To attract more visitors, outshine competitors, and convert traffic into sales, you need powerful SEO.
Here are top tips from our WordPress and SEO experts to help you create a website that Google loves!
Dare We Reiterate: The Importance of SEO
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) involves tailoring your website to align with Google’s criteria for ranking web pages in search results. Optimising Google’s algorithms is crucial since Google commands an impressive 91.9% of the global search market.
While the concept may seem straightforward, numerous website development and content creation facets present opportunities for success and significant setbacks.
By adhering to Google’s best practices and leveraging the latest technologies, SEO can significantly enhance your website’s ability to reach and engage individuals searching for your products or services. Conversely, intentionally or inadvertently, resorting to shortcuts, hacks, or other black-hat techniques can penalise your website and cause it to lose visibility in search rankings.
Therefore, it’s essential to master the strategies for building an SEO-friendly website. This is where our team of experts steps in. We dedicate our efforts to understanding Google’s evolving requirements, deciphering how its algorithms prioritise content, and staying ahead of advancements in search technology.
To support you in this endeavour, we’ve compiled a comprehensive list of WordPress SEO best practices to help optimise your site effectively.
Start with Solid SEO Fundamentals
WordPress offers a variety of built-in features that enhance SEO friendliness and support website development.
Begin by ensuring that your website’s visibility is enabled so that search engines can access it, as this setting is often disabled during the development stage.
Next, create clear and descriptive URLs for your web pages that accurately reflect the content, ideally incorporating relevant keywords and, if possible, location-specific terms.
Lastly, prioritise your website’s security, as Google prefers to promote secure sites to users. Ensure your site uses HTTPS instead of HTTP, choose a reputable hosting service, protect it with a strong password, and implement Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificates.
Ensure Your Website is Mobile-Friendly
Having a mobile-friendly website is no longer optional – it’s essential.
Mobile devices are the preferred way to access the internet in the UK; globally, mobile traffic accounts for 55% of all internet usage. More crucially, over half of smartphone users discover new companies and products through mobile searches. The mobile retail market is also expected to soar from £50.36 billion to £105.28 billion by 2024.
Your website must be optimised for mobile users to stay competitive and keep visitors engaged. This involves implementing responsive design, dynamic serving, or separate URLs to ensure your site looks and functions well on devices of all sizes. Additionally, prioritise fast load times and optimise your site for mobile SEO.
Doing so will enhance the user experience and increase the likelihood that visitors will stay on your page and convert into customers.
Explore the Top SEO Plugins
WordPress boasts thousands of plugins that extend your website’s functionality, including a wide array of SEO tools.
Among the best SEO plugins are RankMath, Yoast SEO, All in One SEO Pack, SEOPress, and ShortPixel. Depending on your SEO strategy, these plugins can help you:
- Optimise and Compress Images: reduce image sizes without compromising quality to improve site speed.
- Perform SEO Audits: Analyse your website’s SEO performance and identify areas for improvement.
- Assist with Keyword Research: Find and target the most effective keywords for your content.
- Enhance Content Optimisation: Ensure your content is SEO-friendly and ranks well in search results.
- Discover Search Terms: Identify the search terms your audience is using to find content like yours.
- Support Internal Link Building: Strengthen your site’s structure by creating effective internal links.
Integrating the correct SEO plugins into your WordPress site can streamline your optimisation efforts, enhance your website’s visibility, and drive more targeted traffic to your pages.
Master Content Formatting
WordPress provides robust features that assist Google’s search algorithms in understanding and ranking your content effectively, mainly through its formatting tools.
To optimise your website or blog content, consider the following best practices:
Use Proper Heading Tags
H1 Tags for Main Titles: Ensure each page or post has a single H1 tag that represents the main topic.
H2 and H3 Tags for Subsections: Organise your content with H2 and H3 tags for subheadings, which will make it easier for users and search engines to navigate it.
Incorporate Relevant Keywords
Natural Integration: Include relevant keywords that are natural and readable within your headings and subheadings to enhance SEO without compromising the quality of your content.
