The document outlines best practices for WordPress SEO targeted at developers, covering essential topics such as how search engines operate, the importance of SEO, pre-SEO considerations, and various SEO strategies including on-page, off-page, and technical SEO. Key points emphasize the importance of website speed, mobile optimization, structured data (schema markup), and tools available for effective SEO management. The conclusion reinforces that developers play a crucial role in the SEO performance of websites by making informed decisions about site architecture and user experience.

1. WordPress SEO: Best
Practices Developers
Should Follow
Surat WordPress Meetup September 2024
Presented by:
Kaushik Kathiriya

2. AGENDA
01.
02.
HOW SEARCH ENGINE WORK
WHY SEO REQUIRED?
03. PRE-SEO CONSIDERATIONS
04.
05.
ON-PAGE SEO STRATEGIES
WHAT IS SCHEMA MARKUP?
06.
07.
TECHNICAL SEO STRATEGIES
08.
AVOID SILLY MISTAKE
09.
SEO TOOLS & PLUGINS FOR DEVELOPERS
CONCLUSION & Q&A

3. HOW SEARCH ENGINES WORK?
Crawling
Search engines use bots
(also called spiders or
crawlers) to discover web
pages.
Indexing
After crawling, search
engines store information
about these web pages in
their index.
Ranking
When users search for a query,
search engines rank the
indexed pages based on their
relevance, quality, and user-
friendliness.

4. EXAMPLE

5. SEARCH ENGINE MARKET SHARE
Search Engine
Market Share
Google
Bing
Yandex
Yahoo!
Baidu
DuckDuckGo
90.48%
3.93%
1.95%
1.32%
0.79%
0.64%

6. WHY SEO
REQUIRED?
02.

7. Increases Visibility: Enhances Credibility:
Drives Organic Traffic: Provides Long-Term Benefits:
SEO helps your website appear higher in
search engine results, making it easier for
potential customers to find you when they
search for relevant keywords.
Higher search engine rankings can boost
your brand's credibility and authority,
making customers more likely to trust your
products or services.
Organic search results often receive more
clicks than paid ads, leading to a steady
stream of targeted visitors to your website.
Unlike paid advertising, SEO can provide
sustained results over time, making it a
cost-effective investment.

8. COMPARISON
Focus: Organic (non-paid) traffic.
Long-Term Results: It takes time to build
rankings, but results are sustainable.
Cost: No direct cost for organic traffic, but
requires investment in time and resources for
optimization.
Approach: Focuses on optimizing website
content, technical aspects, and backlinks.
Example: Ranking a blog post organically for
a target keyword.
SEO
vs
PPC
Focus: Paid search ads (e.g., Google Ads).
Immediate Results: Get traffic quickly by
paying for top placements.
Cost: Pay for each click on your ad, often
bidding against competitors.
Approach: Focus on targeting keywords, ad
creation, and setting a budget for clicks.
Example: Running Google Ads for a product
page targeting specific keywords.
Integration: Best results often come from using SEO and PPC together—PPC provides data for SEO
keyword strategies, while SEO builds organic strength over time.

9. EXAMPLE

10. TYPES OF SEO
01.
02.
ON PAGE SEO
OFF PAGE SEO
03. TECHNICAL SEO
04.
05.
LOCAL SEO
INTERNATIONAL SEO
06.
07.
MOBILE SEO
IMAGE SEO
08. VIDEO SEO
09.
10.
ECOMMERCE SEO
VOICE SEO

11. PRE SEO
CONSIDERATION
03.

12. WEBSITE SPEED CRAWLABILITY AND
INDEXABILITY
MOBILE RESPONSIVENESS
SECURE HTTPS CONNECTION
USER EXPERIENCE (UX)
COMPETITOR RESEARCH
Importance of fast-loading
websites for user experience
and ranking.
Ensure search engines can easily
crawl and index the website.
Ensure the website is optimized
for mobile devices.
Security matters for SEO (SSL
certificates).
Ensure your website is easy to navigate
and provides a good user experience.
Identifying and analyzing competitors to
understand their strengths, weaknesses,
strategies, and market position.

