How to optimize a wordpress blog
-
I’m helping a client optimize a word press blog, and I’m not that familiar with Wordpress. The site is www.athleticfoodie.com.
At first I was treating it like a normal website, where the categories would be optimized like pages on a website. However, I now realize that categories don’t have any content on them, so I can’t really optimize anything other than the names.
Are the following things the best way to handle on-page optimization for a blog?
- Optimizing the homepage & domain: Find ways to incorporate the most important keywords into the elements on the main frame of the site: Navigation menu, Widgets, Category names, Alt Images.
- Optimizing the categories: For the posts within the categories (i.e., photos), work to make sure the category keywords are worked into the post titles (but not too much to seem spammy)
- Optimizing specific posts. Work keywords into the text and images.
Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
-
Kevin and Eric,
Performance issues aside, I prefer the simplest URL structure:
Unless you really need advanced categorization, siloing, etc., bringing your content up one level and having shorter URLs is always better, IMO.
-
Great info, Kevin. I appreciate the quick feedback.
Eric
-
Hi Eric,
I would recommend the Yoast WordPress plugin available at http://yoast.com/wordpress/. This plugin covers pretty much all the SEO issues you'll encounter in WordPress, plus there is a handy tool that will analyze important text fields in your posts to see if your articles are optimized for the keywords you're looking to rank for. This plugin won't put heading tags in the template, but I think it's worth a look.
Another consideration for WordPress is your permalink URL structure. As of WordPress 3.1.2, there is a definite performance issue when starting the permalink structure with either the category, tag, author, or postname fields. You can read more under "Structure Tags" at http://codex.wordpress.org/Using_Permalinks. I'm not sure how this affects SEO, so it'd be great to get some feedback on ranking results using different WordPress URL structures.
-
Thank you!
-
When adding or editing categories in WordPress, there is a field called "description" (not meta description) with the label "The description is not prominent by default; however, some themes may show it." Your developer can modify your theme so the description text is displayed on the category page.
-
Great info. I will look into these more deeply. Thank you!
-
Hi Adam,
Could you elaborate on what you mean by "modifying your theme to display your category description as visible text on the page"? I don't understand what this means.
Also, thanks for the heads up on the Title Tag Plug In
Eric
-
The few things I would point out, which aren't so much WordPress issues, but are how this WordPress installation is configured, are:
- No description tag, that is in the 'Settings -> General' page
- Well over 100 links on the home page, mostly because of the 'Blog Archive', are people actually clicking on those items?
- No good H1 tag, the one that was created by the theme "Athletic Foodie" has been commented out and the current (second) one is, "How about a 2,000-year-old Salad? Kale!!", a poor descriptor of the page.
- Dangling links, some of the images are linked to themselves, that is set on the post or page they are created on.
- The page names 'slugs' don't usually match their titles, ex, Fiber: health benefits for athletes...., would be: 'fiber-health-benefits-athletes', etc.
- From a user standpoint, way too much text, the full posts could be reduced by using excerpts and linking to a separate page, increasing load time, and most likely page views. Would you scroll all the way to the bottom? What if it was half or a quarter this size?
- The 2 main items "Recipes" & "Videos" go offsite? And they are follow links! What the!
Cheers.
-
I don't utilize categories much so I may not be the best one to answer this. The All in One SEO plugin allows you to change how your category titles are displayed, i.e. %category_title%.
You can change category title by changing the name of the category. But I'm thinking you want to have the category displayed as "Green Widgets" on your sidebar, but have the title something like, "Buy Green Widgets here. Free Shipping!".
I'd be interested in hearing more about this if others have ideas.
-
Eric,
If you are optimizing category pages, I recommend modifying your theme to display your category description as visible text on the page. This will allow you to have some optimized text on each category page. I believe there is a title tags plugin that will allow you to change the title tags of your category pages individually, also.
-
Hi Dunamis,
Does the plug in allow you to make the Title Tag different than the category name?
Eric
-
I have some sites that are static and others that are WP blogs and there isn't much difference between how I optimize them. I use the all in one SEO plugin for my WP sites which allows me to set the title and meta keywords. I don't pay much attention to tags. In the video below, Matt Cutts explains that tags don't really help much in regards to SEO.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Is this blog running on the Genesis Framework?
Hi all, WordPress isn't my area of specialty in terms of themes and identifying what a blog might currently be using. Here's the link: http://www.pens.com/blog I've had one developer tell me this blog is on the Genesis framework and another one told me it is not. Can someone weigh in here and also give me some tips on how to know one way or the other? If it is not on the Genesis Framework, can you provide any helpful links/tutorials on how to get this blog onto the Genesis Framework? We want to be able to use Yoast SEO and apparently our current theme will not allow us to do so. Thanks in advance! Dana
On-Page Optimization | | danatanseo0 -
Blog Bounce Rate & Placement in Site Navigation
Hello, I'm attempting to perform an SEO review of the blog on www.aplossoftware.com. Aplos Software sells financial software and the blog is intended to bring in new visitors to the site with the goal of eventually converting some of them to customers. Here's my questions: 1. On aplossoftware.com site navigation, the blog (http://www.aplossoftware.com/blog/) is currently linked to in the footer in the lower-right under 'Resources'. Do you suggest we keep the site navigation link to the blog in its current location or move it some place else in the footer or in the header? 2. The bounce rate for the blog is over 81%. What is a reasonable goal for a bounce rate for a blog on a business website? What are some tactics to improve the bounce rate? 3. Do you suggest including a call to action to sign up for a free trial on the blog home page and/or individual posts? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | stageagent0 -
Duplicate page title - blogs
Hope someone can help me, I am a total SEO noivce so please be gentle. My first report shows that I have duplicate page titles. I have been through and changed all of these so they are different and after my latest crawl they are still showing as duplicates. I am wondering if this is because it;s a blog, here is one of the duplicates: http://www.cottagesoapcompany.co.uk/blog/?row=1 Hope you can help!
On-Page Optimization | | emmamoulden0 -
Can I add a paragraph of blog content to a product page?
I have a great blog post about one of my products, which means there's some copy in the blog that I would like in the product page. It would constitute perhaps 5% of the copy on the product page if I copied it.
On-Page Optimization | | Brocberry0 -
How do I best SEO optimize a landing page that is mostly graphics?
I have a social networking website built on a SocialEngine platform. All of the pages (except the home page) are password protected for members only. My web designer wants the home page to be primarily graphics - not text. It looks nice, but with no substantial copy on the page, can I still get the page to rank well with just meta title, description and keywords (even when those keywords aren't actually on the page?) What's the best way to handle this? Kim
On-Page Optimization | | KimCalvert0 -
Do you handle website on-page/site optimization?
Our website is gaining traction and we are looking for an individual who is an expert at examining websites to see if the structure and on-page optimization is being optimized, and what. Please contact me if you are interested. Thank you.
On-Page Optimization | | balboafinance0 -
Blog Comment IPs Seen By Google?
I have a page on a client's site for testimonials (a dental practice). The page is actually a post on a Wordpress install where customers can enter their testimonials as WP comments. In an effort to encourage more clients to give more testimonials I was considering setting up an iPad or other tablet at the receptionist's desk where patients would be able to enter their successes as comments on the page. If I made sure the patients all used unique names and emails in the Wordpress comments, would Google still see all the comments are from the same IP and view this as suspicious?
On-Page Optimization | | jargomang0 -
SEO Plugins for WordPress
Hi, Mozzers- I'm re-evaluating my SEO WordPress Plugins. What are your favorites and why? Are there others that you avoid and why? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | lhc672