WordPress reigns as the world’s most popular content management system (CMS) and the best platform for SEO.

What started as a blogging platform has now evolved into a powerful and versatile solution for creating entire websites. It’s become the go-to CMS for many website owners and developers.

According to usage statistics, it currently powers 43% of all websites on the internet!

But the use of WordPress alone won’t guarantee that your website ranks highly on Google, or any other search engine results page (SERP).

A quality CMS is the essential foundation of any site, but it’s not a substitute for a strong Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy.

Through effective SEO tactics, your website can climb the ladder of search engine rankings thus increasing online visibility and site traffic.

With this in mind, you may be wondering where to begin with optimizing your WordPress site to best achieve your SEO goals.

Well, never fear – you’ve come to the right place!

In this article we’ll give you the low-down on the importance of SEO and provide an essential checklist. By following this guide, you can ensure that all your WordPress site pages are fully optimized for maximum SEO success!

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The importance of SEO

SEO is the process of improving your website content in order to appear higher up on SERPs and increase the amount of site visitors.

Your SERPs ranking is crucial because 95% of all search engine traffic goes to the websites that appear on the first results page.

This is particularly important for businesses as more traffic means more opportunities to convert website visitors into customers.

In fact, research indicates that 80% of local online searches lead to a sale. On top of that, 4 out of 5 consumers use search engines to research products and seek out businesses.

Through an exceptional SEO strategy, you can:

• Build your brand’s public image
• Improve customer engagement
• Increase conversions
• Boost lead generation

Ultimately, SEO is the ultimate digital marketing tool.

It’s fundamental in maximizing online visibility and establishing yourself as a key player or expert in your field/industry.

SEO checklist: Top 10 WordPress essentials

A complete SEO checklist is essential if you want to reap the rewards of a great SERP ranking and high traffic.

Although it may seem daunting, it’s not overtly difficult to get to grips with SEO for your WordPress site. WordPress itself comes with a range of embedded tools that can help with the process.

And we’ve compiled an essentials checklist to help you get started!

1. Select a reliable hosting provider

A high-quality web host provider is essential for any optimized website.

Your hosting service needs to be reliable, fast and secure. Fortunately, due to the popularity of WordPress, it’s compatible with the majority of hosting solutions – from shared hosting, ideal for smaller websites with moderate traffic, to virtual private servers (VPS) offering more dedicated resources for increased performance.

If your website experiences significant growth or requires more control over your server environment, then considering a virtual server for rent could be a wise choice.

According to wpbeginner, the best hosting providers for WordPress are:

• Bluehost
• SiteGround
• DreamHost
• Hostinger
• HostGator

It’s important that you choose wisely, as only a reliable host can provide a stable and secure network space for your website and customer data.

2. Install SEO plugins

The addition of a SEO plugin will help you optimize the content of each page of your WordPress site.

This kind of software analyzes the content of your web pages and provides you with a SEO score that allows you to estimate how well the page will rank.

The score is determined by a range of factors, such as:

• The amount of times your keyword and other related key phrases are used throughout the text
• Number of headings
• Word count
• Quantity of images and other multimedia
• Use of internal and external links

You can utilize this information to guide your content creation in order to guarantee that each page is fully optimized for the target keyword/phrase.

You’ll be able to identify elements of your content that need amending or editing in order to increase your SEO score. The higher the score, the higher your chances of ranking well!

A popular SEO plugin for many WordPress users is Yoast (see image below). This has the advantage of being free to install and use.

If you have the funds to splash out on more costly software, you might consider the use of a content optimization platform like Surfer (see image below).

Either way, implementing software into your SEO process will provide you with invaluable insight and direction throughout your content optimization. Especially if you plan on using WordPress Survey Plugin and other tools to scale.

3. Research optimal keywords

Extensive keyword research lays the groundwork for lucrative SEO.

This research allows you to identify the words, phrases and questions that are most aligned with your target audience and your SEO goals.

You should start by brainstorming ideas and studying other websites or businesses similar to your own to ascertain what they’re ranking for.

When researching a keyword or phrase, you should note its monthly search volume, its difficulty, and the websites that are currently on its first SERP. It’s also important to consider the search intent behind the keyword.

A useful practice is to attempt to find relevant keywords that have a reasonable monthly search volume but low competition. You can use tools like Ahrefs to do this.

Discovering optimal keywords is vital both for SEO and for producing content that your audience wants and needs.

4. Create high-value content

Once you’ve established what keyword or phrase you want to rank for, you can start creating content for it.

Exceptional content is absolutely fundamental for successful SEO. It doesn’t matter how good your amount and use of the keyword is if it’s surrounded by mediocrity!

Any traffic will be quick to abandon your site page if they discover its content has no value or interest for them.

So, it’s essential that you’re producing content that is engaging, high-quality and fully relevant to your chosen keyword.

