12 Easy Ways to Improve the SEO on Your WordPress Website

Landing on the first page of the search results for a target keyword is the holy grail for businesses. It seems a near-impossible feat, but improving your SEO may take you closer, one page at a time. According to experts, it can be a short process and you can get there in six months.

But, if you ask me how long you can get to page one, my answer would be it depends on you taking the proper steps and putting in the required effort. You have to work for it every day because your competitors are also busy trying to get to page one. If they’re ahead of you, they’re trying to make sure you can’t catch up to them.

Maybe you chose to build your website with WordPress because of claims it is SEO-friendly. It’s true, as Sony, Disney, Bloomberg, and many other known brands will attest. However, it’s just software that gets you started. It’s not going to improve your rankings by itself.

So, where to begin? I’m going to suggest steps to improve SEO on your website. It’s going to take time for you to see any results. There isn’t a magic formula or one-size-fits-all solution. But, the tips below will make a difference. 

1. Optimize Yoast Or Your Preferred SEO Plug-in

I’ve been using it, so I speak from experience.  Downloaded at least 300 million times, this is one of the best WordPress plug-ins right now. I chose Yoast because it can be challenging for beginners to deal with permalinks, sitemaps and robots.txt. I know because I was a newbie once.

By installing Yoast, you don’t have to worry about the many technical aspects of your website. It’s one of the best beginner-friendly plug-ins that solves a lot of problems.

Whether you’re using a free or paid version, you might not be employing all the features of this plug-in. Here’s their beginner’s guide, which I find helpful for all users, including myself. Aside from keyphrase and SEO analysis, check out the other features that can improve your content SEO.

All in One SEO (AIOSEO) is another popular SEO plug-in. It comes with a built-in WooCommerce tool for e-Commerce sites. SEOPress is also excellent for newbies, while SEMRush is great for keyword research. Check these out if you’re interested.

2. Do You Have Breadcrumbs?

I suggest enabling breadcrumbs. No, these are not the kind added to soup or stuffing. You find these at the top of the website or below the navigation bar. Breadcrumbs make it easier for your visitors to navigate your website by providing trails to higher categories.

Also, these let your audience know where they are. They then can explore more areas and backtrack when they need to. Breadcrumbs can thus provide a better user experience (UX). And, guess what? The better the UX, the better your ranking is.

3. Evaluate Your Website With These Tools

You can use other tools to check your website’s performance. For instance, page load speed is a factor in rankings. Google wants users to be happy so if your website is not loading fast enough, forget being on the top pages of search results. The acceptable loading time now is three seconds and below.

Run Google PageSpeed Insights to check your loading times. You’ll also get suggestions on how to speed up your website.

Other tools test your website under heavy load or stress. It’s hard to approximate the number of visitors at any time. But, having too many will take a toll on your website. It might crash and when this happens too often, forget about ranking high.

I suggest Loadrunner because it’s an excellent entry-level option that offers a free plan. You can also try K6 Cloud for free. It’s a cheap alternative if you plan on purchasing a tool with more features.

I also highly recommend Google Search Console if you want to optimize your site’s visibility. It’s a free tool from Google that checks your sitemap and informs you of the crawl rate when Googlebot visits your site. It also reports which of your keywords rank and the average clickthrough rate on your site. While you’re at it, don’t forget Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test.

There are more ways you can improve your website’s performance. Here’s a link.

4. Edit Your Permalinks

These are the address names of your pages (URLs). Permalinks tell search engines what your page is about and help your audience navigate your site. Here’s an example:

https://yourwebsite.com/improve-your-productivity-at-home

The permalink above in bold helps search engines index your web page and makes it easier for visitors to remember when they want to re-visit or share. I suggest you include keywords to improve your SEO … but don’t make it too optimized! For instance, don’t call it “productive-productivity-improve-best-productivity-at-home” … keep it similar to your title.

Experts recommend keeping your permalinks short with an average length of 59 characters.  Avoid combining words like “improveproductivityathome.” This makes it hard for search engines to process your page.

Do you wish to change your permalinks? On WordPress, open your dashboard and click on settings on the left side. Then click on permalinks and select post name. Save your changes.

Important Note: Changing a permalink structure can cause damage, especially if you have backlinks. If you’re uncomfortable doing it, use the Redirection WordPress plug-in, so if people have previously bookmarked your pages, the plugin will redirect to your new permalink.

5. Who Is Your Host Provider?

Choose an all-around provider that’s dependable. Site speed, security and uptime are your primary considerations, which affect your SEO’s performance. A web host we recommend and use is FloatHosting.

