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WordPress Search Engine Optimization- Second Edition

Book Image

WordPress Search Engine Optimization- Second Edition

Overview of this book

WordPress is a powerful platform for creating feature-rich and attractive websites but, with a little extra tweaking and effort, your WordPress site can dominate search engines and bring thousands of new customers to your business. WordPress Search Engine Optimization will show you the secrets that professional SEO companies use to take websites to the top of search results. You'll take your WordPress site to the next level; you'll brush aside even the stiffest competition with the advanced tutorials in this book.

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WordPress Search Engine Optimization- Second Edition
Oct, 2015 | 318 pages
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Table of Contents (19 chapters)
WordPress Search Engine Optimization Second Edition
WordPress Search Engine Optimization Second Edition
Credits
Credits
About the Author
About the Author
About the Reviewers
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Preface
Free Chapter
1
Getting Started – SEO Basics
Getting Started – SEO Basics
Introducing SEO
Improving your rank on all search engines
Exploring the changing nature of search engines
Understanding a search engine's inner workings
Preparing the index
Querying the index
Exploring on-page search ranking factors
Weighing search factors
Understanding the search algorithm
Ranking factor – body content
Serious ranking power – title tags and meta tags
Making perfect title tags
Using heading tags (h1, h2, h3)
Optimizing code quality and load speed
Menus, internal navigation, and link structure
Image filenames and alt tags
Text attributes – bold, italics, and underline
Ranking factor – high page count
Fodder for search engines – fresh content
Using the subtle power of outbound links
Understanding off-page ranking factors
Avoiding over-optimization
Converting visitors to customers – the third spoke of SEO
Summary
2
Optimizing WordPress for SEO
Optimizing WordPress for SEO
Setting goals for your business and website and getting inspiration
Knowing what WordPress already does for your SEO
Creating reliable and text-based navigation
Engaging visitors with built-in collaboration, contribution, and community building
Understanding what WordPress doesn't do for your SEO
Summary
3
Researching and Working with Keywords
Researching and Working with Keywords
Building your site's foundation with keyword research
Understanding relevance and the effect of short tail and long tail keywords
Spotting keyword popularity patterns with Google Trends
Identifying and developing your initial keyword profile
Building keyword lists with common qualifiers
Employing the human touch in keyword research
Learning how customers engage in local search
Prioritizing keywords
Finding new keywords with Google AdWords
Summary
4
Understanding Technical Optimization
Understanding Technical Optimization
Choosing a keyword-rich domain name
Buying/acquiring domain names
Creating an effective WordPress permalink structure
Highly customized permalinks
Optimizing your Page/Post titles and title tags
Crafting title tags
Creating perfectly-sized title tags
Crafting Page/Post titles
Optimizing meta tags
Configuring WordPress to generate meta descriptions
Best practices for meta descriptions
A dead HTML element – meta keyword tags
Optimizing your body content
Optimizing heading tags
Optimizing WordPress templates
Improving rankings with optimized images
The ultimate WordPress robots.txt file
Optimizing with the XML Sitemaps plugin for WordPress
SEO power tool – Google Webmasters
Summary
5
Creating Optimized and Engaging Content
Creating Optimized and Engaging Content
Engaging visitors with your content
Writing effective titles and headlines
Transcending bland, keyword-rich titles
Organizing your content with WordPress tags
Creating keyword-aware content
Keeping it natural
Avoiding automated content plugins
Writing for your audience
Providing quality information
Writing to get results
Developing your writing style
Narrative styles
Structuring your content using taxonomy and hierarchy
Managing your categories with plugins
Hiring a writer
Summary
6
Link Building
Link Building
Understanding the importance of backlinks
Distinguishing between dofollow and nofollow links
Authority links – what they are and why you want them
Link anchor text
How to measure your inbound links
Securing links through link directories
Building links with infographics
Link building by commenting on blogs and forums
Building links through direct link requests
Summary
7
Using Social Media
Using Social Media
What is a search engine?
Going viral with social media
Using LinkedIn to promote your business or website
Microblogging with Twitter for business
Using social bookmarking sites to promote your business
Choosing a social bookmarking site
Leveraging Facebook for a business or blog
Encouraging sharing on Pinterest and photo sharing sites
Encouraging Twitter posts and the Tweet This plugin
Taking social media too far
Promoting your business or blog with YouTube
Summary
8
Avoiding Black Hat Techniques
Avoiding Black Hat Techniques
Typical black hat techniques
Google Webmaster Guidelines
Diagnosing a Google ranking ban, penalty, or filter
Clearing a Google penalty
Avoiding black hat techniques and purveyors who promote them
Summary
9
Avoiding SEO Mistakes
Avoiding SEO Mistakes
Pursuing the wrong keywords
Poor internal anchor text
Flash, JavaScript, image links, and other non-readable content
Poor site architecture
Over-optimization
Jumping the gun and the sandbox
Using free hosted domains
Forgetting verification tools
Ignoring local directory listings
Summary
10
Testing Your Site and Monitoring Your Progress
Testing Your Site and Monitoring Your Progress
Google Analytics
Using Google Analytics
Google Webmasters/Search Console
Checking your website's code with a HTML Validator
Checking your inbound link count with Bing Webmaster
Monitoring ranking positions and movement with Rank Tracker
Monitoring backlinks with Majestic SEO
Summary
WordPress SEO Plugins
WordPress SEO Plugins
All in One SEO Pack
Yoast SEO
Gravity Forms Contact Form Mailer
Contact Form 7
Duplicate Post
Broken Link Checker
Google XML Sitemaps
Akismet
Wordfence
WP Super Cache
WPtouch
WooCommerce
Yet Another Related Posts Plugin
FooBox HTML & Media Lightbox
Other SEO Resources
Other SEO Resources
Online forums
Google's tools for website owners
Other helpful SEO tools
Index
Index

Using free hosted domains

Free hosted platforms like Blogger.com and WordPress.com provide a valuable service, but they aren't appropriate as the primary destination for a business that works in a competitive SEO market. WordPress' free blogging service (available through WordPress.com instead of WordPress.org) offers users a free, full-featured blog on the WordPress platform. The free service offers hosting on a subdomain (http://yoursite.wordpress.com), but a custom domain is available for about $99 a year. Be warned: the custom domain feature requires some sound knowledge of domain mapping.

No free hosted domain will ever match the design flexibility and ranking power of custom domain. You'll be limited as to the themes and plugins you'll be able to install. Without the freedom to install plugins, you'll limit the SEO power available to you. And, if your site resides on a subdomain of WordPress.com, you'll be poorly regarded by search engines and customers alike. Search engines don't rank...

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