WordPress SEO optimization tutorial and SEO plug-in recommendation (updated in 2024)

As more and more enterprises choose to use WordPress website establishment The demand for WordPress SEO optimization is also increasing. The structure of WordPress itself meets the basic demand for SEO optimization. Through the cooperation of some SEO plug-ins and SEO skills, we can make WordPress SEO optimization better. This article will share with you The latest WordPress SEO optimization tutorial 。

Why do you want to do WordPress SEO optimization?

Where there is traffic, there is search. Search will involve SEO. The traffic obtained by SEO is the most valuable and relatively stable. Especially for foreign trade websites, if you simply use advertising to promote websites and let users in other countries find your website, then with the increase of websites in the whole industry, advertising investment will become more and more expensive.

The traffic obtained through search engine optimization does not require you to spend an extra penny, but it can bring you more valuable traffic than the ads placed by Google ADS.

Take a simple example ， Daddy's Notes on Building a Station It is a website built with WordPress. Usually, the website promotion is only SEO optimization, and other off-site promotion is not done.

According to the statistics of Google Analytics, 70% of the traffic in the recent week came from Organic Search.

Dad learned that most enterprises, because no one can do SEO, either spend money to find companies specializing in SEO, or directly spend money on bidding to do SEM.

For a long time, it is certain that some small and medium-sized enterprises will be overwhelmed by bidding, so it is a good choice to learn WordPress optimization techniques and obtain free search engine traffic.

Advantages of WordPress for SEO optimization

The common view on the Internet is that WordPress is more suitable for Google SEO (Baidu SEO is also possible). The reasons are as follows:

1. Open source and free, powerful;
2. Reasonable structure, favorable for seo layout;
3. The theme templates are rich, and the appearance will not be homogeneous. You need not worry about the loss of SEO information due to changing the theme when cooperating with SEO plug-ins;
4. There are many developers, and many functions can be realized by ready-made plug-ins.

WordPress SEO optimization premise

Want to do WordPress SEO optimization , the prerequisite is that you have an installed WordPress website. If you don't have one, please refer to the following article to install one.

1. WordPress installation tutorial, use WordPress to build your own website
2. WordPress host recommendation

WordPress SEO optimization includes two aspects: content and technology.

Content is the basis of SEO optimization. Any technology and skill can only help your content get a better ranking 。

There is no content, just technology, there is no sense, let's get down to business and see what WP SEO optimization contains.

WordPress SEO optimization steps

Please bookmark this article. I will update it irregularly. When you are confused about SEO, come back to see this article. I believe it will help you.

1. Determine whether to use the domain name with www

Most people are used to thinking that any website should be like www.baidu.com, but in fact, baidu.com is the main domain name and www.baidu.com is a sub domain name.

Novice can't figure out whether the domain name should be taken with www or not, and even some Novice can't understand the domain name resolution, so it is recommended to search the Internet for more relevant tutorials, and the notes of the father's website Domain name topic There is also a tutorial on domain name resolution, which you can go to.

In short:

1. For domestic SEO optimization, it is recommended to use the domain name with www;
2. For foreign SEO optimization, it is recommended to use domain names without www.

For Google SEO optimization, the mainstream SEO view is to recommend the use of the main domain name directly, and the domain name of www. should jump to the main domain name as 301. It should be noted that if your website has used the domain name starting with www. for a period of time, it is unnecessary to deliberately change it to one without www. Although it is recommended to use it, it has no direct impact on SEO effect.

2. Add SSL Security Certificate

If you pay attention, you will find that the SSL security certificate is enabled, that is, the website accessed through https has a small lock icon. If you do not enable it, you will be prompted that it is unsafe.

Google has also said that it is recommended that websites use SSL security certificates, and SSL security certificates are free. Many virtual hosts can install SSL certificates with one click. You don't have to worry about additional costs and technical problems.

reference material: Use HTTPS to ensure website security

3. Site title optimization

WordPress settings include two options: site title and subtitle.

The site title is usually the name of your website, and the subtitle is a short paragraph introducing the overall content of your website. It is better to include keyword information of your website to do SEO in this paragraph, such as the foreign trade website of Daddy's notes, WordPress foreign trade website, and foreign trade website tutorial.

Only when the website title contains keywords can others search for relevant content from search engines to see your website.

3. Install the WordPress SEO plug-in

There are many kinds of SEO plug-ins on WordPress, and Slim SEO is currently used by Daddy's website building notes, Rank Math and Yoast SEO It is also used by many websites.