13. ON-PAGE SEO
BEST PRACTICES
04.

14. 01 - Title tag & meta Descriptions
02 - Heading Structure
03 - Internal Linking
Clickbait Title, keyword-optimized titles
and descriptions that encourage clicks.
Use H1 for the primary heading and H2-
H6 for subheadings to organize content.
Direct users to relevant pages within your
website, which helps both SEO and user
experience.
BEST PRACTICES

15. 04 - Image Optimization
05 - URL Structure
06 - Mobile-Friendliness
Use descriptive file names and alt text for images.
Compress images using tools like TinyPNG to
improve load times.
Keep URLs short, descriptive, and include keywords
relevant to the page content.
Ensure your website is fully responsive and provides
an excellent user experience on all devices.
BEST PRACTICES

16. 07 - Page Load Speed
09 - Schema Markup
Multilingual SEO (if
applicable)
08 -
Improve page speed by leveraging browser
caching, minimizing CSS and JavaScript, and using
content delivery networks (CDNs).
Implement schema markup to help search engines
better understand your content and display rich
snippets (e.g., reviews, ratings, FAQs).
Use hreflang tags if your website is multilingual, to
ensure search engines serve the correct language
version of a page to the right audience.
BEST PRACTICES

17. WHAT IS SCHEMA
MARKUP?
05.

18. Schema markup is a code in the form of structured data that communicates
the meaning of your page, elements, and how users should see it to the
searching tool.

19. TYPES OF SCHEMA
01.
02.
FAQS SCHEMA
REVIEW SCHEMA
03. PRODUCT SCHEMA
04.
05.
EVENT SCHEMA
JOBS SCHEMA
06.
07.
SEARCH SCHEMA
ORGANIZATION SCHEMA
08. RECIPE SCHEMA
09.
10.
VIDEO SCHEMA
LOCAL BUSINESS SCHEMA

20. EXAMPLE
Review Schema FAQ Schema

21. EXAMPLE
Job Schema Recipe Schema

22. EXAMPLE
EVENT SCHEMA PERSON SCHEMA

23. HOW TO GENERATE SCHEMA
You can manually write schema markup using JSON-LD format or use a schema generator tool

24. TECHNICAL SEO
STRETEGIES
06.

25. WEBSITE STRUCTURE SSL & SECURITY
MOBILE-FIRST INDEXING
SITEMAP & ROBOTS.TXT
SITE SPEED
CORE WEB VITALS
Clean URL structures, XML sitemaps,
and robots.txt files help search
engines crawl and index your
website effectively.
Websites with HTTPS are trusted more
by users and search engines. Use SSL
certificates to secure your site.
Google prioritizes mobile-
friendly sites; ensure your site is
responsive.
Varify sitemap and robots.txt file and
block secure page
Techniques like caching, image
compression (using plugins like
Smush or ShortPixel), and content
delivery networks (CDNs) like
Cloudflare improve speed.
Varify with page speed insight tools
with how many core web vitals
error.
CONSIDERATION

26. Optimizing for
Core Web
Vitals
Core Metrics: Largest Contentful
Paint (LCP), First Input Delay
(FID), Cumulative Layout Shift
(CLS), Interaction to next paint
(INP).
Why Core Web Vitals Matter:
Core Web Vitals are directly tied
to Google’s ranking algorithm,
affecting SEO.
Checking tools: Google
PageSpeed Insights, Lighthouse,
and Web Vitals extension.
WordPress Tools: How plugins
like WP Rocket and W3 Total
Cache and other cashing plugins
can help.
Best Practices: Lazy loading,
minimizing CSS and JavaScript,
server response time.

27. EXAMPLE
CLS
INP

28. WHAT KIND OF SILLY
MISTAKE WE CAN AVOID
DURING THE DEVELOPMENT
07.

29. 01. Forgetting to Optimize Images
02. Ignoring Mobile Optimization
Missing Meta Tags or Using
Duplicate Ones
Solution: Always compress images and use appropriate
formats (e.g., WebP) without sacrificing quality. Also, include
descriptive alt tags.
Solution: Use responsive design practices and test the site on
various devices to ensure smooth performance across all
screen sizes.
Solution: Ensure unique, descriptive title tags and meta
descriptions for every page to improve click-through rates
and relevance.
BEST PRACTICES
03.

