In this internet-centric world, optimization of search engines (SEO) has become an important avenue for generating direct traffic to your websites. Blogger and site owners applaud WordPress due to its responsive web design. Nonetheless, having a WordPress site does not mean you can blog with little consideration of SEO. You have to learn how to implement the best practices when writing such that more people will be able to read your content online.
In this article, we will focus on the main steps you should implement in order to create SEO-optimal blog posts in WordPress which will help you to reach higher in the Search Engines.
Begin with the Keyword Research
It is crucial to ensure that the keywords selected for SEO are the most relevant. A keyword is a word or a phrase that is most likely going to be typed into a search engine by the end-users. For keyword search, one can use a lot of software such as:
Google Keyword Planner
Ahrefs
SEMrush
Ubersuggest
For your features to be useful, you need to pick high searched and hyper competitive keywords. After you have generated a list of potential keywords, choose one of these keywords, which corresponds best to your blog, and use it effectively within the body of the article.
Pro Tip: Focus on long-tail keywords. These are more specific phrases that typically have lower competitiveness however greater intent. For example, rather than going for “SEO tips”, targeting a phrase like “Best practices for writing SEO blogs in WordPress” would be more suitable.
Create an Exploiting Headline
Once again, the title of the sex blogger’s post is very important in regard to search engine optimization. It acts not only as the top line of the web-page returned by the search engine but it also helps improve the chances of a reader clicking it. A sufficient title must contain:
Your primary phrase or keyword.
Be interesting and give good reasons for a reader to act.
Be around 50 – 60 characters long so that it is not cut off in the search results.
As an illustration, instead of writing your descriptive article as SEO Writing Tips, an energetic description can be “10 Step Guide on Writing Blog Posts that Are Search Engine Friendly.”
Optimize the Utilization of Headings
Headings (H1, H2, H3, etc.) are not only for the purpose of making your content appear neat and tidy. They assist search engines in knowing what your article is all about. Thus, here is what they are to be used for:
H1: The title of your blog post should be the first heading of the article.
H2: H2 headings should be employed to address the high level tree structure of your content.
H3: H3 or H4 can be used for H2 subsection down to only H2 level of heading.
Try to include your exact keyword or its variation in some of the headers, although this should not be forced. This will help in making your blog post emphatically organized and reader friendly as well as search engine friendly.
Create Content that is Unique, Interesting, and Useful
Google loves content that is useful to the audience and knows how to rank the well-written content in part using this guideline. Always aim at writing content that is substantial, appropriate, and captivating about the intended audience’s challenges. Here are some tips:
Use short paragraphs and bullet points: This helps to present your ideas plainly and to the point, making it easy to readers to browse.
Writing By Users’ Intent: The material created should expose the query users were trying to answer when they searched the content.
Worry about the ease of reading: The readability of the content can be assessed by using tools like the Yoast SEO plugin installed in WordPress. Write short sentences and use simpler words that people can understand.
In fact, it is Google’s courtesy that it encourages longer articles, complex in nature, and therefore keep the reader’s attention for not less than 800 words (as is the length of this particular article!). However bear in mind that that quality and worth has to be bodied in your content.
Improve Meta Descriptions and URLs
A meta description is a concise representation of your blog post that appears below the heading and acts as a summary of your blog post. However, meta descriptions does not directly affect the ranking, but can increase number of clicks and visits. This is how you’ll be able to write a perfect meta description:
Add your primary keyword.
Make it 150-160 characters.
Do not forget to make it interesting to make the user want to click on it.
For example, instead of the title “This article is about writing SEO-friendly blog,” you could use the phrase “Master the art of writing WordPress SEO-friendly blog posts with these top rated tips guaranteed to help increase your site’s optimization.”
Moreover, ensure your URLs are short and easy to understand. WordPress gives you an opportunity to edit the slug. A portion of the URL after the website address. Add your keyword in the slug and omit filler words like ‘the’ a’ etc.
Include Internal and External Linking
Linking is very important so much so that it is an SEO aspect. Internal linking as well as external linking is all useful in SEO and here is the reason why.
Internal links: Links that connect internal pages in the site. They help retain users’ attention to the site for long periods, share link value, and enhance the organization of the site. For example, you can do this by providing a link to another relevant post or a service that relates to the topic and has more details.
External links: Links that connect your web page to other addresses also known as websites provided outside your own. Linking to external material of a good standard indicates to the search engines that your content is trustworthy and adds value to the readers.
Take for instance a case where you are writing about SEO best practices, you might as well refer to google’s own resources on SEO including the beginner’s guide to SEO.
Photographs Enable Better Content Interaction and viewer’s honesty
Pictures increase the attractiveness of your content. They also allow for certain optimization in regards to SEO. Let’s take a look at these:
The file name should give a clue about the content: Rather than uploading an image termed ‘IMG_12345.jpg,’ change it to something comparable to – ‘SEO-friendly-blog-post-tips.jpg’.
Beware the use of an ALT tag: The alt text is necessary to search engines when indexing images. Provide your keyword in the alt text where applicable but do not overstuff.
Making sure images are optimized: Considerable size image files will result in slow website loading speeds. There are utility applications such as TanPNG or certain wordpress plugins which can be used to reduce the size of the images and keep webpages quick loading.
Easy to load pages elevate the user experience and hence the search engine optimization aspects of a website.
Use of SEO plugins
Earlier days with regards to Search Engine Optimisation or SEO were not that easy. Fortunately nowadays, WordPress has offered a number of plugins which facilitates this great feature, Yoast SEO plugin. Yoast performs suggestions on the areas you should optimize for SEO as well as those that need to be improved in order to make the post readable to its audience. Suggestions include the density of keywords used, creation of meta descriptions as well as internal linking among others.
Rank Math is another helpful plugin that most blogs and websites seem to embrace due to its usability and several benefits on search engine optimization. Equipped with these knowledge and skills, improving the SEO of your blog post will not be a daunting task.
Mobile Optimization
Mobile usage surpasses PC usage with more than fifty percent traffic derived from mobile devices. Google opts for mobile first indexing, which indicates that the mobile version of your website becomes the basis from which rankings are determined. Here’s what you can do:
Make sure that the WordPress theme you use is very responsive in nature meaning it will automatically resize itself to fit whatever screen size is available.
Create a simplified, navigable, and mobile responsive design.
Do not include large pop-ups or designs that have no relevance to the mobile user.
It is not just necessary for ranking a site in search engines but also for pleasing the users that access the site on mobile devices.
Monitor and Update Your Content
To effectively rank a site and enhance search engine optimization, content publication is not a one-off occasion. Monitor the performance of your blog posts using tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console. Note the posts that you have written and how well they are ranking for your targeted keywords and look for methods on how to refresh such posts and make them even better as time goes by.
It is possible to ‘revive’ the previous content that has already been published with the changing information, new data and graphs, or properties such as additional sections. It can be a considerable supplemental support for SEO promotion.
You can always contact us for further questions that you may have, and our team will be happy to assist you.