By Estelle Liotard
If you’re a new business owner, bringing your business online is a big step which can help you make your company’s presence in the online world a lot bigger. Creating an SEO-friendly WordPress site is going to help you drive more traffic your way and help get more people to see your content.
Starting out with such a project can be quite difficult, especially if you have no experience in the field. In order to help you out with this task, here are some helpful tips and tricks to help you achieve your goals and get started on creating your new website.
1. Choose the Right WordPress Themes
The very first thing you should be looking into when starting up your own website is to make sure that you start by choosing the right theme for your WordPress website. A WordPress theme is very important for SEO and it can really help you attract more people to your website.
The main thing about the theme you choose is that it can really affect the loading speed of your website. In SEO, the faster your website loads, the higher it will rank on the results of the search engines. The key in order to pick the right theme is to pick one which will first of all not include too many visual elements.
This will not only help your website’s loading sleep but it will also make it a lot more visually appealing and easier on your audience’s eyes.
2. Pick the Right SEO Keywords
SEO Keywords are probably the number one thing that comes to mind whenever someone mentions search engine optimization. For some people though, keywords can seem a bit difficult to comprehend as they might not be certain how to create or choose them.
Keywords are nothing more than strategically picked words which will help your content become a lot easier to discover on the various search engines. Even if you have no idea how to choose those words, you will be happy to know that there are plenty of online tools you can use for this purpose.
The very first online keyword tool most website owners use is Google AdWords. Another similar, but possibly not as effective tool is Keyword Tool. Both of these tools are easy to use, user-friendly and can help you pick the right keywords, depending on the results you wish to achieve in regards to your rankings in the results of search engines.
3. Optimize Your Permalinks
Permalinks are the full URLs you see being linked to any certain post on your website. They are essentially permanent links which are being used in order to help guide a visitor to a certain part of your website with ease.
In order to optimize your permalinks, you will have to make sure that you are first of all using the right SEO keywords in order to make sure they rank up high in the results of the various search engines. On top of that, by using the right keywords in your permalinks, your website visitors will be able to better understand exactly which part of your website they are visiting.
All of your posts will be in the same category and this will make them not only easier to view for your audience but also a lot easier to rank higher on the results of the search engines since you will be using a combination of many keywords in your links.
4. Use Outbound Links to Your Social Media Pages
Social media platforms have become very popular among internet users for the past few years. Within just a few clicks they are able to come in contact with their favorite celebrities and learn about news from all around the world from the comfort of their own home.
Having a social media page for your website will greatly work in your favor, especially if you wish to boost your SEO. The key in this situation is to make sure that you always include outbound links on your website which will redirect your visitors to your social media pages.
One of the best things you can do in order for your posts to attract more attention online is to use your social media platforms to spread your content. This will make your posts a lot more popular among users and there will also be a lot more people who will share your content on their social media pages, therefore helping it become easier to discover online by people of similar interests.
5. Optimize Your Audiovisual Content
Another thing many website owners don’t take into consideration is the amounts of audiovisual content they load onto their website. While having enough audiovisual content is a great idea when it comes to catching a visitor’s attention and helping them gather more information about your website without much effort put on their side.
The problem with pictures and videos is that they can really make your webpage take longer to load after a user has clicked on your link. This will really cause a problem with your search engine rankings as the longer your website takes to load, the lower it will rank in the results.
The best thing you can do about this is to take the time to optimize your audiovisual content before uploading it on your website and running the right tests in order for you to be able to that they are not slowing down the loading speed more than is needed in order for your website to be easily found online.
6. Use the Right SEO Plugins
Last but not least, another thing you can do in order to optimize your WordPress site so it ranks higher in search engines is to start using some of the many SEO plugins that can be found online. Most plugins you will find online can be very cheap and their providers will be able to provide you with great support in anything you might need. WordPress also offers you a variety of free plugins to choose from so you can take advantage of that in the beginning stages of your website.
The end goal of any plugin is to help you improve your website and make it a lot more functional for your audience. For example, a popular plugin called Breadcrumb is a great feature which your online visitors can use in order to be able to keep better track of the locations available on your website. By clicking on any of the “crumbs” they will be able to be taken to that page instantly.
This will very easily improve the user experience your website offers and in combination with the optimized permalinks you will be using, your SEO will improve drastically with just a couple of alterations.
Creating the WordPress Website You Always Wished For
While there are many different aspects you need to take into consideration when creating your very own WordPress website, you will easily be able to create your website even if you are not an expert in the field. These websites are relatively easy to create and offer their users a lot of different options in order to make their websites much more effective.
Creating an SEO-friendly website can be done by anyone, and these tips will definitely help you get a better understanding of certain things you need to be aware of when starting up your website.
Which of these tips are you looking forward to using on your own WordPress website?
