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4 Basic WordPress SEO Optimization Tips

| August 20, 2011 | 38 Comments More
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This is a guest post by Harsh Agrawal who blogs at ShoutMeLoud. If you would like to write for NetChunks check our Guest posting guidelines.

When it’s come to selecting Blogging platform, WordPress is one of the top choice for it’s scalability and SEO advantage. Now when we say WordPress is SEO optimize, it’s actually a myth. WordPress is a raw platform but we can always configure SEO options by various method which will help you to make your blog a search engine friendly blog.

Here I’m talking about 4 basic WordPress SEO steps which every blogger should follow from the day one.

WordPress Permalink:

This is the very first step which I would suggest after Installing WordPress. WordPress default permalink is search engine enemy buy by going to Settings > Permalink from dashboard, we can edit our permalink. I won’t suggest you to change permalink when your blog is already running and have posts. In such case, you should use Dean’s permalink migration plugin but take a complete backup of your database before you make such changes. Getting back to new WordPress installation, you can change your permalink to any of the options mentioned in WordPress codex.

I use %postname%.html permalink but you can also use : %postname% .  For better performance, I would suggest start using %post_id% along with %postname%.

Also if you use multiple category per post, I won’t suggest you to use category in your permalink, as it may create post duplication issues.

Update WordPress ping list:

There is a big difference between a static site and WordPress blog is Ping service. WordPress has inbuilt ping service which notifies search engine when ever you update or add a new post. This helps in notifying search engine bots that we have updated our content and search engine bots will come, crawl and index your latest post. Though WordPress comes with default ping list but we can extend it to add more ping services. You can add or remove ping services from Settings >Writing. You can see my list of WordPress ping list. Along with updating ping services, I also suggest you to install cbnet Ping optimize. This will help you to avoid WordPress ping spam.

Robots.txt file for WordPress:

This is one SEO feature which people usually ignore. Robots.txt is an essential part of any Website SEO. Be it, WordPress or any static site. Robots.txt file directs search engine robots to index or not index which part of your blog. For example, I’m sure you would not want search engine bot to index your WordPress dashboard. A simple line in robots.txt file will help bots to stop crawling and indexing your dashboard. In WordPress you can either manually edit your Robots file or you can use plugins to disallow indexing of certain part of your blog.

Meta description, Title and Keywords:

Now when ever you install a new WordPress blog, I would suggest first thing to do is add  Meta description, Titles and Keywords for your blog. This way, when people will search for your blog in search engine, they will see description added by you and not randomly picked by search engine bots.  These days most of WordPress themes come with options to add Meta title, Description and Keyword value. In case if your theme doesn’t offer such settings, you can always use plugins like All in one SEO to add such details for Homepage and also for single posts.

SEO optimization is a non-ending topic but if you do the basic SEO settings right, you need not need to worry about SEO flaws in future. Apart from above tip, I strongly recommend you to create a sitemap of your blog and submit it to Google webmaster tools. Later on you can use Google Webmaster tools to quickly analyze your blog from search engine perspective.

For more WordPress tips check out my WordPress guide. Do you have more questions regarding SEO, feel free to ask via comments and add your insight. 

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Category: Wordpress

About the Author (Author Profile)

Harsh Agrawal is a professional Blogger who blogs at ShoutMeLoud and offer Thesis Customization Service.

Comments (38)

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  1. Manendra says:
    August 21, 2011 at 12:02 am

    Thanks for sharing a grate information about ping sites and their lists to make post index faster in search engines.

    Reply
  2. Saket Jajodia
    Twitter:
    says:
    August 21, 2011 at 1:19 am

    I prefer to keep my Permalink as year/month/PostName, about ping I never given any preference to it will give some preference soon, for best SEO plugin I will suggest to use Yoast WordPress SEO [according to me]
    Saket Jajodia recently posted..Encoding.com’s Vid.ly Lets Your Visitors Watch Videos On Any Platform And DevicesMy Profile

    Reply
  3. Ray says:
    August 21, 2011 at 1:09 pm

    I see some blogs that have the .html structure thing enable. When I see that I do wonder if it helps that much or has a seo impact. Or, is just postname sufficient enough, because that is what I see most often.
    Ray recently posted..Firefox 6 ReleasedMy Profile

    Reply
  4. Swamykant
    Twitter:
    says:
    August 21, 2011 at 6:57 pm

    Hi Harsh

    Excellent post. Nice to find you on Netchunks.com.
    Swamykant recently posted..Optimize Images for Websites using Radical Image Optimization Tool (RIOT)My Profile

    Reply
  5. Anna says:
    August 21, 2011 at 7:34 pm

    Thanks for the tips. I work with WordPress, but I have never done some of these things in fact. I will try to do and I hope it will improve the site’s work.

    Reply
  6. Benjamin Hübner says:
    August 21, 2011 at 8:46 pm

    All these factors are essiential for a proper onpage optimization! At a well optimized website may instanlty beat approx. 70% of competing pages. (There are lots of websites poorly optimized)

    One additional point to configure may be the ping section inside the WordPress=>Settings=>Reading section, but it´s not really “on page” optimization!

