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34 Simple Tips to Improve SEO on WordPress

    You want to improve your SEO on WordPress. This article can help.

    You’ve made the right choice in choosing the best CMS platform. WordPress is a great CMS platform to optimize SEO. This is because the platform is specifically designed to make your website embraced by search engines.

    See Also: Easy Way to Set Up an Online Store

    However, WordPress doesn’t suffice to rank on search engines. For higher-ranking opportunities, there are many SEO strategies you should still follow. You don’t have to worry because these SEO tactics are very easy to implement.

    In this article we will discuss the best WordPress SEO strategies to rank high in Search Engine Results pages (SERPs). Let’s get started.

    What is SEO? Why Optimize WordPress SEO

    Search engines (Google, Baidu, Yahoo, Bing, etc.) They are the primary source of traffic for websites. SEO is why SEO remains so important in the digital world.

    SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization.  Search Engine Optimization stands for Search Engine Optimization. It is simply optimizing your site in order to improve its ranking on search engine result webpages (SERPs).

    WordPress Search Engine Optimizement

    Search Engine Optimization (SEO), can be broadly divided into 2 parts.

    Improve your website so search engines can easily crawl it. This will make your site appear at the top in the SERPs.

    Publishing quality and relevant content to ensure users are able to find it useful, like it, link it, share it or even bookmark it. Search engines use various engagement factors to rank your page.

    You might now wonder why you need to rank higher in search engine results.

    It is important to rank high in search engines for one reason: more users will be able to find your site.

    Accordingly, more traffic results in more conversions and revenue. More information is available in the section below.

    Optimize your site for higher positions

    Every website owner wants their site to be visited by a lot of people.

    It is not often noticed that a site doesn’t rank among the top ten results in SERPs. Intergrowth statistics on SEO suggest that 75% percent of searchers never reach the first page of search engines.

    Therefore, optimizing WordPress SEO is best to increase traffic to your site.

    Here are some of the key benefits to improving WordPress SEO.

    A site optimized for search engines will have greater visibility and rank.

    Ranking higher on the SERPs leads to increased organic traffic (traffic derived from unpaid search results).

    It enhances the authority of your website, making your site more trustworthy and relevant to users.

    You will be able to generate better leads and sales.

    You’ll have a good chance of making a lot of money.

    Last but not less, it’s vital that you continue to implement the best SEO practices. You can lose your site’s visibility if your SEO is not maintained. Your customers will go elsewhere.

    You should keep your WordPress current with the most current SEO measures.

    Let’s move on to the SEO tips for WordPress.

    33 Simple Tips to Enhance SEO on WordPress

    It is time to discover the SEO techniques that can work for your website. Let’s get started!

    1. Make sure you choose the right web hosting

    The first and most important tip to improving SEO on WordPress websites is to select the best web hosting provider for your website.

    Web hosting must be a requirement in order to build any kind of website: business, portfolio, blogging or eCommerce. It is the server space that holds your website code and all of your files.

    How can web hosting improve SEO on WordPress

    Your website’s overall performance can be affected by web hosting. It has a direct influence on your site’s search engine optimization. Choose the right web host service.

    You should remember these key points when you choose web hosting to host your site.

    Factors to Take into Account When Selecting the Best Web Hosting

    Speed: Fast loading sites will provide better user experiences and improve your website’s SEO score. Hosting that offers fast server speeds is the best choice to ensure smooth and fast website operation.

    Security: Your web host should be able provide strong security to your site against hacking, hackers, and other malware that can cause site crashes or downright destruction.

    Uptime: This refers to how long a hosting server has been available and functioning. Hosting that guarantees uptime is a must to make sure your website is available 24/7.

    An easy-to-use interface is a key factor in choosing a web host. It’s important to choose hosting that is easy to use for settings such as domains, emails, backups, and other essentials.

    Customer Support: There are many reasons why your website might not work properly. The hosting company you choose must be able to offer you reliable support to solve any problems with your website immediately.

    For more information, see our article on choosing the best WordPress Hosting Service.

    If you haven’t already created your site, we recommend the following hosting providers. They are also officially recommended by WordPress.

    • Bluehost: Shared WordPress Hosting starting at $2.95/month
    • SiteGround starts at $6.99/mo and offers StartUp Managed WordPress Hosting
    • You can choose to have WordPress hosting managed by these web hosts.
    • WP Engine: StartUp WordPress Managed hosting at $22/mo
    • Kinsta: Starter WordPress Hosting – $30/mo

    Find out more details about the hosting providers. Our article about the best WordPress hosting companies is available.

