WordPress is a fantastic tool when it comes to website content creation and design. But what is the purpose of having a nicely designed and interesting website if it’s not search engine optimized and nobody can find it?
If you’re someone who understands the importance of SEO, then you know that search engines care a little more about content, keywords, and meta tags than design. In order to keep your WordPress website visible and competitive, you also know that there’s no one size fits all solution when it comes to increasing your website traffic.
This is even more so the case when looking at organic traffic for a WordPress website. Fortunately, WordPress has become one of the most popular content management systems in the world, so there are a few tips you can implement to boost visibility on search engines like Google.
Whether you’re just beginning to learn about SEO or are looking for more advanced tips on optimizing your website, we’ve gathered our top WordPress SEO recommendations for technical SEO, on-page SEO and off-page SEO that can help increase your search engine rankings and drive more visitors to your website.
Technical SEO: the power of page speed
Page speed optimization
Page speed is of the utmost importance for user experience. According to Google, as page load speed “increases from one to three seconds, the probability of bounce rate increases by 32%.”
By optimizing your website page load times on all devices, you will naturally gain more traffic to your WordPress website, while inherently improving:
- Your technical SEO substantially.
- Your rankings on Google.
- The user experience of your site.
Google provides a suite of optimization tools and insights to measure your site’s performance, allowing you to drive more traffic, increase conversions and improve user experience. There are also some great WordPress plugins for page speed and caching, for turnkey solutions.
Consider configuring your webmaster console, before implementing our SEO tips to increase traffic. This will help you benchmark and measure most website enhancement and traffic gains.
Generate a sitemap
Use a sitemap to ease Google’s crawling process. When it comes to improving your rankings, an XML sitemap can be a really good partner. It helps Google easily understand your website structure while crawling it. Sitemaps are known as URL inclusion protocols as they tell search engines what to crawl. With plugins like Google XML Sitemap, it is very easy to set this up.
On-page SEO: content and image management
Content is really important
This shouldn’t come as a surprise; content is what defines your site’s identity, but also what helps Google rank it for specific search queries. Your content should be filled with your main keywords, be descriptive, informative and unique.
Content management systems, like WordPress, can be a great, intuitive tool that help you easily add new content to your website. But if you’re not careful, it can also destroy your SEO efforts and prevent future traffic gains.
Your overall SEO won’t matter at all if the content you are publishing is either plagiarized or duplicated. The most important thing to consider when you’re updating your site’s content is that it should be consistently unique and must provide some kind of value to readers. Don’t hesitate to use a plagiarism checker tool or an AI text detector to inspect your content before publication.
Name your images
Your images are not just there to illustrate your content, they can also contribute extra information and help Google rank your website for a specific query. Google’s image results can drive a lot of traffic to a website, so don’t underestimate them. Name your images appropriately and include the keyword for which you want to be ranked.
Leaving an automatic or generic image name is a mistake as Google will not be able to understand what your image is about but it also won’t be able to rank it. The ALT tag is also an attribute that you can use to describe your images with extra keywords.
Don’t forget your title tags, meta descriptions and permalinks
Use title tags and a meta description to describe your content. The combination of these two elements are usually the first thing internet users see, so make sure you are giving them a reason to click your link. Choose your title and meta description in a way that it provides a dynamic, yet brief description of your content, but at the same time, it doesn’t over utilize your keywords.
Another small, but important detail, is the use of optimized permalinks. Search engines usually take into account the first words in a permalink, so don’t waste them with stop words. Include your keywords and relevant terms that help your visitors instantly know what your content is going to be about.
Off-page SEO: link building and social media outreach
Build a linking strategy
Web page authority scores work like casting ballots; whoever gets the most votes wins. In the SEO context, link building can be equated to gaining a vote towards establishing your web page authority.
To get more “votes”, build partnerships with other websites from your industry and from other authoritative sites – i.e. websites with a high page ranking- and also get backlinks from them. It will help grow your domain authority and influence in regards to search engines.
Link building and optimizing the authority of your domain helps drive traffic to your WordPress website. Also be sure to think about quality over quantity!
Your internal linking also matters. It helps organize your site structure and it enriches your visitors’ overall experience when the page linked is relevant.
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Social media outreach
Social media is not only a great way to promote your website, but it has become essential if you want to build your visibility and share your expertise. Community engagement is now an integral part of the brand experience that requires you not only promote your content, but also interact with your community by sharing articles from your industry and participating in discussions.
Social media will not only help you gain more links, but it can also help to:
- Increase brand awareness and gain followers.
- Attract relevant websites and subsequently link building opportunities.
- Increase traffic to your WordPress website.
Conclusion
To sum up, by implementing the above mentioned techniques and recommendations, you will be better able to boost both your visibility and rankings. And hopefully, your website traffic will follow.
However, if you are at all confused, remember to always keep an open mind and be creative with the many different SEO methods that can help improve WordPress website traffic. And never forget that when it comes to traffic and visibility on the web, there isn’t one simple solution that will work for every site.
Take all this advice as a starting point for more tailored strategies built for your specific needs. As always, it is important to monitor your efforts and adjust them depending on changes and trends.
