Optimising SEO for WordPress - Lisa Davis - WordCamp Sydney 2012

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Optimizing SEO for Wordpress

How to include SEO in Wordpress Builds

Lisa Davis ~ Wordcamp

Sydney University ~ July 2012


A bit about Me…

Many roads have led me to here, Including my obsession as a Geeky Chick & the love of Wordpress, I’m a Passionate Cook, Digital iPhone Photographer, Love

Listening to Air Traffic Control & Police Radio on my Phone, I have worked as a Developer for over 20 years

Worked at Opentec – as a Developer, & at ISP’s SEO Project Manager for Websalad

Involved in SEO & Social Media since 2005

Run my own Biz Developing Websites, & integrating e-Commerce

& Social Media & I LOVE my job

Privileged to work for Danny Sullivan's SMX Sydney Australia, NZ & Singapore

(Search Marketing Conference & Expo) Search Engine Bootcamp & Twitter Bootcamp

Sydney/Melbourne

With some bloody awesome SEO/SEM’s


How to include SEO in Wordpress Builds


Optimizing SEO for Wordpress

Wordpress is a super cool tool for developing Websites

Matt Cutts who heads up SPAM at Google suggests using WP

Wordpress has great Usability as a CMS to clients, friendly URL’S with updates occurring in the backend for most Plug-ins.


What is SEO?

SEO refers to techniques that help your website

rank higher in the Organic/natural search

results.

Design Sites for People Not Google's’ Algorithm


Its Like Baking a Cake

• SEO is like baking a Cake – You have ingredients, mixing & baking

• You need all the right ingredients to gain a final result

• Wordpress builds have no excuses For poor SEO, as you have so many attributes, Tags, Categories, Posts & Pages to contribute to the Search Engines


Shocking Sites

Simply Frustra.ng

Poor Naviga*on

Links out to other Sites


Great Sites

CTA – Call to Ac*on

Effec*ve clean Naviga*on Purchase/Sign Up/Language

Referrals

Footer contains Internal Links & Social Media

Links

Content & H1, H2’s


Ranking Factors

•  KEYWORDS IN TAGS H1, H2, H3, H4

•  Keywords in the Title Tag

•  KEYWORDS IN DOMAIN NAME

•  INTERNAL LINK POPULARITY

•  KEYWORDS IN IMAGE TITLES/ALT TEXT

•  QUALITY OF YOUR WEBSITE CONTENT

•  FREQUENCY OF CHANGE TO YOUR CONTENT


404 Pages

•  Create 404 Pages with a Navigation back to the Home Page, Contact Details

•  Don’t make it boring – Have content on there

•  + Site Map


301 Redirects

•  301 redirect is the most efficient and Search Engine Friendly method for webpage redirection.

•  If you move a Page or Post or Delete make sure you inform the Search Engines, Otherwise you will get 404 Pages.

•  These Pages can site in the Search results for some time

•  If you do Site Migrations – Look at your sites performance.

•  Use a Plugin or Remove the page in Google Webmaster Tools


Content

•  Content & good SEO is how the SERPs interpret your site (SERP)= search engine results page

•  SEO copywriting is the art of writing search engine friendly content and adding the right keywords, Title, tags & code.

•  Keywords should appear in the first 2 paragraphs & should not go below the fold


Contextual Copy

•  Content is KING …..

•  Add your essential Keywords & include the Longtail Keywords

•  Keep your copy realistic & relevant

•  Leverage your Header, Footer & Sidebars

•  Google’s Algorithm will penalize you for not using natural language, so keep it real


Keywords

•  Keywords are essential in making your website be found by the Search Engines

•  Keywords should be added into your Contextual Copy, Title Tags, Categories/Tags & Author on each page.~ without being Spamy

•  Great WP Plugin – “Wordpress Meta Keywords” (this adds a really nice attribute on each Page/Post


Longtail

The principle of the Long Tail is the opposite of focusing on the top 10-‐20 keywords for

Keyword Marke*ng

Be sure to think of all cultural & geographical local terms.

Also Include Typos ie. “Quantas” & “Qantas”

Hiking = Bushwalking Singlet = Vest

Thongs = Flip Flops Tea = Dinner Mobile = Cell

Fanny = Bum (Bum Bag in OZ/Fanny Bag in US


Essentials of SEO

•  Keywords & Longtail •  Image Alt Attributes •  Contextual Copy •  URL Structure •  H1’s, H2’s •  Crawling & Indexing •  Title Tags & Anchor Text •  Linking •  XML Sitemaps & Robot.txt Files •  Webmaster Tools & Goolge Analytics •  Meta Descriptions


Images & Alt Text

Include a Keyword when you save Images & upload

an image into Posts/Pages/Widgets

This one on the right I have saved as “sheldon-big-bag-theroy.jpg” as

opposed to 33558790.jpg

<img src="sheldon-big-bag-theroy.jpg" alt=”Sheldon" width="304" height="228" />

Images can be searched for by a term as much as contextual data


Lets get to the basics…..