    I think the permalink change is the most important to perform, or what do you think?
    Benjamin Hübner recently posted..Easy Wp SEO Plugin – Better Than The SEOPressor?My Profile

    Reply
    • Harsh Agrawal
      Twitter:
      says:
      August 22, 2011 at 5:23 pm

      Thanks Benjamin for your comment and I mentioned about Ping @3rd point. Truely it’s not on page optimization but again it falls almost there as it’s an inbuilt feature in WordPress. Permalink makes a big difference..WordPress should start offering pretty permalinks instead of their default SEO unfriendly ugly permalink structure.
      Harsh Agrawal recently posted..Top 5 Unique Ways To Get BacklinksMy Profile

      Reply
  7. Barry Wheeler
    Twitter:
    says:
    August 21, 2011 at 9:36 pm

    Great suggestions. I like the custom permalink structure using the .html as an option.

    I’m sure many people weren’t aware of that technique.
    Barry Wheeler recently posted..Make Your Blog Load FasterMy Profile

    Reply
  8. Chris says:
    August 21, 2011 at 11:15 pm

    I personally didn’t consider updating WordPress ping services list as i though that their default one is enough. Thanks for the tips

    Reply
  9. Dan says:
    August 21, 2011 at 11:35 pm

    I have been using WP for 3 years but. thanks to blogs like yours, I’m still learning. It fascinates me how extensive WP really is.
    Dan recently posted..Golf EquipmentMy Profile

    Reply
  10. Albert
    Twitter:
    says:
    August 22, 2011 at 3:26 am

    Thank you mate! Great suggestion..
    I never heard regarding thhe html as permanlink structure, I will surely try it
    Albert recently posted..Social Networking to promote your businessMy Profile

    Reply
  11. Dante D says:
    August 22, 2011 at 3:45 am

    yoast seo is a great piece of kit even the ability to see what it’s going to look like on google is another great feature.

    Reply
  12. Lis says:
    August 22, 2011 at 4:43 am

    I still see some websites that have page numbers in their permalinks. The first tip is definitely for them!

    Reply
  13. compensation claims says:
    August 22, 2011 at 3:31 pm

    Hey Harsh,

    Thanks Man! I frequently do research for SEO of WP blogs as many of our clients need this. The Meta Tags part as you have mentioned I have seen recently and did that. Seeing that mentioned by you has given me more assurance that it will work. Thanks again, please keep sharing your thoughts and researches.

    Reply
  14. symfony says:
    August 22, 2011 at 5:17 pm

    We firstly should pay attention to the content and the meta descriptions as visitors pay too much attention to them when they search for the information. The better you write your meta description the more chances you have new clients.

    Reply
  15. Shane says:
    August 22, 2011 at 7:28 pm

    Most of it is coming by default with WordPress, that’s why this CMS is that popular. There are many SEO plugins that can also easy the process.

    Reply
  16. Sammy says:
    August 22, 2011 at 11:14 pm

    Interesting advice about ping list. I never paid any attention to it. Thanks for this tip!
    Sammy recently posted..Buying New Car on SaleMy Profile

    Reply
  17. Salman
    Twitter:
    says:
    August 23, 2011 at 11:47 am

    Great tips Harsh …These shouldn’t be ignored by anyone
    Salman recently posted..4 Great Printers for Internet PrintingMy Profile

    Reply
  18. Anuj
    Twitter:
    says:
    August 23, 2011 at 12:02 pm

    Thanks for the great tips! I have been building websites for fun for quite some time but just recently started trying to optimize search results for my latest masterpiece. I’ve learned several good ideas, thank you.
    Anuj recently posted..How To (Display) Add Author Profile In Any WordPress ThemeMy Profile

    Reply
  19. AJ says:
    August 23, 2011 at 1:08 pm

    Hi Harsh, Great post !
    Also, How can we save ourselves form the problem of duplicacy on selecting multiple categories?
    AJ recently posted..Benefits of Cloud Computing platformsMy Profile

    Reply
  20. Sarah says:
    August 23, 2011 at 4:10 pm

    I never have done some of this thing, actually I work with WordPress…Thanks for your tip, I’ll try to do and I hope it will do for me..

    Reply
  21. College Enrollment says:
    August 23, 2011 at 9:20 pm

    These are definitely the most basic of seo tactics to follow. I am surprised some people tend to forget these.

    Reply
  22. Mike John says:
    August 24, 2011 at 6:09 pm

    I admire the way you express yourself through writing. This post is such a refreshing one to read. This is such an interesting and informative article on SEO optimization to share with others.Thanks!
    Mike John recently posted..Best Coffee RecipeMy Profile

    Reply
  23. Hello Kitty Shop says:
    August 25, 2011 at 2:39 pm

    I usually use “all in one seo package” to optimiate my wordpressblog. and your post is good too.
    Hello Kitty Shop recently posted..Hello Kitty Samsung S5230 – $199.00My Profile

    Reply
  24. Mark says:
    September 15, 2011 at 6:49 pm

    I would like to add that ther are specific SEO plugins for wordpress which makes it easier to optimize your site and.or blog. I use for example Platinum SEO Pack and am very satisfied with that. Hope this adds value.

    Reply
  25. SEO rank checker says:
    October 28, 2011 at 9:53 am

    Valuable information. Fortunate me I found your web site by accident, and I’m surprised why this accident didn’t happened in advance! I bookmarked it.
    SEO rank checker recently posted..1My Profile

    Reply

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