Introduction
Are you looking to build a new WordPress website for your business? This article will give you all the tips and best practices on how to make it SEO-friendly.
Before you start
Before you start building your website, there are a few things to consider.
- Choose a good website host. A great place to start is by choosing the best web hosting provider for your needs. We highly recommend WP ENGINE. They offer 3 months free
- Choose a good WordPress theme. Once you have decided on a web host and plan, it’s time to find yourself an awesome theme for your new blog or business site! Check out our other blogs for references on that later.
- Make sure your theme is SEO friendly (and check our other articles if you want more info on how search engines work).
Which WordPress theme to choose
When choosing a WordPress theme, you should consider the following:
- Responsive design: A responsive design will allow your website to display correctly on any device (desktop, mobile or tablet). This is essential for driving traffic from search engines and improving user experience.
- SEO-friendly: While there are many factors that go into ranking high in Google search results, having a website built with SEO in mind is one of the most important things you can do if you want to rank well organically.
- Modern design: Your site needs to look professional and trustworthy if you want people visiting it as opposed to competitors’ sites. A modern-looking theme will help give off this impression while also making it easier for visitors who come through social media channels such as Facebook or Twitter–where they might not have access directly through your site–to navigate around easily so they don’t lose interest before reaching valuable content like blog posts or products/services pages which could lead them back later down line when ready purchase something online too!
The importance of image alt tags
Alt tags are a great way to improve your website’s SEO. They’re also an easy way to make your site more accessible to people who use screen readers and other assistive devices, which is important if you want to be in compliance with the law.
In addition, alt tags should contain relevant keywords that describe the image they are describing. You should try not to repeat the same words or phrases in multiple alt tags (this will lead Googlebot on wild goose chases), but it’s fine if there are some repeated words within each individual alt tag as long as each one contains unique content about that particular image.
If possible, try using at least 50 characters per image (but no more than 60) and keep them under 7 words long–any more than that might get cut off by some browsers when displaying images on pages where they appear small enough that users won’t see everything clearly enough without zooming out (and we wouldn’t want anyone missing out on valuable information just because they didn’t know how large their screens were).
The power of keywords
Keywords are your website’s most important tool for ranking well in search engines. If a user searches for a keyword, and your site ranks high in the results, then it’s likely that they’ll click on your link.
Keywords are also very important to users; if they’re looking for something specific and can’t find it on the first page of Google (or Bing), they might just leave and go somewhere else instead. So don’t make them work too hard!
Meta data
Meta data is the information that describes your website. It helps search engines understand what your site is about and how people can find it. Meta tags are used to provide this information in HTML documents, such as web pages and blog posts. The most important part of meta tags is the Title tag, which tells Google what your page is all about!
Title tags
Title tags are the first thing that users see in search results, so they’re important to optimize. They should be short and descriptive, but also include your keyword.
- Use your target keyword in the title tag. The best way to ensure that a page ranks well for its desired keywords is by using them in their titles–just make sure it’s not too spammy! The goal here is for users to find what they’re looking for when they click on an organic result instead of being taken somewhere else by mistake or bad luck with how Google interprets what’s on your site (and thus where it ranks).
- Make sure each post has at least one unique title tag per post type (e.g., blogpost vs photo gallery). Don’t worry about repeating yourself across multiple pages if there isn’t anything else worth adding; just focus on making sure every post has its own unique description so people can easily find what they need without having any confusion over which link goes where in relation to other posts/sections within their current timeframe.
Headers (H1, H2, H3, etc.)
Headers are important for SEO. They help search engines understand the topic of a page and how it fits into your website as a whole, which is why it’s so important to use headers correctly.
- Use H1 tags on your home page, product pages and category pages (if applicable).
- Use H2 tags for subheadings within an article or post – don’t overuse this one though! Don’t go crazy with too many sections and subsections in each post; instead focus on writing content that’s easy for people to read.
Description tags and excerpt text
Description tags are not used by search engines. Instead, they’re used to give visitors more information about the page and encourage them to click through to your site.
Excerpt text is used by search engines and should be a good summary of the page, so it’s important that you use this field effectively. Your excerpt should be between 150-250 characters long (this is where we get our “Snippet Length” from).
Takeaway:
As you can see, there are many different factors that go into creating a great website. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed when trying to optimize your own site or help out a client with their site, especially if you don’t have much experience in the area of SEO (search engine optimization).
The good news is that you don’t need to be an expert in order to improve the ranking of your website on search engines like Google and Bing. However, there are some things you should do right away if you want your site’s SEO performance improved quickly and easily!
Conclusion
Building an SEO-friendly WordPress website is not difficult, but it does require some planning and forethought. The more you know about how search engines work and how to configure your site, the better your chances of ranking well on Google.