10 Ways To Improve Your WordPress Blog’s SEO

Some argue that SEO, or search engine optimization is a whole load of tosh, and whilst they may have a point to an extent, there are a couple of easy things you can do that should improve your blog’s SEO. That said, take everything with a pinch of salt; don’t implement these features and elect to shoot up search rankings. From my time blogging, the only thing I’ve found really helps is getting backlinks from large blogs. Anyway. Let’s get to it: to easy methods to improve your WordPress blog’s SEO.

1. Write brilliant content

Let’s get this clear before we move on – there is simply no better way to improve your search engine ranking than writing great content. Simple as that. SEO is not a substitute for writing brilliant stuff.

2. Leave worthwhile comments

An increasing number of blogs are DoFollow, which means search engines see the link as a backlink (which is obviously good). With that in mind, if you read something that you find interesting, then leave a comment and potentially it’ll have a benefit to your ranking. However, (regular readers will know what is coming!) under no circumstances should you leave a comment that says anything like: “thanks. I try out on my new blog. BIG BLOG LINK”.

I don’t know if there are ten commandments in blogging, but that should be one of them; if you are going to leave a comment then make it worthwhile! Offer something constructive; perhaps your own thoughts or tips on the subject. By all means say thanks, but make sure that that is not all you say.

3. Make “blogging friends”

One of the things I love about WordPress is the community. It’s not been too long since I “joined”, but it is immediately noticeable how willing people are to help, offer tips etc etc. However, one of the things I have found really valuable is help from other WordPress bloggers; I’m an author on WPHacks, and Kyle’s help has been simply brilliant – his advice has been priceless, and from an SEO perspective, having WPHacks linking to my site has undoubtedly helped.

The tip here: go guest posting! Find the biggest site In your niche and go and write for it! Not only will you get a backlink, but you might even gain some more visits out of it!

4. Use Header tags correctly within posts

So far we’ve focused more on tips that you can’t really apply directly into your blog, but here is one you can do straight away: use Header tags and use them correctly. If your post has seperate headings (like this one!) then tag them appropriately. Below is a guide to how you should head things up:

H1 – this tells Google this is the most important thing on the whole page. For that reason, it should contain post titles, not your blog’s title. The following code will do the trick:

<h1><?php the_title(); ?></h1>

H2 – this is the second most important content on the page, so should be used for sub-headings (as they are being used in this post). You can set headings by clicking on ‘Paragraph’ in the visual editor (as shown in the image).

WordPress SEO

Using header tags correctly to increase WordPress SEO

H3 – use for sub sub headings and sidebar elements

H4 – sub sub sub headings and perhaps go this low for sidebar elements.

5. Create a sitemap

Sitemaps tell search engines: here is my content. By giving search engines your content, it gets indexed and you get visits. Or something like that. The point is that sitemaps are an essential part of a blog’s SEO strategy and there is no excuse for not having one. Thankfully for WordPress users, you can easily create a sitemap with the Google XML Sitemaps plugin! Install it, set it up and tell Google where your new sitemap is. Done.

6. Use a search engine friendly title tag

Don’t underestmate the importance of a good title tag. Making sure your title matches the content of your post accurately is highly important; when people are searching, if you’ve got a great post on the subject but your title is about your cat then it won’t be found! The code below is an SEO’d title tag that you can copy straight into your current theme:

><? bloginfo('name'); ?> | <?php bloginfo('description'); ?><?php } ?>
<?php if ( is_search() ) { ?>Search Results for <?php /* Search Count */ $allsearch = &new WP_Query("s=$s&showposts=-1"); $key = wp_specialchars($s, 1); $count = $allsearch->post_count; _e(''); echo $key; _e(' &mdash; '); echo $count . ' '; _e('articles'); wp_reset_query(); ?><?php } ?>
<?php if ( is_404() ) { ?><? bloginfo('name'); ?> | 404 Nothing Found<?php } ?>
<?php if ( is_author() ) { ?><? bloginfo('name'); ?> | Author Archives<?php } ?>
<?php if ( is_single() ) { ?><?php wp_title(''); ?> | <?php
$category = get_the_category();
echo $category[0]->cat_name;
?> | <? bloginfo('name'); ?><?php } ?>
<?php if ( is_page() ) { ?><? bloginfo('name'); ?> | <?php
$category = get_the_category();
echo $category[0]->cat_name;  ?>|<?php wp_title(''); ?><?php } ?>
<?php if ( is_category() ) { ?><?php single_cat_title(); ?> | <?php $category = get_the_category();
echo $category[0]->category_description; ?> | <? bloginfo('name'); ?><?php } ?>
<?php if ( is_month() ) { ?><? bloginfo('name'); ?> | Archive | <?php the_time('F, Y'); ?><?php } ?>
<?php if ( is_day() ) { ?><? bloginfo('name'); ?> | Archive | <?php the_time('F j, Y'); ?><?php } ?>
<?php if (function_exists('is_tag')) { if ( is_tag() ) { ?><?php single_tag_title("", true); } } ?> | <? bloginfo('name'); ?>
</title>

