Using Wordpress for SEO

icon1 Posted by Andrew Olson in On-Page SEO, Site Design on 10 13th, 2009 | No Comments

Many webmasters swear by using a particular type of blog or content management system for their websites. One of the most popular content management systems, especially for SEO purposes, is Wordpress. It’s my personal favorite CMS, and in this article we’ll be discussing how it can be used for maximum SEO benefits.

Choosing Hosted Vs. Downloadable?

The world’s most popular blog software comes in two versions: a free downloadable version that the user uploads themselves, or a free hosed version at yourblog.Wordpress.com; obviously the second version is quicker and easier to setup for those that are less technically inclined, and the downloadable version offers much more freedom.

The main advantage of using the downloadable version is that you can use your own domain name, plus no one can shut your site down if they choose (which wordpress.com could do at any time). And further, it’s much easier to rank in the search engines when you have your own domain as opposed to a free domain at Wordpress (or blogger, or typepad).

Themes and Plugins for SEO

Now, once we’ve installed wordpress on our domain name, there are several features that make it a great choice for SEO. First, there is a theme database that makes it extremely easy to click on any theme and install it instantly. Many of these are specifically designed to look like a “content site” as opposed to a blog; this can help disguise Wordpress as a more typical content management system. Additionally, many of the themes will create very simple and clean code – making your site SEO friendly and easy for the search engines to crawl. Take a look at the WordPress Theme Viewer to see what’s available.

Next, on the plugins front, there is something called All In One SEO Pack that is incredible. It allow the user to easily manage every element of on-page seo right from within the admin panel. Users can add custom titles, descriptions, other meta tags, adjust the url structure and more. This plugin turns Wordpress into a SEO Powerhouse

Any Downsides to Wordpress?

The investment. Of course WordPress doesn’t cost anything, but the major downside of this software is that, right out of the box, it does take quite a bit of knowledge to customize and setup properly, but once that investment has been made, it’s my personal favorite content management system, especially for SEO.

For a free (and open source) piece of software, WordPress is really impressive, and extremely functional. Because it’s easy to disguise the blog features and make your website look like a traditional content site, it’s what I use almost exclusively for all of my web projects.

Visit: http://Wordpress.org

Top 6 Elements of On-Page SEO

icon1 Posted by Andrew Olson in On-Page SEO, Site Design on 10 12th, 2009 | 1 Comment

It’s easy to spend far too much time worrying about link building, and rightfully so: it’s probably the #1 largest factor that affects your rankings. However, without a solid on-page strategy already in place, your link building efforts will be greatly hampered. This post discusses the 6 most crucial elements of on-page SEO.

Title Tags

One of the most important elements to any website’s SEO strategy is the title tag. This tag is placed in the webpage’s <head> section and will tell the visitors and search engines what the page is actually about. Further, the title tag is almost always used by the search engines as the title of your website (big blue link in Google) when your site displays in the search results.

Now, why are titles important? Because the search engines have deemed them to be one of the most crucial factors in determining if a site is relevant for a particular term.

For example, many sites use something like: “Welcome to MySite.com.” And when someone searches for mysite.com, you this website will probably rank highly. However, it would be much more valuable to use a title like “Discount Boots including Boot Deals at MySite.com.” With the second example, you’re now relevant for the terms Discount Boots, Boot Deals and still MySite.com.

The bottom line is, once you’ve determined your keywords, changing the title is step #1.

Blue link is the <title> - the black text is the meta description

Google Search Result: blue link is the, black text is the meta description

Meta Tags

Much like the title tag, meta tags are placed in the <head> area of a webpage. The two that we’ll focus on are the keywords and description meta tags.

The description tag is much like the page title, it helps search engines determine what your site is about and what keywords it should rank for. Again, they will use this tag in the search results to describe your site. Make sure you provide an accurate description that includes your keywords.

Google itself has notified webmasters that they no longer use the keyword meta tag in their search algorithms or results. However, there is reason to believe that others still use it and it’s a good strategy to continue using it. Be sure to include just 3-5 keywords, though; as more will make your site appear spammy.

Headings

Once you’ve covered the head section of the page, it’s time to move into the content. The <h1>,<h2>, etc. tags do influence the search engines. Essentially, they give more weight to the content in these tags than anywhere else on the page. Therefore, it’s imperative to include a heading tag (there’s not much difference in weight of H1 to H2, both seem to get the same results) with your keywords. If you have a blog, chances are your post title is a header tag (and also the page title) so it’s important to choose your headers carefully. For example, the big blue text that shows this post’s title is a <h2> tag on this blog.

