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
-
How to Handle duplicate pages/titles in Wordpress
The wordpress blog causes problems with page titles. If you go to the second page of blog posts it there's a different URL but with the same page title. for example: page 1: site/blog page 2: site/blog/page/2 Each page gets flagged for duplicate page titles. Thanks in advance for your thoughts,
On-Page Optimization | | heymarshall1 -
Optimizing pages for keywords
I have a couple of websites for retailing the western chaps manufactured by my company. I have recently tried to increase my learning for SEO since one of my main sites (started in 2006) just lost about 45% of it's organic search volume since the end of May. It seems my search to learn just creates more and more questions. I have been using google adwords for several years now and have used that information to find the most searched keywords. There are some general keywords like western chaps and cowboy chaps that receive decent search volume. If I get more specific to a certain type of chap, chinks for example, the popular high volume keywords are chinks, chinks chaps, western chinks, and cowboy chinks. These all relate to one type of chap...the chink. I want to be visible for these keywords, but how does one optimize for more than one without diluting? Should I also try to optimize on the homepage of my sites for the general terms like western chaps and cowboy chaps? Can I optimize for both? I could really use some help. Any experts out there up to the job of consulting for me, some with extensive knowledge and experience? I'm not looking for the SEO giants with hundreds of clients. I don't feel that I will get the proper value from those types. My company is small and spending is an issue, that's why I would like someone to consult with. I should be able to do most of the labor, I just need the knowledge.
On-Page Optimization | | Kelly_S0 -
Content Optimization - Multiple Keywords or One?
I have three web pages I'm trying to increase traffic to (and thus conversions). I've carefully researched and selected 15 keywords. There's about 3-5 keyword groupings that are similar enough so I can optimize each page with all of them (for example - autobody, dent repair, scratch repair). I see a couple ways to approach optimizing the pages: select one main keyword to put in the header and support it with the other 2-4 keywords in the content body select 3-5 keywords and evenly optimize the page for each (several headers and sections about each) pick one keyword per page I'm constrained to three web pages since it's a clients website. Otherwise I'm guessing the best method would be to create content for each keyword in something like a blog. I basically see the pros and cons as this: including multiple closely related keywords on a page will bring more traffic and thus overal conversions; however it will take longer to rank for those keywords. Focusing the content on one keyword will increase conversion rate and take a shorter time to rank that page since it's more focused, but less overall traffic and conversions. With the page number constraint and increasing conversions being the goal of optimization, what are your thoughts on the pros and cons of each choice?
On-Page Optimization | | reidsteven750 -
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 -
The Best Way to Market a Blog Post?
So . . . I've written a beautiful blog (or video or podcast or whatever . . . just take my word for it that it will be nominated for an Oscar, Webby, or Pulitzer very soon). What's the best way to get the word out about it? Let me rephrase that. I know I should tweet, post on Facebook, social networks etc cetera. My real question is, should I link to the home page (which is where my blog is located . . . it would show up there) or should I link to the specific page of the full blog post? Seems to me, linking to the blog post directly gives me a better chance at tracking the success of the article in generating interest and traffic, but I was assuming linking to the home page helped pump up the importance of my overall site? I still consider myself an SEO Noob so be sure to speak slowly and not use big words. Consider drawing pictures.
On-Page Optimization | | damon12120 -
Optimization of keywords in singular and plural
By Google Traductor: Hi, two questions:
On-Page Optimization | | romaro
1. What about the optimization of keywords in singular and plural?Do you recommend use landing pages in the plural and singularwords? as different results on Google searches in the plural andsingular.
2. Do you think that is a good strategy to generate a sitemap tosearch results pages based on searches by users of our site? Weplan to start generating a sitemap with a top 500 of the most popular searches and then scroll through to 1000, 2000, and more0 -
Transition between a blog to e-commerce webshop, will my domain "lose" authority
Hi Seomoz'ers, Currently I am analyzing the best possible strategy which situation is as follow: I am having a blog with a great EMD about a specific product we are selling. The blog is currently ranking in position 1 for different keyword phrases. However I would like to make a switch from the current Wordpress blog to Magento webshop. Simply because the product should be sold through a professional webshop with many related products. Only the homepage of mydomainname.com is optimized. I am affraid I will lose my #1 ranking when I put my webstore online on this domainname. Most likely I will lose my PA and keep my DA. Which actions should I take in order to keep the ranking in Google position 1 with the new webstore? My best possible option I guess: 1. Replace the Wordpress blog with the Magento webstore and optimize the homepage with on-page seo of the webstore for the targeted keywords. Will this work? As the backlinks I've built are pointing all to the domainname.com (homepage). Thanks in advance. Any more suggestions are welcome 🙂
On-Page Optimization | | Falcopa0 -
What is the best practice for optimizing international websites? We operate a .co.uk and .com and obviously content is similar.
We have two (and soon to be more) international websites, all in English. The sites in question are WebHostingBuzz.com and WebHostingBuzz.co.uk. Obviously content is similar as we're providing a similar service but from different locations and different prices. What is best practice here? Should we completely re-write the .co.uk content (this is the newer site) so it isn't penalized for scraping? Any hints/tips would be appreciated.
On-Page Optimization | | mdrussell0