    2. Choose an SEO-Friendly Theme for WordPress

    WordPress themes can help you control the visual appearance of your website as well as increase search engine visibility. However, this is possible only if you choose the most SEO WordPress theme.

    SEO-friendly themes feature a clean code that is optimized for page loading speed. Google will consider both these important factors in order to rank higher on SERPs.

    A theme can also be used to support SEO plugins, which can help increase your site’s rank in search engines.

    Zakra is an excellent example of a SEO-friendly theme. It can be used with almost any type website. It adheres to the best SEO practices in order to make your website popular.

    Zakra SEO Friendly Design

    It’s clean code is optimized for search engines, which allows for faster indexing. It is compatible with all the major SEO plugins. Additionally, it offers blazing fast page load speeds.

    Zakra isn’t necessarily the only option. Our ultimate list of SEO friendly WordPress themes contains more options.

    3. Get the Best WordPress SEO Plug-In

    WordPress has many great plugins to help with SEO. Installing an SEO plugin can be a key strategy to drive more traffic to your WordPress blog.

    SEO WordPress plugins are specifically designed to help you improve SEO. They can be used to improve your content writing, optimization of keywords on pages and posts, creation of sitemaps, and adding meta descriptions.

    There are tons of WordPress SEO plug-ins out there today. It is wise to use a comprehensive plugin such as Yoast.

    Yoast WordPress SEO SEO Plugin

    Yoast Search is the best SEO plugin for optimizing sites. It features robust SEO features including XML sitemaps, schema markups, search console, breadcrumbs, as well as search console and search console.

    A handpicked selection of the best WordPress plugins is also available.

    Installing the Yoast WordPress Plugin

    You can follow these steps to install the plugin, and then configure your WordPress SEO with Yoast.

    Step 1 : Login to your WordPress dashboard. Next, navigate to plugins >> add new option.

    Navigate Plugins for new functionality

    Step 2 – Type Yoast in the search field and click Install and Activate.

    Install and activate Yoast WordPress Plugin

    Step 3 – Once the plugin is activated you’ll notice the Yoast logo in the sidebar.

    Yoast Search Engine Optimization Icon

    Step4 – Now, you can start optimizing the website with Yoast.

    4. Create SEO-Friendly Permalinks

    Setting up SEO-friendly Permalinks is another useful technique to improve SEO on WordPress.

    Permalinks are also called permanent links. They refer to the URLs of any post or page that you have on your WordPress website. URLs serve as clues for search engines and your visitors to find your site’s content and index it. This is why it’s so important to concentrate on your URL structure.

    WordPress defaults with a confusing URL structure. WordPress has many options for structuring your URL so there’s nothing to worry about.

    To create an SEO-friendly URL log in to WordPress. Next navigate to Settings >>Permalinks. Select the Post name option under Common Settings. Finally, click Save Changes to save your settings.

    Permalink Settings in WordPress For Better SEO

    This setting will allow you to include your title and keywords in the URL. This is good for SEO.

    5. Prioritize Quality Content

    Your users are always looking for useful and relevant content. No matter how beautiful your site is, if users don’t get what their looking for, they will abandon your page. This causes a high bouncerate, which is not good for your site.

    High quality content will grab visitors’ attention and keep them there. This encourages visitors to spend more time on the site and increases your authority. This will help you to get a high click through rate (CTR).

    Therefore, quality content is an essential part of your website’s SEO. SEO without quality content is virtually impossible to reap all the benefits.

    Content is the King

    Now you know content is the king. Here are some tips on how to write quality content that will engage your users.

    • Know your target audience
    • Focus on the search intent of your users
    • Create original and fresh content
    • Avoid complicated words and jargons
    • You can speak to the point
    • Include multimedia content like images, videos, gifs, etc.
    • Make your content easy to scan
    • Please refer to our complete guide to SEO content creation for more details.

    6. Perform Keyword Research & Plan Your Site Content

    A keyword refers to the search term that users enter in search engines to answer their queries or find additional relevant information. It’s the connecting link between search engines and visitors.

    You can find a beginner’s guide to keywords in our article: What is a keyword?

    Keyword Research: How To Improve SEO On WordPress

    Keyword research is essential SEO technique. It allows you to identify the keywords and phrases that people are most likely to type into search engines. Understanding what people search for allows you to plan your content in a way that will increase search traffic.

    Before planning your content, you need to do keyword research as part your WordPress SEO strategy.

