A Checklist for All Your WordPress SEO Needs

That’s why we are here to make the whole experience feasible for you.

Having a beautiful website without SEO makes no sense. Keep in mind that your competitors are already implementing their SEO plans; you don’t want to lag behind.

Here is a checklist of all the crucial things you need to do to optimize your site.

Ready? Let’s get straight to it.

1. SEO-friendly theme

This is one of the vital things that many people tend to overlook. Some just look at the general theme layout without reviewing the code of the theme.

Take the time to understand the theme and consider factors such as the structure, layout, responsiveness, loading speed, breadcrumbs, and quality code.

Also, the theme must be mobile-friendly if you want to boost the mobile rankings for your site.

If it helps, you can work with a web design Manchester company to identify the right theme for your website.

2. Implement tracking code

You need to track your visitors and understand how they are interacting with your site. Here, Google Analytics is a free tool that you can easily implement without any coding. Add it to your site’s header or use a plugin.

Remember to set up Google Search Console to understand your site’s visibility, get information on your search queries, and monitor your daily clicks.

These tools provide useful data you can use to improve your site further thus boosting rankings.

3. URL canonicalization

In SEO, there is a difference between www.xyz.com and xyz.com. Even though both of these URLs point to the same site, they can impact your SEO performance.

Typically, URL canonicalization allows you to pick the best URL for your site. So, you can choose the www option or the non-www URL.

Selecting the right URL will help you avoid duplicate ULRs. You can also use the 301 redirect to send traffic from one URL to your preferred URL.

4. On-page SEO From A Web Design Manchester Agency

The next task on a checklist is to optimize the individual pages on your new website to improve your search rankings for your target keyword(s). This practice is known as on-page SEO, and it involves optimizing both your content and code with a web design Manchester team.

There are several things involved here:

• Title tag: This is an element that acts as the name of your web page and can be displayed on SERPs. Add your target keyword to your title to make it easier for search engines to find your page. You can also add modifiers here.
• Meta description: This is a <160 character HTML snippet that summarizes the content of your page. Ideally, it provides users with an overview of what your page is all about. Include your keyword in the description too.
• HTML header tags: These tags include H1, H2, H3, H4, H5 and H6. They are used to distinguish the headings and sub-headings on your pages. Tags help to show relevancy and improve the overall user experience.
• SEO-friendly URLs: It’s advisable to make your site’s URLs friendly and optimized. Avoid those ugly URLs that look like this: xyz.com/12-01-17/seo/wordpress-seo-checklist/. Instead, use something like xyz.com/wordpress-seo-checklist
• Content optimization: For each piece of content you create, ensure you have a target keyword, which needs to be included within the content. Depending on the length of the content, you can add the keyword about 3 to 15 times. One header must have a keyword.
• Image optimization: Your images needs to be optimized too.Use the <alt> tag to add a simple description to the image and ensure to include your keyword or other LSI terms.
• Internal linking – On every post, ensure to add 2 to 3 links of related content on your site. This helps to reduce bounce rate and redirect your visitors to other useful pages on your website. Adding a few outbound links is also great.
• Social share functionality – Don’t forget to enable this feature on your new WordPress site. It makes it easier for website visitors to share content that they liked on their social media accounts. This means a wider reach for your posts.
• Powerful content: Today, SEO revolves around content. So, strive to create compelling and engaging content that provides useful information to your readers. Some great post types include how-tos, tutorials, interviews, guides, and funny stories.

There are SEO plugins, such as Yoast plugin, that make on-page SEO a simple task. A good web design Manchester company will help you in making your site ready.

5. Site speed

Nowadays, Google uses site speed as a ranking signal. Review your sites using Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool or GTMetrix.com to identify the issues that are hurting your speed.

Some of the easy measures you can take include getting a good site host, compressing images, using a CDN, and compressing your code.

Ideally, your site should not take more that 4 seconds to load.

6. Off-page SEO

When creating a checklist, don’t forget this item. To improve your site’s ranking and MOZ score, strive to create compelling and authoritative links that link back to your site.

You can get these links through guest blogging and media activity. Other essential off-page strategies include social media marketing and social bookmarking.

This helps to improve your rankings and site exposure.

7. Mobile friendly design

Nearly 60 percent of Google searches come from mobile devices, and this figure is expected to grow as the adoption of mobile phones rises.

Additionally, mobile-friendliness is also a ranking factor that Google uses to show mobile SERPs.

It is sensible to work with a reliable web design Manchester company that will ensure your new website is mobile-ready.

So, ensure your theme is mobile-friendly. Alternatively, you can implement Google AMP to make your website mobile friendly and improve load times.

A checklist for WordPress SEO – Final thoughts From Our Web Design Manchester Team

There you go now.

You’ve now a simple checklist that you can start using now to optimize your site. Keep in mind that SEO is an on-going process that needs to be maintained to yield the expected results.

The best approach for ensuring your SEO works is creating a marketing strategy that highlights all the essential tasks you need to complete.

Ensure to put your efforts on creating quality content that resonates and connects with your visitors. Content is the heart of your site, and it’s the reason for investing in an SEO plan

Work to improve your dwell time and use Google Analytics data, such as bounce rate, traffic sources, and queries, to measure the performance of your SEO efforts.

If you are working with a web design Manchester firm, it’s wise to work with a company that offers full service.

Our Blue Whale Media team provides full SEO packages. Call us today on 01925 552050.