As a blog owner, it’s important to keep your blog in tip top shape. That means you should be conducting routine tests to optimize your blog for search visibility. As search engine algorithms change, it’s essential to optimize WordPress to keep your blog searchable. Besides, what’s the point of writing all that amazing content if nobody’s going to see it? At our Copywriting Company, Daily Posts, we tell our writers and clients that Google very quickly catches on to the newest and most innovative black hat techniques. Their anti-spam teams know what they’re doing, and a black-hat technique will never offer long-term success. The best way to have lasting SEO success is to think about search query intentions and user experience. If you create a user-friendly site with terrific content and helpful solutions, you’ll be rewarded by search engines. If you want to learn how to boost your blog rankings the proper way, here are five easy solutions. How to Optimize Your WordPress Blog 1. Focus on Content Quality First things first, the basis for any blog is its content. Before we go into other aspects such as image optimization, keyword structure, or link building, it’s essential to get the basics right. For blogs, content is the backbone. So, before you invest time (and money) to optimize your WordPress blog for SEO, make sure you’ve mastered your content. Google loves original, high-quality, and well-researched content, so invest some time increasing your content quality. Use genuine resources, avoid regurgitation, and get first-hand material if you can. Also, look out for typos and grammatical errors because they diminish the value of your post. 2. Invest in Keyword Research Contrary to what some people may think, keywords still matter. Your potential readers or customers use certain phrases to search for information online. These ‘keywords’ are key to getting your blog site served when they type in that query. With a good keyword planner, you can identify some phrases relating to the topic of your post. Long tail keywords are usually very effective and can get your blog ranking high on search. Google has a free keyword planner tool, or you may use Longtail Pro. By strategically placing these popular keywords into various positions of your blog, you will be visible for search bots to pick up. 3. Focus on Link Building Linking is the principle behind Google’s original algorithm. When Larry Page developed Page Rank, he did it on the premise that the most popular web pages were the most important (to put it simply). Based on that, if many pages link to a particular one on the internet, it will be presented on SERP as a priority. For this reason, link building is an important way to boost your blog SEO. Having said that, it isn’t as easy as just asking any website to point their pages to your blog. This is often the basis of most black-hat SEO. You must ‘earn’ the link genuinely with content that offers value. Some honest ways to build links include guest blogging, article marketing, social links, and commenting on other blogs. 4. Optimize Your Media Files Google generally disfavors websites that offer a poor user experience. Slow loading pages are massive UX killers and will often increase your bounce rate — the rate at which visitors leave your site without engagement. One major cause of a slow blog site is improperly optimized media files. For example, your image files may be too big. This places a strain on the server when it’s trying to call up files. Reducing them to an appropriate size can boost page loading time. The same can also be done to videos. See how to optimize WordPress images here. Other techniques involve titling them appropriately and inserting Alt Text. 5. Improve your Mobile UX Back in 2015, Google put on its armor and waged war on websites that were not mobile-compliant. Mobilegeddon, as it was dubbed, saw many non-responsive sites drop significantly in search rankings. That action achieved some results as many websites quickly switched to avoid coming under the ax. However, while most websites are optimized for mobile, they don’t always present a comfortable UX for users. Google’s new war focuses on penalizing guilty internet sites. For example, if your blog site offers a large pop-up box (or interstitial) before users can read the main content, you are likely to experience a drop in SERP rankings. To optimize WordPress for mobile, move your proposition ads to the bottom or presenting it after the user has read the content. The key to a high search engine ranking is providing a solid user experience. If you are doing it right, your blog will rank favorably above its peers.
