Semalt Expert Advice On How To Succeed In WordPress Positioning
Do you have a WordPress website and would you like to position it effectively? The following guide will show you how to, step by step, increase the visibility of a website based on this CMS. I will show you how to prepare for SEO optimization and how to implement it in your WordPress system.
What is WordPress?
WordPress is the world's most popular website content management system. With WordPress, you don't need to have technical knowledge of editing pages. It is worth noting here that about 70% of the world's internet is based on this system. WordPress started as a blogging platform, now it powers all kinds of websites and even online stores.
Extensibility is an unquestionable advantage of this system. Thanks to its popularity and the ability it literally gives to anyone to create plugins, WordPress can perform various functions. In fact, thanks to WP, you can do anything: website, shop, forum, social networking site, classifieds website or Wikipedia-like knowledge base.
Does CMS weigh a lot in positioning?
I hear very often that WordPress is very good when it comes to positioning/SEO. This is true in some aspects, but when viewed from a broader perspective, it does not matter at all. Google does not pay any attention to what CMS system generated the page, for the search engine robot it can be WordPress, Drupal or Joomla. Not only that, the website may not have any CMS, i.e. it may be just a static page written in HTML.
During the crawling process, Google only scans the HTML code, which may or not be generated by any CMS. The quality of the CMS code itself can be very poor, Google won't notice it. For robots, it is only important to get HTML quickly.
What elements of the WordPress engine are SEO-friendly?
Positioning your website on WordPress will usually be a little easier than on other CMSs. This is mainly due to the basic functionalities that are prepared for SEO.
First of all, I mean URLs that play one of the most important roles in the positioning of each page. WordPress builds URLs by default that are friendly and don't duplicate content. With the correct configuration of the server, one subpage can't be visible under several versions of the address.
It is worth noting that WordPress offers several options for building addresses using many variables. From the SEO point of view, you shouldn't use variables such as date or post category. This is because the addresses should be constant, and changing the category or date of the entry will result in an unnecessary change of the URL, which will negatively affect the positioning of the page.
Another very important element of building a website in terms of positioning is the title of a given subpage. WordPress deals very well with this issue, reducing the structure of the title to the name of the subpage and the name of the page itself. The default is automatic and you don't really need to do anything to build the correct titles.
Of course, there are more options for building a title by installing the right SEO plugin for WordPress. Thanks to good plugins, you will be able to optimize titles or descriptions regardless of the page name, which is very convenient and helpful.
How to position a website on WordPress?
I will now try to explain how to position a page on WordPress. In fact, at this point you could enter the name of any CMS, also people who want to use other systems will also benefit from it. Especially since a lot of the work will take place before we even start building/improving the website.
Keyword analysis
The first and most important point in positioning WordPress or any other CMS is always keyword analysis using SEO tools such as the Dedicated SEO Dashboard.
Without this step, it will be difficult to prepare the website for getting the right traffic, which is supposed to translate into specific business effects, such as obtaining inquiries from potential customers or direct sales.
Well-conducted keyword analysis helps in many subsequent processes and is the basis for effectively increasing visibility on Google. So it's worth spending some time looking for the right phrases because you will come back to the results of this analysis many times.
Remember that not everyone is using the keywords that you think are appropriate. The more potential customers, the more different options to use Google. Not everyone uses the Google search engine in the same way. Your opinion will be to define literally all the keywords that can be used in the context of your products or services - both directly and indirectly.
From experience, I can say that a medium-sized business may have about several thousand key phrases for which it should be optimized. Online stores contain tens or even hundreds of thousands of keywords. Search engine optimization today is looking at the presence of a page on Google from a much broader perspective.
Long tail movement is more valuable to your business. Even though the main phrase describing your business has, for example, 6,000 views per month, the sum of 50 long-tail phrases with an average of 200 impressions gives you 10,000 views. In addition, these phrases describe more precisely what your customers need, which translates into an increase in the conversion rate (increased sales).
Preparation of the website structure
You already know most of the keywords your customers might be using. I assume that the long list of keywords that you probably keep in your spreadsheet doesn't tell you much. It is understandable, such a list should be grouped and structured.
Why?
You need to know that one keyword can only be "bound" to one return, and specifically to one URL. You cannot optimize many subpages for the same keywords because it interferes with positioning. This creates a keyword cannibalization phenomenon that is negative and can result in traffic loss.
You must know that Google search results are actually links to individual subpages. You can only position one subpage per query.
Of course, the other way around is easier and one URL (one subpage) may appear in Google for many queries, but these phrases must be related to each other thematically.
Therefore, your task is to group the keywords according to the user's intentions, so that people entering similar keywords end up on the same subpage.
