Demystifying SEO for WordPress Users

Demystifying SEO

What is SEO? Search Engine Optimization The process of improving visibility of a website in search engines with natural or unpaid search results.

Why Do We Care?  The higher & more frequently that your site appears in search result lists, the more visitors it will receive.  Basically, SEO is the secret sauce that gets your site showing up on the first page of a search engine (i.e. Google) search.

How Does SEO Work?  Basically search engines, like google, have little robots crawling the web for content.  Their job is to find out & catalogue who is talking about what to make content searchable on the web.  They also determine relevance of material.Photographer: Mark Strozier

The More Relevant the Robots DecideYour Material is the Higher it Ranks in Search Engines The Robots determine relevance by: − Determining if site content matches keywords that you have tagged, − The number of incoming links from other sites on the web. Photographer: Andy Field

Optimizing Your Site with Search Engines Make it easy for the robots to find you. Be linkable. Pay attention to titles. Tag, Tag, Tag! Add metadescriptions. Use tools that play well with search engines. Post regularly. Perform regular maintenance on your site.

Be Bot Friendly Make sure robots can find all pages of your site easily. This is especially important for sites with dynamic access, like Adobe Flash or Java Script. Photographer: @gerlos Basically you need a good site map. Plugin: Google XML Site Map

Be Linkable Share your posts on social networking sites. Comment on other peoples blogs. List your site in relevant communities on the web & interact Courtesy of LJinteractive.com there. Plugins: Create crosslinks Socialable, within your site. CommentLuv

Pay Attention to Titles If you want your post to be found in a search for a particular word or phrase, be sure to include that word or phrase in the title. Titles are one of the first thing the robots look at.

Tag, Tag, Tag! After writing, tag all web content with relevant keywords. Tagged words need to be in the post. Use long-tail tags. Use Keyword Targeting Tools, like Google Keyword. Plugin: Scribe

Add Metadescriptions Paragraph that search engines will post under your link. Normally, search engines will make the first paragraph your metadescription & will pay extra close attention to the words listed there. SEO Plugins will allow you to tailor this & target specific key words. ex. All-In-One SEO, Scribe, WordPress SEO Some themes are also designed SEO ready, like those using Genesis.

Post RegularlyEvery time you post something new to your site, you are inviting the robots back for another visit.

Perform Regular Maintenance on Your Site  Check for broken links.  Check for possible exploits.  Plugins: Broken Link Checker, Exploit Scanner

Follow Best Practices Dont get discounted by search engines, play by their rules. − You can quote others, but dont repost entire articles on multiple sites. − Make sure your tags are relevant. − Avoid becoming a link farm (spamming your audience with unnecessary links to products ... etc.) − Dont hide words within your site for tagging purposes. The result will be getting banned from search engines

Questions?  If you have a follow up question, feel free to:  Email erica@ahimsamedia.com  Tweet @AhimsaMedia or @EricaHargreave  Facebook us at /AhimsaMedia  ericahargreave.comThank You!

Demystifying SEO for WordPress Users

by Erica Hargreave on Oct 13, 2012

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