    There are many paid and non-commercial keyword research tools that can help you identify great keywords. SEMrush, however, is a fantastic tool that can help you quickly overview keywords and their search volume.

    You can see, for example, the keyword difficulty as well as the search volume for Fastest Web Hosting in the image.

    SEMrush keyword overview

    SEMrush provides related keywords, questions, and keyword variations for your seed keyword.

    Keyword Variation – SEMrush

    This tool also provides insight into the marketing strategies of competitors. It can help you improve your site’s health and search engine optimization performance.

    7. Concentrate on long-tail keywords

    If it’s not easy to rank for the main keyword, then long-tail keywords will be of great help. Long-Tail keywords can be described as the more detailed and long form of keywords. They’re lengthy, often consisting of three words or more, as indicated by their name.

    Boots are an example of a keyword that is very brief and vague. Conversely, women’s cheap leather boots are a long-tail key word with a more specific meaning.

    SEO uses long tail keywords for several reasons.

    They have a clearly defined purpose which Google understands well. You get more people who are actually interested in your product/services and your bounce rate is reduced.

    Long-tail keywords often get lower search volumes, but that’s no problem since they have the advantage of low competition. This allows you to rank higher in search engine results pages.

    Like the short keyword, you can also conduct long-tail keywords research with various paid and free tools. Google’s Autocomplete tool, Searches associated to, and People ask box is a convenient way to find long-tail keywords.

    Google Autocomplete Feature

    Google’s Autocomplete Feature allows for long tail keyword research

    SEMrush is another tool that can be used to locate related keywords, questions and more. These are generally long tail keywords.

    Check out this detailed article on long-tail keyword phrases.

    8. Aim to Rank for Low-Difficulty Keywords

    Keyword difficulty can be described as the difficulty in ranking for a specific keyword. It can help you determine if the keyword is worthwhile. It helps you choose the best keywords for SEO.

    Higher keyword difficulty values mean that there is more competition for the keyword. Therefore, it is wise to focus your efforts on keywords with low competitors to save time and maximize SEO results.

    As experts recommend, it is a good idea choose keywords with low difficulty and high search volume. Let’s look at the keyword difficulty for the words Optimal wellness and health. We’ll use SEMrush to accomplish this.

    SEMrush allows you to evaluate keyword difficulty

    As you can see in the image, these keywords have a very low difficulty and high search volume. These keywords can be a great strategy for small to medium businesses seeking growth.

    SEO success can be hugely derived from targeting low competition keywords.

    9. For your blog articles, write catchy titles

    Every visitor will first notice your title on your blog article. It doesn’t really matter how amazing your content. If your title doesn’t grab people’s attention, they won’t read it.

    WordPress will also wrap your title with an H1 heading tag to allow search engines understand the context. This is how your blog title will determine the success of your posts.

    A catchy title should be chosen that matches the search intent of your users. It should be short and simple. Google won’t display all of your title if it exceeds sixty characters.

    Also, make sure to include the keywords within your title. For example, our title for our blog post “How to Improve WordPress SEO” is our focus keyword.

    Writing catchy title posts how to improve SEO on WordPress

    Yoast Search Engine Optimization: Add SEO Title to Your Page/Post

    Yoast SEO lets you easily add titles and descriptions to your page or post. Scroll down to the bottom to find an SEO title area where you can manually input optimized titles to your posts. You want it to be green because it will help you rank better.

    Yoast Search Engine Optimization: How to Add SEO Titles

    You can also use the WordPress Google Analytics plugins MonsterInsights to assess the effectiveness your heading. MonsterInsights 7.12+ comes with Headline Analyzer Tool. It will help you to create appealing headlines. This tool will assign a score from 1 to 100 for your heading.

    Headline Score

    The headline analyzer also offers useful suggestions to improve your WordPress dashboard. So you can make catchy headlines that will get more clicks.

    Headline Analyzer: How to improve SEO on WordPress

    10. Optimize Your Heading tags (Across All Content)

    Headings tags are crucial in structuring your content. They make text more understandable and break down the thick walls of text. This makes it easier to understand the content for both your readers and search engine spiders, which improves your site’s visibility.

    WordPress lets you add your own heading tags, ranging from h1 through h6 depending on what you need.

    Be sure to not include a H1 tag in your content. The post title should be H1. To make your content easier to read, you can use multiple tags H2 to H6.

    Click on the “Plus” icons in your block editor to add headings. After that, select the “Heading” block. Then, you can choose the appropriate heading tag to divide your content up into smaller readable segments.