The method of installing SEO plug-ins is very simple. You can add them directly in WordPress background plug-ins, and then search for SEO. These four SEO plug-ins in the above figure can be considered, but Just use one SEO plug-in at a time 。

These SEO plug-ins can help you standardize the title, description and some social tag content of the website, without changing the key code due to changing the theme.

About the WordPress SEO plug-in, my dad shared the following content in his notes. If you are interested, you can click the link to continue reading.

• Free advanced WordPress SEO plug-in Rank Math tutorial
• Free Advanced SEO Plug in The SEO Framework Download and Use Tutorial
• Chinese Website Baidu SEO Essential Plugin-Baidu Search Push Management WP Plugin
• WordPress SEO Plug in No.1 Yoast SEO Chinese Advanced Edition Download and Tutorial

4. Set SEO friendly fixed links

The fixed link setting of WordPress is very convenient. You can modify it directly in the background settings.

It is recommended to select a fixed link in the format of article name.

At present, the notes of Daddy's website building are fixed links with a user-defined structure, which is because of some problems left over by history. It is difficult to modify now.

Once the fixed link is determined, it is not recommended to modify it after the website is included many pages by the search engine.

For a more detailed introduction to fixed links, please continue to read the following article:

• WordPress best fixed link setting_which pseudo static rule is better

5. Article with keywords

When you use Yoast SEO and Rank Math, an SEO prompt box will appear on the page where you post your article, which will give you some SEO suggestions, including the use of Focus Keyword

Maybe SEO novices don't understand what this means.

Take this WordPress SEO optimization Take the article as an example. One of the purposes that the father wants to achieve in writing this article is that others search through Google“ WordPress SEO optimization ”To be able to search this article, the ultimate goal is to rank first.

So you can see that this article contains“ WordPress SEO optimization ”This word.

At the same time, you should also pay attention to a keyword density when writing articles. You should not use keywords unreasonably in order to highlight keywords. Sometimes, for example, in this article, the keyword density should not be low after writing, but as long as it is reasonable, you should not worry too much, My experience is that Google can identify whether you are a keyword for keywords. (This experience must not wait until we see the ranking of this article later. Try searching? ）

6. Get a good article title

On this point, the father's own copywriting is not very good, and he can't write the title that people are willing to click after reading it.

But no matter how you name it, remember that the title contains the main keywords of your article. For example, the following:

• WordPress SEO optimization ultimate solution
• Do a good job in these WordPress SEO optimization, and the traffic soars
• From these points, do a good job in WordPress SEO optimization

A keyword can be combined into many different titles, but which title can increase the click rate more is also a knowledge.

English websites can use several websites to test the quality of titles.

• Seven SEO tools recommended for article title analysis on English websites

When writing the title of an article, be careful not to use too many words, or the search results will be incomplete.

7. Edit meta description to increase click rate

The red box in the above figure is the meta description of the web page. In fact, Google has indicated that there is no problem whether you write the description information. Whether you write or not, Google will automatically grab your article content and generate an appropriate description according to the actual situation.

But in the actual search results, if you write a description, it will give priority to the description information you write.

The description information in the above figure is automatically generated by Google, and does not use the father's own descriptions.

The description information in the above figure is the description information written by the father himself.

This meta description, like the title, also involves copywriting skills. If it is well written, you might have ranked second because it is more attractive than the first description. Users did not click on the first content but clicked on your page.

As a matter of fact, we don't need to manually write description information for each article, because that is too tired. Most SOHO webmasters are not professional copywriters, and they still understand the SEO copywriting. It will be difficult to write. Just write the description information of several pages of your website, and leave the rest to Google to generate automatically.

reference material: Create good titles and summaries in search results

8. Proper use of title labels

When communicating with SEOer, Google said that even if your website has multiple H1 tags, Google can identify which is the correct title.

However, my father's suggestion is that no matter whether Google can recognize it or not, we should use all levels of titles in a normal and reasonable way.

The specifications for the general use of titles are:

1. H1 for page title
2. H2 for subtitle
3. Others decrease in sequence

For example, this article uses three levels of titles: H1, H2 and H3.

After all, h1 to h6 is a standard code for web pages, and everyone likes to follow the rules.

Reference reading: Google said that the webpage can have multiple H1 tags. What should we do?

9. Table of Contents for Long Articles

Google relatively prefers long articles, but long articles are not suitable for users to read. Therefore, adding an article directory can improve the user experience on the one hand, and it is also convenient for search engines to determine the content of articles on the other hand.

WordPress is a very simple way to add article directories. You can install a directory plug-in and use it with reasonable title tags.

