10 SEO Starter Tips for WordPress

SEO, Search Engine Optimisation, is important if you want to get your WordPress website in front of the right people. Here are 10 quick tips to get you started on your way to an optimised WordPress website. Ideal for beginners.

1. Setup Google Analytics (GA) – Google Analytics will help track visitors to your website, let you see information about how they visited your website, what pages they landed on, what pages they exited on, and a lot more useful data.
2. Setup Google Webmaster Tools (GWT) – Google Webmaster Tools will help you manage your relationship with the Google search engine. It is important to have this setup from the very beginning. GWT will let you see the keyword phrases people searched on Google to find your site, from the last 90 days.
3. Link Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools – You can link Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools. This helps bring the keyword search data from GWT across to GA.
4. Setup Bing Webmaster Tools (BWT) – Bing Webmaster Tools will help you manage your relationship with the Bing search engine. It is important to have this setup from the very beginning. Even though Bing is a smaller player in the search engine game, it will still make up between 5-15% of your organic search traffic.
5. Install Yoast SEO plugin for WordPress – The Yoast SEO plugin is the best thing since sliced bread, seriously, it will boost your SEO out of the box plus there is a lot you can do to advance your WordPress site’s on-page SEO.
6.  Submit XML Sitemap to GWT and BWT – Now you have the Yoast SEO plugin installed on your WordPress site, you can go to the XML sitemap section of the plugin, then submit the XML sitemap to GWT and BWT.
7. Create HTML paged Sitemap – This is a little more tricky unless you know HTML and PHP, but you can use a plugin to create an HTML paged sitemap. Try this free WordPress plugin: HTML Page Sitemap.
8. Keyword Research and AdWords – For beginners, doing your keyword research does not need to be too complex. Brainstorm phrases and words that you would search to find your product, service, brand or company. Sign up to Google AdWords for free, and type them into the keyword planner tool. That will help you narrow down your select based on search volume, competition, and other factors.
9. Write Unique Content – It is one of the most important things when it comes to SEO to have high-quality unique content. It needs to readable, intelligible and shareable for humans and be unique, lengthy and optimised for search engines. I’d usually aim for content between 400-1200 words and ensuring your keyword appears in the content 3-5 times. Using Yoast SEO plugin will guide you through creating better SEO’d content.
10. Write Unique Meta Titles and Meta Descriptions – The Yoast SEO plugin here will make all the difference. Type in a unique title and meta description. Yoast will guide you through the rest. Make sure you include your SEO keyword/phrase and keep within the character limits for the Meta Title and for the Meta Description sections.

These 10 SEO Starter Tips for WordPress should provide you with a solid foundation to get you started ready for more advanced SEO steps in the near future.

Remember SEO, as with all digital marketing, is an ongoing process that requires time and dedication. It’s not a one-time thing.