How Can SEO Enhance Your WordPress Website Growth? 

Are you looking to improve the SEO for your WordPress website? Many WordPress users try improving their pages’ performance or choose a good WordPress theme to enhance SEO (Search Engine 0ptimization).  64% of all websites use the well-known content management tool WordPress, accounting for roughly 40.6 percent of all web pages. Some of the most prominent organizations in the world use websites built on WordPress, e.g., The Rolling Stones, The Walt Disney Company, The New York Times, BBC America, Sony Music, TechCrunch, and many more. With the help of a WordPress SEO expert you can do similar and improve your presence on the primary Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). This easy-to-digest guide provides helpful hints and tips on how SEO can enhance WordPress website growth.

What is SEO? 

SEO stands for search engine optimization. It’s when someone helps a website or piece of content get a better ranking on Google. 

SEO is very different from paid advertising because it involves “natural” rankings, meaning you don’t have to pay to show up in that space. Search engine optimization (SEO) is a process of improving online content so that search engines like Google will show it near the top of the page when someone searches for it. 

Take a look at the following. It’s likely that when someone searches for “chai latte” on Google, they want to find a recipe, the ingredients, and how to make it. If you wrote a blog post about chai latte, you’d wish to see your recipe. To ensure it is found, you must be ranked higher than all the other websites with chai latte recipes. SEO marketing isn’t easy, but it’s essential to do it right. 

Let’s go even further: Search engines like Google are where most people start when they search for things online. There is no doubt about it: 75% of those searches begin with Google. 

Successful SEO is not about tricking Google. It’s about PARTNERING with Google to provide the best search results for Google’s users. – Phil Frost 

Why is SEO important? 

Do you have any ways of getting people to your site? 

If you want people to find you through a Google search, you should be concerned about SEO. If you can’t be found, you won’t be able to attract new business. 

It’s worth mentioning that a search engine is the starting point for 93 percent of all Internet encounters. When a search is performed, what happens next? If you click on the first result on Google, it has a 33% chance of being clicked. 

Many people begin their searches on the first page of results. If you aren’t there, you’ve just lost a third of them. Most people don’t even bother to look past the first page of results. 

Because other websites are working hard to improve their SEO, they are more likely to show up on Google than yours. 

Google only loves you when everyone else loves you first. – Wendy Piersall 

Now, let’s look into some SEO techniques that can help you improve your SEO. 

Choose your Web Hosting Carefully 

The first and most important thing you can do to improve your WordPress SEO is to choose the best web hosting service for your site. 

To establish any website, one must have web hosting (business, portfolio, blogging, eCommerce). An area on the server where your website’s code and all of its files are kept is called a “server.” 

Hosting your website affects how well your site works, which affects how well it does in search engines. As a result, you should proceed with extreme caution when selecting a web hosting business. There are various essential variables to consider when picking web hosting for your website. 

Factors you should consider when you are choosing web hosting for your website include:

• Speed 
• Security 
• Customer service 24*7 
• User-friendly interface 
• Feature add ons  
• Tech support 
• Tech specs 

Always use SSL Domain 

When you use SSL, a security protocol, your browser and the server to which you are connecting are protected by an encryption code. This adds another level of security to your WordPress site. 

Padlock icons appear in web browser’s address bars that use SSL encryption. The trustworthiness of your website will go up because of this. This is especially important if you are using WordPress to operate an online business that deals with sensitive payment information, such as credit card information. Let’s Encrypt is a service that offers a free SSL certificate for your WordPress website as a benefit of signing up. For more information, check out our tutorial on how to get a free SSL certificate for your website. 

Domain.com is a good place to start for a premium wildcard SSL certificate or a standard SSL certificate with a security guarantee. 

For example, they offer SSL certificates with at least $10,000 in safety guarantees and at least $1,75 million in safety guarantees. You also get a TrustLogo site seal that you can put on your website.

Submit an XML Sitemap for Crawlers 

In addition to adding the domain, another essential thing to do is send the site’s XML sitemaps to Google’s search engine. There are XML sitemaps, which list the URLs of all the pages on a website so that search engines can find them. 

XML sitemaps don’t affect how well a website is ranked, but they can help Google get to a website more quickly. As a bonus, they tell the search engine which pages are the most important and should not be included in the search results. 

WordPress 5.5 and later versions have an XML sitemap generator built in. Users can access it by adding /wp-sitemap.xml to the end of their domain name. Unfortunately, changing this file is not easy. 

After you’ve made a sitemap, open Google Search Console and click on the Sitemaps option in the left-hand menu. Enter the URL for the file and then click Submit to send it to us. A message will say that Google will check it out regularly and let you know if there are problems. 

Be Mobile Friendly 

Have you ever glanced at a website on your phone and discovered that half of it is cut off, the buttons too small to click, or the navigation bar is missing? Isn’t it inconvenient? That is why it is critical to have a mobile-friendly website. The majority of Google users access the service via a smartphone or tablet. As a result, Google now indexes and ranks pages based on their responsiveness to mobile devices. This implies that you must ensure your website is mobile-friendly and straightforward to read and utilize. 

Your site may appear fantastic on a PC but not on a smartphone. Also, make sure the material is readable on small displays and that navigation buttons are easily accessible. 

This grid-based layout can be modified to accommodate any screen size, from computer to tablet to phone. Google’s mobile-friendly tool can check this for free. 

WordPress has many mobile-friendly plugins. These SEO plugins help you optimise your site for mobile devices and improve the operation of mobile sliders. 

Enhance the Performance of Your Website 

Site speed is essential to having a good web experience. Indeed, the longer it takes for a website to load, the greater the number of people who leave the page. It would be best to make sure your website is easy to navigate and loads quickly. 

