An Introduction to WordPress SEO for Beginners

Search Engine Optimization can be intimidating with over a billion other websites on the internet competing alongside yours, but if you ever hope to come out on top you have to start somewhere. Here are tips on SEO for beginners.

An Introduction to WordPress SEO for Beginners

Are you feeling a little lost when it comes to WordPress SEO? Don’t worry, you are not alone. This guide will provide a thorough introduction to all the basics of search engine optimization (SEO), to kickstart your website’s climb to the top. It doesn’t matter if you are completely new to SEO or if you have previous knowledge, anyone can learn, and it is something you must know if you want to stand a chance in the world of blogging and website creation.

A Quick Introduction to SEO

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and is a system that allows you to increase the visibility of your WordPress site on the internet. This method also improves its search engine (such as Google) ranking, making it accessible to a larger audience. It is a must for anyone who runs a website, but it can be confusing at first if this is the first time you are introduced to the concept of WordPress SEO.

Have you ever Googled a question you needed answers to? Did you click on the first search result or scroll down past 20-30 websites? Chances are you clicked on one of the top search results, and that’s where you want your WordPress site to appear. You want your site to be the one people click on, and the key is using SEO, but you can’t do that unless you know what it is.

There is a lot that goes into good SEO, and it goes beyond producing and publishing quality content. You need keyword research, inbound and outbound links, backlinks, a user-friendly website design, and much more, and depending on your niche, you are almost certainly going to be at least some competition. You need SEO for your website to stand out. 

How Does It Work?

How this works is that search engines scan through websites on the internet, and these scans are performed by something known as spiderbots or web crawlers. Crawling the web, they gather the necessary information to perform web indexing, which, essentially, decides how well a website ranks. Your website undergoes evaluation based on its quality and overall “value” to readers, including (but not limited to) web design and the content itself.

The initial ranking your website receives isn’t permanent, and it will be continuously visited by spiderbots throughout its lifetime, meaning you always have the opportunity to rank better with better SEO. That said, your website’s domain authority (DA) and ranking can also drop if you are not careful, and SEO is not something you do only once, it needs to be continuously monitored and improved.

Search engines are always up to date with the latest and best information, and if you want to stay among the top results, it is about time you learn a thing or two about SEO. All the basics will be covered in this article.

Why WordPress SEO Matters

When you build a website, fill it up with content and make sure it looks exactly the way you wanted it, the end goal is usually to get website traffic. Sure, you can share your site with friends and family and do your best to promote it on social media, but without SEO and search engine ranking, you will always have to work hard to get people to visit your site. 

What you want is for the process to become more automated, and that’s where SEO comes in.

Checking the Current SEO Status of Your Site

Your first step should always be to revise your current WordPress settings.

• Double-Check Your Current Settings

There is one thing you need to do before you get started, and that is to head over to your WordPress settings and click on ‘Readings’ for a quick check. The box sitting next to ‘Search Engine Visibility’ should not be ticked, because if it is, it means you are asking search engines not to send their spiderbots to index your site. If you’ve ticked this box, then every other SEO effort you make will be for nothing. 

• The Correct Format for Permalinks (URLs)

When you first set up your WordPress website or blog, the automatic setting for permalinks (URLs) will include the name and date of publication. This needs to be changed for optimized SEO. Click on ‘Settings’ and then proceed to click on ‘Permalinks’, where you can choose your desired format. Always use a format where you decide how you want your links to look so that you can include a relevant keyword. 

• Revise the WordPress Site Health

Keeping track of the overall health of your site has become increasingly easy as technology has improved and advanced, and provided you are using the 5.2 version or newer, you have access to helpful data regarding your website’s health status. ‘Site Health’ is found under ‘Tools’ in your WordPress settings.

Best Ways to Optimize Your WordPress Site for SEO

Checking and potentially making small changes to your settings is only the beginning, and then it is time to bring in the heavy artillery. While you can’t get away with skipping the steps leading up to this, you also can’t ignore the importance of what comes next.

Plan and Structure Your WordPress Site

Tags and categories are two ways to achieve the necessary structure on your WordPress site, and just like changing your settings, structure contributes to good SEO. Below is what you need to know to get started.

• Header

A WordPress site with good SEO needs to be user-friendly, and that includes providing proper navigation options. The main menu of your site is your header, where you usually find the most important categories that your visitors are likely to click, along with a direct link to your site’s blog and anything else you deem relevant. These are the first pages on your site that a new visitor is introduced to.

• Footer

The bottom of your website is the ideal place for pages like your privacy policy, and you can also add terms and conditions when applicable, a contact page, your ‘About Us’ page, and more.

• Sidebar

If you run a company that has an e-shop or if you have too many pages to display in your header, a sidebar is an ideal solution. Your visitors get easy access to different categories and subcategories, and easy navigation boosts SEO.

• Pages

Set up parent pages and add sub-pages (also known as child pages) to conveniently guide your visitors through the information on your site. The easier and more organized you can make their experience, the better it will be for SEO once the web crawlers come to index your site.

• Tags

A user-friendly WordPress website motivates visitors to spend more time navigating the site, and the longer they stay, the better it is for the SEO signal it sends out to search engine web crawlers. With tags, you can sub-categorize everything on your site, and you can easily set this up under Posts/Tags.  

• Categories

One thing you should never underestimate when SEO-optimizing your website is the importance of categories, and how categories can tie all your content together. If you publish continuously, such as blog posts, you should place each post in the correct category. This helps both SEO and your website visitors, and you can set up your permalinks to include your categories if preferred.

Create SEO Optimized Content

Your SEO strategy also needs to include high-quality content and, in order to keep your site registered as active, frequent publications are recommended. This is why many people choose to add a blog to their WordPress site, and you should make sure to update it once or twice a week, to begin with, if not more. 

 Your content should include relevant keywords, and you find these by performing keyword research ahead of content production. Some choose to do this themselves, while others may find it more convenient to turn to an SEO specialist or a content writer knowledgeable in SEO.

Plugins to Install for an SEO Boost

A great thing about WordPress is all the tools you have to improve your SEO signal, and you can do this directly on the admin page by installing a few necessary plugins. You may not need all of the following WordPress plugins, but doing your research on a few is a good place to start for a beginner. 

• AIOSEO

• Semrush SEO

• Yoast SEO

• Rank Math

• SEOPress

• Yet Another Related Posts Plugin

• Broken Link Checker

• MonsterInsights

• WPtouch Mobile Plugin

• SEO Optimized Images

Monitor the Performance of Your WordPress Site

Once you’ve started putting effort into optimizing your site’s SEO, it is essential to keep a close eye on any improvements and the site’s overall performance. Keep in mind that whenever you change something on your site, such as updating with a new website theme or blog structure, this could affect the strength of your SEO signal.  

A portion of the process becomes automatic once you have the right settings, but you should incorporate it into your site maintenance strategy to double-check everything on a regular basis.

Final Words on Basic WordPress SEO

Start by optimizing your settings and installing any necessary plugins, and that alone will give your WordPress site a push in the right direction. It can seem a little confusing at first, but SEO is something everyone can learn by investing time and effort, and you can always consider hiring an SEO specialist if you need a little extra help. 

Working hard on your SEO will, with time, take your WordPress site to the next level. It isn’t something that happens overnight, but once you get the hang of SEO-friendly settings, producing quality content, and keeping your site secure and active, your hard work will eventually start paying off.