Getting more traffic on a website through improvement of WordPress SEO is one the main objective of a website owner. However, some WordPress SEO guides end up being too much technical, thus hindering website owners to fully benefit from the potential power of embracing WordPress SEO tools in improving their websites.
It is undisputed that website owners must pay attention and remain committed to the application of the best WordPress SEO practices if they have to get positive results when increasing their website traffic.
Best WordPress SEO practices to increase traffic
In this article, we shall discuss the best WordPress SEO tips that can help your website get more organic traffic as well as maximizing your SEO efforts. What is SEO? It is the abbreviation for Search Engine Optimization, which is a strategy utilized by many website owners to increase traffic on their website through higher ranking in the search engines.
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Note that Search engine optimization doesn’t involve tricking Google or using underhand gaming techniques against the system. It consists in creating and establishing a website with advanced formatting and optimized codes which makes it easy to be recognized by the Google search engines. It, therefore, means that when visitors search for a particular topic related to what you write, your already search-engine-optimized content will appear on top thus many people will click on it to access your website content.
Is it essential to have WordPress SEO?
Yes! Remember, most websites have their primary source of traffic from Search engines. For instance, Google, the biggest search engine uses sophisticated algorithms that understand and ranks sites appropriately according to their content.
However, these algorithms are sometimes not perfect; thus, they need your help to make them know your website content. It, therefore, means that if your content isn’t well optimized, then it becomes hard for the search engines to rank your pages accurately and thus it might not appear on the search results which means your website will miss the much-needed traffic. As a website owner, always ensure to make your site search engine friendly hence maximizing your search traffic.
Check the Visibility Settings of your website
WordPress sometimes may include a built-in option that helps in hiding your site from search engines before it is ready to release to the public. It, therefore, gives you enough time to work on your website until completion. However, this option sometimes gets activated accidentally, thus hindering your website available to the search engines.
If you realize that your website isn’t available in the search results, then ensure to uncheck these features first. How to activate your website visibility? On your WordPress site, log in to access the admin area and go to the settings tools. Scroll down to the option of “Search Engine Visibility” and then make sure to unchecked the control box adjusted to “Discourage search engines beginning to index this site” Remember to click on the Save Changes key to store these changes for future reference.
Use SEO friendly URLs structure in your WordPress site
SEO friendly URLs involves the use of words with exert and precise meaning that correctly explains the content of your website page. These words must also be easily legible to both search engines and humans. An example of SEO friendly URLs include;
https://easyseo.pro/how-to-uninstall-wordpress/
https://easyseo.pro/main-wordpress-errors-and-their-solutions/
Note that in both cases, these URLs are easily readable, and even the user can correctly predict what they are expecting from the search results on your website by just looking at that URL text. On the contrary, non-SEO-friendly URLs may be hard to predict by the user.
For instance, consider these two samples:
- https://www.wpstaster.com/?p=104505 and
- http://my-example.com/archives/4323
These websites have numbers in their URLs which could be unrelated to the website content, and hence the user will find it challenging to guess the outcome, therefore, considered non-SEO-friendly URLs. Remember embracing SEO friendly permalink organization helps in getting and retaining top positions during search results. To correct these errors, visit your website setting, move to permalinks page. Choose your post name options and then ensure to save these changes.
Use only the www or non-www websites
If it is for the first time you are launching your website, then you must decide to choose between
- the www (http://www.easyseo.pro) and
- non-www (http://easyseo.pro)
as the URL in your website. Most search engines recognizes both of these websites, which means you can choose any of them but ensure to stick to it. To set your preferred URL type by visiting the setting “Genera”l page and then you add your favored URL in both Site Address and WordPress Address fields. However, from an SEO point of view, SEO specialists say there are no advantages of using either of these two URLs in your website.
Add XML Sitemaps to WordPress
Remember an XML Sitemap is mainly a formatted file that permits the listing of all pages on your website. Such listing enables the search engine to access all of your website content. Although XML sitemaps do not play any role in improving your site’s search ranking, it only helps in facilitating the search engines to find your website pages quickly hence start ranking all of them.
Note that if you use the Yoast SEO plugins, you will be required to create your XML sitemap. To access your sitemap, go to http://example.com/sitemap_index.xml but ensure to replace the “example” with your domain name. It will help you submit your website XML sitemap to Google.
Add website to Google Search Console
Google Search Console, commonly known as Webmaster Tools, comprises of numerous tools from Google that enables the website owners to view how the search engine perceives their website content. It also generates data and reports that help the website owners to understand how well their pages looks in search results.
You will, in turn, learn the real search terms that people are using to access your website as well as how pages are displayed in the search outcomes. Besides, you will find how frequent are your pages being clicked. As the site owner, you will get to know which part isn’t not working smoothly hence develop the appropriate content strategies.
Besides, Google Search Console will notify you in case of something misbehaving on your site such as when search crawlers are no longer able to access your site, the duplicity of your website content or leakage of your website restricted resources.
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