    WordPress: Adding Heading tags to Enhance SEO

    Additionally, keywords can be included in headings to increase your WordPress SEO results.

    11. Make sure you use internal and external link properly in your content

    An effective SEO strategy for WordPress is the use of both external and internal linking.

    A link that links to another page/post within the same website is an internal link. Internal linking has many major advantages:

    Encourages site visitors to read more, and keeps them on your website for a long period of time.

    Increase authority on your entire site.

    It helps search engines crawl your site content and improves website traffic.

    External link is a link that leads your users to another reputable website. Your site’s reputation and credibility will be at risk if you don’t link to an informative, trustworthy website. There are several major benefits to external linking.

    Search engines can easily understand the content of your website by linking to it.

    • Increases the credibility of your website.
    • Connect with other websites to benefit both sides.
    • Anchor Text: Internal/External Links

    It’s not difficult to add external and internal links. However, you should keep in mind that the anchor text used to add the link must include at least a few descriptive and pertinent words. After you’ve selected the words, click on the Link icon in the toolbar.

    Select Anchor Text for Adding Link

    After that, enter the URL of your internal or external content. Next, click on Enter.

    How to Improve SEO on WordPress: Add a Link

    12. Keep your Page/Post URLs Brief

    In our previous section, we suggested that post names be chosen in common settings in order to create SEO-friendly permalinks. WordPress will automatically create URLs from the post title. This could sometimes lead to complicated URLs.

    It’s very long, for example, in the title section of our blog post titles. Long URLs look like spam and have a low rate of click-through.

    Structure of a Long Permalink

    On the contrary, short URLs are more organized and easy to understand by Google and your visitors. Google prefers shorter URLs. They can increase your click-through rate.

    WordPress allows you overwrite URLs to make the URLs more concise. Here’s how to optimize SEO on WordPress. This is the new, short and beautiful URL for our blog article:

    For more information on how to shorten URLs when sharing them on marketing platforms, please visit our article on URL shortening.

    13. Add a captivating meta-description

    Meta-description refers to a small text (usually one or two lines) that appears beneath the title in search engines. It summarizes the content of your site.

    Although it doesn’t directly influence your rankings, it is a critical part of your WordPress SEO. It improves your site’s click-through ratio. A well-written meta-description that includes keywords can convince people to click on your article.

    With many WordPress SEO plugins such as Yoast and All in One SEO or Premium SEO Package, adding meta-description to your site is easy. They make it easy to add meta descriptions to your meta-field.

    Here’s an example of the Yoast SEO meta-field.

    Meta Field of Yoast SEOG

    Yoast SEO also offers a Snippet Preview option. This allows you preview how your page/post title, meta-description and other pages will be displayed on desktop and mobile. It bolds your keywords in search results to highlight them.

    Google Snippet Preview

    14. Optimize your Images

    Images and media files can enhance the quality of your content. This creates a better user experience that keeps your users engaged. But adding images is not enough. These images must be optimized to increase your WordPress SEO.

    First, make sure you choose the right format to save your images. Either JPEG, PNG. Your images must be compressed to reduce their size and speed up site loading.

    TinyPNG is an easy and free way to compress images. It reduces your image’s size, but doesn’t affect its quality.

    TinyPNG Image Decompressing Tool

    Besides, several image optimization plugins like Imagify, Smush, etc. There are many options to compress images.

    For more information, see our article on WordPress image optimizer plugins.

    Your images can be further optimized with alt text (Alternative texts) and captions. Alt tags are useful for search engines and will help improve the ranking of your images.

    WordPress CMS (Content Management System), the best CMS, allows you to add image alt text and title as well as captions to make images SEO-friendly.

    Image Optimization: How to Improve SEO on WordPress

    15. Regularly Update Your Posts

    Google and the other search engines use the freshness and relevancy of your content to determine the page/post’s ranking. To be consistent in your SERPs ranking, it is important to regularly revive old content.

    You can keep your content current by updating your posts frequently. This will make it easier for Google to index your content more often. Also, your chances of ranking higher for search terms are increased.

    These are just a few of the SEO benefits associated with regularly adding new content to your site:

    • Drive more traffic
    • Increase click through rate
    • Improve shares
    • Increase authority potential
    • Conversion rates can be improved

    16. Look for Broken Links & Redirects

    Broken links are dead links that can’t be accessed by the user for various reasons. Broken links can be for example 404 pages that are not found, Bad URLs, Timeouts, and so on.

