Setting Up WordPress for SEO
Mark Thompson
WordPress out of the box comes SEO friendly, however there are many tweaks you can make to further optimize it for search engines. We recently covered 10 important tips to optimize wordpress for search engines, however this post will go more in-depth and offering further optimization tips.
Here are a number of advanced tweaks and WordPress plugins you can install to help with URL structuring, search engine crawling, handling duplicate content, optimizing title and meta tags, images and internal linking.
Setting Up the Permalink Structure
In WordPress: Settings >> Permalinks
WordPress gives you a number of ways you can structure your post urls. By default WordPress sets the urls like www.domain.com/?p=123. This is obviously not optimal because you are not gaining the benefits of having keywords in the url.
They also have options to set the urls organized by year/month/date, for example www.domain.com/2010/02/07/sample-post/. This is getting better, because you are able to add a unique post name in the url, however the post is four directories deep which can cause potential crawling issues.
The most effective way to optimize your urls is by using the custom permalink structure. Choose “Custom Structure” and enter “/%postname%/ “. By setting this custom structure your urls will look like www.domain.com/post-name/. This puts your post directly off the root level and uses keywords based on your post title.
Setting Up non-www to www Redirect
In WordPress: Settings >> General
The newer versions of WordPress make this extremely easy to do. Simply change the Blog Address (url) to http://www.domain.com. WordPress will automatically update your htaccess file to redirect the non-www version to the www version. If you have an older version of WordPress you will have to copy and paste the code provided into your htaccess file. However I would upgrade to the latest version of WordPress before I manually add it.
Search engines treat the www and non-www version of a page as two different pages. If not corrected, this can cause your blog to have hundreds or thousands of duplicate pages. By fixing this you are minimizing potential duplicate content issues.
Optimize Post Titles
In WordPress: Settings >> All in One SEO Pack
By default WordPress creates page titles like “Blog Title >> Blog Archive >> Post Name”. This is ok, but not optimal. Search engines will place more importance on the keywords at the beginning of the title tag so we will want to modify the tags so that the post name is at the beginning of the post and not the end.
To do this, make sure you install All in One SEO Pack. This plugin will automatically set up your title and meta description tags the proper way. Your page titles will now look like “Post Title | Blog Title“. You will have the option to override a specific post title within the post if you would like. Make sure you create a unique description after you have written your post. All in One SEO Pack will not create meta descriptions, so when creating a post there is a section for adding unique titles and descriptions.
Block Certain File Directories in Robots.txt
There are certain directories that you should block from search engines. Check out the Robots.txt guide I wrote that will show you exactly which directories you should block.
This will help with controlling which content you want search engines to crawl and not crawl. There are many directories and files that are unnecessary for the crawlers to spider. This will help the crawlers find the content you want spidered faster.
Install SEO Plugins
This SEO plugin is probably the best and most robust plugin for optimizing your blog for search engines. This plugin will automatically optimize your blog category and post url structure, auto generate title tags, avoid duplicate content issue by restricting search engines from accessing pages that have duplicate content on them, and canonical tag integration.
This plugin will automatically generate a XML sitemap of your wordpress blog that is formatted for Google, Yahoo, Bing, and Ask. Your sitemap will be sent to all of the search engines every time the plugin rebuilds your XML sitemap. Having this plugin, ensures that the search engines are aware of all of your posts and will help with the overall crawling of your blog.
This plugin will add your Google Analytics tracking script to every page on your blog. There are also other options and features which give you more accurate tracking.
- Disable Admin Tracking
- Enable Event Tracking
- Track Outbound Link Clicks
- Track Downloads (PDF, CSV, DOC)
- Google Adsense Integration
- Ability to Modify Tracking Script
Interior linking will help with the overall crawling of your website, along with keeping readers engaged in your content. You can also leverage your content by using keyword-rich anchor text and linking to other content within your blog. This plugin does just that. It will take keyword and phrases within your post and comments and link them to corresponding posts on your site. This can significantly cut down on having to manually search for relevant posts on your site that you can link to within a post.
SEO Friendly Images will automatically optimize all of your images by adding alt and title attributes. If you do not have an alt or title attribute for your images, it will add one for you.
Load time is becoming an important factor in search engine algorithms. Not to mention a page that loads fast makes a visitor much happier and is more likely to stay on your site longer. W3 Total Cache will help speed up the page load times by caching pages, removing white space and comments, and compressing css and js files. Here are a few reasons why this plugin boasts it’s at least a 10x increase in site performance.
- Enable Page Caching
- Enable Minify
- Enable Database Caching
More SEO Quick Tips for WordPress
- Allow commenting for user generated comment and higher engagement
- Use good categorization for usability
- Add compelling graphics and images in your posts
- Ask questions at the end of your posts to encourage comments
- Syndicate your content to your Twitter and Facebook profiles
- Social bookmark your best content
Share your tips and tricks with us via comments section.
For Further Reading:
Did you enjoy this article and found it useful?