30. 04. Broken Links and 404 Errors
No Structured Data
(Schema Markup)
Using Too Much JavaScript
Without Proper SEO
Consideration
Solution: Regularly audit the site for broken links and ensure
all redirects are properly set up.
Solution: Implement relevant schema markup (e.g., Product,
Article, FAQ) to help search engines better understand and
display your content.
Solution: Ensure that important content is accessible by
search engines either through server-side rendering or by
making key elements crawlable.
BEST PRACTICES
05.
06.

31. 07. Not Optimizing for Site Speed
Using Dynamic URLs Instead
of Clean URLs
Not Setting Up Proper
Canonical URLs
Solution: Minimize code, leverage browser caching, and use a
content delivery network (CDN) to improve site speed.
Solution: Implement clean, descriptive URLs that are
keyword-rich (e.g., example.com/seo-tips-for-developers).
Solution: Set canonical URLs to indicate the preferred version
of a page, especially when similar content exists across
multiple pages.
BEST PRACTICES
08.
09.

32. Forgetting to Set ‘Noindex’
on Staging or Development
Sites
11. No Breadcrumb Navigation
Poor Heading Structure (H1,
H2, H3 etc.)
Solution: Always set noindex tags or block these
environments using robots.txt to prevent search engines
from indexing non-public versions of the site.
Solution: Implement breadcrumb navigation to improve user
experience and allow search engines to understand the
structure of your site better.
Solution: Stick to one H1 per page, followed by H2s and H3s
to properly structure content in a logical and accessible way.
BEST PRACTICES
12.
10.

33. SEO TOOLS &
PLUGINS FOR
DEVELOPERS
08.

34. SEO TOOLS
AND PLUGINS
FOR WP
Yoast SEO vs. Rank Math: Both
are excellent tools, but Yoast is
user-friendly, while Rank Math
provides more advanced options.
Ahrefs and SEMrush:
Comprehensive tools for
keyword research, backlink
analysis, and site audits.
Google Search Console: Monitor
performance, page track issues,
schema issues and submit
sitemaps.
Google Analytics: Analyze
traffic sources, user behavior,
and set goals to track
conversions.
Screaming Frog: A website
crawler for in-depth technical
SEO audits.
Website SEO Checker Free
Audit & Analysis Extension:
Every imaginable SEO Metric
within a browser plugin. Keyword
Rankings, Backlinks, On-Page
Elements, Tech Audit & More

35. SEO TOOLS
AND PLUGINS
FOR WP
Check My Links Extension:
Check My Links is a link checker
that crawls through your
webpage and looks for broken
links.
Schema Markup Generator
(JSON-LD): Structured data
generator that supports the
creation of JSON-LD markups.
Including all of the required item
properties and more.
Google Analytics Opt-out Add-
on (by Google) Extension: Tells
the Google Analytics JavaScript
not to send information to
Google Analytics.
Redirection path extension: The
HTTP Header & Redirect Checker
for SEO.

36. EXAMPLE OF MS CLARITY

37. EXAMPLE OF SCREMING FROG

38. EXAMPLE OF WEBSITE SEO
CHECKER FREE AUDIT & ANALYSIS

39. EXAMPLE OF GOOGLE ANALYTICS
OPTOUT EXTENSION

40. CONCLUSION & KEY TAKEAWAYS
Conclusion:
Key Takeaways:
SEO is a Continuous Development Process
Core Web Vitals Are Your Key Metric
Schema Markup for Enhanced Search Presence
Optimize Crawl Budget and Indexing
Prioritize User Experience and Content Quality
Technical SEO cannot be ignored.
As developers, your work goes beyond just building websites; you are directly responsible for
shaping the SEO performance of every site you develop. The decisions you make regarding site
speed, structure, and responsiveness can make or break the site’s success in search engine rankings.

41. THANK YOU
Do you have any question?