The document outlines essential WordPress SEO practices, including configuration settings, theme optimization, and the use of SEO plugins. It emphasizes the importance of proper permalink structures, optimizing post titles and images, and encouraging user engagement through comments and subscriptions. Additional SEO strategies focus on caching, controlling indexing with robots.txt, and leveraging social media.

1. WordPress SEO
by Dave Jesch
www.DIYOnlineSolutions.com

2. Topics:
- WordPress Configuration Settings
- Theme Optimization
- Writing Posts
- SEO Related Plugins
- Additional Steps
Slides available at:
http://www.DIYOnlineSolutions.com/wordpress-seo

3. WordPress Configuration

4. Permalink Settings
Settings -> Permalinks
- Use anything but the default settings!
- ?p=123 and /archive/123 don't put keywords in the URL
- best is /%category%/%postname%/

5. Domain Name Settings
Settings -> General
- Select preferred domain name
either with the www. or without
- Then tell Google Webmaster Tools your preferred domain
- WordPress will automatically redirect non-www domains
to www.domain.com
This helps to reduce duplicate content, since the same
content could be found at domain.com/article and www.
domain.com/article.

6. Writing Settings
Settings -> Writing
- Update Services
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically
notifies the following site update services.
- See http://codex.wordpress.org/Update_Services
for a list of re-posting services.
- You can find more by searching in Google.

7. Comment Settings
Settings -> Discussion
- Comments are how you get people to come back
[x] Allow people to post comments.
[ ] Users must be registered and logged in to comment.
[x] Enable threaded/nested comments.
[x] An administrator must always approve the comment.
Follow people who comment on your site.
- Comment on their site, it could get you a link back
to your site.

8. Privacy Settings
Settings -> Privacy
Let the Search Engines in!
(o) "I would like my blog to be visible to everyone..."

9. Theme Optimization

10. Optimize Headings - <h1>
- Make sure post titles use <h1> tags correctly.
- Remove <a>post-title</a> on single.php
- Remove <h1> tags in the header.
- These often only have an image or the blog title in them.
- Post titles should be no more than <h3> for category
and archive pages.

11. Optimize the "more" text
in index.php, look for:
the_content('Read more &raquo;');
Change to:
the_content(
the_title('Read more on ', ' &raquo;',
FALSE));
This puts your keyword rich title into the link, as in:
Read more on How to Increase Profits >>

12. Optimize Comment Text
Change comments_link() and comments_popup_link()
change:
'No comments'
to:
'No comments yet - we invite your feedback'
The comments_popup_link() and comments_link()
functions may be used in multiple pages of your theme, look
around.

13. Remove in-page JavaScript and CSS
Javascript and CSS should always be in an external file rather
than within your HTML page.
- As an external page, this can be cached.
- Can also be excluded via robots.txt
- Reduces page size / speeds page load time
Some plugins output Javascript and/or CSS directly into the
page content. Double check your plugins to see if they do this.

14. Sidebars - Remove Blogroll
Excessive outside links can drain "link juice."
- Having links to other sites on every page just creates
a lot of links
- Links to those sites may not be contextually relevant
on all pages, making the links worth less.
Consider adding these links only on your home page instead.

15. Use .htaccess to add "expires" header
Allows browsers to better control caching of static files.
<ifmodule mod_expires.c>
<filesmatch ".(jpg|gif|png|css|js)$">
ExpiresActive on
ExpiresDefault "access plus 1 year"
</filesmatch>
</ifmodule>

16. Count Queries and Execution time
In footer.php:
<!--
<?php
echo ' Page made ';
echo get_num_queries() . ' queries ';
echo ' and ran in ';
timer_stop(1);
echo ' seconds.';
?>
-->

17. Writing Posts

18. Titles
- These produce the URL, or permalink for your blog post or
page.
- Always use good keyword rich titles
- Put important keywords early in the title
- Good titles evoke emotional response, promise something,
or ask question.
- Write to your target. Qualifying wrong viewer leads to low
conversion rate or bouncebacks.
- Don't use same titles/keywords at start of every title.
Mix things up if possible.
- Make titles at least slightly different from meta descriptions
and headings.

