Day 23: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for Your WordPress Blog

29 Jun 2009

Day 23: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for Your WordPress Blog

Author: Jim | Filed under: 30-Day Blogging

Here on Day 22, we want to have a quick look on some of the blogs in our competition before we start. There has been a lot of progress made on the websites of those participating, and I’m very pleased with the steps people have made over the past month. Two of the top participants thus far are: Gamer Blurb and Home Repair Helper. These guys both have great progress made, so let’s see if they can keep up the good work as we go forward!

Search Engine Optimization (SEO): What Is It?

A lot of people here the term “SEO” thrown around in the blogging and internet marketing world all too often… so what the heck does it mean? Search Engine Optimization refers to the methodology of getting your website “Google-Ready.” Essentially, a lot of the traffic on the internet flows through search engines like Google and Bing, so webmasters need to make sure their their sites are at the top of the results page. In order to do this, there are a few tips and tricks that give you an edge. The sites that rank higher necessarily have better traffic flow from the get go… and more traffic = more potential revenue!

Jimvesting’s Top Five SEO Essentials:

1. Structure your website urls!
When you look at a URL in my website, what do you see? Words! As a blogger, you do not want to have a structure that is “yoursite.com/02/2008/post-title” or anything with numbers at all. Then, take a look at my page titles. Notice that they are always “Post Title | Jimvesting” instead of the default? Again, this is very important for SEO purposes. These things are going to be the messy defaults you get with WordPress and almost any other system that you use, so we need to install and use the All-In-One SEO Pack WordPress plugin that I have recommended.

Let’s work a bit with All-In-One SEO! To get into the settings page after you have installed, navigate to “Settings” –> “All In One SEO” in your WordPress Admin section. From there, you should edit all of the setting to fit your structure.

Your “Home Title” should be short and to the point, including your main keyword, and under 15 words in length (mine is “Making Money Online by Turning Time Into Cash – Jimvesting dot com”).
Your “Home Description” is what shows up in Google most often when your website is short. Pack this with keywords and make it 160 words or less for the best results.
Your “Home Keywords” are just that, your keyword phrases. I would just slam as many as you have in this box, though some recommend using just a few.
Enable “Rewrite Titles” and have all the title options structured to show “%thing% | %blog_title%”

This may be a bit confusing to you so far, so what I have graciously done is taken a screenshot of all my settings. You can have a look at what I am doing for SEO by checking out this screenshot.

2. Creating A SiteMap for Your Site
A sitemap is essentially a listing of all of your pages, posts, etc. that are on your website. Because usually everything isn’t webbed together, it’s essential to have an updated sitemap so Google and other search engines can find your content easily and start getting you some reliable traffic.

We have already installed a plugin called Google XML Sitemaps, and this is really all that you need! Simply use the default settings and you will be ready to go in no time at all.

3. Submitting Your Blog to Search Engines
Now that you have a sitemap and your page structures look clean, let’s let the search engines know about your website. You can use a service for free like SubmitExpress, FreeWebSubmission or AddPro to get you indexed in hundreds of engines. However, when it comes down to it, all that really matters is Google.

To start with Google, follow this link to submit your website to their search engines.

Once that is done, we are going to open up Google’s Webmaster Tools, and create a membership if you haven’t already. Once you are logged in, go ahead an “Add Your Site” so that you can login and start ordering Google around. You are most likely going to need to upload a small file to your server so Google knows you are the real owner (”google1248012.html” or similar), and you’ll be ready to go. You can have a look around, but all we need to do here is give them the sitemap we made, and get out!

To submit your sitemap, which should be “sitemap.xml” in your main root folder, navigate in your Webmaster Tools left-hand panel to “Sitemaps” –> “Add Sitemap.” We are going to be adding a “General Web Sitemap” and it should be in “yoursite.com/sitemap.xml” or another folder if you did things correctly. Once they’ve verified it exists, just make sure they are checking it often and that the status is “OK.”

4. Setting Up a “301 Redirect” with .htaccess
One of the most overlooked things in optimizing websites is using .htaccess to control how your website’s URL appears. Most people will link to your website as either “http://yoursite.com” or “http://www.yoursite.com” which creates BIG problems for Google. Essentially, it’s seen as two different websites, so all of your recorded growth is literally cut in half! You want your rankings high, right? So let’s change things around to maximize the results from your efforts.

Open up “notepad” or any text editing program with the ability to save a file with any extension you want. In it, simply put the following:

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_Host} ^YOURDOMAIN.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.YOURDOMAIN.com/$1 [L,R=301]

Make sure that this is on four separate lines in the file, and that you replace “YOURDOMAIN” with your website. If you already have an .htaccess file on your server, which is very likely at this point, just download your existing one and add these lines to the top. Here’s a sample I have made if you want to download and use it, just don’t forget to rename it to “.htaccess” when you are done.

Helpful Hint: If you downloaded the “WWW Redirect” plugin from the previous step in day 20… you can simply use this to do the job for you!

5. Link Your Blog Like a Pro!
Linking is the key to exposure, traffic and high rankings. While you should never link just for the sake of linking, feel free to spread the link love around as much as possible. This is why you see me posting “link love” every Sunday along with announcements… it can only help!

One big way you can get your website better trafficked is by installing a “related posts” plugin (as I have done) to show posts related to the current at the bottom of each article you publish. This make for solid deep links throughout your website, and will have your visitors staying longer by exploring similar content. I recommend and use the “Related Entries” plugin by WASABI.

Other than a related entries plugin, you should go around to blogs in your niche and comment on their posts (yes, this is an extra link). Also, try emailing whoever you can asking for link exchanges… which are mutually beneficial. You should never pay someone for a link, as you run the risk of almighty Google frowning upon your website (yes, they will catch you). But basically, don’t be a link nazi like many other bloggers, and you’ll soon find your efforts rewarded!

These SEO tips won’t get you those rankings you want on their own, as the best way to rank high is to put out quality content. However, this is a great starting point, and can help a mediocre blog outrank a great blog!