• Two ways for WordPress to add and display content article directory

10. Add ALT tag to the picture

For example, in the above figure, the ALT tag is added to the image as "fixed link settings", so others will have the opportunity to display your image when they search for "fixed link settings" through Google images.

ALT tag filling is a very important optimization method for those image websites.

For more detailed usage of ALT tag, please read the following article:

• Foreign trade websites often make mistakes when doing Google SEO: ALT tag is missing

11. Reasonably name pictures

Most websites will not notice this when doing SEO, but if your industry SEO competition is fierce, doing every detail will help ranking.

Generally, the names of the pictures we upload to the website are random or directly named in Chinese.

In fact, we can also name images according to the content of the article. For example, the images in this article use wordpress seo - *. png. (But the father is lazy now. Many pictures are meaningless names.)

The suggestions for image naming are:

1. Do not use Chinese name pictures
2. Don't use meaningless naming
3. It is recommended to use English words related to the content
4. Words separated by hyphens
5. The article feature picture name contains keywords

12. Pay attention to writing skills

Articles are the most important thing to obtain search rankings, so writing a good article is the basis for obtaining SEO rankings.

When writing an article, the first paragraph plays a greater role in SEO optimization.

Usually, when we write the first paragraph, the core keywords of the article will appear, such as WordPress SEO optimization 。

At the same time, the first paragraph is also the part that attracts the attention of visitors. If others see that the first paragraph does not contain his search results, they are likely to close the website window and click another search result.

Yoast SEO and Rank Math will give you a hint of SEO optimization suggestions when writing articles. You can refer to them, but you don't have to fully accept their suggestions.

The experience of dads is that, To write an article, you should ask yourself what you wrote ：

1. Are there any user search requirements
2. Whether the content of the article meets the needs of users
3. Does the article contain SEO optimization techniques

13. Note the length of the article

Some foreign websites and institutions have made surveys and statistics on the relationship between article length and rankings. In fact, when we use Google search on a daily basis, you will find that some long articles often get good rankings.

However, this point of view also requires specific analysis of specific issues, which does not mean that all content is suitable for long articles.

On the basis of satisfying users' search needs, it is still very beneficial to appropriately supplement the content width.

14. Use the appropriate Nofollow link

If you have no special settings, every link inserted in your article is dofollow.

What is a Nofollow link?

 <a href=" https://blog.naibabiji.com/ "Rel=" nofollow ">Daddy's notes</a>

Like the above, the nofollow link contains the rel="nofollow" attribute.

The role of adding nofollow is to tell search engines not to follow the link. Wikipedia explains as follows:

Nofollow is an attribute in HTML that tells search engines not to track specific web links. It can be used to prevent the behavior of adding links to websites with high PR value by means of comments to improve the ranking of their own websites, so as to improve the quality of search results and prevent the spread of spam links. Website owners can also use nofollow for paid links on their pages to prevent the links from lowering the search ranking.

For more information about Nofollow, you can continue to read the following articles:

1. Which pages should be labeled with Noindex or Nofollow
2. How to check whether an external chain is nofollowed?
3. What can we do to update Google's Nofollow link on March 1?

15. Optimize internal links

Internal link optimization is very easy to understand. You can see that the links inserted in this article are all links to the website of the notes of the father who built the site, which are called internal links.

The function of internal links is to connect the articles and content of your website on the one hand, and enrich the width and depth of the articles on the other hand.

The following is an internal chain:

• How should the internal links of the website be done correctly? Is it a related article?

16. Optimize external links

Traditional SEO knowledge tells us that external link optimization refers to the links left to you by other websites other than your own website, which is called the external chain.

For example, if you think the article "Daddy" is good, forward it to your blog, or insert the address of the article "Daddy" into your blog, then you can make an external chain for Daddy.

Little research has been done on the external chain of dads. The first external chain is always on other people's websites, and you can't control it. Second, it takes a lot of energy to do the outer chain.

If you can get some high-quality external links, the SEO ranking effect will be significant. (Authoritative websites, or big websites, can leave links for you, so the quality of the external chain is very high.)

It is not recommended to buy paid links. If you don't buy them well, you may get burned and have no ranking.

17. Set Site Map

Website map, also known as sitemap, is a summary of links to all articles and pages on your website, which can help search engines find pages on your website.

The mainstream WordPress SEO plug-ins now support the sitemap function, and no additional plug-ins need to be installed. (WordPress natively supports it, but it's better to use SEO plug-ins directly.)

