WordPress and Search Engine Optimization

We can provide a boost in Wordpress’ very impressive CMS platform, if a minimal amount of work is done to make it successful for SEO and performance. We are going to discuss some minor things that can be done to assist in giving it that boost.

First we can get rid of the original WordPress layout. The original layout with the post titled “Hello World” on the sample page is the standard blog that appears when using WordPress for the first time. Both the Sample Page and the blog should be altered to create a professional look. It’s a good idea to remove them from your database completely to keep a clean house and minimize confusion. Once the original defaults have been removed, User experience will be greatly enhanced. A good Plug-in to download for a better Sample Page is the WP Example Content plug-in by Josh Ferrara and Jonathan Simmons. Another great idea is to categorize your posts from your Admin area.

Then we can set up our Permalinks. Permalinks are permanent URLs that lead to specific weblog posts, categories and other postings. The original setting that WordPress provides, does not mesh well with Search Engine Optimization. It automatically sets pages to run through URL parameters which Google does not recommend. A very good idea is to change the Post name to (/%postname%/).

It’s time to add some Update Services! Adding Update Services from within the General Settings page, speeds up the function of the crawl rate on the bots. This could be the difference between catching an important opportunity or missing it. Here are four that are beneficial to your site if they are added to the list:

• http://rpc.pingomatic.com/
• http://www.feedburner.com/fb/a/pingSubmit?bloglink=http%3A%2F%2www.domain.com/
• http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping 
• http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2 

There are more available on Wordpress.org. A URL that is indexed quickly is shown in SERPs and could have a greater chance of being found in a search.

Your WordPress Homepage can then be transformed into a Static Page. You want your website to look like a regular website and not just a blogging tool. A critical step in differentiating it from a blogging tool, is to make the homepage static. An advantage of doing this, is that this makes the web content harder to be duplicated, and also helps the site to be indexed easier. Here are the steps to get it changed:

• Create a blank page for your latest blog posts.
• Go to Settings -> Reading settings.
• Choose whether you want latest posts or a static page for Front Page Displays. 
• For each article in a feed, show the excerpt.
• Ensure “Discourage search engines from indexing this site” is unticked.

Let us customize our Media Settings. WordPress has its own way of managing thumbnails by default. This original setting crops large images plus images do not always maintain their original size. To update this, go to Settings -> Media and change it to how you would like to see your site deal with thumbnails. It will improve bandwidth and boost performance by showing an image smaller than its full size to people who are not fussy about the magnitude. If a user wants to download the full size version, then the larger image can be uploaded. If your site is up already and you would like to change your previously uploaded thumbnails, a plugin called Regenerate Thumbnails by Viper007Bond can help you with this.

Last but not least, we can install Google Analytics. The Google Analytics basic service is a free tool which manages and gives information on the traffic of a website in terms of sources, conversions and sales. It is useful for locating 404 pages, tracking users by their username and analyzing traffic from search engines. Making use of this great service is as easy as creating an analytics profile by installing a plug-in like Google Analytics for WordPress by Joost de Valk, then tweaking the settings until it is perfect. Google Analytics places its focus on important users and ignores administrators that cause abnormal data on the site which helps SEO.

Wordpress can be transformed into a CMS powerhouse by adding useful plug-ins and changing minor important settings as detailed.