Did you know that, according to Tech Jury, more than 30% of websites are WordPress websites? Additionally, out of the top 100 companies that are growing fastest in the US (Inc. 5000), 62% of them use WordPress.
Considering these statistics, you might be interested in using WordPress for your business. However, if you don’t know how to use WordPress, you might be feeling stressed.
Fortunately, in this article, we’ll review the WordPress basics you need to know for using WordPress for your business.
Finally, you can use a WordPress business website the right way, making your business more successful than ever. Read on to learn more.
The SEO WordPress Basics You Need To Know
Before we go into the steps you can take to optimize your WordPress performance so you can improve your SEO, we’ll review what SEO is and why it matters. SEO, which stands for the term search engine optimization, relates to a strategy website owners use.
With this strategy, they use a variety of strategies to ensure that pages from their website show up higher in search rankings when someone completes a search on a search engine.
The reason SEO matters is that search engines provide websites with a large amount of traffic. So if you master SEO strategies, you can get more traffic to your website.
Eventually, this can lead to you potentially getting more leads and, in turn, more customers.
When you’re using WordPress, there are strategies you can use to improve your WordPress SEO.
WordPress SEO Basics
There are some basic ways you can improve your WordPress SEO. First, check the visibility settings of your site. WordPress makes it possible for your website to not show up on search engine results pages. You don’t want this, but it’s possible you selected this option accidentally.
For this reason, it’s important to check your visibility settings. To do this, log into your WordPress site’s admin area. Then go to Settings, then Reading.
Scroll down until you get to the Search Engine Visibility section. Here, you’ll see a box that appears to the side of text related to discouraging search engines when it comes to indexing your website.
If it’s checked, uncheck it. Then, press the button with “Save Changes” on it.
Additional Basics
You should also use URL structures that are SEO-friendly. When you use these types of URLs, they include words that explain the page’s content clearly. These words are also easily readable by search engines and humans.
An example of a URL that’s SEO-friendly would be something like: “www.possibleweb.com/complete-guide-seo-basics-for-wordpress”.
One that isn’t would look like: “www.example.com/blog/4321.” As you can see, it’s clear what the first URL’s webpage is about. But it isn’t for the second.
To ensure that your URL structures are SEO-friendly, you need to check the permalink structure of your WordPress site. To do this, go to your Settings >> Permalinks WordPress page.
Then, out of the options available, choose the option that’s called “Post name.” This will make it so that your permalinks are SEO-friendly.
Finally, you should decide whether you want your website to be of the “http” or “www” type.
You want this to be consistent. This is because search engines would consider your website pages to belong to two different websites if one started with “http” and another started with “www”.
To ensure your WordPress website pages start the same way, go to Settings. Then, go to General. Here, put the URL you prefer in the “Site Address” and “WordPress Address” settings.
Use an SEO Plugin
Once you’ve completed the WordPress SEO basics, there are other strategies you can use to improve your WordPress SEO. One of these is to use an SEO plugin. Two options are the most popular. One of these is AIOSEO. Another option is Yoast SEO.
Depending on what your needs are, you can use one of these two or another SEO plugin to improve your WordPress SEO.
Add XML Sitemaps
Another strategy you can use to improve your WordPress SEO is to add XML sitemaps. What is an XML sitemap? It’s a file that’s specifically formatted and that lists your website’s every single page. When you have this type of file, search engines find it easier to find all of your website’s content.
It’s important to note that an XML sitemap doesn’t boost the search rankings of your site. However, it helps search engines to find your pages fast and begin ranking them.
Add Your WordPress Site to Google Search Console
When you use Google Search Console, which is also referred to as Webmaster Tools, you’re getting access from Google to a toolset that helps you understand how search engines see your content. It provides you with data and reports.
From this data and these reports, you can understand how your website pages are appearing in search results. You can learn about:
- Search terms people have used before finding your website
- How each website page appears within search results
- How often your website pages are clicked
When you have access to this information, you’ll understand what is and what isn’t working on your website. Accordingly, you can afterward plan your strategy for content. You’ll also get alerts from Google Search Console when something’s wrong with your site.
For example, alerts might be related to crawlers not being able to access your website, restricted resources, or duplicate content.
For this reason, it’s important to add your WordPress site to Google Search Console. Once you’ve done this, make it possible for Google Search Console to check your sitemap.
This way, it can improve the crawling of your website. Note that this will take a few hours to start working.
After you’ve set all this up, check your Google Search Console at least once a month. This way, you can gather insights and see the progress of your site’s SEO.
Optimize the SEO of Your Blog Posts
Often, beginners using WordPress believe that installing an SEO plugin for WordPress and activating it is all they need to do. However, there are strategies you can take to optimize the SEO of your blog posts even more.
One is to optimize the description and the title of your blog post so you can get maximum clicks.
To do this, go to your blog post’s SEO section. Here, you can find the description and title sections. Fill them out to improve the blog post’s SEO.
Keyword Research
If you’re a beginner when it comes to SEO, then you might need to start with keyword research. When you do this type of research, you’re finding out what types of search terms people are putting into a search engine when coming across the content you’re writing about in your blog posts.
By determining what these are, you can include them in your blog posts. This makes it more likely, when people search these terms, to come across your blog posts.
You can also use these keywords in other areas of your blog. For example, you can use them in the meta description or in the SEO-optimized images you include in your posts.
By understanding how to do keyword research and include keywords in your posts properly, you can improve your SEO.
Using SEO strategies, in addition to an SEO plugin, can greatly improve your WordPress SEO when it comes to the blog posts you post.
Best SEO Practices for WordPress
In addition to everything we’ve covered so far, there are some SEO practices you can use to improve your WordPress SEO. First of all, use tags and categories properly. Categories are broader, as you can have several blog posts within one category.
Tags, on the other hand, specifically refer to the content within each blog post. Another good SEO practice is interlinking your own blog posts.
Optimizing the comments on your WordPress blog posts is also a good idea.
Need More Information?
Now that you’ve learned about WordPress basics when it comes to SEO, you might need more information. Maybe you want to learn more about other WordPress topics, such as building WordPress websites, regular WordPress maintenance, or WordPress website design.
Whatever information you need, we can help. At PossibleWeb, we’re experts when it comes to WordPress and SEO.
We also offer services including WordPress management and SEO support. To learn more about how we can help you, contact us now.
