WordPress SEO &
Optimisation Strategies
A4UExpo London, October 2008

Joost de Valk

Open Source Theology
IBMS
Apple
Geek Marketeer
WordPress SEO Speaker Blogger
Online marketeer

http://yoast.com

http://orangevalley.nl

Today’s agenda
1 WordPress & SEO
2 Promoting Your Blog
3 Getting more subscribers
4 Conversation Optimization
And maybe, some bonus tips.

WordPress & SEO

Essential Plugins

HeadSpace2
- Titles
- Meta Keywords and Descriptions
- More Tags
- And SO much more.
http://urbangiraffe.com/plugins/headspace2/

Template tip #1
Your title should look like this:
<title><?php wp_title(‘’); ?></title>
Nothing more, nothing less. HeadSpace or any other
SEO plugin will take care of the title.

Redirection
Use it for all your redirection needs.
http://urbangiraffe.com/plugins/redirection/

YARPP
Yet Another Related Posts Plugin
Related posts based on tags, categories,
post content, etc.
http://mitcho.com/code/yarpp/

SEO Friendly Images
Auto-magically optimise alt and title tags.
http://www.prelovac.com/vladimir/wordpress-plugins/seo-friendly-images

Clean Slugs
Auto-magically optimise your post slugs.
Sign up for my mailing list and get it!

RSS Footer
Take advantage of those scrapers!
http://yoast.com/wordpress/rss-footer/

Structure for SEO

Template tip #2
Your blog title and subtitle should only be <h1> and <h2> on
your front page! Everywhere else, and <h4> and <h5> is
good enough.
To do that, do something like this in your header.php:
<?php if (is_home()) { ?>
<h1>Yoast</h1>
<?php } else { ?>
<h4><a href=\"/\">Yoast</a></h4>
<?php } ?>

Template tip #3
Add a description to your categories:
<?php echo category_description(); ?>

Yoast Breadcrumbs
Let users and spiders find the way home!
Roy Huiskes - Internal Linking
16.30 - Platinum 7
http://yoast.com/wordpress/breadcrumbs/

Robots Meta
- Noindex, follow your archives, search pages, etc.
- Authenticate with webmaster tools
- Nofollow ancillary links
- Etc. etc.
http://yoast.com/wordpress/robots-meta/

Pagination
Because a search engine can’t skip pages.
http://www.seoegghead.com/blog/seo/stop-seo-death-by-pagination-p118.html
or http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-page-numbers/

More info on WP SEO?
http://yoast.com/articles/wordpress-seo/

Promoting your blog

Because just praying won’t work

So Join In The Conversation

Go where your readers go.

If you bait...

Use the good stuff.

Do Guest Posts.

Competing is more important than....

So now you’ve got visitors

Let’s turn them into fans

Your Subscribe Button
Can’t be BIG enough.

Offer e-mail too

Remind people. After each post.

Pick easy scores:
- comment redirect
(http://yoast.com/wordpress/comment-redirect/)
- comment relish

Now we’ve got a conversation

Let’s keep it going!

Here’s 10 steps
to improve the conversation on your blog

Step 1:
Ask for comments.

Step 2: Thank people for commenting.

Step 3: get to know your readers.

Step 4: answer all questions,
and respond to all feedback.

Step 5: Reward good remarks.

Step 6: keep people involved.

Step 7: don’t distract them.
Separate track- and pingbacks from comments:
http://yoast.com/wordpress-theming-pushing-trackbacks-down/

Step 8:
Fight spam, always.

Step 9: Keep It Stupid Simple (to comment)

Step 10:
Measure, improve, and repeat
Use Blog Metrics:
http://yoast.com/wordpress/blog-metrics/
Google Alerts
Twitter Ego Searches

Are you a good Housekeeper?
http://yoast.com/serious-blogging-questions/

3 bonus tips!

Prevent fruitless searching
Improve the WordPress search experience:
http://yoast.com/wordpress-search/

Aim for speed
Optimize your template:
http://yoast.com/speed-up-and-clean-up-your-wordpress/

check themes before installing
http://yoast.com/perfect-wordpress-theme/

Sign up to my WP mailing list!
http://yoast.com/mailing-list/
Joost de Valk
joost@yoast.com
http://yoast.com
http://www.orangevalley.nl
http://twitter.com/jdevalk