16 July 2011

Seattle SEO WordPress Features

WordPress offers a number of excellent SEO features. Unfortunately, many businesses with WordPress blogs are unaware of how these features can help improve their rankings. If you’ve chosen the right keywords and have a great SEO friendly theme, utilizing these easy Seattle SEO WordPress tips can give your blog a big boost in the search engines.

Web designers and site builders feel good about including WordPress as the blogging tool for the websites they develop. First of all, WordPress is free and open source software.

When we talk about free software, we mean free as in the freedom of speech, not free like in free beer. Just as freedom needs to be defended, there is a community of dedicated users who devote considerable time and effort into keeping free and open source software competitive and up to date. The efforts of the WordPress Foundation have helped to make WordPress one of the most universally used programs on the Internet.

Free beer is usually not as free as it appears, and the same thing is true of open source software. WordPress requires a certain amount of expertise in order to  get the most out of its installation. However, once it has been installed on a website, it is very user-friendly and intuitive to operate.

Create A Sitemap

Creating a sitemap by installing a plugin like “Google XML Sitemaps” will make it simple for the search engines to index your entire blog because you’ve given them a precise roadmap to follow.

Set Permalinks

Visit the permalinks link inside your WordPress admin area. Click “Custom Structure” and type in: /%postname% to set your permalinks for optimal SEO WordPress benefits. This tag will include the name of your pages and blog posts in the URL of your blog instead of assigning them a random number or date. If you include your keywords in the title of your pages and blog posts, your permalinks will help your titles work double duty for your SEO efforts.

Include Meta Information

By installing a plugin like the “All in One SEO Pack,” you can easily add keyword focused meta titles, meta descriptions, and meta keywords to your pages and blog posts to increase your traffic. As the search engines index and include your meta information in the search engine results, you increase your rankings and have an instant way to create a selling point that compels searchers to click through to visit your blog.

Be Consistent

The easiest way to increase your SEO blog rankings is to be consistent. Make it easy for the search engines to index and understand what your blog is about by doing the following for every page or blog post.

  • Use keyword focused page and blog post titles
  • Include a keyword focused meta title, meta description, and meta keywords
  • Check the URL, and edit if it’s too long so you keep keywords near the front
  • Use header tags that include keywords to separate paragraphs
  • Include your keywords throughout your content
  • Add graphics, and use your keywords at the text in the ALT tag
  • Link to other pages and blog posts within your website
  • Create excellent content the search engines will love

Taking advantage of the excellent WordPress SEO blog tips in this article will help increase your rankings and traffic the easy way.

Need help setting up your WordPress blog? Seattle SEO Consultant can help. Contact us today to schedule your free, no-obligation 30 minute consultation to learn about our SEO WordPress blog creation and maintenance services.

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