WordPress Search Engine Optimization - Second Edition

Table of Contents

WordPress Search Engine Optimization Second Edition

Credits

About the Author

About the Reviewers

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Free access for Packt account holders

Preface

What this book covers

What you need for this book

Who this book is for

Conventions

Reader feedback

Customer support

Downloading the color images of this book

Errata

Piracy

1. Getting Started – SEO Basics

Introducing SEO

Improving your rank on all search engines

Exploring the changing nature of search engines

Understanding a search engine's inner workings

Preparing the index

Querying the index

Exploring on-page search ranking factors

Weighing search factors

Understanding the search algorithm

Ranking factor – body content

Serious ranking power – title tags and meta tags

Making perfect title tags

Using heading tags (h1, h2, h3)

Optimizing code quality and load speed

Menus, internal navigation, and link structure

Image filenames and alt tags

Text attributes – bold, italics, and underline

Ranking factor – high page count

Fodder for search engines – fresh content

Using the subtle power of outbound links

Understanding off-page ranking factors

Links are the power

Creating natural links

Avoiding over-optimization

Converting visitors to customers – the third spoke of SEO

Creating conversion-based websites

Summary

2. Optimizing WordPress for SEO

Setting goals for your business and website and getting inspiration

Analyzing your audience

Determining the goal of your website

Following the leaders

Gauging competition in the search market

Knowing what WordPress already does for your SEO

Understanding WordPress' economical architecture

Building large sites quickly with WordPress

Earning respect with search engines

Leveraging WordPress' blogging capabilities

Displaying RSS feeds

Finding your RSS feed

Promoting your RSS feed

Automatically creating descriptive URLs with WordPress permalinks

Creating reliable and text-based navigation

Engaging visitors with built-in collaboration, contribution, and community building

