Your Guide to Higher Rankings for WordPress Sites

1. Your Guide to
Higher Rankings
for WordPress Sites

2. 2 | Your Guide to Higher Rankings for WordPress Sites
If you’re a small business owner,
freelancer, or entrepreneur, you
know how important it is to have a
website that gets attention. One
of the most popular platforms for
creating websites is WordPress.
WordPress is easy to use and easy
to modify to fit whatever look or
functionality you want your website
to have.
There are many ways to get attention
for your website – sharing the URL
wherever possible, pushing out
content on social media that drives
Your Guide to Higher Rankings
for WordPress Sites

3. back to your site - but a surefire way
to get more attention is by boosting
your search ranking.
A website’s search ranking is
essentially where it shows up on a
SERP (search engine results page).
So if you’re a carpenter in Florida,
it’s best to have your website appear
on the first or second page when
someone plugs “carpenters in
Florida” into a Bing, Yahoo, or Google
search box.
But how do you get more traffic and
better rankings for your WordPress
site? We list out a few options below.
Your Guide to Higher Rankings for WordPress Sites
3 | Your Guide to Higher Rankings for WordPress Sites

4. 4 | Your Guide to Higher Rankings for WordPress Sites
If you’re new to WordPress, you may not know
the power of WordPress plugins. WordPress
plugins are essentially add on features, usually
made by third party developers, that introduce
some new functionality that doesn’t come
standard with the WordPress platform. When
used properly, these plugins can set your site
apart and help you get great rankings.
For instance, Akismet is a plugin that looks at
your comments and evaluates whether or not
they are spam. While the link between cutting
down on spam comments and boosting your
traffic ranking might not be immediately clear, it
is there. For example, if your comment section
is free of spam and has real people carrying on
interesting conversations, your site will be a place
WordPress Plugins

5. 5 | Your Guide to Higher Rankings for WordPress Sites
that people want to visit. Also, some kinds of
spam can slow down your site and affect the
user experience, which make people visit your
site less and therefore lower your ranking.
Another plugin called All in One SEO Pack does
just what it says – it helps you to optimize
your website for SEO, boosting your search
ranking and helping you connect with potential
customers. We’ll get into the ins and outs of
SEO later on in the eBook, but all you need to
know now is that SEO stands for search engine
optimization. SEO helps search engines like
Bing, Google, and Yahoo find your site. It does
this in a few ways, from looking at the words you
use to seeing how many people regularly visit
your site. If you’re not SEO savvy, a plug in like
this one can help you make those connections.
WordPress Plugins

6. WordPress themes are one of the great things
about WordPress. They allow you to customize
the look and functionality of your site. It’s
easy to find cheap or relatively inexpensive
themes online. Many of them are tailored
toward specific uses, like portfolio display or
ecommerce.
Picking the right theme is essential because it will
allow you to do what you want to do on your site,
and it will also affect the way your site looks.
A nice looking, easy to read site will almost always
get you more traffic than a website that’s messy,
hard to understand, poorly laid out, or just not
modern looking. When your site is attractive,
you’ll get more regular visitors, which will boost
your search ranking.
WordPress Themes
6 | Your Guide to Higher Rankings for WordPress Sites

7. One thing to keep in mind when searching
for a WordPress theme for your site: don’t be
afraid to pay a few bucks for a great theme.
So many times people choose a theme they
only sort of like just because it’s free and
accomplishes 70 percent of their goal. But
really, if you’re willing to spend a mere $10,
you can usually find the perfect theme, one
that feels modern and unique.
WordPress Themes
7 | Your Guide to Higher Rankings for WordPress Sites

8. 8 | Your Guide to Higher Rankings for WordPress Sites
Once you’ve chosen the right
WordPress plugins and WordPress
theme, it’s time to start thinking
about what kind of content you’ll
be putting on your site.
Many people think there’s some sort
of secret to getting a high search
ranking, but really, it should be all
about well-written content that
people would find interesting and
useful.
Let’s say you’re a chef and caterer
in Michigan and you have a website
where you talk about your catering
business, your recipes, and the art of
cooking. By regularly creating useful
Great Content

