‘80-90% of SEO already done for you in Wordpress’ Am I missing something?
-
Hi there, I’m looking for some feedback on a statement made on my Facebook Page re Wordpress and SEO. Please understand I wouldn’t class myself as an expert but I am competent and achieve satisfactory results for clients, more so since becoming a SEOmoz Pro user, I’ve just had some great results for a client using SEOmoz guidelines in ‘On Page SEO Reports’ thank you very much!
A comment however made on my FB page has got my interest….
“as you (kn)no(w) google loves WP and will get listed quicker as 80 to 90% of your SEO is already done”
Does Wordpress (or Joomla for that matter mentioned in the same conversation) have some SEO advantages that Google loves as the poster would have me believe, can I save time and effort working in word press from an SEO point of view?
I use the age old techniques of targeting key phrases and words and distributing them accordingly. Creating internal link structures with ‘key worded anchor text’ etc before embarking on any off page SEO.
Do any of you vastly experienced (in comparison to me) SEO folk have any insight into what this statement refers to?
I did not gather any references to SEO advantages in Wordpress or Joomla in the Enge and Fishkin et al book The Art of SEO, or any of the other books I’ve read, to develop my knowledge on SEO for the benefit of my clients and of course my pocket. J
-
I think that WordPress does just as nicely in the SERPs as a page posted on some other platform. I don't suppose that it has any magic bullets that can't be performed on even a hand-built format which includes Dreamweaver. For more details see it on bikes passion and take some detailed guidance.
-
Do you know, I'm blown away by the answers here, this is great info, many thanks.
-
Wordpress can get very fast once you properly configure a cache plugin. You could even use CloudFlare.com to enjoy some great CDN enhancements for very cheap.
This assumes you have reliable and speedy hosting - a constant of all websites. It also assumes you are careful about optimizing the images and don't load the page with megabytes of JS libraries/plugins.
(edit note: In my experience cloudflare makes a significant impact if you are on a slower, shared hosting plan. On a pro level host, it isn't as beneficial)
-
Thank you, you have all answered my question. I note your comment on light weight and fast load times but hear complaints of very slow loading content managed sites including WP, Joomla and others, is this not the case? Or is like any chosen platform where the inexperienced or those with little care can though error create burdens that may slow the site down?
-
Thank you, the reply above and yours are putting me in the picture, I didn't think there was a magic bullet, 'seo friendly' is a different concept entirely from 80-90% of the work being done for you. Best regards.
-
Thank you, that was my understanding and I am in complete agreement with your second paragraph. Steven Spaldings reply below clarifies for me further, thank you gentlemen.
-
I thought this would be the case, but does Wordpress have built in functions to automatically optimise a page?
-
no .. that statement is lazy. On-page stuff like heading structure, title, semantic tagging, inner links, etc can be made all easier by wordpress + plugins .. the rest will require work depending on what you're trying to rank for and what your goals are.
If you're the only person in the world selling "evil unicorns" then you will rank on search engines for selling evil unicorns with only putting up a page that says "I sell evil unicorns"
If your market is more competitive, you will need a strategy of content, social, links, etc. to be on top.
Wordpress is only "seo-friendly" not instant SEO.
-
Out of the box WP handles on-page optimization fairly well especially for the "SEO unaware". Titles and descriptions are customized from article content and the entire site can be easily index. The pages tend to be light weight thus load very fast. From there, it depends on the theme and plugins.
But that is far from 80-90% of SEO. It isn't even 80-90% of on-page optimization which highly dependent on the content and content category.
As a blanket statement, it is false. If all they are saying is the sites will be easily indexed, sure.
-
I think that wordpress does just as well in the SERPs as a page published on any other platform. I don't think that it has any magic bullets that can't be done on even a hand-built format such as DreamWeaver.
