If you’re running a small business, there’s a good chance your site is built within WordPress. Statistics from a Builtwith.com report shows that WordPress controls almost 50% of the internet. This number varies based off other reports, but any way you look at it, there are a lot of WordPress sites out there. WordPress is not just used for small businesses, but other large businesses & big websites have found it extremely reliable.
WordPress is a completely flexible platform with easy to add extensions(plugins) and themes that can suit just about any style. More importantly then anything, WordPress is extremely easy to navigate through. This creates a shorter learning curve with the platform and less time needed to make site changes. With so much popularity around WordPress, it’s very important that people know how to utilize their SEO abilities.
WordPress & SEO
Whether you are building a site or you are taking over a site, there are a range of plugins that are easy to download. Two very popular main SEO plugins; Yoast SEO & All in One SEO provide a majority of the needed functions to optimize a site.
Just within your main SEO plugin you are able to:
- Easily set page titles & meta descriptions for every page on your site
- Install Google Analytics & Google Webmasters
- Enable Conical URL’s for your content
- Much More
Once you have the main SEO plugin downloaded, there are some other following steps that need to be taken.
Within general settings, be sure that your site URL’s are correct and exactly match what you have chosen within the Google Search Console. Whether you have https or https or a www. or no www., be sure that everything is consistent.
Plugins to improve SEO
- Google XML Sitemaps: In order for Google to quickly and properly index that pages on your site, creating an xml sitemap is essential. After downloading the plugin, you can access the sitemap and easily submit it to Google Webmasters.
- 301 Redirects: Over time or if you are switching website platforms it is natural to have URL structural change. This plugin allows you to redirect an old (broken) link to the new page URL. This helps improve user experience, resulting in a lower bounce range and more conversions.
These are just some of the basic plugins that will get your website off to a great start. The easy to navigate WordPress layout will make the process as easy as possible. Many CMS platforms and HTML websites are difficult to manage and implement a blog. Content is king and within WordPress, accessing and posting blogs couldn’t be any easier. Just another function that makes WordPress as popular as it is.