WordCamp Toronto SEO: How to do better in Google: Optimizing your WordPress Site & Web Content for Search

How to do better in

Part 1: Optimizing Your WordPress Site
Part 2: Optimizing Your Web Content for Search

The foundation of on-page SEO

photo: Pond5

 Poll your client base for terms
 List multiple ways to say the same thing
 Use the Google Adwords keyword tool
 Check out Google Suggests & Google Insights
more about this later …

Use keywords in the naming
structure of Web site
 Keyword-rich domain name
 People use your business name or your
domain name as the anchor text of a link

Anchor text
 Anchor text is the visible, clickable text
in a hyperlink
 Search engines give weight to the
keywords used in link so don’t use “click
here”

Use keywords in the naming
structure of web site
 Keyword-rich domain name
 People use your business name or your
domain name as the anchor text of a link
 Adjust Permalink settings to add
keywords to site urls

Permalink settings

/%category% /%postname%/

Customize the permalink for each
individual page/post

If it's good for site visitors,
Google likes it!

Best practice navigation aids
 html sitemap
 search box
 breadcrumb trail

WordPress SEO by Yoast
A powerful WordPress plugin
 Plugin incorporates best practices
 Wide variety of functions in one plugin
 Titles and meta descriptions
 Breadcrumb Trail
 Permalink clean up
 xml sitemaps
 Edit your robots.txt and .htaccess
 Clean up head section
 Author rel
 Easy to migrate from All In One SEO

What is a meta title and meta
description?
 HTML code that search engines read
 Shows in search engines results
 Accurately summarize page content
 Important elements in search engines’
algorithm and for searchers
 Should contain your keywords

Titles and Meta Descriptions

Title

Meta Description

Writing your titles and metas

Enter a 70 character custom Title

Enter a 155 character custom description

WordCamp Toronto SEO: How to do better in Google: Optimizing your WordPress Site & Web Content for Search

Rel=Author

 links an article's byline to an author's website profile page
 displays author photos in search results
 links the search result byline to the author's Google Plus profile
 displays the number of circles the author is in on Google Plus
 adds a more by this author link to the search result
 tells Google that this is a reputable link

301 redirects via .htaccess
# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>
# END WordPress
redirect 301 /oldurl.htm http://newurl.com/newpage

Changing the Permalink Structure
on an Established Site

 for default post id ?p=123 WordPress will
automatically forward to the new structure
 for date or numeric permalink structure you’ll
need to redirect your old permalinks to your
new ones at the top of the .htaccess file
 yoast.com/wp-content/permalink-helper.php
 learnwp.ca/wordpress-dashboard/changing-permalinks

Don't block search engines!!!

Settings -> Privacy ->
Allow search engines to index this site .

Q & Eh?

image used by permission susybee.com

The foundation of on-page SEO

photo: Pond5

 Poll your client base for terms
 List multiple ways to say the same thing
 Use the Google Adwords keyword tool
 Check out Google Suggests & Google Insights

Google Suggests; Google Insights

Google Suggests:
Begin typing some of your keyword terms in
search - Google will suggest endings for
your terms

Google Insights: For patterns
http://www.google.com/insights/search/

Getting ready to write web copy
You're writing for two audiences
 For the way people read on the web
 For search engines

Humans trump
search engines!
photo: Pond5

How to write for site visitors
People read differently on the web SO ...

 Call-to-action button
 Main message above the fold
 Use H2 & H3
 Short sentences & paragraphs
 Bulleted lists
 Anchor text
 Inform and entertain

How to write for search engines
Use your keywords - naturally:
No keyword stuffing

o meta tags o H2 & H3
o page titles (H1) o images
o body text o anchor text

 Check your Theme's headings
 Check with Yoast's Page Analysis feature

Using categories and tags
interlinking:
You’re probably already linking to other posts on your site
but have you considered linking to a tag or category?

titles & descriptions for tags & categories:
Using the SEO by Yoast WordPress plugin you can
optimize your taxonomy and archive pages.

Cleaning up Tags & Categories with Yoast's new tool
http://yoast.com/optimizing-tags/ - Term Optimizer

Optimizing images for search
These textural clues tell
Search Engines
what images are about
 Use descriptive keyword rich image file names
(i.e. “my-keyword.jpg”)
 Optimize the Title and Alt Tag of each image.
 When appropriate, use captions to describe your
image

Optimizing images for search
- page speed
 Keep image file size as small as possible
 Don’t scale images
 Use background images that repeat

Going off page...

Link Building
 Number of inbound back links
 How reputable is the link
 Relevance of link
 Anchor text

Attract traffic
 Create great content
 Commenting
 Social media
 Guest blogging

Google Tools
 Google Webmaster Tools
 Google Analytics
 Google+

Thank You WordCamp Toronto

Dawn Comber, digitaldialogues.ca
Ruth Maude, dandelionwebdesign.com

WordPress Workshops: LearnWP.ca

WordCamp Toronto SEO: How to do better in Google: Optimizing your WordPress Site & Web Content for Search

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