How to Optimize Your WordPress Website for Google Search

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Vaibhav gave all his sincere efforts in writing SEO-optimized content for his WordPress Site but, could not get fruitful traffic on his page! All the WordPress SEO guides that he followed were too technical to be implemented by a new user like him.

Have you also been in Vaibhav’s shoes? If yes, then this page is meant for you!

The biggest reason why people choose a WordPress website to start a blog is that these websites are SEO-friendly. Although WordPress generates codes based on some of the best SEO practices, WP Site Optimization is important if you need more traffic to your new build WordPress website.

Therefore, in this blog, we have mentioned some of the WordPress SEO best practices that will help you improve your website’s presence and gain organic traffic. Firstly, let us brief you on the importance of SEO.

What is SEO?

SEO or Search Engine Optimization is the process of optimizing a website and its content to enhance its relevance on the search engines such as Google and Yahoo. SEO is a process of attracting high traffic to your website by optimizing content that search engine algorithms understand.

Why is SEO Important?

Search engines in today’s date are the biggest source of generating traffic for a website owner. These search engines use advanced algorithms to determine whether the website is relevant to its target audience.

No matter how developed the algorithms may be, unoptimized content will make it difficult for the website to make it appear on the search engine. Thus, it is very important to perform on-page SEO even for WordPress Content.

To understand SEO, you do not necessarily have to be a WordPress developer or a techie geek. With these 7 easy-to-implement tips, you can easily upgrade your website with WordPress-optimized content.

7 Tips to Optimize Your WordPress Website for Search Engine

Here is a 7-step SEO guide that can improve the presence of your WordPress website on the search engine ranking page.  Following some or all of the tips can help you gain and retain organic traffic on your website for the long term.

1. Check the visibility settings.

Suppose you are updating and optimizing your WordPress website meanwhile, a user land on one of the broken links on your webpage. This broken link can harm you by making the potential consumer bounce back from your page.

To avoid such situations, WordPress comes with a feature in its setting where you can turn on or off your website’s presence for the search engine. This feature is found in the dashboard “Setting” and “Reading” of your WordPress website. Hence, while working on your webpage, always ensure to visit the dashboard and change the visibility settings to make your WordPress website invisible while working. Also later, turn off the setting so that your audience can view the updated page again.

2. Keep the Permalinks Updated.

Suppose you have build-up a WordPress website for health and fitness and you write up a blog for “top healthy foods” but the link of your blog URL looks like “www.xyl.com/w%te%fq156-qwra

In such a case both, the search engine and the audience may not understand what the blog is about. As a result, the search engine may not rank the page on the SERP. Also, the user may not understand the credibility of the page and may bounce back.

To save yourself from such a situation, while performing WordPress SEO Optimization, always upload the descriptive permalinks.

Permalinks or permanent links are the dedicated URLs for the specific sections of your website. This permalink can help the previous URL look like “www.xyl.com/top-healthy-foods

To change the existing permalink to a descriptive URL, navigate to the WordPress dashboard and click “settings”. Further, reach out to the “Permalinks” section and update the changes and click on “save changes”.

3. Use Categories and Meta tags.

The first thing that attracts the user to click on the page from a number option is the tags and description of the page. The meta tags and descriptions help the user to determine whether their queries will be resolved on the given page and whether they should click on the page or not.

Meanwhile, the tags and categories also help the search engine to understand the structure and the content of your website. Thus, it is very important for your WordPress website’s visibility that you use Tags and Categories on the different sections of your web page.

4. Choose SEO Plugins

Plugins such as All in One SEO pack, Smart Crawl Pro, and Yoast SEO are some of the best on-page SEO plugins that help you to enhance the features of your WordPress website. These plugins help you to implement tags, build XML sitemaps and update your website’s content with the right use of Keywords.

To use the SEO Plugins, you have to select the best SEO plugin for your webpage and then simply download and install it to improve your on-page SEO immediately.

5. Practice Using XML Sitemaps

XML Sitemap is like the encyclopedia of your WordPress website that comprises all the pages of your website arranged. Although an XML website may be of no use to your audience, it can greatly help the search engine to read out the content on your page and rank it on the SERP.

Unless you are an extensive WordPress developer yourself, it may be difficult for you to build up an entire XML Sitemap. Not to worry as you can simply install one of the SEO plugins and create XML sitemaps for yourself automatically.

6. Add Internal Links

The search engine determines the authority of your webpage by reading the internal linking within your web’s content. Thus, it is very important to create internal linking within your web pages, blogs, posts, images, and other content.

Creating interlinks is an easy process. Simply visit your WordPress website and select the content you wish to interlink. Further, navigate to the WordPress toolbar, and click on the link button. Once the toggle opens, paste the selected URL of your website that you wish to link.

7. Choose between www or non-www

Last but not least, choose whether you want your website’s URL to have www or not. If you choose the URL with www, it should look like “www.xyl.com” while without www, the URL should look like “xyl.com”

The search engine usually interprets the two options as different domain names thus, it is important that you choose one domain and abide by it throughout your website. keeping uniformity in the domain name and using it frequently across your WordPress website makes your website authentic for the search engine hence improving its search ranking on the search engine ranking page.

Summing Up

 No matter whether you have just started or have already handled your WordPress website for a while, you can simply improve your website for google searches. Each step mentioned above can play a crucial role in WordPress SEO and help your website rank higher in the search engines.

Although the aforementioned steps are some of the best SEO practices to help your website thrive, you can simply look for a team of SEO experts who understand your website your way and provide you with the best SEO services.

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Akshay Sihag

Akshay Sihag is the CEO & Founder of Devgraphix. He's a Professional Full Stack Web Developer and an Entrepreneur who helps other people decide their career path and educate them on how to convert their skills and passion into a full time business.

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