5 SEO Tips for WordPress Blogs

WordPress is the most popular blogging platform for several reasons. They are easy to use; they are completely customizable, but most importantly, they rank well in search engines. And for beginners, the most important thing to learn about blogging is search engine optimization. Fortunately, with WordPress, it’s easy.

Here are 5 SEO tips for WordPress blogs.

Use a quality theme: The first thing every blogger wants to do is find an interesting topic for their blog. However, most beginners don’t have a lot of money to spend on a premium theme. Free WordPress themes can be found all over the internet, but you have to be careful which one you choose. Many of those stylish and designer themes look good to your readers. Still, search engines have a hard time reading your content. A good theme to start with is Twenty Eleven, a free theme that you can find through your WordPress dashboard.

Install the All-In-One-SEO plugin: This is a free WordPress plugin that you can download through their dashboard. You can then set your meta tags, title, and description for each post, making it easy for search engines to see what your blog is about. Once you have installed All-In-One, you will need to go to the settings tab and create your home page title, add a description of your blog and list some relevant keywords. Don’t forget to click ‘submit’ when you’re done.

Do some keyword research: Keyword research is a must, even before you start setting up your blog. You will need to identify your niche and then use a keyword rich domain name. You will also need to use keywords in all areas of your blog: post titles, category titles, in your blog posts and articles, in your navigation and anchor text. Every aspect of your blog will be focused on keywords and without them, you are lost.

Set permalinks: Permalinks determine the structure of your URLs, and those URLs are what search engines read to determine the content of your blog. With WordPress, the default settings display a lot of information that search engines don’t need and just confuse them. Go to the settings page for permalinks and click the radio button for custom structure, then enter /%postname%/ in the space box. These settings make it easier for search engines to read your content and you will get better rankings for your keywords.

Alternative labels: Search engines can only ‘read’ the text you have on your blog; they can’t ‘see’ images, so you must use alt tags to identify them. Every time you upload an image to your WordPress blog, you will see a field where you can enter ‘Alternate Text’. Use keywords to identify your images for search engines.

Learning search engine optimization techniques is the most important thing you can do if you want to make money online with your blog. These are just some of the steps you can take for SEO on your WordPress blog, but for beginners, they are a good place to start.