Optimise Title Tags
Clickable Titles: Each page or post should have a unique title tag, the clickable headline appearing in search engine results pages (SERPs). Make sure it accurately reflects the content and includes primary keywords.
Craft Compelling Meta Descriptions
Summary of Content: Write concise meta descriptions (around 150-160 characters) summarising the page’s content. These descriptions appear below the title tag in SERPs and should entice users to click through to your site.
Create Descriptive Slugs
SEO-Friendly URLs: Develop clean and descriptive slugs (the part of the URL that identifies a specific page) that include relevant keywords. For example, use yourwebsite.com/seo-best-practices instead of yourwebsite.com/page1.
By implementing these formatting strategies, you enhance your website’s SEO, making it easier for Google to understand and rank your content. This improves your visibility in search results and provides a better user experience for your visitors.
Optimise Your Images for SEO
Optimising images is a crucial aspect of SEO that goes beyond just text content.
Search engine algorithms also evaluate your images to understand and rank your website effectively. However, since algorithms cannot “see” images the way humans do, optimising them in specific ways to ensure they are correctly identified, classified, and leveraged to enhance your search rankings is essential.
This optimisation is particularly important with Google’s introduction of the ‘Shopping’ tab in search results, which displays product images with direct links to purchase websites. To make the most of this feature, follow these best practices for image optimisation:
Accurate Product Descriptions
Provide clear and detailed descriptions of your products to help search engines understand the context and relevance of your images.
Descriptive Image File Names
Use meaningful file names that accurately describe the image content. For example, use red-leather-handbag.jpg instead of IMG_1234.jpg.
Informative Image Titles
Assign titles to your images that reflect their purpose and content. This helps search engines associate the images with relevant search queries.
Alt Text Tags
Implement descriptive alt text for each image, incorporating keywords that potential customers will likely use when searching for your products. For example, use alt="red leather handbag for women".
Keyword Integration
Ensure that all image-related elements—descriptions, file names, titles, and alt text—include keywords that are naturally used by your target audience when searching for your products.
By meticulously optimising your images with these elements, you enhance their visibility in search engine results, improve user experience, and increase the likelihood of driving more traffic and sales through visual search features like Google’s Shopping tab.
Embrace Natural Language
Google is advancing its search technology to understand the intent behind search queries rather than merely matching keywords. This shift towards natural language searches aims to deliver users the most accurate and relevant results.
While keywords still play a crucial role, the emphasis should be on creating content that mirrors your audience’s natural language when searching for your products or services.
This strategy improves relevance and helps you avoid penalties associated with keyword stuffing.
To align with this approach, your content should be:
- Conversational and Engaging: Write in a natural, conversational tone that resonates with your readers. This makes your content more relatable and easier to understand.
- High-Quality and Well-Written: Focus on producing well-structured, clear, and informative content that provides real value to your audience. Quality content is more likely to be shared and linked to, boosting your SEO.
- Flowing and Readable: Ensure that your content flows smoothly from one point to the next, making it easy for readers to follow and absorb the information.
- Audience-Centric: Tailor your content to address your target audience’s needs, questions, and interests. Understanding your audience’s intent helps in creating more effective and relevant content.
By prioritising natural language and focusing on the quality and appeal of your content, you enhance your website’s SEO and provide a better user experience.
This approach ensures that your content meets the evolving standards of search algorithms and aligns with how users naturally seek information.
Need Help?
TSCA is a multi-award-winning digital agency based in Manchester that specialises in WordPress websites.
Our team of web design and WordPress SEO experts has an in-depth understanding of the platform’s capabilities, allowing us to create websites that are uniquely tailored to your business without exceeding your budget.
From luxury interior designers and hospitality providers to IT support companies, music studios, and the tourism industry, we have partnered with businesses of all sizes across various sectors.
Contact us today to learn how we can help your business attract high-quality, rewarding organic traffic online.
