Search Engine Optimization Tips and Tricks for WordPress

Promoting a website is not an easy task. There is the idea that if a site is built people will magically flock to it; this is simply not true. When website owners speak of receiving a large amount of free traffic, it can be assumed that this free traffic came from a great search engine optimization plan.

As a whole, WordPress is very SEO friendly, and sites built with it usually rank quite quickly, even if it’s only for obscure terms. Still, there are some steps that can be taken to increase the optimization of WordPress. Here are some WordPress SEO tips.

Change the Default Permalinks

Permalinks are the URL that points to specific entries in a blog. By default, WordPress permalinks are not SEO friendly. For example, instead of including specific terms in the link, the default permalinks will look something like http://thewebsite.com/?p=20002 with the number being the post number assigned by WordPress.

These permalinks can be changed to something more SEO friendly by specifying a custom structure in the permalinks option. A common custom structure would be %category%/%postname%. When this is input in the custom structure box and saved, the permalinks will then look like http://thewebsite.com/thecategory/the-name-of-the-post. Additionally, pages will be named by the title of the page for example http://thewebsite.com/about.

Install All in One SEO Pack

All in One SEO Pack is an essential wordpress plugin. This plugin helps turn WordPress from a blog into a complete content management solution.

Each page and post can have a search engine optimized title and summary. Additionally each page and post can have keywords assigned to it. Meta tags can be automatically generated; and the plugin also helps avoid duplicate content from being indexed.

All in One SEO Pack is installed just like any other WordPress plugin and it works on versions 1.5 and up.

Research Keyword Optimization

Researching keywords is an important part of search engine optimization for any content management solution.

Keywords not only need to be focused on in terms of content, but also they should be implemented in the sites basic structure. For example, WordPress categories and tags should focus on keywords that are likely to bring in visitors to the site.

This can also be useful in picking keywords to use with the All in One SEO Pack.

Free tools like SEO Book Keyword Suggestion Tool and Google Adwords Keyword Tool can help narrow down keywords to focus on. For more advanced features and in-depth research, users may consider purchasing a premium tool like Wordtracker.

Search engine optimization for WordPress is a key task that will produce great results.

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