Please refer to the following article for a tutorial on WordPress generating a site map:

• Several Methods of Generating Site Map by WordPress _sitemap Plug in Recommendation

18. Submit your website to search engines

After setting up your site map, you can submit your site map to the major search engines. For example, Google, Bing, Yandex, etc.

This involves the use of Google Search Console. Please refer to the following article:

• Google Search Console Usage Tutorial _ Google Administrator Tool Usage

For other search engines, you can directly search their corresponding webmaster center, and then submit the site map.

• Baidu: https://ziyuan.baidu.com/
• bing： https://www.bing.com/webmasters/about

19. Do keyword research

Keyword research runs through the whole SEO process, and almost every step involves keyword research.

English websites have many tools for researching keywords, such as KWFinder ， SEMrush and Ahrefs .

Chinese websites can use Aizhan, 5118 and other websites.

Of course, you can also find many keywords by using Google search. For example, the screenshot above shows some search words related to Google SEO.

20. Use structured tags

Structured tags, also called Schema, are very popular with Google.

Schema.org is created by Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! It is produced through collaboration, and its purpose is to create a structured data tag architecture supported by major search engines, so as to provide users with better network experience. In page tags can help search engines understand the information on the page and provide richer search results. Sharing tag words makes it easier for webmasters to decide on tag architecture and get the most from their work.

The Rank Math plug-in supports the Schema tag, or you can install the Schema plug-in separately.

In your usual search results, some websites have scored results. In fact, they use the schema tag.

• How to make your foreign trade website display scoring icons in Google search results?

reference material: Understand how structured data works

21. Keep important articles updated

In many cases, the content shared in our articles will become stale with the passage of time, such as the notes of the father who built the site SiteGround website building tutorial Some visitors gave feedback to the father. He searched many tutorials on the Internet, which were old versions of the operation methods. He didn't solve his problems until he saw the articles shared by the father.

So keeping the content up to date will also help your website traffic and ranking.

22. Optimize website speed

Website speed is also a factor affecting page ranking. Research shows that if a page has not been opened for more than 4 seconds, a quarter of visitors will choose to abandon the website.

WordPress's default opening speed is relatively slow without optimization after the installation of advanced themes and corresponding plug-ins, so some speed optimization needs to be done.

At the most basic level, you can consider using CDN services and cache plug-ins.

For WordPress speed optimization, you can refer to the following articles.

• Slow website speed? 10 WordPress optimization methods help you speed up
• WordPress speed optimization feature article

Of course, if you are not good at technical optimization, you can directly consider purchasing servers with high configuration.

The website opening speed of servers with better performance will be significantly improved.

But don't be superstitious about the optimization score of online articles. The actual opening experience of users shall prevail. (This is the personal view of the father, for reference only.)

23. Deadchain detection

After the website has been in operation for a period of time, some dead links may appear (that is, the website cannot be opened and the wrong links are accessed).

These dead links will affect the capture of search engines and reduce the user experience.

WordPress is equipped with a dead link check plug-in. You can install one to check it, and then deal with the dead link.

• Don't worry about the dead link WordPress 404 SEO plug-in Recommended: 404 Solution

24. Ensure normal access of mobile terminal

Most WordPress themes are designed in a responsive manner, showing different layouts according to different browsers, so you don't need to worry about the incompatibility of mobile terminals in general.

At the same time, Google has a Mobile end detection tool , you can test it.

However, in the actual test, there was a bug in the result. Obviously, if you open a normal website with your mobile phone test, you will report an error in the Google mobile terminal detection tool, so you don't need to worry too much about this detection. The actual test of your website will prevail (many webmasters abroad have encountered this problem, and there is no feasible solution at present).

At the same time, you can also install a AMP plug-in This is a mobile access format launched by Google. If there is an AMP page in the search results, it will automatically jump to the AMP page to view the content.

25. Installation statistics code

Installing statistical code will slow down the website to a certain extent, but analyzing statistical data is a daily job of SEO optimization.

The father of the foreign trade website recommends using Google Analytics, which can be used together with Google Search Console.

• How to add Google Analytics statistics code to build your own website to view daily traffic

26. Tracking keyword ranking

If you are a professional SEO, it is also very important to focus on keyword ranking.

According to the ranking changes to analyze the seo effect and judge how to continue to optimize and maintain the ranking.

Dad's notes on building the site are currently expected to be Self built website This word comes first. However, I didn't pay attention to the change of ranking every day, so I searched occasionally.

As a corporate website, it is recommended to pay attention to the ranking changes of several key words on your website every day.

See if your ranking has changed, if there are any new rival websites, and then analyze the rival websites.

