Blogging Elements

Beginner’s WordPress SEO Kick-Start

Posted on 11. Jun, 2009 by Ashwin in SEO & SEM

We have been talking plenty about how to install your wordpress blog on your domain through your hosting account, how to select a theme and upload it to your server and also a little about content and link-baiting. It is time to tweak your blog for some organic search juice. WordPress SEO is a tad different from tweaking normal websites for Search Engine Optimization. However, most of the fundamentals still remain. Here is a quick-start for your wordpress SEO:

1. Those permalinks need changing: After you log into your wordpress admin, head over to the tab to the left that says “settings”, click on permalinks and you find options for your permalinks like

Default: http://www.yourblogname.com/?p=123

Day and Name: http://www.yourblogname.com/2009/06/11/sample-post

Month and Name: http://www.yourblogname.com/2009/06/sample-post

Numeric: http://www.yourblogname.com/archives/123

Custom Structure

All you have to do is to go to “custom Structure” and type in /%postname%/. Click on save and you are done.

2. Submit to MSN: It is incredibly easy to list your site on MSN. Just go to http://www.msn.com and type your blog name on the search bar on the top. If it is a new blog, you are most likely not going t find it listed when hit the search button. Instead go this page and submit your link to MSN. Press submit.

3. Research before posting: You may want to write about anything related to niche on your blog but choose your titles carefully. It has to be catchy enough to invoke enough interest from your readers, but it should also be able to gather some search traffic for you. The best tool for this would be the Google Adword keyword Suggestion Tool. Type your relevant keyword in the search and Google will suggest tons of keywords with respective number of searches for each, per month average. Use that to get the right keywords into your titles.

4. Add Tags and Categories: Search engines like Technorati operates mostly on tag based search and tags, along with categories also add a lot of weight to get some search engine traffic for you. For each post, pick up the highly targeted keywords and fill up the add tags option without fail. Think of it as a fishing net: the more tags you add the wider you cast the net.

Tags: basic SEO, SEO for wordpress, Wordpress Search Optimization, wordpress SEO