WordPress Sites and Optimisation
WordPress serves as a widely-used platform for blogging and social media. While many recognise this, fewer understand how to optimise WordPress installations for search engine performance.
Optimisation Guidelines
1. Plugin Management
Minimise sidebar plugins — especially those using Ajax — as search engines cannot index them. Excessive external objects and images slow page loading, reducing user engagement.
2. Template Modification
For users with CSS and PHP knowledge, modifying existing templates directly is preferable to using plugins for sidebar insertions or images.
3. News Distribution
Implement the Google News sitemap plugin to publish articles instantly to Google News, enabling content to appear in Google search results within minutes.
4. Header Tag Hierarchy
Many themes default to H3 headers for post titles. Change these to H1 tags, as search engines prioritise this metadata. Similarly, page templates should use H1 headers for homepage titles. Important keywords should be bolded or marked as H2/H3 headers and included in meta descriptions.
5. Meta Tag Optimisation
Title tags remain most critical, followed by description tags. Keywords receive minimal search engine consideration. The Platinum SEO Pack plugin provides full control over meta tags for pages and posts.
6. Development Tools
Firefox's Firebug plugin helps navigate theme PHP code and CSS controls for easy customisation.
7. Content Duplication
Avoid replicating homepage article content through recent post sidebar plugins.
8. Image Optimisation
Exclude important keywords from images or logos. Instead, use transparent CSS-controlled images with overlaid text, ensuring search engines understand site content through readable text.
9. Comment Attributes
Apply the "no follow" attribute to post comments, preventing keyword anchor text spam.
10. Page Navigation
GD Pages Navigator from GD WordPress excels at displaying and hiding pages compared to alternative plugins.
11. Social Sharing
The Sociable plugin promotes social bookmarking, generating valuable backlinks.
12. Article Writing Strategy
Craft engaging, keyword-optimised content using varied anchor text. Avoid repeating identical hyperlinks; instead, link to different internal and external pages with different anchor text phrases.
13. Internal Linking
Internal linking represents a frequently overlooked on-page SEO element. Structure pages as independent sites, focusing links toward important subpages using relevant keyword anchor text.
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