For many websites, success is measured by achieving a higher SERP ranking and increased views. Regardless of the type of WordPress website you operate, optimizing it for Google search engine is crucial to this success. Given that Google can either promote your website to the top or bury it in obscurity, it’s essential to optimize your website as much as possible. To assist with this, we’ve compiled a checklist of crucial first steps to take to enhance your Google ranking.
Actually, here are some Important SEO Factors you must use on your website. We will go through them one by one here. So, stay tuned!
1. Title Tags
The title tag is a critical factor in on-site SEO and plays a significant role in helping search engines understand the content of our website. Removing the “blog name” or “brand name” from the beginning of title tags on blog posts can lead to a significant increase in search traffic.
However, it’s important to note that your homepage may already be ranked by search engines based on your blog or site name, so there’s no need to include it at the beginning of your website or blog title tags. By optimizing your title tags and removing unnecessary information, you can improve your website’s relevance and increase your chances of ranking higher on search engine results pages.
2. Meta Tags
Meta tags are an effective way to provide Google with a clear understanding of what our website is about. These invisible codes contain keywords and descriptions that search engines use to analyze and compare with the visible content on our website.
One important type of meta tag is the meta description, which search engines will often display as a summary for your pages. By crafting an effective meta description, you can increase your click-through rate and attract more visitors to your website. The more people see your webpage in search results, the higher the chance they will click through to your page. Overall, using meta tags is a valuable strategy for improving your website’s visibility and driving traffic to your site.
3. Key Phrase
When it comes to SEO strategy, key phrases and words play a vital role in making your website visible to search engines. People often don’t have the time to scroll through multiple search results, so if they don’t find what they’re looking for at the top of the search results, they’ll move on to a different search term. To ensure that your website is easily found by search engines, it’s crucial to incorporate common search terms, or key phrases and keywords, that users typically type in.
Additionally, incorporating key phrases and words can increase the likelihood of users interacting with your website, as they will be more likely to find what they are looking for quickly and easily.
4. WWW or Not-WWW
When it comes to website URLs, there are two options: the www version and the non-www version. While both versions are technically valid, it’s important to choose one and stick to it. This is because search engines consider these two options as separate entities, which can lead to confusion and negatively impact your website’s SEO.
Choosing one version over the other can also help to improve the consistency and branding of your website. In WordPress, you can easily set your preferred URL by entering the ‘Settings’ > ‘General’ section and adding your chosen URL to both the ‘WordPress Address’ and ‘Site Address’ fields. The key is to choose one and remain consistent to avoid any potential issues with search engines.
5. Internal Links
Links are a crucial indicator of authority and importance in the eyes of search engines. This emphasizes the significance of interlinking your own content from other pages and posts on your website. By making it a habit to interlink your posts every time you write new content, you can improve the score of each of your web pages. Search engines give each of your web pages a score, and based on this score, they provide more suggestions to your readers.
In addition to that, interlinking your posts can also boost your page views and increase the amount of time each user spends on your website. Overall, interlinking is an effective strategy for improving the SEO score of each post and page on your website, while also increasing the visibility and engagement of your content.
6. WordPress SEO Plugin
There are many excellent WordPress plugins available for various purposes, and SEO is no exception. These plugins are recommended because they are comprehensive and can handle all of your SEO tasks. By installing these plugins, there’s no need to use separate tools and plugins for different individual SEO tasks. In other words, they provide an all-in-one solution.
Moreover, these plugins are 100% free. They offer a content analysis tool that guides you through optimizing every post or page, simplifying the process of setting up SEO settings. Depending on your preference, you can access the settings through two different types of interfaces: All-in-One SEO Pack plugin users can access all the SEO settings on one page, while Yoast plugin users can access different SEO settings on different pages. Overall, using SEO plugins can provide a range of benefits and advantages, making it easier to optimize your website for search engines.
7. XML Sitemap
An XML sitemap is a formatted file that lists every page of your website, making it easier for search engines to find and index your pages. While it does not directly boost your website’s ranking in search results, it does make it easier for search engines to locate and index your website’s pages. Submitting your XML sitemap to search engines is an essential step to ensure that your website is found by search engines.
