7 Easy WordPress SEO Tips to Boost Your Website’s Rankings

What is your reason for choosing WordPress? Is it because you find the themes visually appealing? Or, is it because it’s the best CMS platform out there? Some people choose WordPress for its SEO integration features. That said, WordPress is not a magical platform that will give you instant results for SEO.

You can’t expect your site to rank higher in SERP unless you make an effort. Like any other platform or website, WordPress needs your efforts. You will need to frame the right SEO policy to boost your search engine rankings. It also depends on the kind of impression you want to make on your audience. If you’re clueless about how you will start with the process, continue reading the post.

WordPress SEO Tips to Boost Your Website’s Rankings

1. Optimize page title and permalinks

It is crucial to make your site title more descriptive. Your site should have a descriptive tagline that Google will recognize. Most search engines, including Google, will take your page title and tag line into account. They help to describe your website. You can go to the settings option and change the page title.

Permalinks are what users use in the address bar to reach your website. Other search engines use them to create a link to your website. WordPress comes with a default settings of permalink that you can change as per your need. Settings up permalinks is also one of the important tasks to do after WordPress installation.

2. Optimize posts for the keywords

If you don’t optimize the keywords, it won’t relate to the content of the website. Keywords are the main links that drive traffic to the website. If you’re writing about heart health, you will need to use keywords like ‘heart health’ and ‘healthy heart.’ The keywords, which you use in the title of your blog posts, should show up in the body of your posts with regular frequency.

The use of keywords as the anchor text for links in your posts can boost your website traffic. However, avoid overstuffing keywords in title or post as that can get your site penalized. Optimizing for Google is necessary, but remember that you’re reaching out to people and not robots.

3. Create an XML sitemap for your site

XML sitemaps are simple maps for search engines that use the simple eXtensible Markup Language. These are the text lists of all the posts, tags, and pages of your WordPress website. With the sitemap, Google can find all the important pages in a specific format.

Making an XML sitemap for your website is simple. WordPress offers a plugin – Google XML sitemap, which helps generate a sitemap and helps Google to index your website faster. Yoast plugin allows you to create an XML map automatically. Go to the settings option and choose SEO and make sure that XML sitemaps are set to ON.

4. Check your site’s visibility settings

WordPress has the power to discourage your website from getting indexed by search engines. It essentially means that your website won’t rank higher in SERP. The developers use this function to stop the website from getting indexed while developing the website. But do you know what happens if this block is left in place after then launch?

It means that even if your website is live, it won’t be visible to Google, or it won’t get indexed. It will affect your traffic. You can check your site’s visibility settings under the setting option. If you find the box of search engine visibility ticked in the settings, you’ll have to uncheck it.

5. Add internal and external links

To optimize your website, you will need to use two types of links – internal and external. Internal links redirect you to pages and content of the same website. External links lead to other websites. Most SEO experts prefer internal links that limit the number of external links by using a different no-follow tag.

The tag tells Google not to count a particular link. However, you can’t randomly link pages because you need to make sense. If you do it to boost traffic, it will look stuffed. You need to follow the text for a link that is descriptive and it should add relevance to the content.

6. Make your content more sharable

If your content is not sharable, you won’t get any response and visibility. Most web users read articles that are shared on different platforms like – Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. If your content is great, readers will naturally share it, helping to drive more traffic to your website. You can always add social share buttons with a clean layout on your website to ease sharing. Adding the social share buttons also increase the credibility of your website.

7. Check your site’s performance

You need to check your website’s performance for a better ranking. Optimize the themes and image sizes of your site. One of the best ways to check the site performance is by opening the WordPress console and then tools. Here, you need to choose the site health option. The page lets you know about your website’s performance and suggests possible improvements.

You also have an option of using Google Page Speed Insights to check your site’s speed. A slow-loading website won’t rank easily in SERP. Most search engines like Google consider website speed as a key ranking factor. Once your site analysis is complete, you can move to the opportunities section and improve.

To add up,

WordPress is indeed the best CMS platform for ranking on search engines. But unless you don’t boost your website or don’t follow SEO optimization ways, you can’t expect results. It also offers a host of SEO plugins that can help you in optimization. If you integrate with tools and plugins, your task becomes much easier. With proper use of linking strategies, good quality content, tags, and Meta descriptions, you will improve your ranking.