Get even more from us:
Kaxii
Posted 504 days ago 50I was using joomla before but now I switched to wordpress because of the great seo plugins that are available. But i’m using Worpress Seo Master plugin instead of All in One. I find it more complete.
Cheers
raybak
Posted 506 days ago 49Mark is w3 total cache simple to manage? Are there any draw backs for cache plugins?
Zack Nutter
Posted 544 days ago 48Good to see that people love word press as much as I do. I have found that the best seo plugin for wordpress is all in one seo, does anybody suggest others?
Shubert
Posted 548 days ago 47Hi Mark, thats quiet a list of SEO plugins for wordpress.. did not know about the SEO smart links and friendly images.. thanks for sharing..
Bidisha
Posted 555 days ago 46This article is really helpful for us who are freshers in the field of site optimization. I just want to know, is it necessary to post few articles on the site before Google site map insertion? Any help in this regard will be highly appreciated. Moreover, I have installed SEO ultimate for my WP blog. When I post a new article there is a box just below the post named SEO Settings with several options like, Title Tag, Meta Description, Meta Keywords, Meta Robots Tag, Incoming Autolink Anchors, Autolink Exclusion,More Link Text and Rich Snippet Type. What to do with these?
Cameron Douglas
Posted 558 days ago 45this has been very helpful – thanks
Alex
Posted 565 days ago 44In these days wordpress is liked by search engine more so here in this post I have learn more thing that how we should optimize wordpress blog so I hope if I will follow rule then I can create a good blog in wordpress and can make quality of link.
fari
Posted 571 days ago 43hey bro nice work
its realy very helpful for me thks again
ArlinePortia
Posted 576 days ago 42As you said it, WordPress is rather SEO friendly but in order to get good internet reputation management, a lot more can be done. Along with the tweaks you mentioned, I’d add use of other social media channels to promote your blog or site.
Giovanni
Posted 608 days ago 41Question….in your post you suggest using %postname% but under the actual permalinks page in wordpress itself it strongly advises against it…
%postname%
A sanitized version of the title of the post (post slug field on Edit Post/Page panel). So “This Is A Great Post!” becomes this-is-a-great-post in the URI (see Using only %postname%). Starting Permalinks with %postname% is strongly not recommended for performance reasons..
What are your thoughts?
Binary Haiku
Posted 608 days ago 40Gave this a once over and it’s exactly what I use for my site. Heading over to your robots.txt guide next.
Broadway
Posted 613 days ago 39Very Nice, i still see some people who dont use the correct url structure which can only help in ranking for long tail keywords.
Stasis
Posted 616 days ago 38I have been focusing lately on varying my anchor texts, which seems to make a big difference. =D
.-= Stasis´s last blog ..Copywriting for SEO =-.
john
Posted 620 days ago 37awesome post!!!
thanks for sharing our ideas….
this willreally help me.
Master
Posted 637 days ago 36Great article as I am about to start a wordpress blog. It is nice to know that wordpress offers various plugins and options to allow for easier SEO implementation.
shepdaddy
Posted 681 days ago 35Hi Mark, Thanks for writing this article. It was very helpful. I was halfway there with some of these plugins but you completed the circle.
.-= shepdaddy´s last blog ..Breathing new life into classic design =-.
alaJoAnn
Posted 689 days ago 34Regarding page load speed:
Being no expert, I was almost afraid to install WP Minify in addition to W3 Total Cache, which already has a minifying function. But it worked beautifully out-of-the-box, and reduced page load speed another 50%!
.-= alaJoAnn´s last blog ..Global Positioning System (GPS) for Blogging Success =-.
vilson
Posted 703 days ago 33Hello,
Nice information about wordpress for SEO.
WordPress is getting more popular by the day. It enables people to set up a blog, and even a complete website within minutes.
With all the great free plugins and designs out there it is really an easy to use and complete blogging solution.
Thanks.
Quentyn
Posted 717 days ago 32thanks for this, I had been using the “all in one SEO pack” but had not really looked at the rest. Really helpful post
Peter Roesler
Posted 719 days ago 31I never knew this, this is super cool. love this blog. I am coming back tomorrow to check for more posts. This is one of the best resources I have found on the internet florida web design company
MostlyBlog
Posted 720 days ago 30very good post just install one plugin after reading this post, i have done already other settings but just install SEO Smart Links plugins.
.-= MostlyBlog´s last blog ..Windows Live Messenger 2010 (WLM 2010) Screenshots Leaked =-.
Thomas
Posted 723 days ago 29Great checklist! WordPress makes SEO much easier to implement then the standard site. Gotta love the ease and usability of plug-ins to.
.-= Thomas´s last blog ..Good Content = Great SEO =-.
Steve Yousten
Posted 723 days ago 28I think I just cried a little. Wonderful article. Very valuable to me.
Junior Cazeri
Posted 724 days ago 27Brilliant! The best post on WordPress on SEO on the web
olivier
Posted 724 days ago 26Thanks.
I think I’ve installed all the plugins and set them up.
However in my google analytics, I can’t see any visit (they should be at least one).
How can I check that my blog is correctly set up for google analytics?
Thank you