(via ProBlogDesign)

As if that weren’t enough, the next tip will let you customize your title tag even further…

7. Don’t use SEO plugins, use single post meta boxes!

An increasing number of themes are coming with options for adding meta data, changing the title etc etc. The good news is they’re really easy to implement yourself, as I explain in this post (complete with something you can download, copy and paste into your own theme yourself!). What it does is create a box on your post writing page which you can fill out and when saved, you’ll create a number of custom fields with the values of what you typed in. Read the full tutorial on creating in post meta boxes here.

Investing in seo services is one area that is often overlooked by larger companies.

8. Use alt tag on images

Without an alt tag, search engines can’t tell what a certain image is. Again, WordPress users have got it easy; they can just fill out the description when they upload an image and hey presto. It’s an easy thing to do, so make sure you do it!

9. Super SEO for your comments

With thousands of WordPress plugins available, it is very easy to think to yourself “Do I need this plugin that does something I could very easily implement myslef”. Why you shouldn’t use as many plugins as you can find is a post for another day, but for now take my word for it; it’s a bad idea to install a lot of plugins. However, there are some situations where you’re allowed to use a plugin. This is one of them. The SEO Super Comments plugin dynamically generates pages for all your comments, making them indexable by search engines. Now you can rank higher for “Hi. Great post. Thanks. [big link]!”

10. Use “Pretty Permalinks”

The final tip for today is use Pretty Permalinks! Under the settings tab in the WordPress backend, click ‘Permalinks’. You’ve then got a number of options, but I’d suggest you use a ‘Custom Structure’ and have either /category/post-name/ or /post-name/. The code below will do either:


<!-- for /category/postname/-->
/%category%/%postname%/

<!-- or for /postname/-->
/%postname%/

So there we are. Ten tips to improve your blog’s SEO. Now go and reap the rewards!


38 Comments
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Govind Choudhary
January 17, 2012 5:10 pm

Great tips to increase SEO of wordpress blog..Am gonna try these..Thnxx for share with US 🙂

Stephane
September 7, 2011 9:38 am

Hi Alex, it’s great to see “quality content” as your #1 recommendation. That’s very true. Reaching out to others in your field to build connections is equally important too. Cheers, Stephane

Hans
August 30, 2011 6:16 am

Very concise info! Thanks for the tips!

Debrain
September 17, 2010 3:51 pm

Good! =)

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July 2, 2010 4:03 am

[…]  Try to get your posts fed to other outlets.  There are a million ways to improve SEO… or at least ten.  Make an effort to get your message […]

Nicholas Francis
June 25, 2010 9:21 pm

Hi alex, great post. I always had this doubt. changing permalinks from /%category%/%postname%/ to just postname.. If someone had linked your post before the permalink change.. will the link there will be redirected to the new one or 404 error??

Antoony
May 23, 2010 7:52 am

Hi,

Sorry, I’m a newbie in the blogging world.

Because many bloggers who have more than 30K readers recommend to use plugins for SEO, the most popular is the All In One SEO Pack so that I was amazed at your opinion at 7. Do not use SEO plugins, use single post meta boxes!

I do not intend to compare you with other well-known bloggers on the need to use SEO plugins. I just can not understand why would you even say do not use SEO plugins? Sorry if this bothering you.

Comment Name Violation
May 22, 2010 7:47 am

Thanks buddy…. I am totally agree with you because most of the techniques I have already used in my site, But thanks for sharing such a informative post.

Tim
May 17, 2010 8:10 pm

Just finished putting up a blog, and went back and added a few of the items you listed.
In particular: the post name permalink is excellent, and so is the custom title tag!
Thanks!