My top 2 SEO Plugins for WP

All-In-One SEO Pack – This allows you to do Multiple titles & meta of Pages/Posts & Meta Data


Ok, so now how they function


The Plugin – SEO Yoast


Meta Keywords ie

•  Webdesign, Web Design, Web Design Manly, SEO, Search Engine Optimisation,website design sydney, website design sydney, web design manly, web design brookvale, Wordpress Developers, web design northern beaches,

•  Have fun with your Meta Description & Keywords & look at your competitors page source


Wordpress SEO Yoast

Title & Friendly URL

Meta Descrip.on

Organic Snippet Preview of what your result will look like. Add Keywords, Local info like Suburbs & Include some

Telephone Numbers so your Biz can be called from

Smart-‐phones

Yoast Report Card


SEO Check List

Check on your site after its being launched to run

a check of how the Search Engines are viewing your code

Here I have used SEOmoz Tool bar for

Google Chrome as a quick snap shot


Title Tags

• Title Tags are definitely one of the "big three" as far as the algorithmic weight given to them by search engines; they are equally as important as your visible Text copy and the Links pointing to your pages.

• Use strong Keywords

• Location & Company Name

• Create these uniquely by using SEO Yoast for each Page/Post


Meta Tags

•  Meta Tags can be hard Coded or added by adding to the Master of various Plug-ins

•  Yoast WordPress SEO, has a very effective Titles and Meta Tags

•  Once set up it remains the master but can be uniquely overridden on a Page


Permalinks & Search Friendly URL’s

Set your Permalinks in the backend to

Custom Structure to create SEO Friendly

Titles

/%category%/postname%/ ie. www.frenhchomewares/frenchlinen/


Sitemaps

1.  Add your Sitemap through Google Webmaster Tools by adding the URL.

2.  You must fist have the Site Verified By Google by adding a Verification html page in the root directory


Directories & Other Tools


Local Search

You can see here the term “computer

repairs manly” brings up

Paid & the Organic natural

results


Add your Business to Google Places

Google Maps & Google Business is gr8 for Link Juice

• Add Business Info • Photos • Reviews • Google +

• Will appear in results Organically

• Be sure to monitor results for Nega*ve Reputa*on

Management??


Google Sitemaps

Create an XML sitemap that can be submitted to Google, Bing, Yahoo and other search engines to

help them crawl your website better.

Include a Sitemap via SEO Plugins or Thru specific WP Plug-in “Google XML Sitemaps”

Or

Directly through Google Analytics


Link Building

Its all about links

• Inbound, Outbound and internal Links create Link Juice to the Search Engines

• In Wordpress there is a Links Tab – Include high ranking links that a relevant to your site, & create links in your contextual copy

• These might not be visible and displayed on your site, Google will pick up the Link Juice

• Ask for reciprocal links to relevant Websites


Importance of a Robot.txt file

•  When a search engine crawler comes to your site, it will look for a specific file on your site.

•  The robots.txt tells the search engine spider, which Web pages of your site should be indexed and which Web pages should be ignored.

•  Google Webmaster Tools allows you to generate & download the file. (Some Plugin’s have generators)

•  In Google Webmaster Tools-Under Site configuration, click Crawler access.

User-‐Agent: * Allow: / User-‐agent: * Disallow: /cgi-‐bin/


White Hat vs Black Hat

•  Cloaking = White Text on a white background

•  Google can penalize you for this offence

•  Keep your code clean

Ethical, Honest and Compliant

Manipula*ve, Shallow & somewhat devious

White Hat SEO and Black Hat SEO techniques can determine where you website ranks in the search results for your targeted keyword phrases.


Google Panda – Around April 36

• Blog Spamming • Content Farming • SPAM factors • Keywords Stuffing • Over Op.misa.on • Low Quality Content

According to Google’s official blog post when Panda launched

This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-‐quality sites—sites which are low-‐value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful. At the same @me, it will provide beAer rankings for high-‐quality sites—sites with original content and informa@on such as research, in-‐depth reports, thoughBul analysis and so on.


Social Media

• Social media influence increases link sharing, which ultimately results in better search ranking.

• Search Engines love to see changes and regular updates on your Website. Update Posts/News

• Google’s crawling, indexing and rankings are directly influenced by Tweeted links and Facebook shares


List your Local Biz with True Local & other Directories

List your Website and Business In Free Directories, Add as much information

including Photos & Logos.

Ask friends and for referrals on True Local as Directories with the most Reviews List

the highest.

Use Special Offers, such as “20% Off With any

Booking”


Importance of Geo-Caching

•  Make sure you include a an Address in your footer

•  Google’s Algorithm will help your result list organically by suggesting Local Search Results

•  This often occurs by the location of your IP Address

•  When your logged into a GMAIL Account your search results will differ


Tools to Check your SEO

•  Screaming Frog – www.screamingfrog.co.uk

•  Xenu’s - Xenu's Link Sleuth/Integrity – Download

•  SEOmoz Tool Bar

•  Adwords Planner - Google Traffic Estimator

•  Google Chrome Web Develpoer Tools & Plugin to use through the Browser:- SEO for Chrome, MOZBar


Keep up to date

Man Cuns – Google www.mancuns.com/blog/

www.seomoz.org

Danny Sullivan www.searchengineland.com/


Thank you

Lisa Davis

Web Developer and SEO & Social Media Strategist

Email: [email protected] Mobile: 0405-‐236-‐021 Skype: nounou1964

Website: www.wisemonkeys.com.au

TwiNer: SEOnounou Facebook: hnp://www.facebook.com/SEOnounou Pinterest: seonounou/ Instagram: seonounou

Technology

Optimising SEO for WordPress - Lisa Davis - WordCamp Sydney 2012