How to Make Your Website SEO-Friendly: Tips for Increasing Organic Search Ranking — Joseph J Ramirez

We all know how important it is to make our website SEO-friendly and the only way to do it is by increasing organic search ranking. The days of stuffing keywords and paying for ads are long gone, but that doesn’t mean we stop looking out for ways to improve the search engine ranking of our site. One way is by making sure you have a mobile-friendly design, and another one is by optimizing your WordPress blog posts for organic search engines.

Use keywords in your blog post title.

It’s essential to include a targeted keyword in your blog post title if you are thinking about increasing organic search ranking. By doing this, Google may rank you higher for that term because it is more likely to be relevant and helpful content. Ensure not to stuff keywords or use them unnecessarily, though — the key is using targeted keywords appropriately.

Here is a tip, according to Wordstream, “50% of search queries are four words or longer.”

Search queries or keywords that are four words or longer are called long-tail keywords. Long-tail keywords tend to be more effective because it shrinks the competition to be on Google’s first page.

For example:

instead of wanting to make my title for this article “Tips on how to use SEO.”

SEO already has a saturated market full of websites trying to compete for ranking high for SEO.

This is why narrowing it down with long-tail keywords becomes effective.

“How to Make Your Website SEO-Friendly: Tips for Increasing Organic Search Ranking”

“Make your website SEO-Friendly” and “Increasing Organic Search Ranking” are forms of long-tail keywords that can boost my SEO and decrease competition.

The easiest way to find forms of long-tail keywords is with the Google search bar.

Although keywords are important, It is much more important to think of the reader first and then think keywords.

Add meta descriptions to each blog post.

Meta descriptions tell Google what your blog post is all about. The descriptions are essential for helping Google stay relevant with what readers are googling. It’s necessary for search engine optimization because this description can show when someone does an internet search, and it also appears as the snippet on SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).

The meta descriptions should include targeted keywords but don’t overstuff them, or you will risk being penalized by Google.

The general rule for writing meta descriptions is:

• Don’t focus too much on character count and focus more on describing to the searcher what your article is about.
• Draw interest to the person seeing your description. Starting with a question is always a great way to create interest because a question helps lead the reader into wanting to read more.
• Use your keywords. I used the two long-tail keywords that I want to rank for in the meta description as shown above. Always use the two long-tail keywords in your description that you also use in your title.
• This rule is essential, DO NOT DUPLICATE your meta description. Duplicating descriptions is one of the common reasons why Google penalizes websites. Every meta description should be unique and never the same.

Include a keyword-rich header tag

Header tags are for headings and sub-headings.

header tags consist of

H1, H2, H3, H4, H5, H6

The most common tags used are H1, H2, and H3. Due to many websites getting in trouble for not being ADA compliant, It’s important to use tags consistently.

For example, H1 should always be the page title. H2 should be used for page title sub-headings or page headers. H3 are for sub-headings for page headers.

When it comes to SEO, one of the most important things is your metadata. That’s why you need to include keywords and keyword phrases in as many header tags as possible — tags.

Create an XML sitemap for search engines to index your website more efficiently.

An XML sitemap is a file that lists all of the metadata of your page on your website that helps with increasing organic search ranking. This will help search engine crawlers index your site more efficiently, which in turn improves your organic rankings for those keywords and phrases you want to rank higher!

With WordPress, access to your XML site is easy to do. All you need to do add wp-sitemap.xml at the end of your domain.

ex: mywebsite.com/wp-sitemap.xml

In 2020, WordPress added this feature for version 5.5.

Make sure you have the correct tags and categories set up on WordPress

If you are new to blogging, there is a lot of information on setting up tags and categories to make your site more search-engine friendly. Google has an excellent resource for this as well!

Don’t forget that good content with proper formatting will rank higher in the SERPs than spammy articles or poorly formatted ones without.

Categories are parent topics for your posts. You can use them to organize the content on your site, like a table of contents in an e-book or magazine.

Categories help you group all their posts, so it’s easy to find what you’re reading are looking for. Use categories at different levels — main level ones will contain other more specific terms that may apply only under certain circumstances, such as “business,” which has blog entries about work experiences. Sub-categories are for topics related to another topic.

Category: WordPress

Sub-Catagory:

• Design
• SEO
• Plugins

Tags are to describe specific details of your posts. Think of these as the index words for your site’s content, letting you micro-categorize it at will. Tags can not be hierarchical in any way; they’ll appear with related tags next to them, like on social media sites such as Tumblr and Facebook if users have search options enabled or follow tags that match what is being searched.

Write posts with content relevant to your site’s topic, not just filler text or spammy links.

according to Google, spammy articles is defined as:

“A rich result may be considered spam if it harms the user experience by highlighting falsified or misleading information. For example, a rich result promoting a travel package as an Event or displaying fabricated Reviews would be considered spam.”

Google has been cracking down on websites with spammed articles, and if you want to avoid being penalized by the search engine giant, make sure your posts are full of quality content. Of course, I doubt this is you.

But once again, it is essential to highlight the relevance of your content.

For example, an article about a new phone case won’t do well if it has a misleading title. One of the best ways to show relevancy is by including keywords in your title or introduction paragraph and then linking them with related posts for relevant readers.

Conclusion

These WordPress SEO tips should give you a headstart in increasing organic rankings for your website!

If you want to maximize your website’s visibility in search engines, make sure it is mobile-friendly and that you are optimizing WordPress blog posts for organic search. This will not only help with the SEO of your site but also increase traffic. Contact us today to learn more about how we can start improving your website’s exposure on Google!

Originally published at https://jjramirez.io on May 7, 2021.