When it comes to Search Engine Optimisation it is important to do everything you can to help your article get to where it needs to be – in front of as many eyes as possible. To help with this WPDesigns has written the 8 Key Things for Your WordPress SEO, this will help cover some of the most important things to check.
As you know search engines want to give the people using them the most relevant and highest quality content for their search terms, this is why the Google algorithm is so incredibly complex. Keeping your article on point and on a single subject can help with that, the subject could be broad but remains talking about a single thing that people are likely to be looking for.
1. Have you got an SEO Plugin?
This is probably one of the easiest and most important points to add. An SEO Plugin makes everything so much easier and can guide you through exactly what you need with a traffic light system – Red is missing, Amber is ok, and Green is complete/ Good.
For this, we would highly recommend RankMath as it is has taken over the top spot in our eyes, and in that of many others, from Yoast. Yoast certainly used to be the best but it has slipped in recent years and RankMath has filled the gap in the market that it left with certain lacking features such as page builder integration.
2. Is the main topic of your article clear?
Search engines are concerned about the quality and relevance of the content that you are producing, if it is not relevant to the search term that the visitor was searching for they will know as the user will not stay long and they’ll be back searching for another. This is why the main topic of your article must be clear, on-point and consistent to what the user is looking for.
Make sure the your article is easily to scan with images and bold headers as users no longer read all the text and just scan until they find something that relates to them.
3. Are there any lengthy paragraphs?
To write effectively for the web you need to keep your paragraphs fairly short, well defined and on topic. Your posts should try to begin with a key sentence that describes the content the reader will find in the coming paragraph. If your posts are too long your SEO plugin will let you know that some of the content is too long and the paragraph length should be reduced.
4. Have you added some internal links?
Internal links are important to keep visitors on-site as well as helping search engines find their way between pages as the bot crawls through your content. Internal links can also help define the hierarchy of your website as the more links to a certain page the higher its importance.
5. Could you add some related phrases into the text?
Using related phrases to the one of your original title and contents is important. If your article is written about twin brothers then perhaps you can make a mention of twin sisters too? Something similar and not too far off from the original subject. Don’t get distracted and lose track of your original content goal though.
6. Do you use transition words?
As you write your text it is important to try and include some transition words in your sentences because they give your reader direction and SEO also likes them. Try to make sure that every paragraph that you write has some words like “because”, “thus”, “besides” or “most importantly”.
Transition words help to join everything together, keep the flow and make everything read nicely.
7. Did you choose the right categories and search?
Choosing the right category for your post not only helps your reader to find the post but it also helps Google understand more about it. Categories and tags are important to help clarify the structure of your site and keep things organised visually and for SEO.
8. Do you have any H1 headers on the page?
It is very important that your article only has one H1 header on the page, a heading classified as H1 gains significant importance in the eyes of Google and other search engines. The H1 header tells Google what the page or article is about, therefore if you have more than one H1 header Google will not know what the article is actually about and may find itself confused and as such your SEO will fall as a result.
It is also worth noting that you do need to have a H1 header as without it your page will likely be ignored and not indexed at all!
Conclusion
SEO is not an easy game to play and there are no ways to short cut the work that you need to put in overall. There are however things you can do to give yourself the best chance of seeing results and this article has covered a few of them. If you wish to read more about how to add and use RankMath with Elementor then you can read our article RankMath SEO with Elementor.
You can use these 8 points along with any others that you pick up along the way and be sure to follow the advice suggested by your SEO Plugin for your article as it can help a lot too!
