How to optimize a wordpress blog
-
I’m helping a client optimize a word press blog, and I’m not that familiar with Wordpress. The site is www.athleticfoodie.com.
At first I was treating it like a normal website, where the categories would be optimized like pages on a website. However, I now realize that categories don’t have any content on them, so I can’t really optimize anything other than the names.
Are the following things the best way to handle on-page optimization for a blog?
- Optimizing the homepage & domain: Find ways to incorporate the most important keywords into the elements on the main frame of the site: Navigation menu, Widgets, Category names, Alt Images.
- Optimizing the categories: For the posts within the categories (i.e., photos), work to make sure the category keywords are worked into the post titles (but not too much to seem spammy)
- Optimizing specific posts. Work keywords into the text and images.
Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
-
Kevin and Eric,
Performance issues aside, I prefer the simplest URL structure:
Unless you really need advanced categorization, siloing, etc., bringing your content up one level and having shorter URLs is always better, IMO.
-
Great info, Kevin. I appreciate the quick feedback.
Eric
-
Hi Eric,
I would recommend the Yoast WordPress plugin available at http://yoast.com/wordpress/. This plugin covers pretty much all the SEO issues you'll encounter in WordPress, plus there is a handy tool that will analyze important text fields in your posts to see if your articles are optimized for the keywords you're looking to rank for. This plugin won't put heading tags in the template, but I think it's worth a look.
Another consideration for WordPress is your permalink URL structure. As of WordPress 3.1.2, there is a definite performance issue when starting the permalink structure with either the category, tag, author, or postname fields. You can read more under "Structure Tags" at http://codex.wordpress.org/Using_Permalinks. I'm not sure how this affects SEO, so it'd be great to get some feedback on ranking results using different WordPress URL structures.
-
Thank you!
-
When adding or editing categories in WordPress, there is a field called "description" (not meta description) with the label "The description is not prominent by default; however, some themes may show it." Your developer can modify your theme so the description text is displayed on the category page.
-
Great info. I will look into these more deeply. Thank you!
-
Hi Adam,
Could you elaborate on what you mean by "modifying your theme to display your category description as visible text on the page"? I don't understand what this means.
Also, thanks for the heads up on the Title Tag Plug In
Eric
-
The few things I would point out, which aren't so much WordPress issues, but are how this WordPress installation is configured, are:
- No description tag, that is in the 'Settings -> General' page
- Well over 100 links on the home page, mostly because of the 'Blog Archive', are people actually clicking on those items?
- No good H1 tag, the one that was created by the theme "Athletic Foodie" has been commented out and the current (second) one is, "How about a 2,000-year-old Salad? Kale!!", a poor descriptor of the page.
- Dangling links, some of the images are linked to themselves, that is set on the post or page they are created on.
- The page names 'slugs' don't usually match their titles, ex, Fiber: health benefits for athletes...., would be: 'fiber-health-benefits-athletes', etc.
- From a user standpoint, way too much text, the full posts could be reduced by using excerpts and linking to a separate page, increasing load time, and most likely page views. Would you scroll all the way to the bottom? What if it was half or a quarter this size?
- The 2 main items "Recipes" & "Videos" go offsite? And they are follow links! What the!
Cheers.
-
I don't utilize categories much so I may not be the best one to answer this. The All in One SEO plugin allows you to change how your category titles are displayed, i.e. %category_title%.
You can change category title by changing the name of the category. But I'm thinking you want to have the category displayed as "Green Widgets" on your sidebar, but have the title something like, "Buy Green Widgets here. Free Shipping!".
I'd be interested in hearing more about this if others have ideas.
-
Eric,
If you are optimizing category pages, I recommend modifying your theme to display your category description as visible text on the page. This will allow you to have some optimized text on each category page. I believe there is a title tags plugin that will allow you to change the title tags of your category pages individually, also.
-
Hi Dunamis,
Does the plug in allow you to make the Title Tag different than the category name?
Eric
-
I have some sites that are static and others that are WP blogs and there isn't much difference between how I optimize them. I use the all in one SEO plugin for my WP sites which allows me to set the title and meta keywords. I don't pay much attention to tags. In the video below, Matt Cutts explains that tags don't really help much in regards to SEO.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
On-Page Optimization on a service based Site?
Respected members, my question is that if I Wanna run a website that provide service like olansi do, But i need to know the On -page effect like How Can I make a plan to secure my position against my Service based competitor site?
