As demand for web design and development is growing day by day, more people are finding ways to make their sites CMS and SEO friendly. Businesses approach digital marketing companies for new strategies or techniques to rank their site on search engines.

 

Some marketers collaborate with professional web developers to brainstorm unique strategies to grow organic traffic while some go with shortcuts. But they don’t usually get successful in the long run.

 

That’s why digital marketing services and industry experts suggest adopting such ways, which accurately work with WordPress. WordPress has no hard and fast rules, all you need is to implement them where necessary. Irrelevant content, unnecessary information, and heavy sites create problems in searches and loading as well.

 

In this article, we will discuss WordPress SEO tips and tricks which prefers by Dubai web design companies. These will help you generate organic traffic and rank your website in search engines as well.

 

WordPress SEO Checklist

 

SEO is about strategies, methods, or approaches that a person implements on their website to rank it higher. A high-quality website, which generates high traffic, boost sales, and engage with the audience means a high SEO optimized site. Here, we will guide how you can practically implement them.

 

Basic WordPress SEO Checklist:

 

In basic SEO of WordPress, you will see what you need to consider at the start. Let’s look at the basic SEO checklist for WordPress websites.

 

• Hosting Selection

 

It’s the backbone of your WordPress site. If you choose the wrong host, it can damage your site later. So, carefully select the best host where you could coincidentally invest money and get useful results. Some well-known hosting providers are Bluehost, DreamHost, Page, and A2 Hosting. A good hosting proves beneficial in terms of reliability, SSL certification (support in ranking) and high speed, etc.

 

• www or non-www Domain?

 

It doesn’t matter whether you prefer www or non-www domain. If you go with non-www, it’s your preference to make it easier for your audience. However, a slight difference is that most businesses prefer www because it restricts cookies and traditional as well.

 

• Theme Selection

 

On WordPress, you have a variety of options in theme selection. There are free and premium themes. Some free of cost themes also work accurately and gives a high advantage but it’s quite daunting to find them. In the end, you have to go with premium one, so choose such which helps in ranking your site, increase conversion rate, meet Google lighthouse terms and conditions as well.

 

Another thing to consider is that don’t try cheap themes, they can ruin your site and waste your efforts.

 

• Plugin Installation

 

Now, you need to set up a plugin that optimizes your WordPress site in search engines like chrome, yahoo, or Bing, etc. Out of the hundreds of powerful plugins, you can choose the most popular and preferable plugin which is Yoast. Its basic version is available, you can install it and enjoy its brilliant functions. It’s a wonderful SEO plugin that facilitates a user by helping in doing on-page SEO, content optimization, sitemap creation, managing tags, and many more.

 

• Sitemap Setup

 

The sitemap is like your website hierarchy, which contains all your site structures. It can automatically generate through a plugin. It’s unnecessary but plays an important role to reach any data on your site. It directs the google search engines about your site. Now, switch on the XML sitemap and start using it.

 

• Google Search Console Setup

 

A powerful tool helps a user to track their site performance. This trustworthy tool plays a key role in your site SEO. After verifying your account on search console, you will be able to set the target location, send indexing requests (help in site speed and crawling), check technical errors, monitor impressions, click and CTR as well. Besides that, you can also take help in selecting traffic-generating keywords.

 

• Sitemap Link with Google Search Console

 

After Google search console setup, make sure you have submitted your sitemap at the console account. It helps to automatically crawl your website.

 

• Other Similar Search Console Tools

 

Other similar search consoles are Bing Webmaster and Yandex Webmaster. These are also popular and used in some specific conditions such as, if your targeted audience includes Russians, you can use Yandex. These tools also have built-in features that help as a Google search console but cannot beat the efficiency of a Google search console.

 

• Setup Google Analytics

 

Link your Google search console with Google analytics. It’s a brilliant tool that helps you in monitoring your WordPress SEO working. You can get deep insight at the best landing pages, most search content, more traffic-generating search engines, and other analysis details as well.

 

WordPress Keyword Checklist:

 

It’s like a foundation in SEO as keywords are most important to rank your site/content or pages. Here, we will guide how you can quickly and perfectly choose the perfect keywords for your site/content.

 

• Do Proper Keyword Research

 

Keywords are the major thing consider by Google to rank any site. Good keyword research makes it easy for the visitor to easily reach your content. There is a vast range of tools available online for free, you can sue them and get the most suitable keywords relevant to your content. Some main tools are the google keyword planner, SEMRush, and Ahrefs, which has been facilitating millions of online businesses. You can pick the keyword-based on their conversion rate, volume and competition, etc.

 

When you will have the list of focus keywords, then you can easily write the content by focusing on them. You can also take help from plugins to check which will be keyword density.

 

• Meta Keywords

 

Now in Google searches, meta keywords don’t much matter as compared to the past. But other search engines prefer it. So, you can use them on your preference if you want to rank your site in other search engines as well.

