Search Engine Optimization And WordPress - How You Can Start Receiving Free Search Based Traffic

I could tell you that you really need to SEO your WordPress blog so that you can get more traffic, but that is just me telling you something. Lets get active. Today, I am going to give you the basics that you need to know about how to optimize your blog so that you can get more traffic from the search engines.

So, why would anyone want to SEO their blog? There are a few answers for this, however, the most prominent is that you want more traffic. Believe it or not, the search engines still rule the world of traffic, especially ever green targeted traffic. If you rank for a kewyord that people are searching for, then you are going to share in the volume of people searching for that phrase. Nice and easy.

That said, there is a lot more to SEO than just ranking for phrases. Proper keyword research and competition analysis is key, and will give you an indication of whether or not it is worth trying to rank for a phrase or not. Please, give this some consideration first.

How To Optimize Your WordPress Blog

Before I go too much further, most of what I am going to teach you today relies on plugins. This can be a lengthy process in itself, it is for this reason alone that I recommend learning how to copy wordpress installations before moving on, as this will save you ample time in the long run.

There are many freely available plugins available for the WordPress platform, needless to say, that is exactly what this process relies on. Most of tehse plugins are available for free from WordPress, and can be installed from the backend interface of your blog quite easily. Again, further emphasis on why you need to know how to copy wordpress, as this can become a lengthy process.

First, I recommend installing the Yoast SEO plugin. A fairly simple to use plugin, it allows you to set custom meta tags throughout your website, including keyword optimization and more. I highly recommend placing your main keywords in the title and in the description, so that Google can see your website as being relevant when ranking it in their index. You can also utilize this in ordert to convince people in the search engines why they should visit your website over the others. This is a much more sneaky tactic, but you can be sure that others are using the same process.



Second, you will want to create a sitemap and submit it to Google Webmaster Tools. Luckily, this is quite easy to do with the Google XML Sitemaps plugin. Just so long as your hosting account supports the remote creation of files, this plugin will automatically create and update a sitemap for you. By submitting this to Google Webmaster Tools, you will in effect be keeping Google in the loop with any changes or additions to your blog.

Lastly, and equally as important, is the ability to track your traffic, where they are coming from, and how they find your website. By installing Google Analyticator, you can add your Google Analytics code without the need to edit any code at all. In fact, it is all done through Google's back end authentication system. Simply create the profile, then authorize it within your blog.

Now, I know that the last point was not specificaly about SEO, but it is equally as important. The ability to measure where your traffic is coming from, and how much traffic you are getting is of huge importance if you want to improve your traffic.

Always Continue Forward

SEO is arguably one of the most important skills that you can ever have, especially if you are an Internet marketer. It is a high in demand skill to have, and can save you costs, especially if you dont want to invest in running expensive AdWords campaings, or worse.

You need to consider SEO as part of your business strategy. Simple. I promise that it gets easier over time the more you practice. Onve you get a few easy wins under your belt, everything will fall into place.