Using Wordpress for your Blogs is great as the majority of its features are already setup with basic SEO (Search Engine Optimizations), however there are many things you can do to take your Blog to the next level increasing your Search Engine Traffic substantially.
Whenever i Install a new Wordpress Blog i always do the following:
1. Download All in One SEO & Headspace 2
All in One SEO – http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/all-in-one-seo-pack/
Headspace 2 – http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/headspace2/
Once i have downloaded these Plugins i Upload to my Server (wp-content/plugins Directory) and Activate both.
- I then change the following for All in One SEO (Settings > All in One SEO)
* Plugin Status - Enabled
* Home Title – I enter a relevant Title for my Blog which will appear at the top of a users browser
* Home Description – Leave this Blank
* Home Keywords – I enter 5-10 Keywords that are relevant to my Blogs content
* Canonical URLs – Enabled
* Rewrite Titles – Enabled
* Post Title Format to Page Format – I tend to leave these all as Default
* Use Categories for META Keywords – Enabled
* Use Tags for META Keywords – Enabled
* Dynamically Generate Keywords for Post Pages – Enabled
* Use noindex for Categories – Enabled
* Capitalize Category Titles – Enabled
Once i have changed my All in One SEO Settings to the above i start tweaking my Headspace 2 Settings (Settings > Headspace2)
First of all click “Modules” at the Top and then drag and drop everything but “Page Description” from the Green Simple tab to the Disabled tab, like this…
Then i start altering “Page Settings”. Click each of the following – Home Page, Categories, Posts, Pages, Search Pages and Tag Pages
- These are the Settings i use for each of them
* Home Page – Use a relevant Description for your Blog e.g WhatNiche uses: Whats Your Niche? – Internet Marketing Tips @ WhatNiche.com
* Categories - Use a relevant Description for your Category Archives e.g WhatNiche uses: %%category%% Information – WhatNiche.com
> %%category%% is a Dynamic Field and will be replaced Automatically with your Category Name in the Description
* Posts – The Title for your Posts is quite important and must be relative to its content e.g WhatNiche uses: %%title%%. Internet Marketing Tips @ WhatNiche.com
> %%title%% will be Dynamically replaced with whatever the Title of the Post is, perfect for SEO.
* Pages – Same as above with %%title%% being used in the Description Field
* Search Pages – Same as the above but replace %%title%% with %%searchphrase%%
* Tag Pages – Same as the above but replace %%searchphrase%% with %%tag%%
* Click Save underneath each of the above Fields for which you entered information.
Your Blog is now more Search Engine friendly thanks to All in One SEO and Headspace 2, now onto the next bit!
2. Setting up Permalinks and .htaccess
The next area for SEO is Permalinks which is short for Permanent Links, this area of Wordpress changes how your Blogs content is displayed in the URL Field. This is a very important part of SEO and it will make your Blog much more Search Engine friendly. This importance of this was emphasized in my Search Engine Optimizations post which i suggest you read.
Click Permalinks (as shown in the above screenshot) and you should see this:
The “Custom Structure” is where you need to pay attention to, i recommend adding “/%postname%” to this field. By selecting Custom Structure and entering /%postname% your Wordpress Blog will display URLs very differently for example:
Default:
http://www.whatniche.com/?p=123
Custom Structure – With /%postname% entered:
http://www.whatniche.com/the-complete-wordpress-seo-guide
The reason why this is very important for SEO is simply because Google and other Search Engines will look at your URL and pick out words which will relate to what a user is searching for.
Once you have clicked “Save Changes” you should see the following:
You need to Select all of this and Copy (Ctrl+C) then open up Notepad and Paste (Ctrl+V) this in. Then simply go to File > Save and enter .htaccess as the file name then click Save. Then login to your web host with your favorite FTP Client and upload this .htaccess file to the home directory (public_html).
Then you should be done! Onto the next bit…
3. SEO Friendly Images Plugin
The next Plugin i download is SEO Friendly Images which basically ensures that all images listed throughout my Blog are Search Engine friendly and will be included in the Image Search Results.
Once i have downloaded and uploaded this Plugin i activate it and then i browse to the SEO Friendly Images Administration Page (Settings > SEO Friendly Images)
Simply leave all the Options listed as they are and click “Update Options” then you are all set!
This is exactly how i SEO just about all my Blogs, some of my larger Blogs get in excess of 20,000 visitors a day and 15,000 of these daily visitors are directly from Search Engines.
I recommend you read my Search Engine Optimizations Post as this will help in your journey to making the perfect Search Engine Friendly Blog!