 

• Long Tail Keywords

 

Sometimes, you have content on the website for which a user can search by long-tail keywords. You can search them on Google’s suggestion. You will get the list of long-tail keywords so pick those that have a high ranking and conversion rate as well.

 

• Question Keywords

 

Yes, a keyword that likes a question such as “how can we make a tea?” These are the perfect combination with an article if your article content is interesting. You can use the question keywords related to your content, so the user could easily find the solutions to their problem.

 

• Focus Keyword Usage in First Paragraphs

 

When a visitor lands on your website/content page, he/she first looks at the starting paragraph. Focus keywords are highlighted, and visitors instantly get the clue that content is valuable for them. So, it is recommended to use quality keywords correctly in starting paragraphs, which make proper sense.

 

WordPress Technical SEO Checklist:

 

All website technical setting includes WordPress technical SEO. You have the power to take your site at high ranking or break your site badly. You just need to apply technical strategies carefully and fix the errors as well. Let’s have a look at some points which you need to consider while doing a technical analysis of the WordPress website.

 

• Fix Crawl Errors to Faster The Indexing

 

If your site will not rank in google list, so how can your targeted audience/potential customers reach you. Usually, it’s because of some crawl errors that stop your site or page showing in searches.
To find crawl error you can use “Force Crawl” which will help you check the site or page immediately. The search console will take it through the process and give you the result. If there will be any error, you can fix it on the spot.

 

• Site Speed Optimization

 

A website having good speed will generate traffic, so the site will automatically be ranked. Make sure your website doesn’t take more than 5 seconds to load. Otherwise, you will lose potential buyers. You can use plugins, lightweight themes and optimize images to make your site speed optimize.

 

• Mobile-Friendly Website

 

Tools like Mobile-First Index helps to monitor whether your site is mobile optimized or not. Almost 70 of the traffic generated by mobile phones. People feel easier to search for anything instantly through mobile. So, it’s essential to make sure that website is mobile-friendly.

 

WordPress On-Page SEO Checklist:

 

Let’s look at things to consider in On-page SEO.

 

• Page Title Optimization

 

It’s an important factor in On-page SEO. Your page title should be understandable, simple, and contain the focus keyword. While deciding the page title, keep the characters less than 60, choose the catchy words, and adjust the keywords wonderfully.

 

• URL Optimization

 

Permalink setting enables you to make changes in URL to make it SEO optimized. A valuable URL is readable and understandable for a viewer. By default, URL’s are usually not user-friendly, and SEO optimized.
So, you need to fix this issue manually. Go to the permalink setting in your WordPress setting and change your URL by considering the above factors in mind.

 

• Use ‘-’ to separate the words so the reader could get it immediately.
• Use such words that describe your page or post.
• Keep it concise and characters limited.
• Keyword Usage in URL

A URL, having keywords, improves the CTR organically. It helps in site ranking and traffic flow as well.

• Image Optimization

 

Unfortunately, Google cannot optimize your site until your images are not. So, focus on your site images and make them understandable.

 

Firstly, set the image size and make sure your sets all images are of equal size. Then save the images in a device by keeping a brief the file name that tells what the image is about. Images files names support your site SEO. So, choose the actual words which describe your image. You can use hyphens between the image names and save them as a JPG file. Don’t forget to insert focus keywords in the image name.

 

Then upload the image and set alt text that should be simple and easy to read. Add title tags in your images, which also support your site SEO.

 

• Keywords Usage in Title Tags

 

You must have to incorporate keywords in title tags. This proves worthy in SEO as it works in search engines.

 

• Check Headings

 

Your content headers prove powerful in your website On-page SEO. If you set the H1 to H6 tags carefully and perfectly, so no one can beat you. These headings enable the reader to get the website structure or hierarchy to reach any content. The H1 heading is the main heading which tells about the page. A user can get to know what’s this page is about. So, try to use it once and make it clear. Similarly, H2 heading is the secondary heading that tells about the page sections and H3 heading further divide the page. These first three headers are major and most supportive approaches on your website.

 

• Usage of Synonyms

 

It means you can little change the taste of your content by adding synonyms. After focus keywords, you can use them in your content. Because a user cannot always search by that specific keyword maybe they are looking for something similar but different. So do some research on your focus keywords and use their synonyms as keywords.

 

• Usage of LSI Keywords

 

LSI keywords usage is a secret strategy that most businesses ignore. Such keywords support a lot in the ranking site and getting traffic. You can get them in the above two ways.

 

One is that search your topic on google and scroll down. In the end, you will see some relevant keywords which are LSI keywords.

 

Another way is that you can search them on LSIGraph.com by putting your specific keyword in the search bar.

