WordPress SEO
 John Shehata
 Sr. Manager SEO, Advance Internet
 john@john-shehata.com
 Twitter @john_shehata
 http://www.john-shehata.com
 Sri Nagubandi
 Director SEO, Rosetta
 sri@srinagubandi.com
 Twitter: @srinagubandi
 http://www.srinagubandi.com

Agenda
 SEO Introduction
 What is SEO / Why SEO
 SEO Ranking Factors
 Technical / On Page / Off Page / Other
 SEO for WordPress
 Page Layout / Source Code Optimization
 Final Thoughts (J&S)
 Things to Remember
 Q&A

SEO Intro

What is SEO and Why?
What is SEO?
 Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the active
practice of optimizing a web site by improving
internal and external aspects in order to increase the
traffic the site receives from search engines. –
SEOMOZ.com
WHY SEO?
 The majority of clicks from search engines are from
natural search!

The Keyword Competitive Landscape
 Search Engine Optimization is not linear
 Like Paid Search the Keyword/ Key Phrase that your
competing for is an important factor.
 Each keyword will require its own strategy and level of
effort.
Sri Nagubandi has little competition
and should be easy to rank for.
5

The Competitive Landscape
WordPress is highly competitive and
will require a longer consistent effort.

SEO Ranking Factors

SEO Ranking Factors
 Keywords
 Choose the right keywords that you can rank for
 Technology
 Code, etc.
 Content
 Optimize the most important elements, but write
unique interesting content
 Off-Site Promotion
 Link Development, Get Links from Relevant
Authoritative Site

Technical
The goal of Technical SEO is to remove roadblocks for
Search Engine Spiders and make crawling and
indexing your site easier.
 Fast loading pages
 Code validation
 Broken links check
 Proper redirects 301/302
 404 pages checked
 Sitemaps/ Robots.txt file updated

On-Site/ On-Page
 Optimize all pages, META Tags, etc
 Review semantic structure on page
templates
 Keyword rich URLs
 Update content and pages based on
engine updates and changes

Off-Site/ Link Development
 Get links from relevant authorities sites!
 Make sure that links have the right anchor
text!
 Ensure that internal links also spread
value…
 External links get authority to your site,
internal links spread them
 Don‟t use generic text like „click here‟,
„view more‟, etc.. for either internal or
external links

SEO for WordPress

Before you Start
 Use your own domain name & host, don‟t use the
free wordpress.com free URLs/ hosting
 Enable friendly URLs
 Redirect domain.com to www.domain.com and use
www.domain.com in settings
 Use robots.txt
 Use a personal favicon
 Create XML site maps (plugin), update it monthly
 Add site to Google Webmaster Tools
 Domain vs. sub-domain
 Sub-domain can be treated as a separate domain
 Update you tag line and include your most
important keyword

Title Tags
 Place blog name at the end of the title, not
at the beginning
 Customize with additional keywords for
display only on your home page
 Override title tags w/ custom one (“SEO
Title Tag” plugin)
 Place important keywords in the beginning
 Don‟t exceed 60 characters

URLs
 Rewrite to contain keywords, hyphens
not underscores
 301 redirect from yourblog.com to
www.yourblog.com
 Maintain legacy URLs even after
switching blog platforms

Internal Linking Architecture
 Pages / Tags / Categories
 Tag clouds & tag pages (e.g.
UltimateTagWarrior plugin)
 Related Posts (e.g. Contextual Related Posts
plugin)
 Top 10 posts
 Next & Previous posts
 Add Technorati tags to your posts (must claim
your blog first)
 Get onto bloggers‟ blogrolls

Internal Linking Architecture
Tags:
 Consistent
 Lower case
 Plural
 Names, events, organizations, subjects and
locations
 Don‟t use tags similar to your categories

Optimize your Blog
“Sticky” posts
 Always appear at the top of the page
 A way to add keyword-rich intro copy to a category page
or tag page
 e.g. Adhesive plugin
Author profile pages & author links (for group blogs)
Pings
 Lets the feed search engines know you‟ve updated
 pingomatic.com, pingoat.com, pings.ws, feedshot.com

Internal Links
Anchor text
 Internally link back to old, relevant posts within the
body of a blog post.
 Don‟t use “here” or “previously” etc. as the anchor
text!
 Link Internally utilizing keywords you want the
destination page to rank for
 Don‟t use „permlink‟ as a text link, use the actual title

Writing Your Blog Post
 Keyword research (Know the search terms your audience uses)
 Select 1 primary keyword and 2-4 secondary keywords
 Place your primary keyword early in your headline
 Use keywords early in your copy and throughout the post
 Use keyword alternatives and variant formats (change word order, use
long/short forms, use plural/singular, use semantic relevant keywords
 Your posts should be 250 words at least
 Always include an image
 Image name should include a keyword
 Use bolded sub-headlines
 Use lists and indented quotes
 Use internal links
 Multi-Media Content: Images (Flickr), Videos (YouTube.com)
 Use MORE tag to avoid content duplication

Feeds
 Feedburner (monetize, social, different format, stats)
 Partial Text Feeds vs. Full Text Feeds
 Number of items in feed (10 or more)
 Propagate deep links that drive traffic and “search
engine juice”
 Allow separate feeds for each category

Plugins
 Google Sitemap Generator
 Related posts
 Customize the feed
 handle 301s
 manage META data
 Social bookmarking & create tag clouds.
 ReTweet This
 Internal Links
 SEO Title Tag www.netconcepts.com/seo-
title-tag-plugin/

Plugins
 All in One SEO Pack
 Paginated Comments
 WP-PageNavi 2.31
 WWW redirect
 Please understand or consule someone
about plugins that may conflict with each
other and what exactly these plugins will
do and wont do!

Tools
 RSS feed footer http://yoast.com/wordpress/rss-
footer/
 Pingomatic http://pingomatic.com
 55 RSS directories http://www.dotsauce.com
 Twitterfeed.com: post RSS to twitter automatically

Keep the MOJO Going
 Develop a mindset that the blog is not a project, it is part of
the long-term marketing effort
 Plan for continuity –personnel move and responsibilities
change
 Develop a long-term editorial battle plan to maintain quality
 Develop editorial calendar
 Join the conversation by writing posts that reference other
blogs
 Become a link hub, an authority site, by making your blog
a real resource
 Use your analytics to guide your editorial choices
 Revisit your keyword list regularly
 Quality is better than quantity (but quantity has a
quality of its own)

Keep the MOJO Going
 Engage with your users
 Reply to comments
 Display most popular, most recent,
most commented, etc
 Publish a regular schedule of
unique content: industry insights,
interviews, conference coverage,
surveys, blog reviews and blog
tools, photos & video.

Final Thoughts
 SEO is a Process not a One Time Event

Final Thoughts
 Practice and Patience are Key!

Final Thoughts
 Keep up with Engine Changes! What
worked last week may not be Search
Engine friendly today!

Final Thoughts
 Link Development is as Important as
Technical SEO or On-Page Optimization
 Tell your friends
 Link out to relevant and authoratitive
content/ sites only
 Get syndicated
 Network OFFLINE

Q&A
 John Shehata
 john@john-shehata.com
 Twitter @john_shehata
 http://www.john-shehata.com
 Sri Nagubandi
 sri@srinagubandi.com
 Twitter: @srinagubandi
 http://www.srinagubandi.com
 Link to us! Please;-)