This Is the Best SEO Checklist for Perfect Optimization, 11 Tips

The more I write about SEO, the more people write me that tell me they ignore SEO.

Reasons vary.

Some just take their chances and hope they'll get search traffic.

Others don't consider search traffic a priority.

Others are confused by SEO so they choose to ignore the importance of optimizing their posts for search engines.

Today's guest author Tom Hardy gives you an 11-point checklist for perfectly optimizing your WordPress blog posts for Google and other search engines.

Considering Tom is a renowned WordPress developer, he would know what the best SEO strategies are for content published on WordPress.

Bring on the SEO checklist!

The Best SEO Tips: WordPress Website SEO Checklist For Perfect Optimization

by Tom Hardy

There is no point to organize a grand event if no guest appears to attend it.

In the same way, producing quality content is worthy only if you share it with a potential audience.

Now, the role of optimization comes into play. Search engine optimization is a two-way activity. It includes SEO for both on-page and off-page SEO.

Off-page is based on links. You can build backlinks for yourself or persuade others to do it for you. This includes links from comments, articles, social media, forums, etc.

On-page is all about doing activities on your website. This revolves around tweaking the structure of your site, plugin installation and furnishing essential stuff. Above all, simple and clear navigation is good for both search engines and humans.

Are you ready to launch a WordPress website? Then, only launching is not enough. Follow the below WordPress website SEO checklist to optimize it well. Here is the list:

Initiate With Google Webmaster and Analytics

Your first step should include adding Google Analytics and Google Webmasters to your site. This will allow you to analyze and monitor the traffic of your website once it is published. It is essential to monitor and evaluate data regularly. If you do not do so, you cannot bring the desired traffic for your business. These two have both specifications of being free and easy to operate. This practice enables you to fetch additional information.

2. Canonicalization [Host Blogger's Comments: This involves the search engine deciding which URL to pick if you have the same content on different web page articles.]

In the Canonicalization process, a canonical tag is used to tell search engines that a particular URL is representing the prime copy of a page. The usage of canonical tags sorts out the problem of duplicate or identical content appearing on different URLs. In simpler term, canonicalization is a medium to tell search engines that the version of a specific URL you want to show in the search results.

3. Picking Page Titles

WordPress websites, posts, and pages require fantastic search engine optimization. Unique headlines play a good role to achieve this target. Make sure you make titles comprising 65 to 70 characters. Undoubtedly, page titles boost a page's ranking on Google. A suitable title also compels users to search the specific page and make them click. This practice certainly contributes to better ranking.

4. Meta Description and Keywords

The best word to define meta descriptions is the "description" that makes search engine understand the page. To write a good description, you must write the characters below 156. These work as a guideline for the users prior they visit the page. You can get help from the WordPress SEO plugins to generate better results. The plugins list includes Yoast SEO, WP Meta SEO and All in One SEO Pack.

5. Finalizing Page Keywords and Content

Do you want to target particular pages? Then, implement the best research to search the most effective keywords. But, keep this in mind that only keyword research will not serve the purpose. You need to amalgamate effective keywords with relevant content. This will bring better ranking on major search engines for the targeted keywords.

Good keywords make it possible to avail good crawling over the search engine to present outcome in the feed. You can use Google AdWords Keyword Planner Tool to choose powerful keywords.

6. Header Tags Including H1, H2, H3, H4

Header tags are essential ingredients to add to a web page. They work as powerful codes for major search engines. These are considered one of the powerful tools to satisfy visitors' exact queries.

If H1 tag comes close to the topmost page, it promises better results. H2 tags have an essential place to fill sections over the page. H3 tags play the best role while serving as subheaders to link the group to the source which is the most appropriate.

7. Apply Page URLs and Permalink Structure Settings

In simple words, permalinks are defined as the content URLs that are posted on the WordPress websites. These are defined as the links that users enter into the browsers while searching particular keywords. Once search engines get the matching link, they show the close results over the screen. Therefore, it is mandatory to optimize permalinks along with the most searched and appropriate keywords.

8. Permalinks Image Optimizing

Do not list yourself among the people who ignore image tags and alt text. It is crucial to optimize the images on a website as search engines prefer the text incorporated with images. A file with a proper naming illustrates the image nicely. It leads users towards finding accurate results when they search specific keywords.

Speed Up Page Loading

This is something which is not new for any business person. It has been and will be crucial for website's ranking. To attain fast page load without hassle, you can pick any online tool such as Disable Page Revision or Google Pagespeed Insights that evaluates your website's elements to provide suggestions regarding improving the loading speed of pages.

10. Internal Linking

In case, you decide to move your WordPress site to a new hosting environment or domain name, you will notice that internal links in pages and references over images have not been updated. Rather, these references and links will take the users to the older domain name. To fix this issue, it is thoughtful to use appropriate plugins. These plugins help you alter older URLs and link them to your website.

11. WordPress Plugins For Security and Backup

Different WordPress plugins are there to boost SEO results, fix security issues, data backup concerns and database storage. You can use available plugins to fix any issue. Some most used plugins are BackUPWordPress, Yoast SEO plugin, BulletProof Security, etc. These plugins make it easy for SEO professionals to render websites with perfection.

Sum Up

Once you have read each item on the checklist, you will try to implement it while doing SEO. We have discussed the importance of plugins in different scenarios. But, you should avoid overdoing the use of plugins as it may degrade the quality further. And, the best rule to follow is quality content. Thus, have a good time and launch a website with the best SEO practices you can.

Author Bio:

Tom Hardy is a renowned WordPress developer at Sparx IT Solutions: PSD to WordPress Conversion Company and keeps on searching the innovative ways to improve the speed of websites. He also likes to share the researched knowledge with the audience through engaging blogs.

Readers, please share so other WordPress bloggers and content creators discover Tom's helpful tips for optimizing your WordPress websites for SEO.

What is your opinion of Tom's SEO tips? Are there any you can add to his list of best SEO practices? I look forward to your ideas in the comments section.

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