 

• Usage of High-Quality External Links

 

In website SEO, links to building techniques prove so useful. You must have to link your site with trusted websites. When you are linked with google related sites, so such links give advantage in the form of generating leads and ranking your site higher. Each content or article must have at least 5-8 external links. Besides that, the only link to the sites which also produce similar content or somehow relate to your website contents.

 

 WordPress Content Checklist:

 

Great content engages an organic audience and they become regular visitors. Today, every business emphasizes on its content. Content is the thing that helps you to deliver your actual message by discussing it deeply. Let’s see which you should consider while writing quality content.

 

• Set up the Content Format

 

To make the content page more attractive, you need to put little effort into the format. Some people don’t prefer bold texts, small sections, and other font styles. But it works as it makes the format looks beautiful. A good format and the content value and increase user readability.

 

To make sure whether your content format is working or not, you can also get your audience feedback. Then according to that you can make changes and add more values. Besides, that keeps the content relevant and consistent.

 

• Words Count

 

As we heard Content is king, so word count is also an important factor in content. No matter how valuable or high quality your content is if it doesn’t seem readable so it will not be useful.
If your topic contains a huge amount of material, you can divide it into sub-sections or headings, so it supports readers’ readability.

 

• Cover Every Aspect of Content Topic/ In-Depth Content

 

A good and quality content is that which meets all necessary aspects relevant to it. When a visitor searches any content related to your topics and finds your content is discussing each term deeply. So, the visitor will prefer your content next time as well.

 

• Usage of Multimedia

 

You might be familiar with the importance of multimedia. It helps in google ranking and engaging the audience as well.

 

The viewer can instantly ignore a post containing a bundle of images. When you are delivering the message through content, so mainly focus on content and multimedia later. Multimedia supports the content as a sister who has not enough time to read can take an idea from video or images.

 

You can use images, infographics, videos, charts, or quizzes as supportive material for content but in a limited manner. Which makes the user feel valuable content.

 

• Old Content Updating

 

Usually, successful websites prefer to update old content which gives the new look to their content. This strategy works powerfully as you provide the old content freshly.

 

You can modify the content according to changes that come in that period.

 

• Content Pruning

 

It means to remove unnecessary or unimportant data from your site. You may think of how you can detect it out of thousands of contents? So, it’s not difficult all you need is to check the previous content performance and analyze which content is useless. The content of having low performance can be fully deleted or you can cut out some unimportant aspects from that as well. In this way, your site will be light, and your other useful content will be ranked.

 

• Unique and Plagiarism-Free Content

 

Suppose you have been publishing high-quality content for many years. But suddenly you start copying other content and providing plagiarism-based content to readers. Google will not rank your site and also your readers can detect it. You can take a clue or idea from other similar content but keep your content unique.

 

WordPress Link Building Checklist:

 

Backlinks help in ranking your site fastly and organically. Here, we will look at which ways you should have to adopt in a backlink building.

 

• Backlink Building by Being Podcast Guest

 

It’s like you go on someone’s podcast and deliver your message/ purpose to the relevant audience. Your content/topics must be designed in a way that creates a factor of curiosity in the audience. Then they will visit your site to check whether your content is valuable to them or not. Some of them will only visit your site, some will watch your overall site, and some will contact you as well. It’s the most powerful technique that generates links quickly.

 

• Guest Posting

 

Another wonderful link-building strategy is in which your site is linked with other sites through guest posts. To create a guest posting, publish your content on relevant industry sites which helps in increasing traffic.
So, check the most relevant and profitable sites and contact them for getting the permission of publishing content on their sites.

 

• Tag/Mention Influencers

 

It’s another best way to generate links. Find the influencers and mention them in your content. It will not only build the reader’s interests but also influencers will notice you. In this way, your chances of enhancing backlinks will be increased.

 

• Copy Your Competitor’s Links

 

There is a vast range of tools that provide you with the data of backlinks of your competitors, which is the most profitable thing. As you can also generate your backlinks in the same place. You can grab your competitors’ traffic organically.

 

Not only this, but another thing to keep in consideration is that whether those backlinks are fruitful for competitors or not. After analyzing it, you can generate your site backlinks on advantage sites.

 

Conclusion

 

Ultimately, you have got the perfect SEO checklist which will prove highly useful in the long run. In the checklist, we discuss all those factors and techniques which have been used by the most successful online business. If you will implement all these unique methods, you can compete with your competitors in less time. You will get a well-optimized site that will meet all the WordPress SEO aspects.

When the audience will find your site more responsive and user-friendly than competitors, organic traffic will automatically be generated. You can implement these tactics on your own.

 

About the Author

 

Debora leads the digital marketing department at Digital Gravity, a WordPress SEO Expert. As a marketing geek, she is constantly after new techniques to optimize sales and marketing prospects for clients in a crowded marketplace. Debora mission is to streamline the marketing process by leveraging digital technology and optimizing the marketing techniques to bring better results.