9 Ultimate WordPress SEO Tips For a Novice

Is SEO dead? Now this has been a matter of debate over the internet for past many years. If you too believe that it is dead then I must say that you are wrong.

As long as there are search engines like Google trying to rank blogs and websites, there are ways to manipulate them and rank better.

When we use the word manipulation don’t take it in the wrong sense. The most prevalent SEO techniques in the market are white hat and black hat SEO techniques.

With time, Google has done a remarkable job of working on search engines by using their knowledge from machine learning. Now this has helped the people following the white hat SEO techniques and put the black hat SEO practices in trouble.

Beginner’s SEO techniques for WordPress

If you go for the WordPress installation the default way, there will be no SEO element or tool to help you out. So you will either need the third-party plug-ins or do it manually.

Now this process has been explained below using some beneficial tips.

1. Overall performance or page speed

The performance of a website is determined by the time it takes to load on the web browsers. So for good it should be low.

As per the Google standards, a web page can take up to 2 seconds to load but if it exceeds that, then it is time to optimize the website.

When it comes to WordPress installation, use of themes and plugins can be the main villain behind the page loading issue.

So make sure to have minimum active plugins on the site and use a lightweight quality theme.

Moreover, make it a habit to keep a minimum number of videos from other websites as it affects the page loading speed due to HTTP requests.

2. Use an SEO plugin

In the recent years, Yoast SEO plugin has gained much popularity and is highly recommended by SEO experts across different communities. The reason for this is that it has managed to get better with time and win the race against other plugins like All in One SEO. And yeah, it is absolutely free too!

Having a SEO plugin like Yoast can solve a number of issues and add the missing elements to the WordPress core like archive, description, no-follow tags, indexing some pages, title manipulation, and keyword tags.

So waste no time, install the Yoast SEO plugin and complete the set up.

3. Google Webmaster tool

You can easily control certain SEO factors on your website using this tool.

Some of such tasks are removing the pages from Google’s index that are no more present on the website, check out the number of external and internal links on web pages, etc. Sitelinks can have a number of links and you can recommend them using this tool.

So make sure to get your website on webmaster tool as it can help you control a number of SEO aspects of your website.

4. Title and sub-headings

The main component of the content that gets listed on the search engines is definitely the heading. This is the first thing that people notice about your content. So if it is not attractive, you are not going to get any clicks.

This is the place where the main idea of the content is expressed and the primary keyword is placed.

There was a time when two or more keywords were added in the title to rank better but, things have changed today and we focus to create unique titles using a single keyword in the title. Today it is considered as the best practice.

5. Image optimization

No one likes to go through a blog post without images. It seems quite boring!

Again having heavy images on the page can take time to load the page. So always compress the image first before uploading it on the blog post.

Moreover, make it a habit to rename the image as well as use the primary keyword in it.

6. Keyword density

The number of times a keyword appear in the content is termed as keyword density. There are debates over the use of right percentage of keywords. Still, it is suggested that it should not go beyond 2% in your content.

7. Interlinking and mentioning the source

If you have two posts that can be related to each other, then better interlink them. The benefit of interlinking is that it reduces bounce rate.

Similar way, if there is a related post on any authority website, then adding the source is considered as a good practice. Again, go for a no-follow tag if you are not sure about the authority of the external site.

8. Off page SEO

When it comes to authority blog, there is no need to do the link building manually. You will easily get links from other blogs simply by adding quality contents at your site.

But on the other hand, if you are are focusing to go for short term blogs, then you can either get links using a software or do it yourself manually.

Again, if you are going for manual linking then keep it in mind that Google’s Penguin does not like it and it is always in search of such blogs.

9. Permalinks

Controlling the URLs and to make sure how they are going to look on the website is very important. You can easily achieve this using the Permalinks tool in WordPress.

When it comes to a new website, make sure you add the post ID, title, year and month to the permalink. Then there are some websites that share universal facts. For such websites, having the title and post ID is enough as it has nothing to do with the date.

Make sure that you avoid stop words. The Yoast SEO plugin can easily take care of this issue. Still, to be sure, always check the website before you publish it.

SEO is all about experiments. There are no specific techniques to get the expected results. So keep on applying different techniques and see what gets you the result.

Author Bio:

Revathy Nair is a Content marketing Consultant at Kodematix. She has helped small and medium businesses to grow online through her content marketing techniques. With more than couple of year experience, she knows to put the right words in place to increase traffic and boost the sales of businesses.