You may be wondering how to make your WordPress blog SEO-friendly. It is important for your blog to have high-rankings on Google and other major search engines, since higher rankings mean more organic traffic. Studies have shown that the sites listed in the first page of Google’s search results get 91.5% of all traffic, while the sites listed in the third row only receive 32.5% of the traffic. Here are some tips to make your blog SEO-friendly:
Optimize Each Permalink for Search Engines
A 301 redirect allows you to re-direct an old blog post to a new post with a better permalink. Your URL will represent your content to search engines and users. Make sure that your URL is short, descriptive, and full of relevant keywords. Your URLs will guide people to the right place on your website and get more visitors. Here are some tips to help you optimize each permalink:
Make each permalink short. The shorter the better! Try dropping domain extensions to make your permalinks shorter. Do not include dates in your permalinks. These have never been helpful, and can actually harm SEO efforts. Also, use HTTPS to secure your user’s experience. It is easy to use Pretty Links to redirect older permalink structures. By following these steps, you’ll have an optimized permalink structure and better search engine ranking.
Optimize Images for Search Engines
One of the most crucial things to do when optimizing images for search engines on a WordPress blog is to give them a name and meta information. Search engines have become increasingly intelligent over the years and now need to have context to understand what an image looks like. A proper name is the first step in providing this context. You can do this with schema markup, which pairs images with price tags and other information.
Another important aspect of image optimization is file size. Images that are too large will be crawled by Googlebot and will slow down the page. If an image is too large for a page, it will take a lot longer to load than the text content. If your images take a long time to load, this can be detrimental to your rankings. Use descriptive titles instead of the default camera title.
Optimize Page Title Tags
The first step to making your WordPress blog SEO friendly is to optimize page title tags. These are the titles that appear in Google’s search results. Besides telling users what your page is about, they also feed into the clickable page title on Google’s search results. There are two basic types of page titles: snippet variables and custom text. Both of these elements should contain your target keyword near the beginning. Both of these elements should be between 135 and 160 characters long, without any special characters.
In addition to optimizing page title tags, you should also optimize meta titles and meta descriptions. You can create multiple meta descriptions for your pages, so that search engines can recognize and pick the best one. Using alternative title tags is a good practice for optimizing meta titles. You should also use alternative title tags if you have more than one. This way, your meta tags will be more relevant when Google searches for them.
Optimize H2 and H3 Tags
To make your blog SEO friendly, you need to use clear headlines and rich keywords. Headings are titles at the beginning of your posts or pages. They range in size, depending on their importance. For example, a major topic or listicles should be headlined with H2s, while smaller, more specific topics should be headed with H3s. Here are some guidelines for optimizing the H2 and H3 tags in your WordPress blog:
The first section of your post is the H1 heading. Use this as an introduction, so readers know what to expect. The second paragraph should describe the content of the post. For example, a post about your favorite dessert might be headlined with “Baking Chocolate Cakes for Dummies.”
Monitor WordPress SEO
One way to monitor how well your WordPress SEO friendly blog is performing is by using Google search console. This program shows you how the search engines view your site and will give you important information such as how many pages have been indexed and how often people click on different pages. It will also alert you if your website is having problems, such as if search engine crawlers are having trouble accessing it. If you want to make sure that your WordPress SEO friendly blog is doing well, you should make sure to monitor it regularly.
Broken links need to be fixed immediately. Check for broken links in the website logs or Google search console. If necessary, you can use a free WordPress SEO plugin to detect broken links. Broken link checkers allow you to fix broken links in one go and can be especially useful if you have content that is missing, such as images, videos, or other content. Broken links can be a huge turn off for visitors and can cause your website to lose ranking in the search engine results.
