WordPress SEO: 5 Amazingly Effective SEO Tips for WordPress Bloggers
WordPress is truly a blessing for all the bloggers who want to increase their website traffic. By default, WordPress is search engine friendly and Google always gives top priority to the sites that are managed on WordPress because of its functionality.
You may ask, even though I’m using WordPress on my websites why am I not able to see any increase in my search traffic.
A valid question! And here’s my take on this. Although Google loves WordPress websites but unfortunately there are A LOT of people using WordPress (currently over 80 million sites are using WordPress), so the competition is really huge.
This is the reason why you need to learn few WordPress SEO tips to stay ahead of your competition. You can check some URLs too
WordPress SEO: Is it dead?
Some people say that SEO is dead. Is WordPress SEO really dead? Let’s find out first before jumping into the details.
Search engine giants like Google, Yahoo, Bing etc are continuously updating their search algorithms with latest updates to give a better user experience.
If you’re constantly updating your blogs with quality contents, there’s no doubt your rankings will climb up higher. You should also make the content marketing strategies as well. Although it might take some time, but you’ll definitely see positive results whenever Google rolls up animal updates like Panda and Penguin.
So SEO is functionally not dead but the methods most people practice are dead. You need to establish yourself as an authority in your industry and start giving better content to your readers, you’ll be fine!
Top WordPress SEO Tips for Bloggers
WordPress SEO tip 1: Find topic ideas that are already popular
One of the secret ways most SEO experts use to get more traffic to their sites from search engines is this: they publish content that’s already popular.
See, most of us publish new articles without knowing our target audience needs and wants. And we post the contents that we think will go viral. Most of the times, using this strategy to create content doesn’t work. You need to always find a way that will make sure your content goes viral every single time.
For that, you need to find topic ideas that are already popular. How can you find topics that are already popular in your niche?
Just head over to BuzzSumo.com and enter a topic or domain name to find out which content is performing best in your niche. You’ll come up with a lot of links along with the total number of shares and backlinks. So based on that, create topic ideas for your future articles. This way you will be able to create contents that will definitely go popular.
WordPress SEO tip 2: Use WordPress SEO tools
When it comes to tools and plugins, WordPress has over 20,000 plugins in its plugin directory ranging from free to premium. And I’ve only two plugin recommendations for you.
WordPress SEO by Yoast: This is by far the best WordPress SEO tools out there and is free. This plugin helps you optimize your pages for specific keywords also shows the keyword density so you can improve your search rankings.
Long Tail Pro research tool: Long Tail Pro is a premium WordPress tool helpful for finding long tail keywords. Here’s the most detailed review of Long Tail Pro for finding most profitable long tail keywords.
WordPress SEO tip 3: Importance of outbound links to improve SEO
Outbound linking is one of the most effective ranking factors in SEO. If you are linking to a content rich website (be it an authority site or a site with great contents), Google sees your content as a positive sign and gives you better search results.
Most beginners to SEO are afraid of linking to external sites fearing about losing their link juice. Let me tell you one thing: Google is not updating PR (PageRank) anymore! That means, you can start linking to external sites that have relevant and valuable content.
By linking out to other sites, you’re not only improving your WordPress SEO but you will also building strong relationships with other bloggers. Who don’t like getting free incoming links? So start linking out to other bloggers frequently.
WordPress SEO tip 4: Stop indexing pages you don’t want to show in SERP’s
Most bloggers forget one crucial factor when it comes to indexing their pages in Serch Engine Results Page (SERP’s). De-index your tags, categories and all the unwanted pages you don’t want to show in SERP’s.
If you’re also showing categories and tags, they will show redundant pages in Google and that leads to duplicate contents (and you might get penalized by Google algorithms for showing duplicate contents). So avoid showing your tags, categories and pages like Email subscription etc. in Google.
If you’re using WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin, it’s simple. Just go to plugin settings and click on “no-index” tags and categories.
WordPress SEO tip 5: Spy on your competition
If you’re not getting enough traffic even if you have a lot of content, you need to start focusing on your competitor keywords. Focusing and using the most profitable keywords your competition use is the simplest way to increase your overall search traffic.
Spy on your competitors and find out the best keywords they are using. Also analyze their backlinks to improve your chances of building links to your sites.
You can use tools like Spyfu, Moz, SEMRush etc. Just enter the domain name of your competitor and you will get a list of all the keywords they use to get traffic to their sites.
Here are few more tips to spy on your competition to improve your overall WordPress SEO traffic.
- Create a SEO strategy by analyzing the top blogs in your niche (they spend a lot of time and money to find profitable keywords). Although you don’t need to copy their exact keywords, but make sure to use the relevant keywords they are using to increase your search traffic.
- Focus on their incoming backlinks (this way you will reach out the bloggers who are linking to the top blogs in your industry and contact them through emails whenever you write valuable content).
- Ask your competitors to link to your posts (before doing this, make sure to often link out to your competitors blogs).
Final thoughts about WordPress SEO
Increasing your WordPress site’s SEO is not a big deal if you’ve a proper SEO strategy. Make sure to find the right topics for your sites to bring more search engine visitors. Frequently analyze your competitor keywords to increase your website traffic.
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