    Redirects Broken links have a negative impact on your site’s rank. Broken links can make it difficult to crawl your website by search engines and cause a lower user experience, which in turn leads to a higher bounce rate. You must immediately find broken links and fix them.

    Google Search Console makes it easy to search for these links.

    Google Search Console

    Alternative options include online tools such W3C Link Checker. They can identify broken links on your site and help you fix them as soon possible.

    W3C Link Checker

    How to fix broken links

    Redirect plugins are the best way to fix broken hyperlinks. Simple 301 is a WordPress plugin that can replace broken links and redirect them on to a page.

    Simple 301 Redirects Plug-in

    Yoast SEO Premium Users can use the plugin to access the redirections option. Redirections are also included in the Rank Math SEO plugin.

    Alternativly you can update 301 URL redirects by editing the.htaccess files. If you’re not familiar with the process, it can be a bit risky.

    17. Make high-quality backlinks

    You want to improve your WordPress SEO. It’s possible to build a high-quality backlink. A backlink refers to a hyperlink that points to your website and is used by third-party websites. It is also known by the names “inbound link” and “incoming link”.

    For example, let’s suppose that website X links to website Y. Let’s now say website X is linked to website Y through a post. This means that website Y got the backlink on website X.

    Backlinks can be a ranking factor for your site. Google and other search engines take backlinks into account to determine the quality of your website. Google and other search engines consider backlinks to determine the site’s credibility and rank.

    But, not all backlinks can improve your site’s ranking. Low-quality backlinks may actually be detrimental to your site’s ranking rather than helping it improve. It is essential to create high-quality backlinks.

    How to Create Quality Backlinks on Your Website

    However, it is not an easy task to get quality backlinks. It can be confusing to know where to begin if you don’t know where to begin. You can start by conducting competitive backlink research. You’ll get useful suggestions about link building.

    SEMrush’s Backlink Gap Tools can be used to quickly assess the link-building strategies for up to 5 other companies.

    SEMrush Backlink Tool

    Learn more about building quality backlinks that will drive traffic to your site. Our blog will help you learn the best way to create backlinks.

    18. Check Your Site’s SEO Visibility Settings

    WordPress offers a builtin option that discourages search engines from indexing your website. This option can be used to stop websites currently under construction from going live before the work is complete.

    But if you are ready to publish your site, and don’t make sure this option is checked, it can lead to disaster. Your site will not show up in search engines no matter how good your WordPress SEO techniques are.

    You should therefore check your site’s visibility in SEO. Log into your WordPress dashboard, then navigate to Settings >> Read More. Below the General Settings page you will see the Search Engine Visibility option.

    Checking Site’s Search Engine Viability Option

    This box should not be checked in order to make your site visible via search engines like Google. Save the setting by clicking on the Save Changes link.

    19. You should perform a site SEO audit on a regular basis

    A regular SEO audit of your site is another important strategy for how to improve your WordPress SEO.

    Perform a Search Engine Optimization Audit

    An SEO audit is a way to see how well your site performs. It gives you insight on technical SEO issues, on-page and off-page optimization, and other factors. These can be improved for WordPress SEO optimization.

    SEO auditing can be time-consuming, as you must review every aspect of your site. This is why there are so many SEO tools available.

    SEO Site Checkup is an intuitive online tool that allows you to quickly and easily analyze your website and identify any issues that could be hindering your organic search performance.

    How to improve SEO on WordPress with the SEO SiteCheckup Online Tool

    You can also use SEMrush and RavenTools as well as WooRank.

    20. Optimize the speed of your WordPress website

    Google also takes into consideration your website’s speed when ranking websites higher in search engine results pages. The site’s speed is also important in providing a better user experience for your visitors.

    WordPress makes site speed improvements easy. We’ve already discussed how to choose the best themes, hosting and optimize images, all of which have an immediate impact on the site’s speed.

    You can also optimize your site’s performance with other WordPress SEO methods. To gain an insight into the speed of your website, you can measure its speed. The GTMetrix is an online tool that you can use to do this.

    GTmetrix Tool

    GTMetrix, a popular tool, is used to measure website speed and provide suggestions for improvement.

    Many speed optimization plugins can be used to speed up your website. For instance, you can use all-in-one WordPress speed plugins like Hummingbird, WP Rocket, etc.

    WPRocket WordPress Speed Optimization Tools

    It is possible to install cache plugins such W3 TotalCache, LiteSpeedCache etc.

    CDN (Content Delivery Network services) is also available. It is a network that consists of servers located all over the world and stores copies of your site data to ensure fast delivery. Cloudflare, KeyCDN or other CDN services are among the best.