Jess
May 14, 2010 3:03 pm

Thanks for all the tips.

jack
May 3, 2010 4:01 pm

Thank you for such a nice tips. The biggest obstacle for me is still making blogging friends. I should just get a handle on it and start leaving more comments.great work

10 More Tips To Improve Your WordPress Theme | WPShout.com
November 30, 2009 12:03 pm

[…] SEO”. Thanks to the GPL, many of these themes are actually using the same code! As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, write great content, use your Header tags correctly and use the <title> tag effectively and […]

Comment Name Violation
November 4, 2009 7:24 am

Hi your post is amazing, It’s incredible, I learned a lot about SEO and Man, this thing’s getting better and better as I learn more about internet marketing. Also as part of my ongoing mission to find the absolute best tools to make money, this is without a doubt at the top of my list. Everything happened so fast!

Holly
October 30, 2009 5:43 am

i am still looking for a good SEO plugin for WordPress. my blog is not ranking high enought for the keywords that i wanted to rank.

Comment Name Violation
October 22, 2009 10:21 am

Great post, thanks. However I found lot of blogs are nofollow.

Josh Fialkoff
October 20, 2009 12:01 pm

Matteo,
the Redirection plugin may help you.
It sets up 301 redirects each time you change the URL of a page/post.
It’s also helpful if someone links to the wrong page (ie, if they put a period in the link URL).
Also, if you change the content structure of your site, that plugin can help as well.
Overall, this is a strong article.
-Josh

Harsh Agrawal
October 19, 2009 4:12 pm

Hey Akex again Good post and I must say you pretty much covered every thing. Meanwhile are you using SEo super commentator plugin?
.-= Harsh Agrawal´s last blog ..How to make URL shortener under Your domain Name =-.

Matteo
October 19, 2009 9:03 am

I’ve just changed my permalink structure. Is there a way to have no broken links?
.-= Matteo´s last blog ..Obama premio nobel: tutta questione di comunicazione? =-.

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October 17, 2009 10:11 am

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Nick Stamoulis
October 15, 2009 1:30 pm

WordPress out of the box is pretty nicely built but definitely requires some tweaks to really get visitors. I think important aspect of a blog is that it must be approached like a business. If you are looking to eventually sell ad space or sell the blog in general approach from a business standpoint right from the beginning.
.-= Nick Stamoulis´s last blog ..Will SEO As We Know It Exist In 2035? =-.

Indrek
October 17, 2009 12:27 pm
Reply to  Nick Stamoulis

I totally agree with your statement. WordPress requires additional tweaking to have it set up correctly that unfortunately a lot of bloggers still can’t manage.

Thank you Alex for your tips. The biggest obstacle for me is still making blogging friends. I should just get a handle on it and start leaving more comments (starting now :))

Thanks again!
.-= Indrek´s last blog ..CSS3 – What New Features Does It Provide =-.

Indrek
October 17, 2009 5:26 pm
Reply to  Alex Denning

At least I have my foot through the door now 🙂 Thanks for you advice.

BTW: I’ve been a devoted reader for some time now and look forward to your articles in my reader every day!

Good luck Alex
.-= Indrek´s last blog ..CSS3 – What New Features Does It Provide =-.

Comment Name Violation
October 14, 2009 4:02 am

thanks you for this info.

siku
October 13, 2009 3:18 pm

Thanks for the tips. I’m developing my wordpress blog now. These tips will definitely help. Will come back for more informative articles. Thanks again.

Thomas Scholz
October 12, 2009 6:13 pm

Be aware: Using %category%, %tag%, %author% or %postname% as permalink base *will* slow down WordPress.
See this post for an explanation: http://dougal.gunters.org/blog/2009/02/04/efficient-wordpress-permalinks

I use %year% as base to avoid this problem and to give some context.

To get more comments make commenting easy: Add a live preview and require just the text and nothing else (hint ;)).
.-= Thomas Scholz´s last blog ..WordPress: Umbruch im Titel steuern =-.

Thomas Scholz
October 13, 2009 9:48 am
Reply to  Alex Denning

As a user I like to know the date. Especially for software related articles. Context is content too.

Montana Flynn
October 15, 2009 6:30 pm
Reply to  Alex Denning

As an SEO professional I can say your tips are all 100% accurate. Another good tip is to use good Title’s and have your theme place the title in the H1.
.-= Montana Flynn´s last blog ..Automate 404 discovery, the easy PHP way. =-.