On-Page Optimization | | younus_7831 -
Optimizing Product Keywords (that are similar)
Hi Guys Could someone let me know how varied my product keywords need to be? I'm about to add a variety of products to my site, and the only true way of differentiating them is by colour. Brown Hooded JacketGreen Hooded JacketRed Hooded JacketBlack Hooded JacketBrown Hooded Utility JacketGreen Hooded Utility JacketRed Hooded Utility JacketBlack Hooded Utility JacketAlso, am I optimizing my site correctly?Key Word - Brown Hooded JacketMy keywords are included in H1Enigma - Brown Hooded JacketPage TitleProduct Name & Key Word - London - Company NameURL,www.companyname.co.uk/brown-coats/enigma-hooded-jacketBody ContentThe key word "brown hooded jacket" is included and very described within the body of this specific pageImage TagBrown-Casual-Hooded-JacketMeta DescriptionKey word is used, should I choose to opt for this approach?I would really appreciate your help. Thanks, Faye
On-Page Optimization | | Faye2340 -
Optimizing a large mess
An agency referred me to a client who wants a proposal for SEO. The website has been recently completed, but it a complete train wreck. I just ran a Moz crawl and I'm looking at 303 issues to fix out of a site with 377 pages. I just downloaded an xml sitemap, hoping to prioritize what needs to be done, however I'm not getting a clear sense of the hierarchy. In your opinion, what is the best way to attack a project of this size? I am clear on the client's business goals, so I can work on the most crucial pages first, but I can't leave the rest of the site a mess. Should I start by gathering for links that have no user value and plan to block them with meta tags? I'm used to optimizing much smaller sites, so any advice on how to approach this proposal would be much appreciated. Thank you!
On-Page Optimization | | ptdodge0 -
What's the point of my blog?
My website, www.toplinecomms.com has a reasonably good blog that gets quite good interaction and sharing. I introduced the blog at the start of 2013 because the general sentiment from all the SEO books and articles I had read was that a good blog could be invaluable to a search marketing campaign. The posts on the blog are keyword optimised and they get great shares and social engagement. However, I have noticed that the blog is stealing my services' pages' thunder! There are some keywords that I am keen for our services pages to rank for, but the blog is beating them to it! So my question is: How should I be using my blog to get my services pages to rank higher?
On-Page Optimization | | HeatherBakerTopLine0 -
Blog.mysite.com or mysite.com/blog?
Hi, I'm just curious what the majority think of what's the best way to start a blog on your website for SEO benefits. Is it better to have it under a sub domain or a directory? Or does it even matter?
On-Page Optimization | | truckguy770 -
To Optimize Brand Name or Product Name First on Product Pages for E-Commerce Website?
We are using your free month trial for optimization of our E-Commerce website. In regards to individual product pages such as this one http://www.amgair.com/air-purifiers/iqair-healthpro-plus-air-purifier/, would it be more effective to have the page title start with the brand name and then the product (as we have it now) or forgo the brand name and start with just the product. IE: IQAir Healthpro Plus Air Purifier or HealthPro Plus Air Purifier by IQAir. These are commodity type products and are price restricted so all competitive websites advertise at the same pricing and it would be helpful not only to have a keyword phrase that is searched for a lot but also one that is easy to rank for. Please give me a recommendation when possible.
On-Page Optimization | | youhow0 -
Using a more relevant brand title for blog
I'm a newbee here so I appologize in advance for asking a question that might already be aswered ( i looked I promise). The question is this, I've been fiddling with the title tags and came upon the need to make a decision about separating our blog brand to be more specific to it's content. We're a moving company, our primary website talks about services and is branded with our name (%page_name% | 2 Brothers Moving & Delivery Portland Oregon), our blog is a work in progress "Moving Guide" (%post_title% | Portland Moving Guide). Should I stick with the standard brand name on the blog or call it something keyword specific like above? As a side question what do you all think about my titles in the first place? In case you'd like to take a look: www.2brothersmoving.net www.2brothersmoving.net/blog
On-Page Optimization | | r1200gsa0 -
Should I use my blog posts in a sub folder
Ok I did a search and didn't see an answer to this exact question. Most of them were about if a blog should be in a sub folder and not the blog posts themselves... so here it goes. I have a blog on my website the blog itself is in /blog/ but the blog posts themselves are situated in the root folder so it looks something like mydomain.com/cool-seo-blog-post/ Is there any reason I should change this and make it read mydomain.com/blog/cool-seo-blog-post/
On-Page Optimization | | jaybrn10