I think that the more important part of SEO is the selection of topics and categories, the composition of title tags, and the linkage structure of the website. The most important part is getting quality content and pitching in a way that will make your visitors respond. Although some might not think that is SEO, it can have a greater impact than a lot of off-page work.
-
Could you explain a little please? I know a little about SEO but Iess about Wordpress. Are you saying that 80-90% of SEO work regardless of site subject and target audience is done by Wordpress already?
-
“as you (kn)no(w) google loves WP and will get listed quicker as 80 to 90% of your SEO is already done”
This is probably true if you don't know much about SEO.
-
that statement should be "....of your **on-page **SEO...." and even that percentage is high for on-page.
no matter what platform you use, you'll still have to do the leg-work of getting quality content, and sufficient natural links ..etc..
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
-
SEO Ranking: Can Child Theme Compete with Custom Theme?
Ranking for New York City commercial real estate is extremely competitive. We compete against: www.squarefoot.com, www.42floors.com, www.Loopnet.com, www.wework.com and a dozen other optimized sites. Our site was designed in 2012. We plan on upgrading it. From an SEO perspective, can we compete by purchasing a Wordpress real estate theme and customizing it into a child theme? Our better ranking competitors are using custom themes where the code has been very streamlined to make the sites quick and easy to index by spiders. Would we gain a significant edge by custom coding? This is somewhat technical for a business owner and I am trying to get my head around it. Our existing site is www.nyc-officespace-leader.com. Some of the themes we are considering are: -http://main.wpestatetheme.org/homepage -http://houzez01.favethemes.com/ -http://realhomes.inspirythemes.biz/property/ From an SEO perspective is creating a child theme from the above a good approach? Or will a custom theme give us an advantage. If there is an advantage is that edge so marginal that it is not significant? In terms of coding, is a custom site much more labor, 2x, 3x the time to code? Also is the maintenance of a custom site much more involved? Also, as a related question, my developer since 2012 has created many custom plugins for Wordpress. Is this a no, no? Will avoiding custom plugins add to the development cost? Even if we use a child theme from an existing real estate website, I would hope that the improved user interface will provide a boast in at least conversions if not SEO. Thanks, Alan
Web Design | | Kingalan10 -
Migration from HTML to Wordpress - SEO Implications?
I am in the process of having a wordpress site developed to replace my current HTML site. (I currently have my website in html and a blog in wordpress in a sub directory). I am doing this in phases to try and preserve as much of my good rankings as possible. My first phase is to replicate my site with the exact same pages, meta data, and site structure. I'm hoping that google will see this as not much change and not change my rankings for the worse. I also made it a goal that my site speed tests be at least equal to what they are now. We will have to 301 all of the URLs however since it will be going from /example.html to /example. I believe my blog will also need to move into the root directory as well, so I need to 301 all of those pages. I plan to wait a couple months for Phase 2. Phase 2 involves replacing old content (photo galleries), and introducing new content (virtual tours, videos, new pages, etc.) One of my reasons for moving to wordpress is to keep up with current trends a little easier since I have very little time. (I am owner, website maintainer, SEO - all on my own). My question here is three parts. 1. Do you think this strategy will work to preserve my current rankings? 2. Do you have any lessons learned or advice to share with me to make this as smooth as possible? 3. Do I really need to wait to add new content? I might get antsy and want to do it sooner! 🙂 Thank you in advance!
Web Design | | CalicoKitty20001 -
Wordpress themes causing google penalty(need experts to settle a debate)
Hi, I have been having a disagreement with another online marketing company. We are both promoting the same product under a different brand name but we ended up using the same theme to build our WordPress sites off of but in no way is the content the same. They are telling me that using the same theme in the same industry will cause a Google penalty. I do not believe this and do not see this causing a problem. The sites are relatively new so there is no proof of traffic dropping or penalties as of yet. What is everyone's professional opinion on this? Can a WordPress theme cause duplicate content penalty? If so would that not mean that anyone using themes will have some sort of penalty?
