WordPress SEO

by Dave Jeschwww.DIYOnlineSolutions.com

Topics:

- WordPress Configuration Settings- Theme Optimization- Writing Posts- SEO Related Plugins- Additional Steps

Slides available at: http://www.DIYOnlineSolutions.com/wordpress-seo

WordPress Configuration

Permalink Settings

Settings -> Permalinks - Use anything but the default settings! - ?p=123 and /archive/123 don't put keywords in the URL

- best is /%category%/%postname%/

Domain Name Settings

Settings -> General - Select preferred domain name either with the www. or without - Then tell Google Webmaster Tools your preferred domain

- WordPress will automatically redirect non-www domains to www.domain.com

This helps to reduce duplicate content, since the samecontent could be found at domain.com/article and www.domain.com/article.

Writing Settings

Settings -> Writing

- Update Services When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services. - See http://codex.wordpress.org/Update_Services for a list of re-posting services.

- You can find more by searching in Google.

Comment Settings

Settings -> Discussion - Comments are how you get people to come back [x] Allow people to post comments. [ ] Users must be registered and logged in to comment. [x] Enable threaded/nested comments. [x] An administrator must always approve the comment.

Follow people who comment on your site. - Comment on their site, it could get you a link back to your site.

Privacy Settings

Settings -> Privacy Let the Search Engines in! (o) "I would like my blog to be visible to everyone..."

Theme Optimization

Optimize Headings - <h1>

- Make sure post titles use <h1> tags correctly. - Remove <a>post-title</a> on single.php

- Remove <h1> tags in the header. - These often only have an image or the blog title in them.

- Post titles should be no more than <h3> for category and archive pages.

Optimize the "more" text

in index.php, look for: the_content('Read more &raquo;');Change to: the_content( the_title('Read more on ', ' &raquo;', FALSE));

This puts your keyword rich title into the link, as in: Read more on How to Increase Profits >>

Optimize Comment TextChange comments_link() and comments_popup_link() change: 'No comments'to: 'No comments yet - we invite your feedback'

The comments_popup_link() and comments_link() functions may be used in multiple pages of your theme, look around.

Remove in-page JavaScript and CSS

Javascript and CSS should always be in an external file rather than within your HTML page. - As an external page, this can be cached. - Can also be excluded via robots.txt - Reduces page size / speeds page load time

Some plugins output Javascript and/or CSS directly into the page content. Double check your plugins to see if they do this.

Sidebars - Remove Blogroll

Excessive outside links can drain "link juice." - Having links to other sites on every page just creates a lot of links - Links to those sites may not be contextually relevant on all pages, making the links worth less.

Consider adding these links only on your home page instead.

Use .htaccess to add "expires" header

Allows browsers to better control caching of static files.

<ifmodule mod_expires.c> <filesmatch "\.(jpg|gif|png|css|js)$"> ExpiresActive on ExpiresDefault "access plus 1 year" </filesmatch></ifmodule>

Count Queries and Execution time

In footer.php:

<!--<?php echo ' Page made '; echo get_num_queries() . ' queries '; echo ' and ran in '; timer_stop(1); echo ' seconds.';?>-->

Writing Posts

Titles

- These produce the URL, or permalink for your blog post or page.- Always use good keyword rich titles- Put important keywords early in the title- Good titles evoke emotional response, promise something, or ask question.- Write to your target. Qualifying wrong viewer leads to low conversion rate or bouncebacks.- Don't use same titles/keywords at start of every title. Mix things up if possible.- Make titles at least slightly different from meta descriptions and headings.

Images

- When uploading images, fill in the Title and Caption - Title equates to title= tag. - Caption equates to alt= tag. - Description is not shown...for your reference.

- WordPress will automatically create images of the sizes specified in the Media Settings area.

Use Pages instead of Posts

- When appropriate, these have some advantages:

- Pages can have more specific URLs. - Use Permalink settings to include the category name.

- Disable comments - Comments left by readers can destroy keyword density. - Add keywords that you do not wish to target. - Bloat pages with unwanted keywords, text and links.

If a Post Becomes Popular

Consider Promoting the Post to a Page

- Change the permalink of the post to %name%-original - Keeping original Post means you keep the comments.

- Redirect the old Post's URL to the new Page - Provide a link from the Page to the original Post

- Inform readers of the new Page - Inform inbound links that you've updated content. this could get more inbound links.

Encourage Readers to Subscribe

- Offer incentives - free e-book - videos - prizes When people subscribe you can use their email address to market to them and inform them of new content or offerings.

Encourage User Comments

- Write blog posts that elicit a response. Ask questions.

- Finish blog posts with "We invite your feedback."

- Thank your commentors.- Interact with commentors.

- Add a subscription/opt-in at the end of your blog posts.

SEO Plugins

How to Install Plugins

In the Admin go to: - Plugins - Add New - Search by Name or - Upload from .zip file - Activate Plugin

SEO Related Plugins1. All in One SEO Pack http://semperfiwebdesign.com/portfolio/wordpress/wordpress-plugins/all-in-one-seo-pack/ Lots of SEO Tools. Edit title, keywords, meta data, etc. 2. Robots Meta by Joost de Valk Control index,follow for each Page & site-wide settings too.3. Google XML Sitemap by Arne Brachhold Auto build sitemap.xml files.4. Redirection by John Godley Redirect bad links and changed Permalinks.5. SEO Slugs by Andrei Mikrukov Removes stop words from permalinks.6. Breadcrumbs NAVXT by John Havlik Adds links to help show structure of site content.7. Google Analytics by DIYOnlineSolutions Add Google Analytics code to your pages for tracking.

Additional Steps

Robots.txt File

Keep Search Engines from Indexing Unnecessary Pages

User-Agent: *sitemap: http://domain.com/sitemap.xml

Allow: /

Disallow: /comments/feed/Disallow: /feed/Disallow: /wp-admin/Disallow: /wp-login.phpDisallow: /wp-register.php

Install Caching Plugin

- Speed is important- Caching can reduce the time it takes to satisfy a request.- Effectiveness depends on your theme, host and the plugin

W3 Total Cachehttp://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/w3-total-cache/

Nofollow Unnecessary Links

Consider nofollowing links to: - login/registration pages (via Robots Meta plugin) - RSS feeds - Subscribe by email

Subscribe to Comments

A few plugins available for this feature - Keep customers coming back when new posts are made - Use emails for marketing and promotions

Social Media Plugins

Many Social Media Plugins available - Twitter Tools - Can make a tweet for every blog post with link to site

- Facebook

- Social Bookmarking

Find Related Blogs

Become active on related blogs.

- Make comments / Add to conversation

- Can be a good source of inbound links

Speed Up Your Theme

Advanced Techniques

Some ideas: - in headers.php, remove bloginfo('html_type') and bloginfo('charset') - change to constants. - make stylesheet and javascript URLs static - make pingback and RSS feed URLs static - Remove WordPress version - Some themes have similar calls in footer; remove those as well.

Questions??