and operating for a time, changing the preferred version may cause technical complications. If you have any doubts, it’s worth hiring a developer to ensure everything goes properly.
Modify Your Permalinks
A permalink is a permanent URL or link on your website to a single article, page, or blog. Permalinks describe precisely what your article, page, or blog is (in the URL itself) so people know what they are clicking on. Change your permalinks to enhance not just user experience but also SEO – search engines scan permalinks to assess whether or not your website offers answers to certain search queries.
For example, if you have a page for lawyer SEO, your URL may look like this: https://serpreach.com/lawyer-seo/
To alter your permalinks to contain an accurate description of your content, navigate to your WordPress dashboard, choose “Settings,” and then “Permalinks.”
When you’re finished, press the “Save Changes” button.
Select An SEO Plugin
WordPress plugins improve the functionality of your website by introducing new features not included in the program. There are dozens of plugins available, many of which can assist you in improving your SEO. If you are unsure which plugin to use on your site, you may search the WordPress plugin library for solutions that meet your requirements.
SEO plugins such as Yoast SEO, All In One SEO Pack, and SmartCrawl Pro provide features that assist you in creating XML sitemaps, implementing tags and categories, optimizing your titles and content with key phrases and keywords, controlling your site’s breadcrumbs, utilizing Google Analytics support.
You can then simply download and install your preferred WordPress plugin to begin immediately increasing your SEO.
Manual Approval Is Required For Blog Comments
Spammy blog comments are unlikely to result in penalties or major SEO concerns because they are almost always followed. However, Google claims that they can still create SEO concerns for a variety of reasons.
Fortunately, WordPress makes it very simple to resolve this issue once and for all by giving users the option to demand human approval for all blog comments.
This may be done under Settings > Discussion > The following comments must be manually approved:
Make Use Of XML Sitemaps
An XML sitemap is a file of code on your web server that contains a list of all the pages on your website. XML sitemaps are used to assist search engines in discovering, evaluating, and ranking the material on your website.
Unless you have substantial coding experience and wish to manually generate your XML sitemap, the most convenient solution is to install an SEO plugin, such as Yoast SEO, or one devoted to producing sitemaps, such as Google XML Sitemaps, that automatically creates your sitemaps.
Set Up An SEO-Friendly Theme
Nowadays, almost all WordPress themes are responsive and mobile-friendly, so there’s not much to worry about. What you should truly look for when selecting a theme is its performance.
If the theme is overburdened with superfluous code and features, it will slow down your website. That’s not good, given that Google has used page speed as a ranking factor for nearly a decade.
When selecting a theme, go over the description to see what’s included. If it has a lot of features you won’t utilize, it might not be the greatest option for you.
You can also test the theme sample using PageSpeed Insights to get a better idea of its speed.
Low-value Content Should Be Excluded From Indexing
Allow Google to index only pages that are useful to searchers. Tag pages and format-based archives are seldom in this category. Thus, it’s preferable to omit them from indexing.
To do so, navigate to SEO > Search Appearance > Taxonomies. Turn off “Show Tags in Search Results”:
Do the same for format-specific archives.
To Construct Hierarchy, Use Headers
Headers provide structure and assist users and search engines in understanding the order of your content.
To quickly and simply build appropriate headers in WordPress, utilize the WYSIWYG editor. Simply select “Paragraph” from the dropdown menu, and you’ll be presented with six header options:
Because most WordPress themes make the post title the first header (H1), it’s advisable to utilize H2-H6 in the text.
Image Alt-Text Should Be Included
Alt text is useful because it: Tells Google about the photographs, which may help them rank better in Google Images.
Screen readers improve accessibility for visually challenged visitors. If an image breaks, it is replaced on the page.
Fill in the “alt text” section when uploading an image in WordPress to add alt text:
Last thoughts
WordPress is adaptable, simple to use, and gives a solid foundation for SEO. However, because it is merely a CMS, it can only get you so far. There are many more things you’ll need to do if you’re serious about ranking on Google.
