20 SEO tips for WordPress Users.

Congratulations! You have joined the millions who are advertising their businesses globally. Now you need to improve SEO, (search engine optimization) but don’t want to pay an arm and a leg for it. What can you do to optimize your site? Start by doing a general search, using your keywords, to see where you come up on the search page. If your website is not on the first page, here are 20 tips to get you there:

1. Content is KING. Make sure your website is unique. Google finds plagiarism faster than you can say ‘Jack Robinson”! If your content is awesome, you are halfway there.
2. Update your website regularly and share the hell out of your evergreen content.
3. Make sure your website is mobile responsive. More than 70% of searches are done on phones & tablets. Check that your website looks good on a mobile – if not, change your theme to a responsive one.
4. Use an SEO plugin like Yoast. Even the free version will get you there with suggestions on the readability of your content. It will manage your sitemap, title tags, meta descriptions and meta keywords, help you focus on keywords, reminding you to use the keyword in the title and first paragraph. Do a keyword search with KWFinder if you need more inspiration.
5. There is no benefit to adding www to your domain name. This is old hat. Parameters have changed to accommodate www. There is no need to include it.
6. Secure sites rank higher – so get yourself an SSL certificate for a green lock on the browser. Even if you don’t manage money on your site, your potential customer wants to feel that they are on a secure site. To install an SSL certificate on your website, it is as easy as uploading the plugin “really simple SSL”. This plugin does the rest. (You will have to buy the certificate from your web host).
7. Search engines like simple links. To make your permalink a short, easy link with name and keyword, go to Settings – Permalinks and select ‘post name’. Save. You can also install a plugin called ‘pretty links’.
8. Use headings to break up your content. It is easier to read, and search engines are looking for keywords in the H1, H2 and H3.
9. Use the WP Categories in Posts. To the search engines, this is like a highlighted keyword.
10. When you upload images, make sure you are writing keywords into the title text and alt text. Search engines can read text easier than images. Use smart image file names related to your content. The alt text must not have capital letters or spaces. Use the hyphen between words.
11. Use ‘Google My Business’. Great local SEO. Every business needs this exposure.
12. Links build authority. Make sure you have links to other sites, especially authority sites like ‘ domain.gov.au’, interlinks within your own pages and posts, and backlinks (getting other websites to refer or link to your website). Be careful though, backlinks with spammers can really hurt your website.
13. No broken links. Use ‘online broken link checker’ to quickly see if your website has broken links. This is a big no-no. Ever pressed a link and got a 404 error? Annoying!
14. Have you submitted your site to Google, Bing and Yandex?
15. If you are an affiliate, use the pretty links
16. Use the Google Search Console and link it to Google Analytics. Lots of optimization suggestions are there which will be pertinent to your website only.
17. Claim your name in Social Media. Share your posts and pages simply with a share plugin (like social sharing) to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, email and LinkedIn. Yoast can help with the social markup.
18. Speed counts more than you know. How fast does your website load? If you have a lot of images, it will slow down the loading. You can use a plugin called ‘smush’ to load images faster. Test your website speed here.
19. Your website in other languages will improve SEO but only if you get it properly translated. Don’t use a tool. It is not the same.
20. To make sure that you are on track, do a WP SEO Audit – use SEOSiteCheckup.