Posted by Andrew Olson in 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