Employing user roles to get your team involved

Improving ranking with user comments

Using update services

Understanding what WordPress doesn't do for your SEO

Tackling duplicate content within WordPress

Overcoming landing page customization limitations

Understanding the limitations of page-by-page navigation

Summary

3. Researching and Working with Keywords

Building your site's foundation with keyword research

Understanding relevance and the effect of short tail and long tail keywords

Examining user intent through keywords

Developing a powerful long tail search strategy

Researching keyword search volume with online keyword tools

Google's Adwords Keyword Planner

Spotting keyword popularity patterns with Google Trends

Keyword discovery with Google Suggest and Ubersuggest

Identifying and developing your initial keyword profile

Creating your keyword matrix

Calculating relevance scores for keywords

Gathering keywords – thinking about your customer's (imperfect) intent

Building keyword lists with common qualifiers

Employing the human touch in keyword research

Analyzing customer's search behavior

Building keyword lists with location names

Learning how customers engage in local search

Applying long tail theory to local search

Building local pages the right way

Following the people, following the money

Tuning and honing your keyword list

Prioritizing keywords

Building first, second, and third tier keywords

Accounting for seasonal trends

Tuning your list – negative keywords

Grouping keywords into families

Finding new keywords

Eyeing the competition

Finding new keywords with Google AdWords

Summary

4. Understanding Technical Optimization

Choosing a keyword-rich domain name

Buying/acquiring domain names

Hyphens and extra characters in domain names

Creating an effective WordPress permalink structure

Highly customized permalinks

Optimizing your Page/Post titles and title tags

Page/Post title processing in WordPress

Crafting title tags

Creating perfectly-sized title tags

Crafting Page/Post titles

Optimizing meta tags

Configuring WordPress to generate meta descriptions

Best practices for meta descriptions

Leveraging your meta descriptions to draw clicks

Crafting meta descriptions

A dead HTML element – meta keyword tags

Optimizing your body content

Best practices for optimizing body content

Keyword density in body content

Optimizing heading tags

Optimizing WordPress templates

Generating page headlines manually

Improving rankings with optimized images

Inserting images and optimizing image properties in WordPress

Setting image alignment and link settings

Making speedy edits to image properties

Manipulating image sizes to speed up website load times

The ultimate WordPress robots.txt file

Fighting bad bots with help from Wikipedia

Optimizing with the XML Sitemaps plugin for WordPress

SEO power tool – Google Webmasters

Optimizing your site with Google Webmasters

Summary

5. Creating Optimized and Engaging Content

Engaging visitors with your content

Thinking like a television chef

Writing effective titles and headlines

Transcending bland, keyword-rich titles

Organizing your content with WordPress tags

Creating keyword-aware content

Keeping it natural

Avoiding automated content plugins

Writing for your audience

Thinking about a searcher's intent

Providing quality information

Writing to get results

Developing your writing style

Narrative styles

Structuring your content using taxonomy and hierarchy

Using WordPress categories

Managing your categories with plugins

Advanced Category Excluder

Multi Column Category List plugin

My Category Order

Fold Category List

Hiring a writer

Where to hire content writers

Summary

6. Link Building

Understanding the importance of backlinks

The mathematics and operation of PageRank

The PageRank damping factor

PageRank is shared among outbound links

Learning to discount PageRank

Understanding trust as a ranking principle

Understanding the importance of website category

Distinguishing between dofollow and nofollow links

Understanding nofollow links

How to implement or identify a nofollow link

Avoiding and identifying nofollow links

The diminishing universe of followed links

Making use of nofollow links

PageRank – summary and conclusion

Authority links – what they are and why you want them

Link anchor text

How anchor text appears in HTML code

Site-wide links and footer links

Repetitive links from common IP addresses

How to measure your inbound links

Measuring inbound links with Bing Webmaster

Measuring inbound links with Google

Measuring inbound links with online tools

Securing links through link directories

Building links with super directories – BOTW and DMOZ

Building links with mid-tier general directories

Building links with niche directories

Building links with regional directories

Building links with article submission sites and directories

Building links with infographics

Developing your infographic

Promoting your infographic

Understanding the quid pro quo of infographics

Setting up your infographic home

Including a Facebook-Ready Thumbnail

Promoting your infographic by making it searchable

Promoting through social media

Promoting through infographic/visual graphic directories

Using Specialized Searches to Find Bloggers and Webmasters

Link building by commenting on blogs and forums

Commenting on blogs

Commenting for good, not for evil

Building links through direct link requests

Asking for links from the sites in your niche

Telling webmasters why they should link to you

Requesting links from vendors

Reciprocal linking – is it dead?

Building links by creating link bait

Resource lists

Sharing a humorous story or article

Writing about current events

Writing something controversial

Interviewing an expert

Giving something away

Testing something

Developing How-to Information

Creating video content

Creating quizzes

Using a catchy title

Examples of effective link bait

Fashionista's 20 Most Influential Personal Style Bloggers

Fast lane—the slide

Summary

7. Using Social Media

What is a search engine?

Going viral with social media

Learning to build your personal authority

If your business has a map listing, Google+ activity is vital

Make friends

Post photos, then share

Use Google Maps to get directions to your business

Don't go crazy doing one thing

Review lots of things

Activity engenders activity

There really is no bad activity, just have fun

Favorite stuff/star stuff

Using LinkedIn to promote your business or website

Microblogging with Twitter for business

Employing Twitter for your business

How to get people to follow you on Twitter

Using Twitterfeed to automatically update your followers of new blog posts

Top tips for using Twitter for business

Using Twitter to promote your business

Using social bookmarking sites to promote your business

Getting started with social bookmarking

Choosing a social bookmarking site

Beginning with social bookmarking sites

Promoting your website through social bookmarking sites

Timing is important

Your ranking matters

Submit a catchy headline or title

Remember to choose an appropriate social bookmarking site for your business

Remember that social bookmarking websites are communities

Leveraging Facebook for a business or blog

Using Facebook to promote a new or existing business or blog

Utilizing the full potential of Facebook

Using a Facebook business page to promote your business or blog

Using a Facebook group to promote your business or blog

Sharing content and connecting with others on Facebook – useful features and applications

Joining groups

Increasing your circle of friends

Updating your status often

Posting wall comments

Adding an RSS feed to your page or profile

Using Facebook Ads

Linking your external website to Facebook

Automating Facebook updates with NextScripts' Social Networks Auto-Poster

Going viral with Facebook sharing plugins

Encouraging sharing on Pinterest and photo sharing sites

Encouraging Twitter posts and the Tweet This plugin

Taking social media too far

Promoting your business or blog with YouTube

Using YouTube as a hosting and delivery platform

Using video delivery alternatives to embedded YouTube videos

Employing YouTube as a search engine

Video success story – Will it Blend?

Promoting products and services on YouTube

Summary

8. Avoiding Black Hat Techniques

Typical black hat techniques

Hidden text on web pages

Spider detection, cloaking, redirection, and doorway pages

Linking to bad neighborhoods and link farms

Google Webmaster Guidelines

Google Webmaster Guidelines in a nutshell

When Google detects violations of its guidelines

Diagnosing a Google ranking ban, penalty, or filter

Understanding a Google ban

Diagnosing a total or partial ban

PageRank adjustment/PageRank penalty

Diagnosing a PageRank penalty

The -950 ranking penalty

How to diagnose a -950 ranking penalty

The -30/-40 ranking penalty

Diagnosing a -30/-40 penalty

False positives that aren't penalties

Clearing a Google penalty

Abandoning your existing domain and starting over

Cleaning your site and requesting reconsideration following a Google penalty

Step 1 – Sign up and verify with Google Webmaster Tools

Step 2 – Clean your site

Step 3 – Requesting reconsideration

Step 4 – Drafting the reconsideration message

Step 5 – Wait

Avoiding black hat techniques and purveyors who promote them

The standard black hat scam – Link exchange

The standard black hat scam – Website submission service

The standard black hat scam – Offshore link building

The standard black hat scam – Autoblogging

Summary

9. Avoiding SEO Mistakes

Pursuing the wrong keywords

Poor internal anchor text

Flash, JavaScript, image links, and other non-readable content

Poor site architecture

Expert site architecture with manual links and PageRank sculpting

Over-optimization

Over-optimizing of on-page factors – Guidelines

Over-optimizing inbound links – Guidelines

Jumping the gun and the sandbox

Using free hosted domains

Forgetting verification tools

Ignoring local directory listings

Always assigning as many categories as possible

Getting reviews

Uploading pictures to your local listings

Completing all optional fields

Making multiple entries for multiple locations

Writing a compelling business description with keywords

Paying for clicks when you rank organically

Leaving stray pages in Google's index

Failing to produce fresh new content

Summary

10. Testing Your Site and Monitoring Your Progress

Google Analytics

Setting up Google Analytics for your website

Using Google Analytics

Understanding key analytics reports

Setting up automated analytics reports

Google Webmasters/Search Console

Understanding your website's search queries

Checking your website's code with a HTML Validator

Checking your inbound link count with Bing Webmaster

Monitoring ranking positions and movement with Rank Tracker

Monitoring backlinks with Majestic SEO

Summary

A. WordPress SEO Plugins

All in One SEO Pack