WordPress SEOGetting Back to the Basics

By Nile Floreshttp://blondish.net

Objective

❏ Explain basics of SEO❏ Explain Social Search and what it means for your site❏ Share strategies to optimize your site’s design❏ Share strategies to optimize your content❏ Share WordPress tools and resources to help you with

SEO

Just a note!

Search engine optimization is not as

difficult as you believe it to be.

What is SEO?

SEO is an acronym for Search Engine Optimization. What is on your website from content, code, and design are basic factors in telling the search engines the organization of your site.

Wikipedia- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of affecting the visibility of a website or a web page in a search engine's "natural" or un-paid ("organic") search results.

The Major Players in SEO

on Your Site

Content Social Search

Design - Graphics

Design -Coding

Content 101

❏ Your site should contain an About page and a Contact page

❏ Video, audio/ podcast, image/ infographics should be accompanied by some text

❏ Blogging is not required, but it certainly is recommended in order to build authority

Blogging 101❏ Write unique and eye-catching article titles.❏ Try to put your keyword in your article title.❏ Your keyword should be mentioned between 2 to 7

times in your article.❏ Do not overstuff your article meta tags with keywords.

Between 3 to 5 is acceptable.❏ Short paragraphs are easier on the eyes so stay away

from long paragraphs.

More Blogging 101❏ People do not have time to read long articles. Think

about breaking those long articles into 2, 3, 4 or more posts.

❏ Recipe and Review sites might want to think about installing Schema or a plugin that will show up on Google’s results with the review markup or recipe markup.

❏ Categories and Tags – Know the difference

Categories versus Tags

Categories

❏ General organization for your site

❏ Only need 1 category per post

❏ You do not need to have a lot of categories for your site

Tags

❏ More detailed organization for your site

❏ Can have more than one tag

Google has made its algorithmsto be more human-like, so do not make your

keywords for robots and aliens…

Unless you don’t want to be found.

Design 101❏ While HTML5 throws valid coding for a loop, it is

important to try to keep to coding your site with clean and well organized markup.

❏ If you are not sure about how to code a site, most new themes in the WordPress Theme Repository have gone through extreme review before being approved. ( http://wordpress.org/themes/)

❏ Keep your navigation clean and to the point.

More Design 101

❏ If you want social network interaction, you might want to try installing a social share type plugin or adding the social buttons manually to your theme’s templates.

❏ Your front page does not always have to look like the traditional blog page. For some site’s this does not work.

❏ Got a business? Your whole site can be on WordPress! Let WordPress do the work and all you have to do is add your content.

❏ Keep the design clean and easy on the eyes for your readers.❏ Watch load time

Remember that WordPress already comes SEO ready out of the box!

Social Search - What?!?Google has been active about making their search engines more human-like and have recognized that...

Content Is King,Visitors are Queen!

You MUST engage your readers in conversation and to social share your articles in order to build authority and rank.

Content Syndication

Content syndication means that you need to actually do something with your content. It could be:❏ Sharing on social networks❏ Getting readers to social share❏ Getting readers to comment

Google sees the importance of your articles by how much engagement is being done and not by older algorithms based on keyword density and backlinks.

Social Share Plugins

❏ Digg Digg http://wordpress.org/plugins/digg-digg/

❏ JetPack http://wordpress.org/plugins/jetpack/

Related Posts

Yet Another Related Post Plugin (YARPP)http://wordpress.org/plugins/yet-another-related-posts-plugin/

WordPress SEO By Yoasthttp://wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-seo/

What Can WordPress SEO Do?❏ Add breadcrumb navigation to page❏ Alter RSS feed with more accurate elements you want

to put in.❏ Option for Sitemaps❏ Controls Page and Post Titles as well as meta❏ Options for permalinks and canonical URLs❏ Import settings from other SEO plugins

Getting Your Site IndexedGoogle XML Sitemaps Pluginhttp://wordpress.org/plugins/google-sitemap-generator/

This plugin gives your site a Sitemaps.org valid sitemap that will alert search engines like Google, Bing, and more that your site exists.

Cache/ Site Load time

❏ W3 Total Cache http://wordpress.org/plugins/w3-total-cache/❏ CDN (Content Delivery Network)❏ Plugins Organizer http://wordpress.org/plugins/plugin-organizer/❏ WP Smush.ithttp://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-smushit/

What Can W3 Total Cache Do?❏ Reduces download times❏ Optimizes serve performance❏ Can be used hand-in-hand with content deliver network

(CDN) services❏ Browser caching❏ Save on bandwidth❏ Works great with dedicated servers that have

memcache (often do not need CDN if you have this)

CDN

CDNs allow your content to be distributed by a large system of multiple servers across the Internet.

CDNs can also provide a level of security.

Plugin OrganizerScripts take up load time. Those contact forms, sliders, and other plugins that use jQuery bog down your load time. This plugin allows you to control exactly what pages on your site will use certain scripts.

For developers, this will cut down on coding time!

WP Smush.it

Compresses images without any loss to the quality.

Any Questions?

Nile Floreshttp://blondish.net

Twitter: http://twitter.com/blondishnetFacebook: http://facebook.com/NileFloresSlideShare: http://slideshare.net/blondishnet