WordPress SEO in 2021
Why WordPress SEO? Well, we all love WordPress – It is the best and easiest CMS, and it is also the most SEO-friendly. However, it is a huge “fail” if you think that all you have to do is publish some blog posts, and your site will magically rank in search engines.
How to get started with the WordPress SEO:
1. Use custom URLs / permalinks
Default URLs in WordPress are filled with characters and numbers that have nothing to do with your content. (e.g., YOURSITE.com/?p=143). What you really want are your post titles in those URLs, because they contain the SEO keywords that search engines are looking for.
This is an easy fix. We have a separate guide on that. It only takes a minute, by the way.
2. Get Yoast SEO
What a great tool. This plugin will let you write titles and descriptions and will prompt you to write these so that they are SEO optimized. It will give you an analysis of how you are positioned for SEO. This plugin is constantly updated based upon new algorithms.
Don’t think that you can just add Yoast and sit back. You can’t. For every blog post you write, you need to go through each optimization section and analyze what comes up (example visible in the screenshot below). You will be shown where there are issues, along with suggestions for fixing them.
3. Add captions and “alt” tags to images
You have to put images in your blog posts. No one wants to read large chunks of text without something to pique their interest. This function is already built into WordPress. All you have to do is access the admin area and choose “Media.” Choose the images and begin to add alt tags, titles, and captions.
Make sure that the text you add has your target keywords, but do add context around these keywords rather than “stuffing” them. Doing this will make Google unhappy! You should also know what to do with the other image fields WordPress offers.
4. Security – protect yourself from hackers and malware
WordPress is vulnerable because it is such a popular platform and is used by so many – this makes it a popular target. You need to take steps to secure your theme, your plugins, your file permissions and your databases. This is important for SEO, because search engines like sites that are secure and rank them higher.
Note that all our Care Plans sites are secured and constantly monitored for security vulnerabilities. In case you need more security options you can check how we can help you here.
5. Add a cache plugin and use a CDN to speed up your site's loading.
When people access websites they request information, and that information is then retrieved by the site so that the user can read it. This can be a slow process on the retrieval side if information/data is not cached, or stored.
Using cache plugins allows information to be served up quickly reducing load time, which is always a good thing as far as SEO is concerned. Search engines do not like sites that have slow load times and will penalize them on SERPs.
A content delivery network (CDN) refers to a geographically distributed group of servers which work together to provide fast delivery of your website's assets, making your pages load super fast for visitors around the world. Both Jungle WP Essential and Premium site care plans come by default with CDN distribution.
Please note that cashing is already setup on all our WordPress hosting plans, our Premium care clients also benefit from an additional caching solution installed free of charge for all their WordPress websites with a Premium Care Plan. If you need a premium solution to optimize your site's speed on a Essential Plan, consider getting a Care Plan Addon for your website.
6. Get rid of spam comments
We have all had this experience. We are reading a blog post and then start to review the comments. All of a sudden there is a comment that has nothing to do with the topic but that is basically touting something else with a link. This is comment spam. You are vulnerable to it if you have conversation capability installed on your blog (and you should). Sometimes, especially if these spam comments provide links back to questionable sites, search engines will notice and penalize you.
Again, the fix is easy and simple. Install something like Akismet or some other comment blocker. You want your blocker to check comments, identify those that are spam, and then report them. Most important, they won’t show up on your conversation threads.
Akismet is not free for business blogs – you will have to buy a key.
7. Engage your users
There’s no better way to get started with WordPress SEO than by focusing on how long people hang out on your site or blog. No plugin can do this for you. You are the one who must create great content, so that visitors want to stay and read/view. The longer you can get visitors to stay, the better search engines view you.
Everything you post on your site or your blog must be considered a type of content marketing – you want visitors to find your stuff interesting, unique, and sometimes entertaining and humorous. This means you have engaging ways to present information, lots of visuals and perhaps a video or two.
DollarShaveClub.com has this nailed. The site opens with an explainer video that shows the value and benefit of subscribing to their razor club in a hilarious way. This video has received millions of views.
The site also has a great blog, title, “Bathroom Minutes,” which keeps visitors coming back for more.
Now one thing you can do with WordPress is set up an automatic display of other posts that are related to one a visitor is reading. So, if there is interest, that individual can access other posts on your blog and thus stay even longer – a good thing. For this you just install the Contextual Related Posts plugin.
Here is what you want to “check”:
8. Add social sharing
You have probably already provided for social sharing of your content, but, if by chance you have not, install the Social Media Share Buttons plugin now. The more your content is shared on social media, the more visitors you will get, and the more visitors you get, the better your SEO rankings are.
9. Back it all up
While this is not directly related to SEO, you can lose everything if your site crashes or disappears. All of your hard work is gone. But don't worry, we already got you covered with daily backups or real-time backups depending on your needs.
10. Clean up your database
Every time you edit a post, WordPress creates another copy of it. And that includes all comments and other stuff that has collected with it. All of this takes placed in your database. Eventually, it slows everything down. You can prevent this and keep your load time up to par by opting for full support from our experts who will regularly clean up your database and avoid third party solutions from breaking your site. We can't recommend enough getting a Premium Care Plan to be free of technical hustle. This is more safe and economic.
11. Tell search engines where they can go
Unless you put some restrictions in place, search engines will send their spiders through all of your pages for indexing. This is silly – you don’t need them in your admin area or in your CSS files. So, you can create a robots.txt file that directs them properly. You can use Virtual Robots.txt plugin to create that file and then upload it to your root folder.
Final word
Most of these tips to get started with WordPress SEO are quite technical, and they are important. But understand this: while they may enhance SEO, they will never take the place of your content quality. You have to have amazing content, engaging content, compelling content, content that people want to share. The technical fixes are easy. Crafting exceptional content takes work – get at it. If you struggle with your website SEO, let us know we can help we have inhouse experts who will take the time to give you the best advice for your site.