Optimizing your WordPress website for search engines is no easy task. However, figuring out where to start with the optimization process can be even more difficult. Should we start by focusing on keyword research, page speed, or something else entirely?
That is why we have created this complete WordPress SEO guide to help you.
First, we’ll walk you through the fundamental steps of website optimization. Then, we’ll discuss basic tips for improving various aspects of your WordPress site, from URLs to images.
If you’re looking for a quick answer to a specific problem, use our handy Table of Contents to navigate to the topic you need help with.
What is SEO?
translates to “search engine optimization.” This is a practice that helps make a web page visible and get a higher position in search engine results pages (SERPs).
To understand exactly how a web page appears in the SERPs, you need to know how search engines like Google work.
Its process can generally be summarized in three stages:
- Tracking. The search engine launches bots to crawl the web and find new and updated content.
- Indexing. The collected web pages are saved and organized within the database.
- positioning. When a user performs a search, the engine will take the pages it has indexed and determine its position in the SERPs using more than 200 ranking factors, such as backlinks, load time and site structure.
SEO aims to increase the chances of a website ranking high in search engine results by helping search engines perform the aforementioned tasks.
The key benefit of good SEO is that it .
Organic traffic refers to users who reach the target website through unpaid search engine results. This is contrasted with inorganic traffic, which is generated by paid means, such as online advertisements. According to reports, organic traffic accounts for more than 53% of all visitors to a site and generates twice as much revenue as other channels.
Additionally, SEO can help increase brand recognition. The more visible a website is in the SERPs, the more familiar the target audience will be with the business. Getting a high ranking can build credibility within the industry.
The good news is that WordPress is SEO friendly by default. However, in order to rank high in the SERPs, it is important to implement some of the best SEO practices, which we will explore in the following sections.
First things first: optimize your site and web hosting
Before we discuss basic WordPress SEO tips, we need to take a look at optimizing your site and web hosting. Carrying this out will ensure a solid foundation for the rest of the practices. These are the steps you must follow:
1. Choose a reliable web host
The affects many aspects of a site, in particular its performance and security. These elements are essential for SEO, as search engines generally prefer web pages that offer the best user experience.
Therefore, it is a good idea to invest in a web host that can handle the needs of your site. When considering the following factors:
- uptime guarantee. The industry standard is around 99.9%which means that your site should only be offline less than 0.1% weather.
- Means. The bandwidth, storage space, and memory offered should support your site and its growth.
- security features. Make sure your hosting provider is security conscious and provides services such as regular backups, DDoS mitigation, and web application firewalls.
- Easy to use. The service should include an easy-to-use web hosting management control panel.
- Value for money. The price of the hosting should be within your budget and reasonable in terms of the benefits and features offered.
If you are looking for a reliable web hosting provider, consider using . All include an uptime guarantee of 99.9% and LiteSpeed servers to ensure the best performance.
Additionally, our plans offer a 30-day money-back policy, as well as a dedicated support team to help with any WordPress-related issues 24/7.
2. Always use an SSL certificate with the domain
The acronym translates as “secure sockets layer”. This is a security technology used to encrypt the connection between a website and a browser. It prevents unauthorized third parties from accessing sensitive information, such as payment details.
When a domain has SSL certificationthe URL will start with https:// instead of http://. A lock icon will also appear next to the address bar, as in the example below:
Google takes into account the HTTPS protocol when determining a website’s. A good on-page experience rating can be the deciding factor for ranking high in the SERPs if the content on competing websites is of similar value.
Also, if a website doesn’t have an SSL certificate, browsers like Safari and Google Chrome will declare it unsafe and advise visitors not to enter any information. If you have a landing page or an online store, such a warning can drive away potential website traffic and hurt conversion rates.
The good news is that many reliable providers offer , like Let’s Encrypt.
Those with shared and cloud hosting plans can also for free. This will be available in the SSL tab of the hPanel. Just click on Install SSL and select the domain that requires certification:
3. Optimize site speed
Site speed is another crucial factor that affects user experience.
Studies show that the ideal loading time for a website is less than two seconds. If it takes longer than this, the chance of visitors leaving without taking any action increases, leading to low conversion rates.
Google prioritizes two ranking metrics to assess website performance. The first is the Largest Happy Paint (LCP), which records the point at which the main content of a page is likely to have loaded. The ideal PCL is within 2.5 seconds from when the page starts to load.
The second metric is First Input Delay (IDF). This tracks the time from the user’s first interaction with a website, such as clicking a link or touching a button, to the time the browser begins processing the response. A good FID score is less than 100 milliseconds.
It is an excellent tool to check the speed performance of your website. Enter the URL of the website and it will analyze the load time on both mobile and desktop platforms. It will also recommend practices to improve results.
Here are some common methods for:
- Make sure that the resources provided by your web hosting plan, such as bandwidth, disk space, CPU power, and memory, can meet the size and needs of your website.
- Use one to speed up the delivery of content to your visitors’ browsers.
- Update WordPress software and PHP version.
- Look for plugins and themes that may be overloading your site. Update them and uninstall the ones you no longer use.
- Enable to make the site files smaller.
- . In other words, it reduces the number of whitespace and line breaks to reduce file size and load faster.
- which is useful for content-heavy WordPress sites.
4. Turn on content caching
The is another popular tactic to make a website faster. This method temporarily stores copies of site files in visitors’ browsers. The next time the user opens the page, the browser will be able to extract the cached files instead of starting the loading process from scratch.
WordPress website owners can enable caching with a plugin, such as or .
Customers using WordPress web hosting receive a pre-installed caching plugin called . Together with LiteSpeed servers, a site can achieve the best possible performance.
It is important that , especially after making changes to the website. In this way, browsers can delete the old data they have stored and load the most up-to-date version of the web page.
5. Add your domain to Google Search Console
is a free web-based software that helps monitor the SEO compatibility of a website. This can reveal different data about the visibility of your site in search engines. These include:
- The average position in the SERPs.
- The number of clicks generated from Google searches.
- Which particular searches lead users to web pages.
- : A new set of ranking metrics introduced by Google to measure the loading performance, interactivity and visual stability of a site.
To add a website domain to Google Search Console, click start now on the home page. Then sign in with your Google account or create a new one.
You will be redirected to the next page. Choose Domain either url prefix depending on the type of property you want to add.
The option Domain tea will allow you to aggregate data from all URLs on a website. You can verify this type of ownership in the site’s DNS settings.
customers can do this using the DNS zone editor. You can access it by going to hPanel -> Hosting account -> Advanced. Once there, select TXT in the countryside Guy and paste the code in the form TXT value. Then press add record.
When you’re done, return to Google Search Console and click Verify. Please note that changes may take up to 24 hours to update. If verification fails at this point, please try again later.
Choose the option url prefix if you want to analyze specific addresses of a website. This is useful for getting information about the mobile or regional version of the site, for example.
For this option, Google recommends verification by uploading the provided HTML file to your website. Other possible methods include the use of an HTML tag, Google Analytics, Google Tag…
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