XML sitemaps can help with this by enabling faster indexing with search engines and categorizing your website content. By indicating which pages are the most important, XML sitemaps can also provide search engines with a clear understanding of your website’s structure and content.
8. Install an SEO-Friendly Theme
Choosing a good, fast, and responsive theme is essential for the success of your WordPress website. Default WordPress themes can be unattractive and decrease your website’s visibility and viewership. A responsive theme helps your website run faster and become mobile-friendly, which is crucial since mobile-friendly content tends to perform better and faster, according to Google’s statistics. Remember to choose a lightweight theme and avoid using unnecessary third-party plugins and scripts, which can slow down your website.
9. Enable Breadcrumbs
Breadcrumbs are useful links that are frequently used for websites with three or more levels of hierarchy. They provide a helpful trail that allows users to navigate from their current viewing page to other pages on your website.
Breadcrumbs are important because they are navigational links in user interfaces and on websites, helping users to understand their locations within documents, web pages, and other content.
Breadcrumbs also have benefits for SEO, as they help search engines understand the structure and hierarchy of your website, creating a good internal linking structure. Breadcrumbs can appear in Google search results, making them even more useful for users and improving your website’s visibility in search results. It’s important to note that your website theme should support breadcrumbs in order to take advantage of their benefits.
10. Optimization With WP-Rocket Plugin
A caching and performance optimization plugin can be used to improve the load speed of WordPress websites. While the free version of the plugin is available, it is recommended to use the full version to access all of the features.
By using this plugin, you can improve the performance of your website by reducing page load times, boosting the website’s speed, and enhancing the user experience. The plugin’s page caching feature is especially useful, as it saves a static version of your website’s pages, reducing the time it takes to load these pages for users. Overall, this plugin can be a valuable tool for improving the performance and speed of your WordPress website.
11. Setting Up Permalinks
Permalinks, short for “permanent links,” are important for organizing your website’s URLs in a user-friendly and SEO-friendly way. For example, consider the following two links that lead to the same content on a website:
https://webnus.net/blog/?p=13607
https://webnus.net/blog/long-tail-keywords/
Visitors are more likely to click on the second link because it is more readable and user-friendly. Permalinks can have a significant impact on your website’s SEO, as they make it easier for search engines to understand the content of your pages and can improve the visibility of your website in search results.
When setting up permalinks, it’s important to choose a structure that is appropriate for your website and easy to understand for both users and search engines. Overall, permalinks are an essential element of website organization and can have a positive impact on both SEO and user experience.
12. Adding Your Website to Google Search Console
Google Search Console is a collection of useful tools provided by Google for website owners to gain insights into how their webpage content is perceived by the search engine. As an SEO specialist, this tool is crucial for understanding what is working on your website and what is not. By using the tools provided by Google Search Console, you can plan your content strategy and make necessary changes to improve your website’s visibility in search results.
13. Use Summaries Instead of Full Posts
Summaries and excerpts provide a brief overview of your content, allowing users to quickly understand what your post is about. By using summaries and excerpts, you can improve your website’s page-load speed, making it faster and more optimized for SEO. Overall, using summaries and excerpts can be a helpful strategy for improving your website’s SEO and user experience.
14. Start Using SSL/HTTPS
SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) technology is a security protocol that encrypts the connection between a browser and a website. It adds an additional layer of security to your WordPress site. Additionally, using SSL technology can also improve your website’s SEO, as search engines prioritize secure websites in search results.
Conclusion
SEO, or search engine optimization, is a vast and complex field that requires a deep understanding of various methods and techniques. While there are many different SEO methods available, it’s important to choose the ones that are most appropriate for your business model, targets, and website conditions. In this guide, we have introduced some of the most essential SEO methods that should be used on every website. However, it’s important to note that while the basic structure of optimizing a website for search engines may be similar, the specific execution of that structure should be tailored to each individual website.
Feel free to share with us your ideas or experiences in the comments section. Thank you for reading this.