9. content that will have people coming back,
you’ll boost your search ranking.
In this case, you’d want to take plenty of time
writing articles that someone would want to read
online, things like great ideas for cooking meals
at a dinner party, how to make homemade pasta,
and great easy desserts. These are terms you
can imagine someone looking up on Google or
Bing, and they have a clear purpose and theme.
Great Content
9 | Your Guide to Higher Rankings for WordPress Sites

10. GUEST
BLOGGERS
WANTED
10 | Your Guide to Higher Rankings for WordPress Sites
The best websites, newspapers, and
magazines are so great because they
feature a wide range of voices. They offer
different perspectives and cover different
topics. So if you’re using a WordPress blog
to promote your business or freelance
career, it might be wise to invite guest
writers to post on your blog and help
generate traffic.
By having a notable guest writer on your
site, you’re linking your sites name with
theirs. So if someone searches for that
writer’s name, there’s a decent chance that
your site will show up. Also, guest posters
will often share
a link to their story on your WordPress site
with their regular readers, which will earn
Invite Guest Writers

11. 11 | Your Guide to Higher Rankings for WordPress Sites
you new traffic (some of which is likely
to return), which will then raise your
ranking.
Keep in mind that this should be a
symbiotic relationship. If you have
someone posting on your site, post on
theirs. This is another way of putting
your name on more content that will go
out to the world, and also introducing
you and your business to a new audience.
Content trading works best when you
do it with multiple people. See if you
can get a guest post on your blog and
post a guest post on another blog twice
a month. After a year goes by, you’ll
be shocked by how much your search
ranking has improved.
Invite Guest Writers

12. 12 | Your Guide to Higher Rankings for WordPress Sites
While some of what we’ve talked about is
specific to having a WordPress site, there are
general SEO best practices that can help you
build a site that gets higher rankings.
First off, be sure to use clear, direct writing. Think
about what search terms might bring people to
your website. For instance, if you’re an interior
decorator, you know that people might search
for things like “how to pick the perfect color for
a child’s bedroom” or “best sofas under $2000.”
Having articles that address these needs and
clearly state them early in the article - either in
the title or the first paragraph - will allow Google,
Bing, Yahoo, or another search engine to easily
find it and deliver it to someone searching
for that term.
Also, always write content that you think people
Keep SEO Best Practices in Mind

13. will want to read. This is one of the best things you can
do for your SEO and to get higher rankings for your
WordPress site. If you write content that people enjoy,
it’ll travel around the web, earning you new visitors. As
you get more traffic, Google and other search engines
will see you as more useful and this will boost your traffic
rating.
Also, be sure your photo descriptions, URL, and
metadata use terms that are relevant to your content
and what people may be searching for.
Lastly, if you haven’t already, be sure to claim your
Google and Bing webmaster accounts and also submit
your sitemap. This is hugely important because it allows
them to quickly process any updates to your site, and
you can also get an idea of how these search engines
view your site.
Keep SEO Best Practices in Mind
13 | Your Guide to Higher Rankings for WordPress Sites

14. Sites like Google+ and Facebook are hugely
important to helping your SEO ranking, so
be sure you have dedicated social profiles
for your business or freelance career. When
you post something on your WordPress
blog, share the link to Facebook and
Google+. The social network Google+ is
particularly important because it’s owned
by one of the biggest search companies in
the world.
In addition, sharing your content on social
helps you get more visitors, and more visitors
almost always leads to a better search
ranking. It’s all about proving to Google, Bing,
Yahoo, and other search engines that the
content on your site is important and desired.
Get Social
14 | Your Guide to Higher Rankings for WordPress Sites

15. 15 | Your Guide to Higher Rankings for WordPress Sites
Raising your WordPress site ranking
is a process. Even if you take all of the
steps we outlined, don’t expect your
ranking to jump overnight. Chances
are, it’ll take a few weeks, or maybe
even a few months, before you see
your ranking rise.
The most important thing you can do
is track your activity and then examine
the impact it has on your traffic and
ranking. Once you’ve figured out
what’s working, keep doing it!
Test, Learn and Test Again!
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