The document discusses the importance of technical SEO for WordPress sites, emphasizing that installing plugins like Yoast SEO is not sufficient for optimal search engine performance. It outlines key SEO strategies, such as the use of semantic markup and ensuring site responsiveness, while recommending alternatives to Yoast, like the SEO Framework, for better efficiency. Additionally, it stresses the need for reliable hosting and upkeep to maintain site performance and improve organic search rankings.

1. Technical SEO for
WordPress
Installing Yoast SEO is not enough
WordPress Turku Meetup 2017-09-07
Otto Kekäläinen
@ottokekalainen
WP-palvelu.fi

2. ● WP-palvelu.fi – WordPress hosting
and upkeep
● CEO, sysadmin and developer
● Linux and open source advocate
● Contributed to WordPress Core, fi
and sv translations, Linux, Docker,
Nginx, Redis, MariaDB…
● Twitter:@ottokekalainen
Otto Kekäläinen

3. ● Google’s robots and others
crawl our sites ~1,8M times
a day
● Google.fi and others sends
visitors to our customers
sites ~101k times a day
● Senior enough to remember
Altavista…
Why do I talk about SEO?
statistics from Aug 28th 00:00–23:59

4. DO YOU WANT TO BE NUMBER ONE
IMMEDIATELY?
Then buy ads.
SEO is all about improving
organic ranking over time.
Nobody outside Google
knows how their ranking
works in detail. Google
penalizes spammers.

5. GROUND RULE:
MAKE THE SITE GOOD FOR HUMANS,
AND GOOGLE WILL LIKE IT TOO

6. Choosing WordPress
is a great strategy for
good SEO, as your
quality content from
blogs, WooCommerce etc
boosts your domain’s reputation.

7. “Google loves WordPress”
– Matt Cutts, Google
WordPress is also a good technology

8. LEVELS OF SEO
MATURITY
1.
Acknowledged
Easy!
2.
Fully crawled
robots.txt
sitemap.xml
No errors
No link rot
3.
Given
relevance
Relevant
contents
Semantic
structure
Microformats
Pretty URLs
4.
Given value
and high
ranking
Links to site
Social media
Popularity
Responsive
Fast
HTTPS
HTTP2
IPv6?

9. TECHNICAL
SEO
1.
Acknowledged
Easy!
2.
Fully crawled
robots.txt
sitemap.xml
No errors
No link rot
3.
Given
relevance
Relevant
contents
Semantic
structure
Microformats
Pretty URLs
4.
Given value
and high
ranking
Links to site
Social media
Popularity
Responsive
Fast
HTTPS
HTTP2
IPv6?

10. WORDPRESS AND
BUILT-IN SEO

11. WordPress built-in: robots.txt

12. WordPress built-in: language markup

13. WordPress built-in: pretty urls
Never use
example.com/?p=123
anymore, ok?
In posts, the
title becomes
the url by
default

14. WordPress built-in: image settings
url
Think about these
next time you
upload an image.
alt attribute

15. WHAT ABOUT
WORDPRESS THEMES?

16. TYPICAL IN WORDPRESS
All modern themes are responsive by design,
and most follow good semantic practices:
- unique <title> for each page
- one <h1> per page
- <article>, <section> etc..

17. IF YOU ROLL YOUR OWN THEME
Strive for (standards) valid and clean code!
Google’s robots value what G’s engineers value..
Read up on the standard semantic tags in
HTML5, explore microformats and adhere to
schema.org vocabulary.

18. SEMANTIC MARKUP EXAMPLE
Feed search
engines with
semantic data and
they will use it.

19. SEO
PLUGINS

20. FORGET YOAST – USE SEO FRAMEWORK!
★ Smaller, leaner, faster
★ Creates nice clean
/sitemap.xml
★ Canonical URL
wordpress.org/plugins/autodescription/
★ No bloat, no
annoying ads
★ And it even looks
better!

21. YOAST ⇢ SEO FRAMEWORK MIGRATION
= Yoast ≅ SEO Framework

22. OPENGRAPH (FB) AND TWITTER CARDS
Don’t worry – SEO Framework generates these for you

23. SITEMAP.XML
SEO Framework
added
sitemap.xml
automatically

24. AVOID DUPLICATE CONTENT
Spamming does
not help SEO!
(Unless you are really good)

25. ACCELERATED MOBILE PAGES
We’ve been building websites
mobile first for years already,
but now Google et al wants
us to go back to the
m.example.com paradigm,
this time the url can be
example.com/amp/ though..

26. / /amp/

27. REDIRECTION – AVOID LINK ROT
wordpress.org/plugins/redirection/

28. MULTILINGUAL PLUGINS?
Polylang is best!
Polylang is best!
Polylang is best!
It does automatically hreflang attributes too.
Yes, I have issues with WPML.

29. GOOD HOSTING AND ACTIVE UPKEEP
● low response times
● https
● http/2
Make sure your site and server are being looked
after by progressive Linux admins.

30. WITH GOOD TECH IN PLACE,
IT’S SAFE TO START
INVESTING IN
CONTENTS AND
SOCIAL
1.
Acknowledged
Easy!
2.
Fully crawled
robots.txt
sitemap.xml
No errors
No link rot
3.
Given
relevance
Relevant
contents
Semantic
structure
Microformats
Pretty URLs
4.
Given value
and high
ranking
Links to site
Social media
Popularity
Responsive
Fast
HTTPS
HTTP2
IPv6?

31. THANK YOU!
KIITOS!
WP-palvelu.FI
@SeravoFi
@ottokekalainen

32. Hosting ja ylläpito WordPress-sivustoille.

33. Seravo Oy
● Perustettu 2011
● Luotettava, kotimainen toimija
● Erikoistunut IT-asiantuntijapalveluiden
tarjoamiseen Linuxia ja muita avoimen
lähdekoodin ohjelmistoja käyttäville asiakkaille
● Tuottaa WordPress-sivustoille suunniteltua
hosting- ja ylläpitopalvelua nimeltä
WP-palvelu.fi

34. WP-palvelu.fi
● Suomalainen, erityisesti WordPress-sivustoille
suunniteltu pilvipalvelu
● Kiinteä kuukausi- tai vuosimaksu kattaa verkkotunnuksen
ja palvelintilan lisäksi myös ylläpidon
○ WordPressin ytimen ja lisäosien päivitys, varmuuskopiointi, tietoturva, sivuston toimivuuden
valvonta 24/7
● WordPress-asiantuntijat huolehtivat sivustojen
nopeudesta, toimivuudesta ja tietoturvasta
● Kehittäjille suunniteltu ympäristö

35. Palvelupaketit
● WP Mini pienille sivustoille, 18€/kk
● WP Pro yrityssivustoille, 30€/kk
● WP Business verkkokaupoille, 45€/kk
● WP Enterprise asiakkaan tarpeisiin räätälöity, alk.100€/kk
● Lisätietoa: wp-palvelu.fi/hinnasto/