WordPress sites have been growing in popularity, as they have become more and more important as trusted resources for various online businesses and services. In fact, WordPress now powers over 40% of all websites on the Internet, making it the most popular content management system (CMS) on the Web.
But to ensure your WordPress site keeps its place at the top of search engine rankings, you’ll need to do a few things to set yourself apart from your competitors. Let’s take a look at 10 best ways you can boost your WordPress site rankings today!
1. Generate a sitemap for WordPress site rankings
The sitemap of your website is a great way to tell search engines what each page of your site is about. Search engines will find and index more pages on your site if you have a detailed sitemap for them.
The search engine crawlers will make use of it as well. If you already have a sitemap, update it regularly, or create one if you don’t have one already. As soon as you create it, notify all major search engines about its existence and inform them about any changes that may be made to your website in future. This helps you rank higher and also makes it easier for visitors to find what they’re looking for.
2. Add a Privacy Policy
Make sure you have a privacy policy, and make sure it is updated with any new changes. Not having a privacy policy can cost you business! Having a privacy policy shows that you take your users’ rights seriously and helps them trust you with their data. It is also a legal requirement if your site asks for personal data.
A good place to start is by looking at what other sites in your niche are doing—Google it or see if they have examples on their site. Be mindful of how granular your policy needs to be—if you run an online store selling t-shirts, there may not be much that could happen with someone’s order that would require an email notification. On the other hand, if you use Google Analytics, some kind of information sharing might be needed!
3. Update Your WordPress Plugins
Update your WordPress plugins as soon as they release a new version. Updates can help you find and fix any bugs that could be affecting search engine optimization (SEO) and security issues that might keep people from visiting your site.
Update plugins regularly, but don’t update them right before you publish a post; test it on a different site first to make sure there aren’t any unforeseen problems. If you only have one or two websites, updating plugins regularly won’t be as big of an issue for you because you can do all of them at once instead of one at a time.
4. Choose the Right Keywords
If you want your WordPress site to rank high in search engines, you need to optimize it for that purpose. Make sure that all your posts are well-written and include an array of keywords that will benefit your business.
Also remember that Keyword Density should not be more than 5% within your content, else Google will penalize your site’s ranking. So use keywords strategically without making them too obvious or repetitive.
Be natural and follow on-page SEO factors. Use SEO Plugins: WordPress plugins can help improve on page SEO of your website by optimizing title tags, meta descriptions and other elements on each post that matter a lot for SEO rankings.
I personally use the Yoast SEO plugin which offers such helpful features like advanced title & meta description editor etc.
5. Optimize Your Post Titles
If you’re writing for search engines, your post titles are your single most important SEO tool. Search engine crawlers are like humans in that they don’t like wading through content. They prefer short, direct (and readable) titles with phrases related to their users’ search queries.
So be sure you include phrases like How To, Top 10 Tips, or even general terms like Business and Finance in every title you write. That way, when someone searches for advice on starting a business or writes an essay on finance for school it’s more likely that your post will show up in results — because it uses keywords that best describe what people want.
6. Create Quality Internal Links
If you only take one thing away from reading about SEO, make it internal links. They’re critical for WordPress site search engine rankings and to creating a website that comes alive and presents your audience with a truly rewarding experience.
At their core, good internal links help your audience get to their desired content faster and easier. While we could spend countless hours debating which link is better than another, at its core it boils down to
- creating anchor text that describes what your audience will find when they click on that link and
- making sure that content is actually worth reading once they arrive. This is part of how Google ranks pages in its search results.
Every time you create an inbound link (whether via anchor text or not), consider if there’s a way you can add value by providing additional information related to that link for your users.
A few examples:
- Creating an About Us page with links to all of your team members’ profiles
- Adding an FAQ section with frequently asked questions
- Creating a LinkedIn profile so people can check out who works at your company
- Linking directly back to high-quality content on other sites.
The possibilities are endless! Just be creative about what additional value you’re adding rather than just linking back because it looks good or matches theme colors.
7. Add Schema Markup to Posts
Schema markup is a great way to ensure that your content shows up in search results. Adding schema to your posts involves writing code, but it’s worth it for better SEO.
The code helps Google understand what kind of website you have, which in turn means that you get ranked higher in search engine results.
Here are some examples of schema tags that you can use for different kinds of businesses
<code><meta itemprop=type content=bed and breakfast> </code>
Example 1: This tag tells users that your business sells beds.
<code><meta itemprop=type content=restaurant> </code>
Example 2: This tag tells users that your business offers restaurant services.
8. Change the permalink settings
Whenever you create a post, WordPress automatically creates a permalink for it. This makes it easier for readers and other bloggers to refer back to your post and share it on social media.
However, you can change that and use your own custom permalink structure. If you do so, make sure that you update your social media profiles as well or readers won’t be able to find your posts easily.
9. Optimize Meta Descriptions for WordPress site rankings
Meta descriptions are another important tool when it comes to SEO. A few words in your meta description can be enough for someone to click on your link, so make sure you optimize them.
Many people tend to think of meta descriptions as an afterthought, but they’re actually something you should pay attention to right away when setting up a new website or content page.
If you don’t feel like writing meta descriptions manually, there are plenty of WordPress plugins that can help with that. SEO plugins can provide you with helpful tips in its dashboard that will help you improve your SEO in general—not just your meta descriptions.
10. Optimize Images for SEO
Images are important for SEO and SEO is for WordPress site rankings. On-page SEO consists of an image’s title, description, and alt tag. Search engines look at these tags to determine how relevant your image is for a certain keyword.
To optimize your images for search engines, fill out each of these fields with appropriate information about your content. This includes defining your primary keyword in your image title, using that same keyword in your alt tag, and placing that same primary keyword into your image description. Include relevant keywords you think people will use when searching for what you have to offer.
Furthermore, if you want to crop, resize, rotate, flip, or text, shapes, add blur, watermark effects to your images, try out the WP Paint Pro – WordPress Image Editor plugin.
Final Words
Take some time to understand what SEO really is and why it matters for your business. Once you’ve figured that out, consider using these simple tips for growing your WordPress site rankings.
If done correctly, they can help you bring more attention (and potential customers) to your site. Best of luck! Now get started 🙂
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