If you have a WordPress website, it is essential that you start your SEO in the platform itself. Whatever tutorial or guide you read, all of them will say the same thing. You should start with on-page SEO optimization first.
If you are a beginner in WordPress, you may have a hard time understanding the tips and suggestions because they are quite technical. In the end, you choose not to do them and this takes a lot of toll on your digital marketing efforts.
In this article, we will share a couple of points that will make it easy for you to understand the concept of WordPress SEO and then tell you a couple of tips that will get you started.
What is SEO and Why Should You Do It?
Let us put ourselves in the position of an internet user. If you want to find something, you automatically turn to the web. It is the most convenient place to find information. And most commonly, we use search engines.
Now, when we do a search, do we spend time going through all the pages in the results? NO. We are always wired to only look at the first page because we automatically think that the information on the websites on the first search results page is more valuable than the rest of the websites in the succeeding pages.
As a website owner, this is what you want. You want your website to be seen first and let searchers find the valuable information you publish on it.
This is how SEO is born. Online SEO Services is a set of tactics that a website owner can apply both on-page and off-page in order to increase their rankings in search engines. Among the most basic benefits that a website can get out of SEO are:
- Better Visibility: As we have said above, people usually just look at what is on the first page of Google. So, when you do SEO right, you are more visible to those that search with the keywords you are using in your website.
- Credibility: When a website has a high ranking in SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages), people tend to give more of their trust to that website.
- Quality Content: With the right SEO tactics, you will have more opportunities for relaying quality information to your audience.
If you are new to SEO, you do not have to panic just yet. In all actuality, creating a WordPress website gives you a more guided approach to doing SEO!
Best WordPress SEO Practices
We are guessing that you have previously read a couple of tutorials on how to navigate WordPress efficiently. It is a platform that is really easy to learn. Below, we share a couple of tips on the best practices you should observe when you are doing your SEO right inside the environment of WordPress.
1. Tags and Categories
One of the things that make WordPress better than other platforms is that it offers a very organized way to structure your pages and posts through the use of tags and categories. It does not only help you organize your content but it also helps your visitors navigate to the different parts of your website.
Above all, having a really structured sitemap is essential to SEO as this is one of the things that search engine crawlers look for in a website.
2. Internal Linking
Each of the pages on your website has a score or what is more commonly known as page authority. There really is no known formula as to what this score is made of but after years of studies, SEO marketers concluded that one of the major contributors is the number of quality links that point to that page.
This is why it is always a good practice that you do internal linking. This simply means that when you create a new content, make sure you create links leading to other pages of your website in places where it is applicable. However, remember not to overdo this as you may be penalized too.
3. SEO Plugins
Although WordPress already has SEO-friendly features that are pre-built, it would still be better if you can install and implement SEO plugins that will widen the SEO features of the platform.
There are a lot of plugins that can be integrated with WordPress. There are free ones for those who are still trying to experiment and discover SEO. Then, there are premium and paid ones that intermediate and advanced SEO marketers use to further apply SEO on a deeper and more technical level.
You are actually free to use any kind of CMS or platform out there. But, if you are starting out in SEO, which is a very integral part of digital marketing, WordPress is the best way to go. It facilitates a really intuitive way of understanding SEO through its built-in features and plugins. All you have to do is take note of the practices we mentioned above to jumpstart your SEO efforts.