Ultimate WordPress SEO Tips
So you think you’ve got the hang of the usual SEO. Links, content, usability. But what about WordPress?
There’s a lot of amazing SEO power built into WordPress. Unfortunately it doesn’t all come by default, and you might not know what’s best when it comes to templates and options.
This simple, easy to follow article will outline many WordPress SEO tips which people often forget to implement (even the most famous bloggers), or haven’t yet arrived at for some reason or another.
Permalink Optimisation
The goal: stick more keywords up into the URL and remove the faff which nobody uses, to make the URL seach engine and people attractive.
- Include
%postname%
Having keywords in your URL is an absolute must, especially when it’s as easy as WordPress makes it. - Get rid of useless tags
Don’t use%day%,%post_id%,%hour%,%minute%or even%second%in your permalink structure. None of these are necessary. Monthly posting archives are perfectly acceptable, but for the vast majority daily ones are not. Putting more /***/ rubbish into your permalink URLs will make it harder to see the URL’s boldened keywords on search engine results, less emphasis is placed on your post title keywords (which are really great). - Bonus tip: want to go really mad with your permalink SEO? Try dropping date tags all together for
%category%! It does away with your neat date tags, though, so you could even try keeping%year%and%month%. - Stick with the structure you choose! Changing it will probably invalidate all of the links coming to you.
- You better be using .htaccess, punk!
On my sites
On Dech, the permalink structure is /%year%/%monthnum%/%postname%/, which is ideal! It keeps the blog neat, but means that all of the URL, with bold keyword matches, will show up in Google results, etc.
I’ve taken a different approach with Buster Studies, where I’ve decided to go for sheer SEOage, in the form of just %postname%. It really works, especially with some of the techniques mentioned later. Search refferals are sky-high for this very new site. I’m not worried about post-title clashes, because each post covers a different topic, and WordPress doesn’t ever let post slug clashes occur.
What’s that? You can’t use the calendar properly? Well it still happens to work for me when you want to look up dates like yesterday.
Page Titles
Unless you’re some kind of international superband with just a few letters for a name (Apple, IBM…), you’re very likely allowing WordPress to make a big mistake for you when it comes to your page title (the one within the title tags).
You don’t want a title like this:
Buster Studies » Kinetics: Collision Theory, Maxwell-Boltzmann Distribution
Why not? Well, to start with the key words are right at the end! You have to put up with Buster Studies » before your eyes can make it to the real juice!
In Google, when you do a search, searched keywords which appear in your title are made bold, and they sand out really well. You want as much of that as possible. Because Google truncates titles when they pass a particular length, you need your important keywords up front. Google might also be counting words which appear earlier in the title as more important.
The format I use for page titles on Buster Studies and Dech lets people see what the post is about first.
Kinetics: Collision Theory, Maxwell-Boltzmann Distribution · Buster Studies
Look at the top of the page. I even spice it up a little by loosing the common “»” for a lovely “·“.
Even better, the title of the post can be seen in Firefox’s tabs or minimised Windows windows easily.
The code you need to put into your template for this to happen:
< ###title>< ?php wp_title(' '); ?>< ?php if(wp_title(' ', false)) { echo ' ·###; '; } ?>Buster Studies< ###/title>
(remove the ###s and replace stuff with your own bits)
So just rearranging your title will shower your with some fantastic results.
On my sites
As I said, I use the technique above which throws out great, powerful titles like:
Ultimate WordPress SEO Tips · Dech from Fintan Darragh
Essay Notes: Arguments For/Against Regulation of the British Press · Buster Studies
What do you see first? Exactly what I want you to…
Post Titles
Keep it sweet
Keep your post titles nice and simple, and as straight-forward as possible. Sure, pack in the keywords, but do it smartly.
You have to blend readability with keywords. It’s easy to muck-up, but doing it right will help you loads.
Link to the bloody post!
If you don’t use your title to link straight to your permalink URL, the page where your post lives, you are stupid to say the least.
It’s naturally where users click, and it also is a keyword-rich inward link which should reinforce a good post title, page title and URL.
Some HTML might come in handy…
XHTML if you prefer.
- On pages where a list of posts appear (like the front page), wrap the title in
H2,H3orH4tags. This provides maximum superiority of linkage without going too far. Which ones you use depend on how many posts the page is showing (lower number of posts, opt for H2…). - On the post page, wrap it in
H1tags! It’s the page title, so it deserves to be wrapped up like that! You’ll benefit greatly from this when it comes to the search engines. - SEO mad! If you’re capable of bending WordPress to your will, try putting a link to your newest post in
H1tags on your front page! It works wonders!
On my sites
I use this very technique on Dech and it seems to be working very nicely indeed. Buster Studies uses the H1 as a front-page one-off link, and that seems to have a great deal of influence.
Final tips
- Install the related posts plugin, and make it gurgle up a list of five related posts below your content for great deep linking and possible usefulness.