19. Images
- When uploading images, fill in the Title and Caption
- Title equates to title= tag.
- Caption equates to alt= tag.
- Description is not shown...for your reference.
- WordPress will automatically create images of the sizes
specified in the Media Settings area.

20. Use Pages instead of Posts
- When appropriate, these have some advantages:
- Pages can have more specific URLs.
- Use Permalink settings to include the category name.
- Disable comments
- Comments left by readers can destroy keyword density.
- Add keywords that you do not wish to target.
- Bloat pages with unwanted keywords, text and links.

21. If a Post Becomes Popular
Consider Promoting the Post to a Page
- Change the permalink of the post to %name%-original
- Keeping original Post means you keep the comments.
- Redirect the old Post's URL to the new Page
- Provide a link from the Page to the original Post
- Inform readers of the new Page
- Inform inbound links that you've updated content.
this could get more inbound links.

22. Encourage Readers to Subscribe
- Offer incentives
- free e-book
- videos
- prizes
When people subscribe you can use their email address to
market to them and inform them of new content or offerings.

23. Encourage User Comments
- Write blog posts that elicit a response. Ask questions.
- Finish blog posts with "We invite your feedback."
- Thank your commentors.
- Interact with commentors.
- Add a subscription/opt-in at the end of your blog posts.

24. SEO Plugins

25. How to Install Plugins
In the Admin go to:
- Plugins
- Add New
- Search by Name
or
- Upload from .zip file
- Activate Plugin

26. SEO Related Plugins
1. All in One SEO Pack
http://semperfiwebdesign.com/portfolio/wordpress/wordpress-plugins/all-in-
one-seo-pack/
Lots of SEO Tools. Edit title, keywords, meta data, etc.
2. Robots Meta by Joost de Valk
Control index,follow for each Page & site-wide settings too.
3. Google XML Sitemap by Arne Brachhold
Auto build sitemap.xml files.
4. Redirection by John Godley
Redirect bad links and changed Permalinks.
5. SEO Slugs by Andrei Mikrukov
Removes stop words from permalinks.
6. Breadcrumbs NAVXT by John Havlik
Adds links to help show structure of site content.
7. Google Analytics by DIYOnlineSolutions
Add Google Analytics code to your pages for tracking.

27. Additional Steps

28. Robots.txt File
Keep Search Engines from Indexing Unnecessary Pages
User-Agent: *
sitemap: http://domain.com/sitemap.xml
Allow: /
Disallow: /comments/feed/
Disallow: /feed/
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /wp-login.php
Disallow: /wp-register.php

29. Install Caching Plugin
- Speed is important
- Caching can reduce the time it takes to satisfy a request.
- Effectiveness depends on your theme, host and the plugin
W3 Total Cache
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/w3-total-cache/

30. Nofollow Unnecessary Links
Consider nofollowing links to:
- login/registration pages (via Robots Meta plugin)
- RSS feeds
- Subscribe by email

31. Subscribe to Comments
A few plugins available for this feature
- Keep customers coming back when new posts are made
- Use emails for marketing and promotions

32. Social Media Plugins
Many Social Media Plugins available
- Twitter Tools
- Can make a tweet for every blog post with link to site
- Facebook
- Social Bookmarking

33. Find Related Blogs
Become active on related blogs.
- Make comments / Add to conversation
- Can be a good source of inbound links

34. Speed Up Your Theme
Advanced Techniques
Some ideas:
- in headers.php, remove bloginfo('html_type') and
bloginfo('charset') - change to constants.
- make stylesheet and javascript URLs static
- make pingback and RSS feed URLs static
- Remove WordPress version
- Some themes have similar calls in footer;
remove those as well.

35. Questions??