You chose WordPress because of its SEO-friendly properties, which is one reason it’s such a popular CMS.
However, launching a WordPress site won’t automatically make you rank on the front page of SERPs.
Other than just using WordPress for your website development you need to research and implement the best SEO strategies for your specific business.
But we have done your job easier.
Being one of the renowned web development companies & SEO companies in India, we have learned our way of implementing several basic yet useful methods to optimize a WordPress website for search engines.
In this blog post, we have shared some of those basic SEO tips that you can also implement with your WordPress website.
Let’s dive in!
#1 Just WordPress is not SEO
There are many newbie webmasters who think that when they use WordPress for their website development, they don’t need to do anything else for SEO. They assume that WordPress will take care of the SEO on its own. That’s not the case.
Although it’s true that the WordPress CMS is SEO-friendly because of its architectural design, it doesn’t mean you don’t need any other SEO activities for your website to get noticeable rankings.
You still need a sound SEO plan to get relevant traffic to your website.
You may still need to hire an SEO team to help you formulate an SEO strategy and implement it efficiently.
Having said that, one thing is for sure. WordPress is surely a great way to make your website found in search engines and get quality traffic to it.
#2 Consider a reliable web host
You may think that the primary role of a server is just to host a website and allow you to create emails. Nope. Your web hosting server does a lot more than that.
It could be your hosting server that can make your website load slower. Or your website can perform low just because of your hosting server’s poor performance.
And we all know that when a website doesn’t perform well, its SEO score can get affected as well.
As an experienced SEO company in India, we have also witnessed a few times the positive SEO improvements for a website when its server is changed for good.
So, it’s very important for you as a WordPress website owner to subscribe to a reliable, efficient, yet affordable web hosting provider.
Godaddy, InterServer, and HostGator are some of the names you can trust upon.
#3 Pickup the theme carefully
WordPress themes have the most weight when it comes to UX on a website. Websites are judged on how they load, the structure of the content, and their ability to be responsive.
Many factors contribute to UX, but WordPress themes are one of the most important.
Some of the basic characteristics of a WordPress theme are also responsible for the SEO of a website.
For example, the responsiveness of the theme, the loading speed of the theme, and some other performance indicators of the theme.
It is, therefore, very important to choose a WordPress theme carefully. It won’t be wrong to say that a theme can make or break a website.
Before you buy a WordPress theme, make sure to check its:
- Responsiveness
- Loading speed
- GTMetrix score
In simpler words, you must choose only an SEO-friendly theme for your WordPress website development. If you are not sure about which theme you should buy, you can also consult your WordPress developer to help you out.
Recommended post: The 6 reasons for you to use a paid theme for your WordPress website development
#4 Install the SEO plugin
Adding an SEO plugin to your WordPress website is essential to get your website ranked on the noticeable positions of search engines.
There are several SEO plugins that you can use with your WordPress site, but the most popular & effective one is Yoast SEO.
When you install Yoast SEO with your website, you can:
- Define title and meta description for each webpage of your site to optimize them for search engines
- Write SEO-friendly content for each webpage.
- Create sitemap & robots.txt files
- Configure the important SEO-related settings of your website.
- Check the keyword density on all the web pages of your site.
- Define canonical URLs for each webpage.
You can download the Yoast SEO plugin from here https://yoast.com/wordpress/plugins/seo/
It’s free & easy to use. Most SEO experts believe that Yoast SEO is a must-to-have plugin for your WordPress website.
#5 Blogging for SEO
Why should you add a blog to your WordPress site?
- Regular blogging can help you to optimize your web pages for search engines.
- You can become an authority in your industry when you share your thoughts through a blog.
- Blogging can help you to get quality traffic to your website. Various studies have shown that the websites that have regular blog posting tend to get more conversions and sales as compared to those sites that don’t have any blogs.
- Since the language of a blog can be user-friendly, it can help you to engage your users with your website.
- Your blog can set you apart from the competition. Not everyone is blogging. So, you can use this opportunity to post regular blogs on your website and stay ahead of your competition.
So, if you don’t have any blog on your website, ask your WordPress developer to do it now.
Recommended post: 8 Benefits of blogging for your eCommerce website