The result of your actions should be a list of keyword groups - these groups are specific subpages that must be created from the point of view of the Google search engine. There may be several of these subpages, but more likely their number will be quite large. In this case, these addresses should be structured.
Each subpage on the website plays its role in gaining traffic from free search results and should be included in the positioning process. So you need to plan such a structure for your website, defining which pages are to be watered by other subpages. Proper website structure is one of the most important factors influencing the success of website positioning, also in the case of WordPress.
Planning the optimization of the content of individual pages
You already know keywords that are grouped into specific subpages. You already have a subpage prepared. Now you are ready to start planning the content of each of them. Each party should have prepared elements such as:
- Page title shown in search results
- Page description visible in search results
- The main header, which is the title visible on the page (H1)
- The content of the remaining headings of the next row (H2-H6)
- Introductory/indicative text and graphic content
- Internal linking, i.e. the way all subpages will link to each other
With all this information, you can proceed to the next step, which will finally be about WordPress.
Choosing the correct WordPress theme
Yes, knowing everything about the content of the website, you can start looking for a suitable WordPress theme. If you had done it earlier, there would be a risk that in the process of preparing for positioning, it would turn out that the template will not work.
Very often, when performing SEO audits, I sometimes tell clients that the website needs to be redone. This does not mean that the previous one is bad, but that it is not adapted to the current SEO strategy. Preparation and positioning of WordPress in this way allows for maximum effects in SEO. Of course, this is not the only way, but it is worth considering.
When choosing a theme for WordPress, you should follow these rules.
- A WordPress theme that is good for SEO is all about speed. The website must be "light" and fast to operate. Google has been paying a lot of attention to this recently.
- I don't recommend using so-called "page builders", which are attractive to first-time WordPress users, but they do a lot of damage with SEO. The amount of redundant code that such a theme can generate is huge.
- Choose a simple and clear theme that will emphasize the presentation of text content. Graphics alone will not allow for effective WordPress positioning.
The creators of many themes describe their products as "SEO friendly" or prepared for positioning. In most cases it is. However, remember that this is only a technical preparation. Without content preparation, structure and optimization, you will just have an SEO-friendly website that won't rank.
Supplementing WordPress with content
After choosing a theme and installing it on your WordPress theme, you can start creating pages according to the previously planned structure. Be sure to add content according to your keyword strategy and plan.
In the previous points, we went through the preparation process for WordPress positioning, which consisted in assigning a few or a dozen keywords to specific subpages. Having such a "cheat sheet", you know what keywords to use in the content of the page, how to build the headlines or the main title of the page that will become the search result.
Remember not to publish blank pages, a large number of them will make Google misjudge your page and positioning will be ineffective. Publish only those pages that have at least 2,000 characters of unique written texts in their main content.
When adding content, you will probably want to add pages that will not be included in your plan. This is okay because not every subpage has to be included in the SEO strategy. Many different types of subpages may not necessarily be visible on Google, here are some examples:
- all kinds of regulations;
- privacy policies, information about cookies and everything related to the law;
- ordering pages;
- pages with internal announcements;
- websites with access only to existing customers;
- etc…
Generally speaking, these will be all the pages that shouldn't appear as search results because no one will be looking for them. Such pages should be excluded from the process of scanning the page by Google robots, you can do it from the robots.txt file or by using a special robots tag placed in the head part of the page code. Of course, you don't have to do this directly in your code, some plugins will do it for you.
Writing a blog/guide
After you've dealt with the content on all of your pages, it's time to start working on your blog. Positioning WordPress, like any other website, will require running a blog.
A company blog is a very good way of positioning your company, as well as possibly attracting new customers.
A blog is a very effective marketing tool that can also help you better understand your business and build customer loyalty. A blog will make your business "alive" and more accessible. Navigating the relevant topics on the blog will make users believe that you are an expert in your industry and that it is worth trusting you with their money.
With blog articles, you can reach people who don't know you and don't know what you do. They will come to you because they are looking for advice or a solution to a problem related to the industry you are dealing with.
With valuable articles, you can significantly increase website traffic and attract new visitors. You will reach users that you wouldn't be able to reach otherwise.
Remember to choose topics that are actually searched by potential customers. Do not write at your discretion, use data from tools such as Semalt's Dedicated SEO Dashboard.
Another possibility of publishing high-quality articles is to get mentions on other websites related to your business. If your article adds value to users, they will also be happy to share it on social media.
Blog posts can show your knowledge in a specific subject area or industry. Over time, you can become a valuable source of information, this way you can help readers find out about your business.
By proving with articles that you know a given field, you will gain their trust and you will start to be perceived as an expert in a given industry. Users will be convinced that it is worth coming back to you for more advice. If you earn their trust, you can easily turn them into your customers - because that's what it's all about, after all.