The following are some key pointers for building top-tier content:

• Aim for a decent word count. Longer articles (1000 words or more) tend to rank better and are more informative than short posts
• Pay attention to detail. Content should be extremely well-written with appropriate use of grammar, spelling and punctuation. Consider asking a third party to proofread your writing before publishing
• Create comprehensive pieces. Imagine you’re the person searching your chosen keyword – what would you want the pages that appear to include? With this in mind, focus on content that covers all bases
• Consider topic longevity. Try and publish content that will be relevant for a long time and remember to update the information/data on old pages if required
• Make content reader-friendly. Avoid overly complex sentences and break up long paragraphs into smaller chunks
• Study what’s already ranking. By examining the pages that are currently at the top of the SERPs for your keyword, you can gain a better idea of what you need to produce to ensure that you rank well too

At the end of the day, excellent content will benefit both your SEO progress and your consumers. And, you can’t have an optimized website without optimal content!

5. Optimize keyword use

It’s important that your use and placement of keywords within your website content is tailored to your SEO goals.

Your primary keyword should always feature in your title (H1) and in the meta description for each page. It’s also best practice to include keywords within some of the other headings (H2s, H3s, etc.) and in the introductory paragraph.

It’s tempting to try and force your keyword into your content as many times as possible throughout. However, following this instinct can actually hinder your SEO progress!

This is for two reasons. Firstly, repeatedly jamming in the same words/phrases will disrupt the semantic flow of your content thus decreasing its value for the audience. This frustrates readers and can increase bounce rate.

Secondly, a keyword density that is too high can result in your content being flagged for keyword overuse. Google and other search engines may penalize you for this, causing your website to rank lower in SERPs.

You can avoid these issues with the use of SEO plugins, as mentioned earlier. This software will enable you to aim for a keyword density that is similar to the top-ranking pages for the same keyword/phrase.

6. Make use of multimedia

Adding visual elements to your content will make it more captivating and reader-friendly.

And, according to research by Backlinko, there is a direct correlation between using images in your content and improved google ranking!

Consider enhancing your content with a variety of images, videos and/or gifs to break up the text and engage your audience.

You must also remember to optimize the file names and alt text of any multimedia. These descriptions need to be a clear indication of what the visual shows so that the search engine can identify it as relevant content.

7. Utilize link-building

The inclusion of links to other pages within your content is key for SEO purposes and for improving site navigation.

Adding links to your other WordPess pages boosts your SEO score for that content and also increases traffic to the other linked pages. They can also entice visitors to spend more time on your website and explore its content in more depth.

As well as internal linking, you should aim to optimize your content with backlinks to external sources. This increases the authority and validity of the information you content provides, especially if you’re including things like statistics to support your points.

External links can also come from collaborating with other content creators to trade backlinks and guest posts. This will develop your site traffic from sources other than SERPs.

Your use of links should add value to your content by providing your readers with useful further or relevant information.

8. Customize URLs

Ideally, the URLs for your WordPress pages should contain the keyword that you’re trying to rank for.

They should also give a clear indication of the topics covered in the page content. This will allow your readers to find the content they want, as well as helping with SEO.

Luckily, WordPress allows you to modify your page URLs and comes with a variety of customization options.

You can amend your URLs in WordPress by selecting the Permalinks option under Settings.

9. Ensure site visibility

In order to rank or get any traffic at all, your website needs to appear in SERPs. This means that it needs to be indexed.

Google will index your site automatically if your WordPress settings allow it. To enable this, you’ll need to access the Reading section in your WordPress settings.

You should see the following option:

Make sure that this box is unticked in order to permit indexing.

You can also manually request Google indexing for a website page by copying and pasting the URL into the search bar of Google Search Console. Then click Request Indexing.

10. Add the right schema

Schema (i.e. structured data) tells search engines what exactly it is that your web page is trying to convey.

Having the correct schema will mean that the site information displayed on the SERP is more informative for visitors and relevant to the summary of your content.

Thankfully, many WordPress themes come with user-friendly schema markup options. Alternatively, there are free Schema plugins available that can add the coding for you.

Adding schema to your WordPress site will help you rank by allowing the search engine to crawl and discover your content more effectively.

The takeaway

An effective SEO strategy is vital if you want your WordPress website to rank and attract more visitors.

It’s imperative that you produce quality content that is high-value, fully optimized, and engaging for your target audience.

You must also be careful that your website is not disadvantaged by any technical issues that could hinder your progress.

Perfecting your SEO process can be a time-consuming endeavor.

But the benefits of having a website that ranks and consistently gains traffic is well worth the effort. And a great content managing system like WordPress will help with refining your SEO.

The practices we’ve covered in this article should provide you with a useful guide to get you on the right track.

But bear in mind that you can go beyond this list and find your own unique strategies.

And, there’s a vast amount of further resources out there to help you produce and publish optimized, quality content. With Wordable, for example, you can export your Google documents to your WordPress site in just one click!

Finally, remember that refining your SEO tactics is often a process of trial and error. Don’t be afraid to experiment!

Jessie Whittaker

Jessie Whittaker is a marketing executive specializing in digital content and copywriting. She’s currently based in Cardiff working for Talkative Ltd.