- Exploit your category archives! They should have great urls and title tags, and offer great relevant deep linking. Also, use nested categories where it makes sense (see url).
- Use my Technorati Tag Generator.
I’ll be happy to respond to your questions or comments below.
themaxx.caNovember 11th, 2005 #
Excellent post!
These are tweaks I haven’t thought of.
Especially the “Page Titles”
Thanks for sharing
3stripeNovember 11th, 2005 #
Some great tips there
FintanNovember 11th, 2005 #
Thanks very much guys! You’re welcome!
KyleNovember 11th, 2005 #
Great stuff. Implimented these on three of my blogs.
chrishNovember 15th, 2005 #
Thanks for the tips, there’ some gems there.
Here’s one that I just came up with when reading your title tips and thinking about how keywords in titles have such an impact, let me know what you think…
Prefix the title with a category. Eg this post might be “SEO Tips - The Ultimate WordPress list” or “WordPress - The Ultimate SEO Tips”
BennyNovember 18th, 2005 #
What plugin do you use for the topics/tags on your individual posts?
Cheers
FintanNovember 18th, 2005 #
You’re welcome, Chris.
It’s just an ordinary instalation of WordPress, using categories as tags. The ‘cloud’ type look you can see is what happens when you use display:inline on list items.
Paal ChunzNovember 19th, 2005 #
Thanks FIntan, that was highly useful, though I’ll probably have to read it again to understand it all!
I’ve found that my Google traffic is always higher on articles that contain good meta tags, so my tip is to use the automatic meta-tag plugin (AutoMeta) which automatically generates Meta Keywords and Technorati Tags.
FintanNovember 23rd, 2005 #
Oh yeah - for starters, Wordpress is free!
Jim WestergrenNovember 28th, 2005 #
Thanks a lot for the guide. Very useful and I just did the steps. When I switched H1 and H2 in the CSS and added H4 it took me more than half an hour to find an error of a comma …
Anyway, thanks a lot.
FintanNovember 28th, 2005 #
You’re welcome, Jim. I really hate sneaky bugs like that…
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nicoleFebruary 10th, 2006 #
You have some great tips, here. I do have a question about the title tags
Buster Studies.
When I drop this in my template my title bar shows
Buster Studies. Instead of just the keywords and title of the blog. I did remove the #’s but I’m stumped
MattFebruary 15th, 2006 #
Thanks for the information. Very helpful.
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SaritMarch 1st, 2006 #
Such wonderful tips. Simple, but great!
I’m hoping the related topics plugins can handle Hebrew!
I think it’s a bit too late to change my permalinks structure which is a bit of a shame because due to some lack of knowledge I set my pemalinks to be only %postname% and nothing else, and that’s not the best thing to do..
Maybe someday in the future I’ll revamp everything about the site as well as the permalinks structure to be as you suggested.
Thanks!
Jeanne McDanielsMarch 10th, 2006 #
I am glad I came across your post. Thanks!
aggressive skaterMarch 12th, 2006 #
Great tips here. I made the changes to my blog on friday and today (two days later), I am number one on google for aggressive skate blog! These are great tips, they really work.
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Emory RowlandMarch 24th, 2006 #
Very helpful stuff and much needed. WordPress is great.
FintanMarch 24th, 2006 #
You’re welcome!
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[…] Fintan Darragh of www.dech.co.uk has a great blog post called “Ultimate WordPress SEO Tips” (http://www.dech.co.uk/2005/11/ultimate-WordPress-seo-tips/). Mr. Darragh talks about permalink optimization and says, “The goal: stick more keywords up into the URL and remove the faff which nobody uses, to make the URL search engine and people attractive. Having keywords in your URL is an absolute must, especially when it’s as easy as WordPress makes it.” He also goes on to talk about getting rid of useless tags like the month, day, and year, as well as one important detail: whatever you do stick with the site structure you choose—otherwise you might end up with a lot of useless links to your site. Other tips that Mr. Darragh mentions are optimizing your page titles and your post titles–and installing a few plugins that are useful such as the “Related Posts Plugin” and the “Technorati Tag Generator”. […]
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[…] Fintan Darragh of www.dech.co.uk has a great blog post called “Ultimate WordPress SEO Tips” (http://www.dech.co.uk/2005/11/ultimate-WordPress-seo-tips/). Mr. Darragh talks about permalink optimization and says, “The goal: stick more keywords up into the URL and remove the faff which nobody uses, to make the URL search engine and people attractive. Having keywords in your URL is an absolute must, especially when it’s as easy as WordPress makes it.” He also goes on to talk about getting rid of useless tags like the month, day, and year, as well as one important detail: whatever you do stick with the site structure you choose—otherwise you might end up with a lot of useless links to your site. Other tips that Mr. Darragh mentions are optimizing your page titles and your post titles–and installing a few plugins that are useful such as the “Related Posts Plugin” and the “Technorati Tag Generator”. […]
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