Top 5 Search Tips for WordPress Websites
Nearly 1 in 4 websites in the world uses WordPress – it’s easy to set up, easy to manage and there is a large community of developers who produce additional functionality (via “plugins”), often for free.
There are a plethora of plugins and tips for WordPress promising “SEO benefits”, many of which are marginal at best. We work with WordPress a lot, and manage a large number of search campaigns, so here are our top 5 tips for making a WordPress site more visible in search:
1. Use the Yoast SEO plugin (but don’t think it’ll magically do everything)
It’s one of the most popular WordPress plugins, and we use it too – but a lot of people incorrectly think it does SEO magic. It doesn’t. It allows you to easily manage the page <title> and meta description, and a few more useful automations – just don’t fall into the “focus keyword” trap that many do, and think by putting in a keyword there, your job is done.
2. Use a caching engine
Google likes a site that loads fast. WordPress is user-friendly – but it isn’t fast loading, and most pre-built themes on sale in places like Theme Forest are bloated and really sloooooow. We use W3 Total Cache to speed up sites – you should be aiming for less than 1.5 seconds load time, check using Pingdom Tools to see if your website could do with a speed boost.
3. Put alternative text on images via the Media Library
The media library in WordPress is now much easier to use, and you can set image alternative text quickly and simply. Most themes will pull that through to the website, and Google does pay attention to it.
4. Don’t waste time with lots of blog post tags and categories
We see people use tags (especially) like the meta keywords field was used back in the day – putting in 10-15 related keywords as tags for each blog post. All you’re doing is creating lots of tag pages that end up looking very similar, and Google doesn’t like repetition and “thin” content. Write a good blog, put it in the most relevant category and leave it at that.
5. Reflect what your customer wants to find
Too much business website copy on the internet is focused on “we want you to know this”. Don’t start there – and don’t talk about “solutions” – instead take time to think what customers ask you when you speak to them. Half an hour spent with the people who answer the phones and take the orders in the business will tell you what they want to know about, and build your website copy around that.
Being visible on search engines isn’t a dark art – it’s actually common sense. Google can see through the trickery and will punish you accordingly – and heavily. Give people what they want to find, quickly and Google will start to reward you for it.
We’ve written some other guides to search visibility that will help – have a look at: