This document provides instructions for optimizing WordPress settings for search engine optimization. It recommends changing general settings like the blog title and URL, permalink settings, privacy settings, and activating plugins like Askimet to reduce spam. It also provides .htaccess and robots.txt file configurations and inserting Google Analytics tracking code.

1. Wordpress Optimization Settings After installing Wordpress, these are the recommended steps before entering any content. Latest Revision: Feb. 8, 2009

2. Immediately After Wordpress Installation Log-in and change your settings To see the list of setting options, click on the down arrow to the right of “Settings”

3. 1st Change Your General Settings Click on General from the Settings menu Blog Title should contain your dominant keyword phrase ❶ ❷

4. 1st Change Your General Settings Tagline should contain your dominant or secondary keyword phrase The Wordpress URL should be the full path to your directory WITHOUT “www” ❸ ❹

5. 1st Change Your General Settings If you wish, you can modify Membership, the Timezone as well as the Date & Time format. These are not critical & can be changed later. Click the Save Changes button ❺

6. 2nd Change Your Permalink Settings Permalinks are the actual links to your posts. By default, permalinks are ?p=ID number of each post. To be search engine- & user-friendly, they should be words. ❶ You should change the default setting

7. 2nd Change Your Permalink Settings You can choose to organize your posts around Day & Name or Month & Name settings. Or you can create a custom setting such as Category & Name. For more information, click on the documentation link. ❷ ❸ You should change the default setting

8. 2nd Change Your Permalink Settings Click the Save Changes button after choosing your Permalink Settings. ❸ You should change the default setting

9. Privacy Settings By default, Wordpress will notify various search engines of new posts on your site. You may wish to turn this feature off while doing your initial set-up and creating your initial pages to prevent broadcasting things like Privacy Policy, Legal Disclaimer and such.

10. Privacy Settings To turn off broadcasting, choose to block search engines. Click Save Changes. *Don’t forget to turn broadcasting back on to launch your site. ❷ ❶

11. Reading Settings By default, Wordpress uses index.php for the site default. To choose a different page, click on “A static page” and choose any Wordpress page you have created from the drop-down menu. ❶

12. Reading Settings You may wish to select summary for syndication feeds. It can improves server performance & may encourage more click-throughs to your site. Click Save Change, if any. ❷ ❸

13. Discussion Settings Unless site is hosted on a fast, dedicated server, leave this setting turned off. Make certain link notifications are turned on to increase linking opportunities & traffic. ❷ ❶

14. Discussion Settings If you do not want comments, uncheck this box. However, from an SEO & promotion standpoint, comments are good. It creates more relevant content & drives traffic. Commenting can be turned off in an individual post, if desired. ❸

15. Discussion Settings To reduce comment maintenance, you may turn this option off. You may require a previously approved comment before automatically posting new comments for simple moderation. ❹ ❺

16. Discussion Settings You may also wish to set up a list of possible comment content or sources for review before publishing. And you can create a list of banned comment content or sources. ❻ ❼

17. Discussion Settings Click the Save Changes button to change any settings. ❽

18. Miscellaneous Settings By default, Wordpress organizes uploads by month and year. If you do not anticipate a large quantity of uploads or a need to search by a particular date, you may wish to turn this off to simplify server organization. ❶

19. Plugins Wordpress comes with the Askimet plugin ready for activation. It virtually eliminates your robotic spam problem. You must have an API key from Wordpress.com before activating. Click on the Wordpress.com API key link to get one. ❶

20. Plugins You do not need a Wordpress.com blog to use Askimet, but you do need a Wordpress.com account. The Askimet plugin checks comment sources against a database of known spambots and spammers on the Wordpress.com site. ❶

21. Plugins SEO plugins may – or may not – be useful in improving search engine rankings. Let’s discuss them... Additional Plugin Recommendations XML Sitemap Generator Automatically creates an XML file that is used by Google & other search engines to index your site. Improves your search engine rankings and listings. WP-Super Cache Improves server and site download performance be creating static HTML pages of each post for display to visitors who have not logged in, commented or provided a password. Contact Form There are a number of contact form plugins useful for helping protect the contact email or collect other information.

22. SEO Plugin Pros & Cons Pros & Cons Pro – SEO Plugins automate a number of optimization settings, mostly META headers Con – META headers are deprecated by Google and can actually harm your rankings if abused Pro – Avoid redundancy if changing themes & servers Con – Can destabilize Wordpress if conflicts with servers or other plugins and settings

23. Plugins META keywords and descriptions do not improve your Google rankings, but can harm rankings if abused. They are still used by some minor search engines. Indexing can be controlled by the .htaccess and robots.txt files Popular Wordpress SEO Plugins All-In-One SEO Pack The most popular because it’s designed to handle all of the big issues: generates search engine-friendly URLs, generates header META tags for keyword, description and author; avoids the WP duplicate content issues; easy to install and you can override any title, META description and META keywords you want. HeadSpace2 You can configure custom META data; define custom 'more text', custom themes & plugins on page basis; additional CSS and JavaScript files; Noindex and nofollow headers and other system configurations. WPtags 4 MetaKeywords Adds meta Keyword header using tags for keywords and other Meta header settings.

24. .htaccess settings with thanks to Andy Beard ( http://andybeard.eu /) /) The .htaccess file provides instructions to your Apache web server on how to handle various requests for content http://www.example.com is NOT the same as http://example.com – especially to Google This .htaccess file will create canonical URLs and file requests inconsistencies Basic Wordpress .htaccess file (lines starting with # may be removed) <IfModule mod_rewrite.c> RewriteEngine On # If subdomain www exists, remove it first RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.([^\.]+\.[^\.]+)$ [NC] RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://%1/$1 [R=301,L] # If requested resource does not exist as a file RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f # and does not end with a period followed by a filetype RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !..+$ # and does not end with a slash RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !/$ # then add a trailing slash and redirect RewriteRule (.*) $1/ [R=301,L] </IfModule> # BEGIN WordPress Required <IfModule mod_rewrite.c> RewriteEngine On RewriteBase / RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d RewriteRule . /index.php [L] </IfModule> # END WordPress

25. robots.txt file with thanks to Ask Apache ( http://www.askapache.com /) /) /) The robots.txt file controls the behavior of spiders and search bots. It can prevent Google from seeing “duplicate pages” and pages you do not want indexed Disallow any directory or sub-directory that you do not want indexed, including Wordpress aggregate pages like author Allow various specified Googlebots free access The sitemap refers to your XML sitemap file; you want one Basic Wordpress robots.txt file (you may have additional directories to disallow; content inside [ ] should be changed to match your system set up) User-agent: *Disallow: /cgi-bin/Disallow: /wp-adminDisallow: /wp-includesDisallow: /wp-contentDisallow: /tagDisallow: /authorDisallow: /wget/Disallow: /httpd/Disallow: /[each Wordpress category slug]/ User-agent: Mediapartners-GoogleAllow: / User-agent: Adsbot-GoogleAllow: / User-agent: Googlebot-ImageAllow: / User-agent: Googlebot-MobileAllow: / User-agent: ia_archiver-web.archive.orgDisallow: / Sitemap: http://[yourdomain]/sitemap.xml

26. Add your Google Analytics Code Your Google Analytics code is pasted into your footer.php template just before the closing </body> tag

27. Add your Google Analytics Code Your Google Analytics code is pasted into your footer.php template just before the closing </body> tag [All of your footer.php code before the Wordpress footer block] <?php wp_footer(); ?><script type=&quot;text/javascript&quot;>var gaJsHost = ((&quot;https:&quot; == document.location.protocol) ? &quot; https://ssl .&quot; : &quot; http://www . &quot;);documen t.write(unescape(&quot;%3Cscript src='&quot; + gaJsHost + &quot;google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E&quot;));</script><script type=&quot;text/javascript&quot;>try {var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker(&quot;GOOGLE-TRACKER-ID&quot;);pageTracker._trackPageview();} catch(err) {}</script> </body> </html> </html> </html>

28. Further Resources for Installing & Optimizing Wordpress http://codex.wordpress.org/Installing_WordPress (WP Installation instructions) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nxXsROoBYs (Video instructions on installing WP from a hosting service CPanel) http://codex.wordpress.org/Administration_Panels#Settings_-_Configuration_Settings (Wordpress Settings Information) SEO TIPS: http://www.geek-notes.com/wordpress/25/optimize-wordpress-for-search-engines/ (A brilliant set of SEO Tips written for Wordpress) But Remember the Most Critical SEO Factor...

29. You must have lots of relevant titles and content on your keyword phrase(s)!

30. *and if you find this useful, let others know. Thank you! For further informationand ancillary materials, visit: http://carolynecooper.com * *