SEO Practices to boost your WordPress website rankings
Learning a few basic SEO techniques can dramatically raise your website’s rankings on Google, Yahoo, and other search engines. While some SEO consultants would have you believe that SEO is highly technical and should only be attempted by a highly-paid professional (such as themselves, of course), the fact of the matter is that implementing these basic practices is simple, easy, and can have dramatic results.
Use Your Title to Display Key Phrases
Instead of using a generic title such as “welcome to our website,” consider using the title to put some key phrases out there. For example, list your company name and what you do, as well as the location you serve. This will do much more for your search engine ranking.
Use Proper Formatting in Your Writing
If you look at the above heading, you’ll see it was written in h1 font. This is because search engines attach specific significance to certain fonts. This means that your headings should be in a different font and should contain key phrasing.
Basically, a webpage should read as such:
Title in H1
Introductory text
Heading in H2
More text
Subheading in H3
More text
Heading in H2
More text
And so on. You can have as many headings as you like, but remember that a search engine will put a heavier emphasis on text that is in the heading. This means you want your key words and phrases to show up in one way or another in your headings.
One thing to keep in mind is that you should only use H1 once on your webpage. Because it is weighted so heavily, Google only allows it to be there one time on each page. If you try to game the system by using it multiple times, Google will penalize you and your rankings will plummet.
Use Key Phrases in Links to Your Site
When other websites begin linking to your site, the result is a significant uptick in your search ranking. As such, if you can collaborate with other website owners and get them to link to your site, you should definitely do so. It’s even better if they link to you using keywords that reflect your business.
Place Your Key Phrases Strategically
Not all key phrases will carry equal weight—even the ones that contain identical wording. This is because Google tends to put more emphasis on those key phrases that appear early on in the HTML of the website. So, the sooner you get those phrases inserted into your HTML, the better off you’ll be.
Other considerations
In addition to the above, there are a number of other things you can do to boost your website’s search ranking. These include:
- Eliminating tables-for-layouts and using modern Web standards instead;
- Inserting key phrases in your p tags;
- Putting key phrases in link title tags as well as image tags;
- Avoiding single keyword phrases in lieu of actual phrases
Provide Good Information
Above all, make sure your content is solid. People don’t want websites that don’t provide any useful information, and the search engines know this. So, provide solid content, follow the above steps, and watch your rankings rise.