In 2011, SEO is more than just optimizing page titles and a few plugins; it’s about having the right site architecture, social signals, domain authority, site speed and much more.
Sujan speaks on the latest traffic driving tips for your WordPress website including the best plugins for SEO and Social Media. He also will talk about how to implement SEO, such as keyword research, social signals that affect rankings & social media optimization for WordPress. By following his tips, you can turn your WordPress site into a traffic driving machine.
2. Who is Sujan? Worked in the SEO industry for 10 years and with WordPress for 5 years Twitter.com/SujanPatel Facebook.com/SujanPatel Linkedin.com/in/SujanPatel SingleGrain.com/blog
3. SEO Fundamentals Keyword Research Content Post Panda Site Structure & Internal Linking Most Important Elements Social Signals DON’TS!!!
4. Keyword Research Use Google search to discover new keywords Identify keywords with commercial intent Aim for highest volume keywords with the lowest competition
13. Most Important Elements Use Keywords in: Page Titles URLs H1/H2 Image Filename Alt text (for images) Title Attribute (for links) Canonicalization: Redirect non www to www (301 redirects)
15. SEO DON’TS! Don’t… use tags, stop using tags! have broken links have duplicate content or very similar post too many ads and affiliate links
16. SEO DON’TS!! Don’t… have 404 pages& crawl errors check Google webmaster tools for any errors irrelevant linking or link exchanges low quality page (LESS IS MORE)
28. BONUS: Traffic Driving Tips Write: 30+ List Post Infographics Guest Blogging Less Content Build Relationships Comment on your favorite blogs Top Blogs in XYZ
29. Get in Touch Slides: www.singlegrain.com/wordcamp Have questions? Contact me. Sujan Patel (415) 335-6852 sj@singlegrain.com www.singlegrain.com
Editor's Notes
Start keyword research with the most basic single word phrase that describes your product or service. -in this case “shoes”Use google search to discover new keywords Best keyword has the highest volume with the least amount of competition
Head terms have the highest volume and generally are the most competitive2-3 word phrase or as I like to call them mid tail keywords a bit less search volume And long tail are 3+ word phrases decrease in volume even further
-Use Keyword Research Tools to find volume-Use the numbers on the tools as relative not absolute
This is aheatmap of the search results page. Position 1-3 get the most clicksWhen optimizing your site Aim for position 3 and above!!! (even though it’s much harder)
-Top 10 positions is the only way to get traffic-This curve incorporates the latest universal search where images, video, news, & blog post show up on the search results
Use max values for cpc & daily budget-Take estimated daily clicks and multiply by 30-You may not be able to rank number 1 for all keywords but you can use the previous slide (CTR curve) to estimate keyword volume at postion 2, 3, and so forth- These are still estimates but the closest you can get to real numbers
-Google released the first panda update in march of this year and it has affected lots of content based sites (lots of wordpress sites)Now not all content is king..only good content.Most sites can remove 20% percent of their pages without seeing any negative affet in traffic.This means 20% of the content is bad and after the panda update it’s holding you back.- Now it’s about having quality content rather than quantity of contentAction Items:-Remove low value pages-Remove similar pages (remove the weaker of the two)
-Proper site structure is very important to the panda update. -Always make every page 3 clicks away from the homepage-Good site structure is important to pass value to deeper pages-As we saw on the long tail slide, the more specific the keywords get the less search volume they have. You want your homepage to focus on the head terms like “shoes”, -your main sections or 2nd layer of pages to focus on mid tail keywords like “running shoes”.- and sub sections & beyond to go after longer tail keywords
Another way to pass seo value or “link juice” between pages is internal linking. This is where you link to other pages of your site.General Rules to follow aOnly link out when it is relevant2-3 links per page
Tweets, Likes, +1's affect your rankingsOn the left is the search results for when I’m logged into my google account (which is tied to my twitter & facebook accounts). You can see the article is ranking position 3.On the right is the results for when I’m not logged in. Which shows the actual ranking as position 6.
-Tags create duplicate content issues-Tags dilute your site with low value pages-use broken link checker plugin to redirect them to the new url-Don’t have duplicate post on the same topic. If you wrote a post on a subject last year and you have more to say…add it to that post. Make that post a page or set the publish date later.-this way you have a more authorize page that’s growing in content Too many ads & affiliate links could cause your site to be affected by the panda update. Also is a big negative factor for SEO
keep errors below 10% of the number of pages indexedlinking to irrelevant sites could cause your site to be affected by the panda updateif you have crap content remove it and redirect the urlkeep low quality pages below 20% of index pages
List plugins on this page
Yoast SEO is the most extensiveseo plugin and will handle most of the seo for you.-Through it you can add breadcrumb navigation. Which is great for site structure and improves indexation on large sites-You can optimize your page titles globally & for individual pages
I recommend that “no index” the archive, category, pagination and tag pages. This reduces the number of low value pages.-Yoast SEO plugin allows you to do it by simply clicking a few checkboxesI also recommend that you no follow low value pages & the “read more link”
Another great feature onYoast SEO is the Automated SEO analysis it does per page/post. It automatically analysis's the page to make sure the keywords are utilized in the important seo elements such has page title, url, content, meta description, etc
RSS footer allows you to add a text link to each post in your rss so every scrapper that takes your content links back to you.Another great way to get rid of the pesky scrapers to send google a DMCA addressed to the scrapper site, which will remove them from google’s index.
SEO Smart links is a plugin to automate your internally linking. This tools is great however is no replacement for manually internally linking as you see fit
This plugin automatically creates an xml sitemap that is Google, Bing & Yahoo Compliant. It auto updates every time you add a new page or post.
W3 total cache makes your increases your site speed. It also helps your site withload tons of traffic. It can make your 8 dollar hosting account feel like dedicated server
There are lots of plugins that offer social buttons. Here are a few of my favorites.
Write: 30+ List PostInfographicsGuest BloggingLess Content (stop writing crap)Build Relationships (anyone that links to you, email them and thank them)Comment on your favorite blogs (this can grab the attention of the writer and drive traffic to your site)Top Blogs in XYZ (email each one)