    Cloudflare CDN Service

    21. Make Your Website AMP Friendly

    Make sure your site is ready to be viewed on mobile devices if you want to learn how to improve SEO.

    Mobile Optimization: How to Improve SEO on WordPress

    Google introduced mobile-first Indexing because mobile users have grown faster than desktop users. Google determines the ranking of your content on SERPs by using its mobile version.

    It has become a must to make your site AMP-ready. AMP stands for Accelerated Mobil Pages. Google has developed this technology to allow faster loading on mobile devices.

    WordPress makes it very easy to integrate the AMP into your site. You can use the best AMP plugins, such as AMP Project Contributors and AMP for WordPress.

    AMP for WordPress Plug-in

    Our beginner’s guide for how to install AMP on WordPress contains detailed information.

    WordPress offers several responsive themes so that your website will look great on any device your users may be using.

    22. Add SSL (HTTPS) to Your Domain

    Google also uses HTTPS in its ranking signals for websites. HTTPS stands for HyperText Trans Protocol Secure. HTTPS allows secure communication between your browser, and a website. It encrypts the data. Converting data into code

    How to Improve SEO On WordPress: Add HTTPS to Your Domain

    For data security, adding HTTPS to your domain will help prevent unauthorized access. This is important especially if your website contains sensitive data such as your financial details.

    Padlock signs are used in URL bars of web browsers, such as Firefox, Chrome, and Firefox.

    Secured Connection

    However, the Not Secure warning signal indicates that unsecured websites have been detected.

    Not Secure Warning Sign

    TLS (Transport Layer Security), also known as SSL (Secure Socket Layer), is required in order to enable HTTPS within your site.

    Bluehost, SiteGround or Kinsta are some examples of top-rated hosting services. SSL certificates are free. You can also obtain the TLS/SSL Certificate from Certificate Authorities like Let’sEncrypt and install it manually.

    Our comprehensive guide on how to add SSL and HTTPS features to WordPress is a great resource.

    23. Create XML Sitemap of Your Site

    A sitemap XML is the next helpful tip for improving SEO on WordPress.

    An XML Sitemap is simply a list containing the URLs of your site. This acts as a road map that allows search engines to easily crawl to your pages. It also allows search engines access to your site structure.

    Even though creating an XML Sitemap doesn’t directly impact your WordPress SEO but it does help search engines find important pages quickly. Your pages can be better indexed and rank higher in SERPs.

    How to create an XML Sitemap Using SEO Yoast?

    Yoast Search Engine makes it simple and quick to create a sitemap. Go to SEO >>General >> Features if the plugin has been activated as you mentioned in your earlier post.

    Navigate between SEO to General Features

    Scroll down the page to see the XML Sitemaps selection. Click the button, then click on the Save changes button. Congratulations! Congratulations!

    You can toggle on the XML Sitemap Option

    You can also click on the question symbol to confirm that the sitemap has been successfully created. After clicking on that icon, you will see the option that reads “See the XML sitemap.” Click on the link to open the XML Sitemap of your site.

    Visit the XML Sitemap

    Your site’s XML websitemap should look something like this.

    XML sitemap: Improve SEO on WordPress

    24. Submit Your Site to Search Engines’ Webmaster Tools

    After creating the XML websitemap for your site, it is time to submit it through a webmaster platform like Google Search Console. It allows you to see how your site ranks in Google search results. You can then identify and fix issues that are affecting your site’s ranking.

    Google accounts are necessary before you can add a site to Google. It is likely that you already own one. If you do, you can head straight to the Google Search Console homepage. To get started, select the property type: URL prefix or domain.

    Select Property Type: How to Imrove WordPress SEO

    Site Verification via Domain

    Before you can enter the domain name, you must first verify your domain owner. You will need to sign into your domain provider, then copy and past the TXT code provided to you by Google Search Console.

    Domain Verification Via DNS

    Site Verification via URL Prefix

    If this fails, you can verify by using a URL Prefix. Entering your URL prefix recommends various verification methods. Yoast SEO recommends using the HTML tag as the easiest method. Simply copy the meta tag.

    HTML Tag

    Go to your dashboard and navigate to SEO >>General >>Webmaster Tools. Then, paste the code in the Google verification code field.

    Copy and Paste the code for Google verification

    Once again, go to Google Search Console and click “Verify”. Finally, you’ll be verified as an owner.

