If you are looking for WordPress SEO tips or WordPress plugins that can help you with SEO (make your website easier to find), there are many solutions to find. Sometimes it is good to use a plugin, sometimes it’s better not to…In this article, we share 10 great SEO tips, tricks, and plugins to enhance your WordPress website.
WordPress SEO tips and Plugins
There are many tens of thousands of plugins you can install to make your WordPress website work better. Especially when you are looking for plugins that should help you with SEO (make your website easier to find), there are many plugins to find. One even more beautiful than the other. Therefore our top 10 with rules and plugins. Sometimes it’s good to use a plugin, sometimes better not to…
1. Backlinks are important but…
Only exchange backlinks with websites that are relevant for your site or target group. It’s not about quantity but quality. The times of “who has the most backlinks” are long gone. There was a time when many parties offered so-called backlink packages. After all, if there are 1000 and websites pointing to your website, then your website must be very important, right? Unfortunately… Search engines no longer look at the number of backlinks but rather at the quality and relevance of the backlinks. If 1,000 Chinese or Australian websites point at you and write about other subjects, then that is suspicious and will have the opposite effect.
WordPress plugin/tip: our tip for backlinks, don’t use plugins. Also, do not use paid services. These do more harm than good.
Make sure that “colleague” websites (preferably with the highest possible page-rank) refer to you, websites that write about the same subjects. Or at least a page specifically about that subject. Of course, your internal link building must also be well built. By referring to relevant pages and messages within your pages and messages, you show search engines which articles you find relevant and therefore important for visitors.
2. Use SEO optimized names for your media/images
Always add an ALT and TITLE tag. It may sound stupid but think of creative and good names for your images. Content is of course of great importance, but don’t forget the quality and power of well-used images. Make sure you replace the standard names of images, for example, “DSC93948.jpg”, with what the image actually says. For example “Grand-Prix-Max-Verstappen.jpg” if it is a picture of Max Verstappen during his first Grand Prix. Don’t forget to change the ALT and the TITLE tag as well.
3. Use short and powerful permalinks / Titles
Make sure your URL is logical and describes in four or five words what your page or message is about. For example, avoid articles and prepositions such as “the”, “it”, “one”, “on”, “at”, “through”, etc. This says nothing about the subject. The first 4 words of your URL are the most important.
WordPress plugin/tip: Go to Settings > Permalinks, here you can see and modify your WordPress Permalinks structure. It is a good idea to choose the structure “/post-name/” or “/category/post-name/”. For the first setup, you need to change the default setting to /%postname%/. For the second structure, you have to change the setting to /%category%/%postname%/.
4. Use a sitemap and add an XML format
It is wise to create a Sitemap in XML format. This is a fairly easy job with for example the WordPress plugin “Google XML Sitemaps”. By doing this you make the life of Google a lot easier to inventory your website, this goes a lot faster and of course, this also works to your own advantage.
WordPress plugin/tip: Probably the most used plugin is the Yoast plugin: the Yoast SEO plugin. However, we find it more interesting to also use the “Google Sitemap Generator” plugin to have Sitemaps created automatically. After installing the plugin go to Options > Google sitemap and click on “Build sitemap manually”. Now you have created a Sitemap for your WordPress website where new pages or messages are added automatically.
Extra tip: Don’t forget to upload the Sitemap to Googe’s Search Console after installation and configuration.
5. Link all your pages to social networks!
Fun or not nice, visible or present on social media is actually a must. Make sure you are present, even if you don’t do much with it. Did you create a new message? Or update an old page (don’t forget to give it a new date!)
WordPress plugin/tip: There are hundreds of plugins for automatically posting Facebook or Twitter messages alone. But almost all of them are made for the English language or the result looks like robot language. It is best to create Twitter or Facebook yourself, this way you have the most control. Then don’t forget to include a link to your website or page. Try not only to do this to your own website but also to other relevant websites. The search engines will see your “social page” as an important and independent page.
