WordPress SEO 2016: The Essentials You Must Know

(This is a guest contribution by Saurabh Tiwari. Read more about him in the author bio below the post)

Whenever we talk about WordPress (SEO), every blogger and SEO experts are in search of new SEO techniques to improve the ranking of their website or blog, especially in Google search. As we all know all that Google mostly trust on the content published by bloggers or content writers, therefore, we can say SEO ”Search engine optimization” is still active.On the other hand, as you know in the last few years Google is updating its algorithm and changed the definition of SEO. That means all those black-hat tactics were not only moved to the backside, but they also receive huge penalties including loss of ranking and also even being banned from Google. So, that means we have to change our SEO tactics according to any new guideline.

Coming to the point WordPress SEO can be hard if you aren’t familiar with the basic techniques. I hope you all reading this post know “What WordPress is ?” But, still I am adding a definition here, just in case if there is anybody reading this post is not familiar with WordPress.

What is WordPress?

Whether you are a new blogger or a content writer, WordPress is one of the most popular and resourceful content management systems (CMS).
By WordPress, it’s so easy to set up a good-looking, fully-hosted blog or website using one of its many responsive templates, or you can get into the world of self-hosting and coding to build your professional site from WordPress.

Getting Started with Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO is an a way of increasing traffic to a website. It involves optimizing the website itself as well as working with external sources to achieve the maximum possible listing on a search engine’s results page.

Here, I’m going to mention some basic tips and tricks that let you spoil in clean, distraction free SEO. So, let’s get started and reveal these tips to the fullest.

Simple tips and tricks to get noticed by the Search Engine:

#1Use SEO Friendly Themes & Optimized WordPress Plugins:-

Always use simple and light coded theme which runs fast. Clean code means the developer or admin took the time to make sure that the theme was up to date with the latest SEO practices to ensure that the theme is prepared with a structure that Google Bots like.

Yoast WordPress SEO plugin helps you to keep track of your optimization and allow you to modify other features of your blog without the need for various plugins. Yoast will keep your website spotless and on track.

Yoast Plugin helps you out regarding

Post title and Meta description Creation

Robots Meta Configuration

Canonical Issue (WWW or Non-WWW)

XMl Sitemaps Creation

RSS enhancements

Control your robots.txt and .htaccess

#2 Setup Attractive Permalinks

Permalinks are simply the design of the URLs for your posts. Whenever you publish a new post, WordPress has a default setting for this, which looks like http://www.yoursite.com/?p=38, this URL says you nothing. I mean you are unable to understand what your page or post is. But no need to worry about, WordPress makes it easy to set up custom permalink with own. Which means SEO Friendly links.

Here is an example:-

Attractive Permalink: www.yoursite.com/wordpress-seo (Post Name Option in WP)
Or this: www.yoursite.com/2015/02/wordpress-seo-tips (Month and Name Option in WP)

#3 Content Is the Best Optimization.

There’s no better thing than writing an article for people rather than for Google, which helps you to get tons of links from relevant bloggers or relevant niche sites. If you put your hard work into writing a high-quality content (means unique, fresh, helpful, shareable) and frequently engage with other niche bloggers, they’re going to link to your posts.

Here I’m going to mention some great tools to analyze few important details about the content of your website or blog.

Site-liner– It provides complete details that how much content of your blog/website is duplicate.

You can also check out plagiarism of your blog post/pages or both with these two tools:

Plagiarismsoftware.net (1000 words Limit)

Smallseotools.com/plagiarism-checker (1500 words Limit)

Lsigraph– We know that Google had started working on Latent Semantic Indexing. LSI means essential keyword which is related to a keyword. This tools quickly generates a list of LSI keywords which you add in your post for getting more organic traffic.

Grammarly– Grammarly is one of the most favorable tools for writing quality content. It helps to eliminate grammatical errors and improve the article structure.

Remember – Don’t get criticized by Google’s creatures, namely, Penguin, Panda, and Hummingbird.

#4 Highlight Informative Content

Using Heading Tags correctly is one step in the right direction when it comes to good SEO practices. Heading tags are available in the editor where you can pick H1 to H6. H1 heading tag is always used for the main heading, then H2 is for Additional, and then H3-H4 for subheadings.

#5 Keywords, Keywords, Keywords!

Keywords are still a backbone for SEO. Make sure that you are researching your keywords in an additional way. You need to understand traffic patterns, how people search anything in a search engine. It will help you target audience in a better way.

#6Optimize Your Images

DO you know the images we are using on our blog and website should be optimized for better loading speed and ranking. Yes, optimization of images in your blog is another important step to you have to do for better ranking of your site.

Whenever you add an image to your post, you have to consider about this area, add details about the image:

#7 Title, Caption, Alt, Description

Well, the most important area you have to focus on is it the Alt Area. A crawler that crawls your web page doesn’t see the images that your audiences do. However, they see the Alt text that you include in the image. Therefore, make sure to write something that indirectly relates to the images and post. Alt tags are mandatory for valid HTML.

#8 Use Interlink and Anchor Text Correctly

In simple terms, “Interlinking” means those links from one blog to another niche blog. For example, guest blogging in which we link another niche post which is not only useful regarding SEO, but also it gives more chance for your readers to read more post and hence increasing the page views.

#9Make Social Media Your Focus

Of course, we should have never forgotten the importance of content. But in 2016, you should have to focus on social media if you want to get ranked. And if you also want more and more lead in your business, then you should have to involve with your brand and talk with your clients and viewers. Without social media, you are just another faceless online business. It’s time to get personal. Focus on the main social media sites. Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Instagram.

Wrapping It Up

There are lots of other tips and tricks to enhance the search engine visibility, but these tips are some of the simple ones that you can use on your WordPress site. Also, happy to see your opinions and thoughts on this topic in the comments column.

Author Bio: Saurabh Tiwari is a webmaster and content writer at ALL DIGITAL TRENDS and TECHIBHAI. He loves to interact with like-minded bloggers and writes about SEO, Web design and web development tricks and much more.

Image courtesy:Pixabay
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