optimizing your wordpress site & web content for search - wordcamp 2012 buffalo
DESCRIPTION
In this session you’ll learn the steps to take to help your site do better in search results. We'll give you an overview of the WordPress SEO Yoast Plugin as we discuss SEO tactics to optimize your web content for search.TRANSCRIPT
Search Engine OptimizationFor your WordPress website
How to do better in
The best platform for SEO
Google’s Matt Cutts agrees
If it's good for site visitors, Google likes it!
List multiple ways to say the same thing Poll your client base for keyword terms Ask friends & family Use the Google Adwords keyword tool Check out Google Suggests & Google Trends
The foundation of on-page SEO
photo: Pond5
Use keywords in the naming structure of web site
Adjust Permalink settings to add keywords to the urls of your site
http://yourdomain.com/keyword-keyword -> Settings -> Permalinks and choose
Post name or Custom Structure
/%postname%/
Permalink settings
/%category%
Customize the permalink for each individual page/post
Meta title & descriptions in SEO
What are they? HTML code that search engines read Clickable link 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
WordPress SEO by YoastA 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
Writing your titles and metas
Enter a 70 character custom Title
Enter a 155 character custom description
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 visitorsPeople 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
Use H2, H3, H4 in ContentReserve H1 for Page & Post titles
How to write for search enginesWrite to your readers using your keywords -
naturally: No keyword stuffing
Check your Theme's headings Check with Yoast's Page Analysis feature
o meta tagso page titles (H1)o body text
o H2 & H3o images o anchor text
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”
Optimizing images for search
Use descriptive keyword rich image file names (i.e. “my-keyword.jpg”)
Optimize the Title and Alt Attributes of each image [SEO Friendly Images plugin]
When appropriate, use captions to describe your image
These textural clues tell Search Engines
what images are about
Optimizing images for search- page speed
Keep image file size as small as possible Don’t scale images Use background images that repeat
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
xml sitemap
tells search engines which pages to crawl links to all urls for a site metadata about each url – when it was last
updated, how often it usually changes, & how important it is relative to other URLs
Yoast plugin will automatically update the xml sitemap when you publish a new post
submit to Google through webmaster tools
Changing the Permalinks on Established SiteRead our blog post!
Default post id ?p=123 no redirect needed Day and Name your redirect should be
RedirectMatch 301 ^/([0-9]{4})/([0-9]{2})/([0-9]{2})/(.*)$
http://yourdomain.com/$4 Month and Name your redirect should be
RedirectMatch 301 ^/([0-9]{4})/([0-9]{2})/(.*)$ http://yourdomain.com/$3
Numeric your redirect should be RedirectMatch 301 ^/archives/(\d+)$ http://yourdomain.com/?p=$1
Postname and you want to switch to /%category%/%postname%/ use the Permalinks to Category/Permalinks plugin
redirect 301 /oldurl.htm http://newurl.com/newpage
301 redirects via .htaccess
Paste permalink change code at top above WordPress code
Settings -> Privacy ->
Allow search engines to index this site.
Don't block search engines!!!
Going off page...
Link Building It’s not just about the numbers
How reputable is the link? How relevant?
Anchor text
Attract traffic instead Create great content Guest blog Comment Engage in
social media
Q & Eh?Q & Eh?
image used by permission susybee.com
Thank You WordCamp Buffalo
Ruth Maude & Dawn ComberLearnWP.ca Follow us on Twitter: @2LearnWP