    Verify ownership

    After you have completed the verification process, your sitemap URL will be added to Google Search Console. You can simply copy and paste your URL after you navigate to the Sitemap Menu. Click the Submit Button. You can continue the process with other sitemap URLs. That’s all.

    You can also submit sitemaps to Yandex, Bing, and Yandex.

    25. Google Analytics integration into your website

    Integrating Google Analytics is one of the best strategies to improve your WordPress site’s SEO. Google Analytics, a web analysis service that tracks your website’s performance and allows you analyze your visitors to make smarter decisions.

    Google Analytics can be integrated into your site to allow you to easily track traffic, demographic data of visitors and their interest.

    These data and reports will allow you to assess the effectiveness of your marketing activities and campaigns. You can also use them to help you decide what type of content should you create. You will be able to organize your pages efficiently and increase your site’s traffic.

    How to integrate Google Analytics in Your Website

    You must first sign up for Google Analytics before you can add Google Analytics. The Tracking Code is what you will need to use in this page.

    Click on the Plugins tab and select Add New. Now install and activate this plugin.

    Install and activate the Insert Headers/Footers Plugin

    Go to Settings >> Insert Headers or Footers, and then paste the tracking number. Finally, click on the Save button. That’s it.

    Paste your Tracking Code

    You can find more information in our guide How to Add Google Analytics to WordPress.

    26. Include Schema Markup

    Because it plays a critical role in improving the site’s rankings, Schema markingup has become a very popular topic in WordPress SEO. It can be described as microdata that you have added to your HTML, which allows search engines to understand more of your content.

    You can get rich results by using schema markup, formerly called rich snippet. Search result pages may include additional information. This improves your site’s click-through rate, which leads to higher rankings.

    Yoast’s SEO software can automatically include schema markup in your posts and pages. However, to fully implement the schema on your website you must configure some settings.

    How to Implement Schema in Your Site with Yoast Seo?

    Navigate to SEO >> Search Appearance in your dashboard.

    Navigate From SEO to Search Appearance

    Next, click on the General tab and you’ll find Knowledge Graph & Schema.org. This option lets you choose to present your site either as a person or an organization. Now, fill in the name of your organization or person and add the logo. Next, click on Save Changes.

    How to Improve SEO on WordPress Using Schema

    The schema can also be added to your pages and posts. You can do this by scrolling down to the Yoast keyword meta box at your post’s end. The Schema tab allows you to adjust settings like Page type, Article type, and other details that describe your content.

    Setting page and article types

    Additionally, FAQ Yoast structured data block How to and FAQ Yoast can be used to provide rich results for each section.

    Yoast Structured Information Blocks

    Now that you have included schema to the site, it’s important to determine if it was successful implemented. Google Structured Data Testing Tool is a good resource for this. If a schema has been added to your webpage, it’ll look like this.

    Google Structured Data Schema

    Google Structured Data

    27. Aim for the Featured Snippet/Position Zero

    Another tip for improving your WordPress SEO is to target the featured snippet.

    Featured Snippet SEO Tips for WordPress

    You might have noticed that the box appears at the top in the SERPs when someone searches for a specific term. This content appears at the top Google search results page, i.e. A featured snippet can be found at position 0

    It’s important to be ranked 0 on the SERPs. This increases brand awareness, improves website traffic, and boosts revenue.

    While there aren’t many proven ways to make your content a featured excerpt, the following are some best practices that increase your chances at being featured in position 0:

    Focus on the questions your readers might ask

    You want to be the best.

    Use suitable headers (h1-h6) to highlight your question.

    Keep your answer concise and to the point

    Schema markup for your site

    28. Improve user experience

    Google and search engines constantly monitor user interactions with your website. This has an impact on how your website ranks in search engines. Your WordPress SEO strategy should include user experience (UX).

    WordPress: Improve SEO with User Experience

    It makes a huge impact on your site’s credibility as well as audience retention. It also decreases bounce rates, which is a good thing for your site’s health.

    For a better user experience, optimize your website with a well-structured URL, a clear navigation menu, and the proper heading tags. For a great user experience, ensure you include the following.

    Optimize your site speed

    Mobile-friendly design

    Avoid too many popups

    Add icons and social media buttons to your site

    Improve your customer service

    29. Create Video Content & Optimize (Implement YouTube SEO)

    According to video marketing statistics 69% of people prefer to see videos to learn about products and/or services. That’s huge!

    Video marketing is booming. To reach more clients and grow your business, you need to create video content. YouTube is an excellent tool for showing off your product and branding.