The good news is that most modern WordPress hosting platforms are fast enough to host the most simple sites.

However, if you notice that you’re moving too slowly, you can do the following to speed things up: 

• You can use a plugin to make graphics and other content that only takes a lot of time to load when a person scrolls down the page. At the start of a user’s session, your web page will not have to load everything simultaneously, saving you time. 
• Use a content distribution network (CDN). CDNs, or content delivery networks like Cloudflare, let you load your content from other servers at different times. This reduces the stress on your server, which should make your site load faster. 
• Compress your images. 
• If your site still takes a long time to load, you may need to increase your web hosting even after these steps. 

Create Permalinks that are SEO-Friendly 

Another good way to improve your SEO on WordPress is to make your permalinks SEO-friendly. 

Permalinks (Permanent Links) are the URLs of your WordPress website’s posts and pages. They are just the URLs. When visitors and search engines visit your site, URLs serve as a guide to help them understand and index its content. That alone shows why paying attention to your permalink structure is essential. 

By default, your WordPress site has a messy URL structure. However, WordPress has a lot of different ways to make your URL, so there’s no need to be worried. 

To build an SEO-friendly URL, log into your WordPress dashboard and navigate to Settings >> Permalinks. Then, under Common settings, select the Post name option. Finally, click on the Save Changes button to apply your changes. 

Use SEO-Friendly Themes 

An SEO-friendly theme is more than pretty to look at. It also helps users have a good experience and helps search engines find the site’s content. 

To find a WordPress theme that is good for SEO, look for the following things: 

• Responsive: Google emphasizes mobile-friendly websites in its search engine results pages (SERPs), so this should be a top priority. The term” responsive” means that the theme can change its size to fit on a computer, tablet, or phone screen. 
• Light and quick: The theme should have only the most essential parts and no boilerplate code to make it load quickly. 
• WordPress-compliant: It follows the most recent WordPress coding standards to avoid mistakes, keep the code easy to read, and keep websites accessible to everyone. 
• Updated all the time: At some point, the theme’s developers should monitor it and fix any problems with performance or security. 

SEO-Friendly Plugins 

Today, making a WordPress website is as easy as making cup noodles. You can do it quickly and easily. Plugins are add-ons to a website that help it get more traffic from Google, so it’s best to use SEO-friendly plugins.

There are a lot of different kinds of SEO plugins for WordPress, but there are a few that are better than the rest:

• Yoast SEO 
• Rank Math  
• All in one SEO 

Add Alt Text to Images 

The alt text is significant because it shows up on Google Images and tells Google what the photos are about. 

• Visitors who are visually impaired and use screen readers will find it easier to use this site. 
• If a picture on the page is broken, it is replaced with a better one. 
• When you upload an image in WordPress, fill in the “alt text” field. This text will be the alt text for the image. 

 Keep it short and descriptive at the same time. 

Verify with Google Search Console 

Google Search Console is an important tool for improving the performance of your website, even if you use WordPress. It’s an analytics tool that lets you see how many people come and go from your site, as well as how well your site is doing. 

Google Search Console shows how Google sees activity on your website, which allows authors to maximize their promotional efforts, reach more people, and improve their SEO. 

Once Google Search Console has verified your site, you may also enable Google Information to acquire even more detailed data about its performance. 

Use Schema Markup for your website 

Making schema markup easy is one of the best things about WordPress, and when it’s used with an SEO plugin, it’s even better. 

Structured data, or schema markup, can help with your SEO efforts by giving your content and data a sense of where they come from. XML sitemaps tell search engines that you’ve added new content, but markups help them understand and show it in new and interesting ways, which improves the searcher’s experience. 

Keyword Research 

Keywords are still helpful even if they are no longer used to stuff content. People still use it. Google’s ranking system still uses keywords. Start at the top to understand why SEO is vital. So, you may need to hire SEO experts. 

Additional powerful keyword research tools are available. Tools like SEMRush, Ubersuggest, keywordtool.io, Google Trends, and even Google’s keyword planner are great for SEO research. They do the work for you and offer an overview of what people want and what’s happening. Keyword research reveals what individuals seek when searching for goods or services. 

Long-tail keywords are preferred nowadays due to voice search. Today, we leverage long-tail keywords to boost conversion rates. People who are looking for something specific employ this method. 

The shift toward long-tail keywords will be even more essential to SEO success in 2018. Why? Because of voice search.— Jeff Keleher 

Core Web Vitals

These are a subsection of Web Vitals relevant for all web sites, should be measured by all site owners, and displayed in all Google tools, such as Chrome and Search, as part of the overall Web Vitals score. It’s important to stress that each Core Web Vital represents a distinct aspect of the user experience, can be quantified in the field, and proves the practical significance of a user-centered outcome in real-life situations. 

The most crucial web metrics will change over time. The 2020 benchmark evaluates three aspects of the user experience: loading time, interaction, and visual stability, among other things. It takes into account the following metrics: 

LCP (Largest Contentful Painting): The loading performance is measured and reported. To provide a favorable user experience, the LCP event should occur within 2.5 seconds of the page’s setup. 

FID (First Input Delay): The interaction is measured. Pages with an FID of less than 100 milliseconds should be considered to provide a positive user experience. 

CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift): It is necessary to determine visual stability. Pages with a CLS value of 0.1 or less are more likely to provide a satisfactory user experience. 

Conclusion

WordPress is a fantastic platform in terms of search engine optimization. But simply using WordPress for your website will not be sufficient. 

There is a lot of competition out there, and to stay on top of the game, you must employ the best SEO tactics discussed in the past.

If you prioritize these WordPress SEO tactics in conjunction with high-quality content, your website should appear in search engine results without issue.