Search Engine Optimization for WordPress - Part 1

It can’t go without saying, WordPress is a godsent of an open-source program. It is (in my opinion) the best option for running your own blog on your own server. There are so many options, plugins and widgets and the Search Engine Optimization features that are built in are top-notch. Now some of these options are not enabled by default and might be hidden a little so you may have to dig to change some settings. This blog entry covers only optimization that applies to Search Engines.

Optimizing your Content for Search Engines

Content Volume. Search Engines hunger for more content. They could not give a damn about how many pictures you put of your dog or if your website looks like a spaceship. The more content, the more resources a Search Engine can gather about your website, and chances are, the more keywords you can reach.

Keyword Rich Content. Communicating with the language that Search Engine users use is definitely a plus. Your WordPress weblog title, your subtitle, your post headers and your posts themselves need to overflow with great keywords. These are your big sellers. For more information on properly optimizing your HTML tags (title tag and h1 tag), see Part 1 of Optimizing Your HTML Tags for Search Engines.

Targetted Wording. This goes with using Keyword Rich Content, but it’s slightly different. You would use the language of the average Search Engine user. To better explain this, I’ll use an example. I’m a Canadian, if you’re Canadian you’ll know that I misspelt “Optimization”, it is in fact “Optimisation”. I’m not unpatriotic, but when there are 10 times as many US residents as there are Canadian residents, you have to consider that. The same would apply to a blog about soda (or pop) or to a blog about the distances you run each day in your exercise routine.

Optimizing Your Directory Structure (Permalinks)

By default, your individual blog entries (permalinks) are stored in this fashion: http://www.pat-burt.com/?p=123. If we take a step back and look at this from a Search Engine’s point-of-view, why would we not use our URL resource to boost our ratings for keywords? We can. Thank you WordPress.

In your Admin Panel, select Options and then Permalinks. Let’s look at the options:

• http://www.pat-burt.com/?p=123
• http://www.pat-burt.com/2007/04/02/sample-post/
• http://www.pat-burt.com/archives/123/
• Custom

We already know the first one isn’t a good alternative. Let’s look at the second one. Why would a user searching for information care about what date it was posted on? You’re using a valuable resource (the URL) to display meaningless information (to your normal Google user). Next. The third option is a combination between the terrible first example and the mediocre example. Archives? 123? Not important.

Ahh, the Custom field, this is what we were looking for. If we wanted to use our URL’s to their best potential, we should fill them up with rich keywords. What better place to look then our keyword rich Entry names and Category names? Perfect.

Under Custom, specify below, I suggest that the best option is: /%category%/%postname%/. What this does is display the category followed by the post name in the URL structure. A great solution.

That’s all for now, you can find the rest of the articles on Search Engine Optimization for WordPress in the WordPress category.

Related Posts

• Search Engine Optimization for WordPress - Part 3
• Optimizing Your HTML Tags for Search Engines - Part 2
• Optimizing Your HTML Tags for Search Engines - Part 1