Make sure to check the quality and customer service of your chosen host. If I were you, pricing wouldn’t be my first concern, although many offer huge discounts. Maybe you have to pay extra, but your investment will be worthwhile. Lastly, several provide add-ons for free. You may need these now or in the future. 

6. Comments: To Accept or Reject

The spam kind of comments will affect your rankings. Deleting these is definitely a wise option after you’ve enabled comments on your site. Spammers will send you automated posts to build backlinks to their sites. Now, WordPress comments are “nofollowed,” so that partly solves the problem.

Comments with lousy grammar and wrong spelling can still hurt you. Spam can discourage genuine visitors from leaving feedback or asking questions. Also, these might give your audience the false impression they’re dealing with a mediocre business. 

The solution is simple. In WordPress, click on settings, then discussion. Check “Comment must be manually approved.” Now, you can accept or reject comments before these go live.

7. Change Your WordPress Theme

There’s such a thing as an SEO-friendly theme, and it’s not just about looking good. Many online marketers assume that great visuals alone will get the job done. Well, it’s not just looks.

An SEO-friendly site is responsive for both desktops, laptops and mobile devices. It’s unwise to disregard the latter, as more than 50% of online purchases are now via smartphones and tablets. You don’t want to miss that opportunity.

Also, beware of themes loaded with third-party add ons that are unnecessary. Try the free ones first before purchasing any. Test these with again the tools I mentioned earlier, like Google’s PageSpeed Insights and  Mobile-Friendly Test.   

WordPress offers thousands of free themes. You can find help here if you want to create one. It’s fun and sometimes frustrating. Themes are also available from dozens of sources, and here are some for your reference:

• Divi
• Indigo
• Astra
• True North
• OceanWp

8. It’s Always About Keywords … But To A Point

What are your keywords and what is your keyphrase? Will you find these in the first paragraph of your blog or article? Improving your WordPress SEO means focusing on your keywords. I set mine with Yoast.

Yoast integrated Semrush’s keyword database to give users support in their research. Other WordPress plug-ins have the same feature. With this tool, you can discover which keywords perform well. You can incorporate these or Yoast’s suggestions in your content.

I don’t suggest writing keywords repetitively for the sake of improving your SEO. Your attempt will become evident to your audience and possibly turn them off. Instead, add related keywords, and write naturally.

Posting content that will appeal and rank high requires creativity. With practice, you can achieve both and even entertain at the same time.

9. Outdated And Low-Quality Content

Do you delete or update your content? Make sure to schedule maintenance on your website. You might also have posts that barely get any traffic. Updating or revising can improve visits. If you’ve been posting content regularly, spend time checking if these are still relevant. The chances are a few are outdated. It’s time to delete these or revise and republish them as a newer article.

If you want to know more about writing great content, take a look at this.

10. Fix Duplication, Including Keyword Cannibalization

Have you gone through your website lately? You may not be aware that you have duplicate content on your website. There might be blogs or articles that are competing with each other.

Topic duplication is also called keyword cannibalization. This occurs when you use or target similar keywords across two or more articles. Google gets confused and may end up not ranking any of your posts or pages.  

One way of detecting keyword cannibalization is by using your website’s search widget. Another method is using Google Search Console by navigating to search analytics.

11. Create Internal Links

Links to other posts on your website can improve your SEO. Your visitors stay longer, which encourages them to explore your website further. You can do this easily on WordPress by highlighting the text and clicking “link” on your toolbar.

Create links for articles that are relevant to your topic. You improve engagement and user experience on your site. Internal links also give Google a better idea of what your website is about.  When it does, you get ranked higher in search results.

Make sure you also link to other websites as well! Make sure they are useful for your visitors, and of course you don’t want to link to your direct competitors. 

12. Optimize Your robots.txt File

This step might be too technical for you. It still is for me. This file tells Google or any search engine how to crawl and index pages on your site. If you’re a beginner, a robots.txt file is not necessary. When your website grows, well, it’s better to have one.

What the file does is tell crawlers which pages they can or cannot index. These spiders spend a limited time on your website. These don’t need to crawl through your admin pages because these will not appear on search results. Also, your robots.txt file protects your data and hides your backlinks. Here’s how you create a robots.txt file. Yoast isn’t the only source, but it’s what I used in the past.

You don’t have to try everything at the same time. Find out which is relevant for you. Which of the above will you try out first? Your journey starts with one step. Take one now to improve the rankings of your website!

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