27. Use high-quality pictures

High quality pictures usually have a larger file size, so if your website's Internet speed is relatively slow, you'd better use a CDN service if you use high-quality pictures to avoid images slowing down the website.

In addition, high-quality images are mainly used to obtain better Google image search rankings. If your website business does not have many users following the images, then you do not need to specifically make high-quality images.

As long as the article is clearly illustrated.

28. Increase user session duration

Session duration is a factor that has a greater impact on Google's website ranking“ bounce rate ”。

If the website bounce rate is low, the corresponding session duration will be high.

If the bounce rate is high, the session duration is usually not too long.

If the bounce rate is too high and the session duration is too long, Google will think that your web content does not meet the user's search needs.

However, this is not absolute. It depends on the actual content of the article. For example, when someone comes in to see the solution to a problem and then closes the page, it actually meets the needs of his users.

In order to increase the duration of the conversation, you deliberately hide the answers very deeply, which may lead Google to reduce the page ranking.

29. Delete meaningless articles

If a website does SEO optimization ranking, the more simple and accurate the overall content of the website is, the simpler the optimization will be.

It is called "content pruning" abroad.

It is to delete some outdated articles that are irrelevant to the theme of the website, Prefer a small amount of high-quality content to a large amount of irrelevant content 。

Before the notes on the establishment of the site, the father also included some logs with children, which were deleted later.

30. Delete duplicate content

Sometimes, after a long time, I don't know that I have written the same article on the same topic. There may be some slight differences between the two articles.

But it is better to combine the two articles into one, delete one of them, and then redirect 301 to the other.

31. Create an About page

The About page, Contact us page, including the privacy statement page, can increase the trust of the website, and will indirectly affect the publicity of website visitors to your website, thus affecting the traffic and ranking of the website.

32. Delete garbage comments

Usually, after the website goes online, it will be harassed by spam comments.

These spam comments often contain a lot of links, and some webmasters thought they were real comments, so they were very happy and passed the review.

In fact, these spam comments with links will damage your website image and affect your SEO ranking.

33. Add breadcrumb navigation

This position in the screenshot is breadcrumb navigation.

On the one hand, breadcrumb navigation allows users to clearly know where their website is, and can easily switch to the upper level directory.

On the other hand, it also increases the crawling track of search engine spiders.

Some advanced WordPress themes have their own breadcrumb navigation function. If your theme does not support it, you can also implement it through plug-ins or code.

• Add the plug-in and code implementation method of breadcrumb navigation to WordPress

34. Use outbound link

If you use the outbound link External (Outbound) Links, you will be prompted by the SEO plug-in you installed.

This means that you should insert some links to external websites when appropriate.

This function is similar to writing a paper. There are some authoritative materials for reference to increase the credibility of your article.

(In fact, my father is also wondering whether Google has purposely set up a scoring rule to promote the re interconnection of the Internet. After all, many people now wish their own websites didn't have any other websites.)

reference material: STUDY – OUTGOING LINKS USED AS RANKING SIGNAL

35. WordPress SEO optimization summary

So many items have been summarized above WordPress SEO optimization method You must have a general idea of how to optimize the SEO of WordPress.

However, in the actual process of operating the website, we don't need to do everything. After all, few people can always insist on doing so many optimization projects on all pages.

We only need to do a good job in basic SEO optimization, and some competitive pages and keywords to do SEO in detail. The content is more accurate and comprehensive than that of competitors, and the chances of ranking above it will be much greater.

Finally, if you like this article, you can add it to your favorites. Daddy will keep updating this article. You can also look back at this article when you don't know how to do SEO for WordPress website.

WordPress SEO plug-in recommendation

Here are some classic WordPress SEO plug-ins to share with you. Click the link to go directly to the official website of plug-ins for a complete introduction.

1. Yoast SEO Currently, the SEO plug-in with the largest number of users in WordPress is divided into free version and advanced version;
2. All in one SEO SEO plug-in with the second largest number of users, classified as free version and advanced version;
3. Rank Math The SEO plug-in with strong rising power, the free version has many advanced functions, and the advanced version has also been launched;
4. Smart SEO Tool The SEO plug-in that most conforms to the usage habits of Chinese people is completely free;
5. Multi in one search automatic push management plug-in Paid plug-ins can help you push articles to search engines for inclusion, and Chinese websites are recommended for use;
6. Popular keyword recommendation plug-in Pro Don't know how to write articles for SEO? This plug-in is necessary, and it is applicable to both Chinese and English websites;
7. Spider Analyser Statistic search engines can help analyze the information crawled from your website, and those who like to analyze website data can use it.

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