Keyword Density

We’ve all heard that content is king when it comes to the search engines, and while I can’t agree that content is #1, it is absolutely necessary. Optimal keyword density is approximately 2-3 usages per 100 words. Any more than 2-3% and you’ll raise a red flag, any less and your site might not appear too relevant to your keywords. The best way to check keyword density is, while you’re still writing the article in a word processor, do a search in the term and see how many times it comes up; then view the total word count to get your percentage.

Internal Linking

This includes two elements: clean links from each page to the other pages, and a sitemap. The site should be programmed so that all of the other pages are linked from every other page. This helps the search engines “crawl” your site to find all of it’s pages. Of course, if you have a blog with 1,000 posts, this wouldn’t be practical, and you’ll simply want to include the most important ones.

Second, to help the search engines find each of your pages, it’s a good idea to create a sitemap. The best method of sitemap creation is a html page with links to every page on your site (this can be done automatically with a programming language). Plus, this type of sitemap can be helpful to visitors as well, if they’re browsing through your site.

Images

Lastly, an often overlooked element of search engine optimization are images. Marketers don’t think of images as “content” and often ignore them. This is a mistake, because images are valuable for two reasons. First, they can include an attribute tag titled “alt=” which defines the text of this image, similar to a description tag for the webpage itself. If you’re using your site’s keywords as the alt description, that will help your seo efforts.

Second, Google uses the alt tag to display relevant results in it’s image search. This means that if your page is ranked, you can also rank highly for the image search of the same term – increasing the number of search engine visitors.

Again, I cannot stress enough how important on-page SEO can be. Don’t make the mistake of ignoring your on-page efforts while getting caught up in link building: make the changes on your site before ever building links.

The Power of Domains for SEO

icon1 Posted by Andrew Olson in Domain Names, Site Design on 10 11th, 2009 | 1 Comment

While many webmasters are focusing on seo techniques and tactics, there is one aspect that often goes overlooked: the domain name. After link building, there are few things that can affect a site’s ranking like the domain can. This post will explore a handful of ways that you can improve your SEO by making a smart domain name choice.

Choosing a TLD

TLD stands for Top Level Domain, and this refers to the .com, .net, .info, etc. If your website was mysite.com, the TLD would be .com. This aspect can play a major role in the ranking of your site, as many TLDs are seen as spammy and unprofessional. For example, .info domains can be purchased for $.99 and are traditionally used by spammers: the search engines recognize this and will be more hesitant about ranking this site. This doesn’t mean, however, that the site will never rank, or doesn’t have the opportunity to rank well for their terms; but it does mean that they will have more of an uphill battle.

The question, then, is what TLDs should you be using? And .com’s are generally the best to use, followed by .org and .net, with all others coming in last. If at all possible, use .com every time for best results.

Using Keywords in the domain

If there was one factor about the domain name that has the biggest impact on search rankings it’s the keyword you use in our domain. Go to Google and do a search for any term: you’ll find at least part of the search term in the domain name of many of the top 10 results. It is vital to your future rankings to choose a domain name with your keywords before you ever build the site.

For example, if you’re targeting the term Oolong Tea, it would be best to find a domain like: OolongTeaHaven.com or OolongTeaOnline.com as opposed to something that doesn’t include both Oolong and Tea.

Registration Period

This is a secret weapon for many seo experts. When a new site is indexed by Google it is often put into a “sandbox” for a few weeks to a few months until it builds some backlinks and Google has had a chance to determine that it’s trustworthy. Wouldn’t it be great if you could virtually bypass the sandbox all together? Well, this strategy, along with the others in this article, can almost totally bypass the sandbox and get your site ranked within days. I have done experiments where I had a site indexed and ranking for my terms in under 24 hours, and I attribute much of that success to this technique.

Most spammers will only register their domain name for one year, as they don’t plan to invest long-term effort into it. Google recognizes this and if a site is registered for 2 years or more, there’s a much greater initial trust by Google to index and rank this site. If you’re serious about your site’s seo, this technique can’t be ignored.

While there are many aspects to seo, I feel that the domain name is really the foundation: other areas can be built on top of it, but if your domain isn’t optimized for seo, you’ll be facing an uphill battle. Start by using the three tips described above, then work at writing content and doing on-page seo, and finally build trustworthy backlinks to your site and over time, your site will outrank all the competition!