Web Design | | impact891 -
Are wordpress themes like from themeforest bad?
Hi to all. Ok so as I read around the internet I see a lot of people who dislike theme forest and using their themes. I have a them from them, the Avada theme. Ok so they have made a TON of money. But would so many people buy the theme if it was that bad? Going forward, my question is, are wordpress themes a bad thing to do? I feel like its peer pressure to switch to a framework like Genesis. There are so many people who state that a framework and child theme is the way to go. But I am using this avada theme and having under 2.5 sec load times. A lot of people say the code is bloated and is horrible. I understand this and got a cache plugin that makes a huge difference. But I do want to learn and I do want to approach websites in a positive way. So if you have any thoughts on themes, please tell me your thoughts. I am no developer, so they seem to work, but is it at a price? Like bad seo and serps? Thank you chris
Web Design | | asbchris0 -
Parallax websites - good for SEO?
A client of mine is redesigning their site using a vertical Parallax & upon doing some research I've stumbled across Drew Barrymore's site: http://flowerbeauty.com/ - which also uses Parallax. What I like in particular is that the site changes URLs as you scroll down. If you go direct to one of those URLs you'll notice unique meta data (albeit poorly optimised). All pages are indexed fine in Google (https://www.google.com/#bav=on.2,or.r_cp.r_qf.&fp=f8873f78dfbb8c5e&q=site:flowerbeauty.com) I'm just wondering if this is considered ok as the user experience is good and they're not doing anything manipulative, however, there's duplicate content and a potential case of cloaking at hand. I think this approach may be ok for my client for a product features page or a global office locations page since I can break up the sections nicely and split a really long page featuring a lot of content into separate URLs. Whereas Flower Beauty have done it across the whole site... i.e. one page of HTML = the whole site. What do you guys think?
Web Design | | wojkwasi0 -
New Website Redesign: Any Design Comments or SEO Suggestions?
Hi! We recently launched our new website after MONTHS of work. Now that it is live, we are looking to fine tune the design and SEO efforts. This is our new website. And for reference, this is our old website. Any and all comments on design and SEO would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your help! Mike
Web Design | | Mike.Goracke0 -
Word Press Seo Errors/ Questions
Hi my name is Tina I am new here I hope you guys can help me out. I thought building my new site with Word Press was going to simplify things, however I have a ton of errors, and I am not sure what they are, or how to fix them. I am hoping someone could share with me a solution for these errors. I have 28 rel=canonical errors, I am not sure what this means, I understand it to mean my pages are similar, and this is to set a heirarchy between my pages. Please correct me if I am wrong. If I am correct would this be necessary to add if my main keyword was "widgets" and my home page was optimized for "widgets" and my next page was "blue widgets" and so on. While my pages are similar they are all optimized for different versions of my main keyword some using long tail keywords. Do you know of a plugin that can help solve this problem? Also does anyone have a plugin they recommend for G+ my G+ authorship verification is causing an error as well? I am using Head Space 2 I have used this seo plugin numerous times with great success it has been my favorite seo plugin. However, we have a portfolio that shows our clients websites, and on those pages Head Space will not let me enter a description tag. What plug in do you guys recommend with more control over each page? Another interesting issue is on one of our pages I optimized it for our Canadian clients, and now every page has been listed in Google.ca for the keywords it should have on Google.com. We are listed on Google maps, verified in Google places, and our address is on the site so they know we're from the USA however, the majority of our keywords are only listed in Google.ca. We're on page one for all of them, we are in the top three on most of them so that's not bad, but we want to be listed in Google.com as well. Any suggestions on this?
Web Design | | TinaGammon1 -
SEO for product dimensions
I am taking over a new project that offers high price large products. I am trying to decide on the best way to do some SEO on the product titles, etc. for best practices what do ya'll recommend right now we're doing: 10' H x 10' W x 12' D product name blah blah blah and other thoughts on how to be more efficient in this?
Web Design | | malachiii0