3 Methods For WordPress On Page SEO is a post from: #1 Melbourne SEO Services Company

WordPress is a brilliant platform that is not just limited to bloggers, but also very useful for those who would like to create a content based theme site with good on page SEO, or even a sales letter. For a fair amount of time, WordPress has been more related to bloggers, however with the release of such themes as Thesis, and other more well known theme creators that have ever started to work with the people behind the platform, such as WooThemes, this platform really is starting to open up to a very large scale audience, and no longer limited as such, to bloggers only.

Over the time that I have been using WordPress and been practicing SEO and social media marketing, there are a few very solid tips that I can offer you on the basics of how to optimize your WordPress web site so that the search engines will fall head over heels for your web site!

Use Text For Your Site Title

Most WordPress themes will allow you to use text for your website title rather than using an image. The bonus of this is that if your website has a very keyword rich domain name and title, you dont want to waste an opportunity to put that awesome title in some H1 tags. As WordPress uses H1 tags in most themes by default for the main site title, this is possibly the easiest on page SEO that you will ever do with WordPress.

Sure, the plain text look can look quite boring, however with WordPress allowing easy customization of CSS in most themes, you can easily style your title. If this is too limiting, there is also the option to learn how hooks work in WordPress (its actually really quite easy, and I cant understand a word of PHP mind you…), which will allow you to completely style the entire header on your own, and create a style that is truly unique to your site, whilst keeping true to using a text title.

Change Your Permalink Structure!

I honestly can not believe how many people do not change their permalink structure. In older versions of WordPress, this used to be a hard task at times, with editing of the htaccess file needed in most cases, however with the latest version of WordPress, this is simply done with the touch of a button. In most cases, you will want your permalink to be category/post title based, however there are many more other options that are available, and can be discovered in the WordPress codex.

The structure that I recommend to all people as being the most effective permalink structure that I have used is /%category%/%postname%/. Not only are the keywords in your title going to be emphasized in your URL, but you also have a chance of ranking for your category keyword as well based on its appearance in the URL.

Utilize Your Footer!

Permitting that the theme that you are using allows for editing of your footer within its usage clause, adding links in your footer to categories can be highly beneficial. A lot of WordPress blogs use Java navigation for the top navigation, which as most of us know is not good for SEO as the search engine spiders have a great deal of difficulty reading links in Java. Keeping in mind that some tail keywords are too long to add to your navigation as well, whilst remaining tidy and user friendly.

The trick here is to create a list of category (keyword) links to their relevant archive pages in your footer. Make sure to emphasize these in bold as well. What this will in turn do, is it will allow the search engine spiders and crawlers to further visit more pages on your WordPress website, and will index them accordingly. If you use pages instead of posts, then these can be used for your level one pages, just be sure to link these pages internally to their child pages.

There are plenty more ways to optimize WordPress for SEO, such as the world famous All In One SEO plugin that I am starting to believe that WordPress should integrate as a new feature, however the above three methods are fairly simple and easy methods that will simply allow the search engine robots and crawlers to better index your website much easier, without having to rely on other extreme off page measures.

Content Management Sites – WordPress is a post from: #1 Melbourne SEO Services Company

WordPress

Is WordPress Good For Content Sites?

WordPress is a fantastic blogging platform that is supported by literally tens of thousands of plugins that are developed by a passionate community. When putting ‘Content Sites’ into the same sentence as ‘WordPress’, one thing needs to be addressed first. Is it the correct platform for your site? I mean, WP is a fantastic blogging platform, so one could only assume that creating a content based site on this platform may not be the best idea, however, with a few basic guidelines, it can actually be a great CMS for a content based site. Take the very website that you are reading right now for example. Let’s cover a few basics…

3 Level Page Structure

Those of us who have been in the webmaster game for some time know and understand that having a three level page structure is not only easier for the visitor, but better for the search engines. There are fewer chances of the search engine spiders getting lost in your site, and visitors can easily use the navigation that you provide to find their way around without getting lost in an extremely deep page structure.

When using WordPress as a CMS for a content based site, I recommend using pages for your first tier of pages, then use child pages for your third tier of pages. Not only do the URL’s to these pages look nicer, it just looks more like a content based site rather than a blog disguised as a content based site. Let’s not forget that later down the track if you choose to add some persona to your website, you can easily add a blog using posts and categories.

Page Titles, No Follow, and Search Engine Crawlers

For pure rock solid ‘on page SEO’ on your WordPress content site, keywords in your page titles are key. Of course, for the sake of Navigation, you don’t want to have huge titles like you may do if using WordPress for a blog, but this can actually work in your favour. Short and straight to the point titles do tend to attract people rather than a sales pitch for your content and can work better as a ‘call to action’.

Of course, if your titles are not able to be keyword optimized all that well, there is always the ‘no follow’ attribute, (which I personally use like it is going out of fashion, and I will explain how to make your site crawler friendly shortly) however implementation of this can be tricky, as this can vary from theme to theme. In all cases, the WordPress Codex is always going to be a great resource for you to monitor, and search for instructions if this need arises. I would love to post instructions on this, however if I were to do this, it would end up in the form of a 128 page eBook as there are so many variations of this method between the different WordPress versions and themes that are circulating today, and equally as many plugins.

Adding Keyword Links In The Footer

After adding the ‘no follow’ attribute to your page links in the main navigation, you are going to need to consider exactly how these pages are going to be indexed. This involves being a bit crafty, not only in creating good keyword based anchor text for page links in your footer or sidebar, but in developing a great internal link structure between pages. Let’s put it this way, if you use a keyword on a page that is in direct relation to a keyword that you are focusing on another page, you would be crazy not to internally link that keyword to that related page. This increases your page views, and also builds your credibility as a reliable source of lots of information.

At the end of the day, there is a lot of talk about WordPress being used as the basis of a content based site. Some people speak out against it, I have personally had some great results with it. There are a few golden rules, however, as long as you use your common sense, creating a content based site using WordPress is a simple task that is further simplified in the long run by the easy to use CMS that WP is.