Are you using WordPress for your website and thinking about how to rank it in search results?
Almost 39% of global eCommerce traffic comes from search engines. Even 57% of those B2B marketers proclaim that SEO drives more leads than any other marketing activity.
Yes, SEO has the potential to boost organic traffic and improve a website’s visibility. It can help to increase conversion rates and drive sales.
Considering this, having a search engine-optimized website is critical.
Wondering how to go for it?
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There are different website optimization techniques. I have compiled the ultimate SEO checklist for WordPress for 2023 to help you optimize your WordPress website.
Keep reading the post to understand how to do SEO for your WordPress site-
The Ultimate SEO Checklist For WordPress For 2023: 6 Key Things You Need To Do
When it comes to WordPress SEO in 2023, regardless of the latest trends and advances, the primary tactics for WordPress SEO will remain unchanged.
Let’s begin with the basics-
1. Choosing The Right Hosting Provider
If you want to ensure that your site is optimized for search engines, you need to select a reliable hosting provider. There are different types of hosting you can choose from-
- Shared hosting,
- Dedicated server hosting
- Cloud hosting
- Managed hosting
The best hosting options for SEO are managed and cloud hosting because they are budget-friendly and, at the same point, provide enough support to help your website rank in search results.
2. Using The Right Keywords
Next on our WordPress SEO checklist for 2023 is to find the right keyword and use it appropriately throughout the content.
Online users type keywords into the search bar to get relevant results. If you want your business site to appear in relevant results, you need to optimize your WordPress site for relevant terms.
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This is too simple to understand! Isn’t it?
So, how will you find relevant keywords for your content? Semrush is the best tool to find the right keywords. There are many others, and you can try them too.
Note: Stick to long-tail keywords that contain three or more words because they drive more qualified traffic.
Furthermore, use the keywords in -
- Title tag
- Headings
- Meta description
- Subheadings
- Body text
It’s one of the most effective strategies to help your pages rank higher in relevant results.
3. Install SEO Plugins
For optimizing your WordPress site, installing WordPress SEO plugins is one of the most important things. It allows you to implement on-page optimization tactics without any knowledge of coding.
Also Read: Website organic traffic with SEO
Yoast SEO is quite popular among WordPress SEO plugins because it provides everything you need to help your website rank in searches, incorporating page speed improvements, meta tag optimization, meta description optimization and more.
Some common SEO plugins are-
- SEOPress
- AIOSEO
- Squirrly SEO
- Broken Link Checker
- Rank Math
- W3 Total Cache
Integrating an SEO plugin can indeed improve your SEO efforts and help in generating organic traffic to your website and rank higher in search results.
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4. URL Optimization
URL is an effective way to give an idea to the potential visitors what the site or web page is about.
You must have noticed a URL with a mix of letters and numbers. Such URLs cannot indicate to visitors where they are on your business’s website.
URLs are the building block of your website. You can’t take them lightly. The proper use of URLs can surely boost click-through rates wherever the links are shared.
To give search engines and website visitors a clear picture of your page’s location, you need to optimize your URLs.
Does it sound a bit technical? Don't worry! This is too simple!
You can create a custom URL by following these steps-
- Go to Edit on your post or page
- Click the Gear icon and then on Permalink
- Edit your URL slug
Note: Slug is the part of the URL that helps to identify a page. For instance, “products” is the slug in www.ecommerce.com/category/products/.
5. Internal Linking
This is another vital element to check off your SEO checklist for WordPress for 2023. Internal links help search engines to discover other linked pages on your website. It can crawl and index those pages to appear in search results.
Furthermore, it will keep visitors engaged on your WordPress website and encourage them to have a look at other pages from your business website.
Here, I am giving you some tips for doing internal linking flawlessly-
- Keep the anchor link text length of at least two words or more.
- The anchor link text should be relevant to the link
- Avoid giving multiple links to the same page
- Keep only one link to individual pages
- Don’t overstuff the links in the content that makes it hard to read
Note: Anchor text is the text that tells the visitors what to expect when they click on the link.
6. Optimize Your Title Tag And Meta Description
You need to optimize your title tags and meta descriptions if you’re trying to drive people to visit your WordPress website. To get better results from SEO for your WordPress site, optimize your title tags and meta descriptions to lure people to click on your listing over your rivals.
You need to follow these tips –
For Title Tags
- Keep your targeted keyword in the beginning of the title.
- Keep the title length within 60 characters.
- Your title tag should be relevant to your page content.
- Make it catchy and creative, so prospects cannot stop themselves from clicking it.
- Buzzwords like “Free”, “New”, “Powerful” and “Amazing” to entice prospects to click.
For Meta Descriptions
- Embed your main keyword within the meta description.
- Keep the length up to 155 characters.
- Make it relevant to the content on the page, so the visitors can have an idea of what to expect on your page.
- Avoid keyword overstuffing.
Conclusion
Optimizing your WordPress Site for SEO may seem overwhelming initially, but with the above-mentioned simple SEO tips, one can surely boost their website ranking in search engine results pages and enhance their online visibility. Although this ultimate SEO checklist for WordPress for 2023 includes the pillars of search optimization, it’s essential to keep updated with the advanced SEO trends to ensure your WordPress site continues to rank well.
Also Read: Best Content writing tips for SEO