    YouTube is the second most searched website after Google. It receives billions upon billions of searches each month. YouTube optimization is essential to help your site rank high on search engines. This can increase traffic to the website.

    YouTube Optimization: Improve SEO on WordPress

    Let’s discuss briefly how to optimize YouTube videos.

    How to implement YouTube SEO

    Google acts like a bridgehead for people searching for videos. While Google has the ability to automatically identify the video details, it’s still a great practice to make YouTube videos more SEO-friendly.

    Here are some YouTube SEO tips for you to follow:

    Conduct keyword research for YouTube

    Add keywords to the video title

    Optimize video description

    Add video tags

    Add hashtags

    Upload custom thumbnail images

    Video0bject Schemema to your videos

    30. Social Media Platforms

    A popular social media platform is another way to increase your WordPress SEO. SEO experts believe social media platforms can be powerful SEO tools for branding and marketing websites.

    Social Media Platforms – How to Improve WordPress SEO

    They can help increase the visibility of your content and bring you more traffic. It is likely that more people will link back to your content if there are many people who share it. More backlinks mean better ranking for your site.

    Statista says that by 2025, there will be 4.41 Billion social media users globally. That sounds unbelievable, right?

    These statistics prove that social media can be as powerful and influential as any other marketing tool.

    You can get started with social media campaigns by using a variety of WordPress plugins. They allow you to create social icons and buttons for sharing content, as well as social icons that can be used to add links to your profiles.

    Easy Social Sharing plugin is one of the most useful free WordPress social media tools for easily sharing your content. This plugin is simple but powerful enough to be used by both professionals and beginners.

    Easy Social Sharing Plug-in

    Our guide on social media marketing offers more benefits.

    31. Localize Your Website

    It is simply the act of making your website available in multiple languages. Doing so will improve your WordPress SEO as well as drive traffic from diverse markets.

    Localizing Website

    Statista estimates that only 25.9% of internet users know English. Other languages most commonly used by internet users include Chinese (19.4%), Spanish (8.9%), Arab (5.2%), and so on.

    It’s possible that SEO keywords won’t rank well because contents are typically written in English. You can rank for keywords with lower competition if you have a multilingual site and get more traffic.

    Further communication with your audience in their native language can increase their trust. It’ll make your users feel comfortable. It will increase the appeal of your products and services to your customers, increasing your marketing potential.

    It doesn’t take much money to localize your website. Just install WordPress Multilingual Plugin (WPML), one of the top WordPress translation plugins.

    WPML Plugin

    32 Add no-follow to external links you don’t want to pass credit

    Google uses backlinks/links as a way to determine the page’s quality in order to determine their ranking on SERPs. Google will assign a percentage of your SEO score if you link to an external site.

    To avoid giving credit to other links, you can simply add nofollow to tell Google or other search engines to not follow them. It will help you rank higher in the search engine results page pages, and save your SEO score.

    There are two options to add a WordPress attribute that is not followed:

    Manually add HTML attribute rel=”nofollow”.

    You can use WordPress plugins (Ultimate Nofollow or Pretty Links, etc.).

    Yoast can also be used to add external links that are not-followed. It allows you to add nofollow to your external hyperlinks with just a click.

    WordPress SEO: How To Improve SEO

    33. Write Proper Length Content

    Writing long-form content is an effective way to increase your WordPress SEO. To rank higher and to engage readers, all marketers, business owners and SEO copywriters are using longer-form writing.

    Many studies have shown long-form content can rank higher in search engines as compared to shorter content.

    Google Position Vs Wordcount

    Google Position Vs. Total Wordcount. Source: backlinko.com

    You can see in the graph that the content at the top of Google has a longer average length.

    While this does not mean that content should be short, it can have several benefits including more shares and backlinks.

    OkDork shows that content with 3000-10,000 words tends be more shared. Backlinko also shows that longer-form content has an average of 7.2% more links than shorter content. It is obvious that links and sharing are important for your site’s ranking.

    You can also increase the average time users spend on your pages and increase your site’s click through rate. Google and your visitors will both benefit from longer content.

    For more information on length requirements for blog posts, see our guide.

    Concluding

    WordPress is a great platform. WordPress will not create your website.

    It is a competitive marketplace so it is important to use the best SEO techniques as discussed above.

    High-quality content and WordPress SEO techniques are the best priorities. This will make it easy to increase your website visibility in search engine results.

    Here’s the end of our article about SEO optimization on WordPress. We are glad you found our article helpful.

    Please leave any comments below if you have anything to add.

    Check out these articles to help you make your online branding stronger.

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