Five great WordPress SEO tips

In an attempt to cut down on costs or just out of sheer ignorance, many people choose to build their blogs using free WordPress themes which are readily available. However, such default themes are rigid and thus not easy to customise. Therefore, using free themes means that you are very likely to end up with a blog which has a generic appearance.

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If you want to build a unique and professional blog, it would be advisable to invest in a premium theme such as 'Thesis' or 'Genesis'. Most of these themes are developed with SEO considerations in mind, thus guaranteeing that your content gets automatically indexed by search engines. In addition, premium themes come with unlimited support which comes in handy whenever you face any technical glitches. Solving such problems fast will help you retain your search engine ranking and traffic.

Modify your permalinks

One of the best things about WordPress as a blogging platform is that users are allowed to modify their permalinks. The permalink refers to how your URL looks like in the browser bar. For example, you could set your blog to show URLs like this: domain.com/year/month/post-name.html. Having such a URL structure is not advisable since it makes it difficult for search engines to index your pages. Therefore, to improve your SEO, you need to modify your permalinks appropriately.

Go to your WordPress dashboard and scroll down to the 'Settings' section. Click on the 'Permalinks' tab, select the 'Custom Structure' option and insert /%postname%/. Complete the procedure by clicking 'Save Changes'. This will change your permalink to an SEO-friendly domain.com/post-name.html format.

Get a WordPress SEO plugin

WordPress SEO plugins such as 'WordPress SEO by Yoast', 'Scribe SEO' and 'All in One SEO Pack' can be very effective in boosting your rankings as well as traffic. Such plugins allow you to customise your meta description tags, as well as modify your XML sitemaps. In addition, you can use them to get recommendations of suitable keywords based on your focus keyword. WordPress SEO plugins also allow you to create breadcrumbs for your site, thus making navigation easier.

Include a related posts widget

The related posts plugin is a very useful tool for any web content writer. It allows you to provide links to other relevant posts within the content of your pages. Creating internal links in your site will not only improve your ranking, but will also encourage return visits and result in higher conversion rates. Therefore, take time to install plugins such as 'Adknowledge Engage' and 'nrelate' and enjoy the SEO benefits.

Modify the 'slug'

The 'slug' refers to the part of your URL which contains specific information about your post. This is generated automatically whenever you add a title to your post. However, in most instances, the resulting URL does not work very well for SEO.

Fortunately, WordPress allows you to modify the slug according to your needs. All you need to do is go to the post editor and type in what you want. Keep it brief and to the point. Ideally, it should not be more than four words long. In addition, make sure the slug is relevant and remember to insert your main keyword.