6. Do not use Adobe Flash
The beauty of WordPress is that there are thousands and thousands of templates available that give your website a completely different look in no time at all. Unfortunately, there are still templates available that use (Adobe) Flash. If valuable segments of your website are built with Adobe Flash, that it is not or for a large part not visible to search engines. Also important is that this segment is not shown on iPhones and iPads.
WordPress plugin/tip: Make exclusive use of the possibilities within WordPress, not because of WordPress itself but because of search engines like this more. In addition, Flash is not shown on Apple devices in particular, so you miss a large audience. If parts of a template use HTML 5, please prefer this.
Check out our infographic!
The most important SEO trends of 2018
7. Use so-called “Breadcrumbs” to lead visitor the way
Breadcrumbs or “breadcrumb path” are often displayed on the website as “Blog > Subject > Message name”. This is a valuable and important part of any SEO strategy. This because it allows your website to show the content in a hierarchical way.
WordPress plugin/tip: By using a crumb path you can quickly indicate the visitor where he is. When a visitor lands on a page with a certain topic, he or she can easily go to a higher level topic by clicking on it. This is actually included in every good WordPress template by default, if this is not the case then there are some good and free plugins available. We can recommend Yoast SEO plugin for this. A bit of technical knowledge is, unfortunately, a requirement because for most plugins a piece of code will have to be placed on the page (page.php) or message page (single.php) before it becomes available for every visitor.
8. Use keywords selectively but above all; strategically.
Make sure that your story is straight. Using the right keywords should play an important role in every SEO initiative you take. But don’t forget that not only is a scientific approach not enough, it must also be ‘natural’. Many experts indicate that the subject should be about 5 to 7% of the total. There are several online tools available to make your life easier in this area; “Wordtracker Keyword Tool”, “Google’s free Keyword Tool for Google Ads” and “Google Suggest”.
WordPress plugin/tip: Make sure you use the most important keywords throughout your website. Of course in the content itself, but also in the page title, in the Headers and as ALT text to images (see also tip 2). Search engines search your entire website. All steps are of great importance, but perhaps the use of the right keywords in the Headers like h3, h2, and h1 is the most important.
9. Pick an SEO optimized and mobile-friendly template
In tip 6 I already touched on the WordPress template. WordPress has 100,000 and different website templates. But not every template is SEO optimized and responsive. Although the last-mentioned template is on the rise to become a standard, we advise you to check this beforehand. Well, functioning templates that also load quickly are of (life) importance to distinguish yourself from your competitors and to be found well in search engines.
WordPress plugin/tip: Useful WordPress plugins are “wpSEO”, “All in One SEO Pack” and also “SEO by Yoast“. Especially the latter is incredibly strong. With more than 5 million downloads it is one of the most used SEO tools in the world. Nice fact, this plugin is from a Dutch firm, is often updated and is one of the most up-to-date plugins of the moment.
10. Good, relevant and unique content is still of great value
A good SEO plugin will certainly help you make your WordPress website easier to find. But don’t forget that content is ultimately the biggest factor in the whole. So concentrate on making good texts and use your own writing style so that your visitors will appreciate you. Put the interests of your visitors first and foremost the interests of being found well in search engines. But don’t lose sight of the importance of search engines ;-).
WordPress plugin/tip: There are very advanced plugins available where after entering a subject, text (content) can automatically be generated from the plugin’s own chosen twitter, facebook and website data. Sometimes these plugins give a “funny” result, but usually, the text is not quite right. The ultimate tip to achieve good content is by putting time and attention into it. Don’t write an article for having an article, but research your topic properly. Shot parts of the text, light some pieces in a thicker printed font or use special lighting techniques such as quote or pieces of text in a larger font. This not only shows the visitor what important information or pieces of text are within your text, search engines also appreciate this.
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If you enjoyed this article, we recommend the articles below. If you require more detailed WordPress SEO tips, please contact us for a free consult. We are a digital marketing agency on the Costa del Sol that is known for its quick and personal support.
Why free websites are often not a good idea – https://fmlmarketing.com/free-websites/
The clear and present danger of not ‘owning your website – https://fmlmarketing.com/danger-not-owning-your-website/