In choosing WordPress as your SEO platform, you have made a wise and great step to successfully marketing your website. WordPress has several in-built features that enhance the SEO capabilities that even those with no technical background can implement to optimize their website. In this blog, we’ll uncover WordPress SEO tips that include some features within WordPress that you may not have noticed that could help enhance your search engine rankings.

1. Setting your url structure within WordPress:

A url that is more understandable with the right keywords from the content on your webpage will have higher value than one containing the date and number of the post on your page.

Set your url structure here:

Log into your WordPress admin panel and go to Settings>Permalinks (what does permalink mean? Permalinks are urls that do not (and should not change)

2. Categories and Tags:

WordPress allows you to classify your content by placing it in categories and assigning tags to each post. This helps readers find the right content they want to read, easily and quickly and helps search engines determine the structure and content of your website.

3. Headings:

Our 3rd WordPress SEO tip is about ‘headings’. The right heading tag is critical for search engines to know what the main content on your page is about. WordPress lets you easily add the right heading and subheading sizes to your content in its editor.

4. Post Comments:

Comments to posts on your website (if the content section is one that accepts comments) is an indication of an engaging website. However, if spam is passed through your comment section, it can have negative implications for your search authority. A popular WordPress plugin to prevent spam is Akismet Anti-Spam.

5. Plugins:

By far the best SEO plugin for WordPress is the one by Yoast. Used by over 5 million people around the world and with a huge 5 star review, you can safely trust this plugin to do its job. It offers a range of useful functions to cover the search engine optimization of your website such as;

i. Keyword optimization

ii. Setting canonical tags to avoid duplicate content

iii. Suggestions for internal links to other parts of your website

iv. Advanced XML sitemaps

v. Integration with the Google Search Console that enables you to see how your website performs and to fix any crawl errors

Apart from Yoast, there are a ton of other helpful WordPress plugins to optimize the performance of your website.

6. Images:

Images that are not optimized can considerably slow down your website. Use Google’s page speed tool to analyse your website. The tool also offers optimized versions of your images, CSS and Javascript for you to download and use.

7. Prevent malware:

This WordPress SEO tip focuses on security. Google blacklists websites that are infected with malware. Secure your website with anti-malware tools such as SiteLock which scans websites daily and eliminates any form of malware it detects.

8. Install SSL certificates:

Users actively look for a sign of a secure website before transacting. Not having the green padlock in your browser search bar or a https web address can have negative consequences. Plus, Google actively displays a warning message to users who try and access your website if it does not have a SSL certificate installed. This will lead to a drop and website traffic and consequently search engine rankings.

9. Ensure website Accessibility:

What do we mean by an accessible website? An accessible website is one that is designed and developed for EVERY kind of user- those perfectly and differently abled, those who have aged and have decreased visual, auditory, cognitive and motor abilities, those in areas with poor internet coverage and also those who are temporarily disabled/injured. What is the connection between websites that are accessible and SEO? Websites that are designed and developed to be accessible are also simultaneously SE0-optimized.

10. Website speed and performance – uptime:

Our last but important WordPress SEO tip is about improving website performance. How fast your website loads has a direct impact on your search results. Users expect websites to load within 3 seconds and are very likely to abandon the site for another if it doesn’t. While speed can depend on a host of factors such as images, videos, etc., your web hosting company has a large part to play there. We, at Webzworld, offer advanced caching tools and a CDN with our WordPress Hosting package to help better serve your WordPress website.

We hope our list of WordPress SEO tips helped you uncover newer insights into how best to optimize your website for search engines.