Over the last decade, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has evolved dramatically. And, as WordPress’s market share increases, more people are looking for strategies to optimize their WordPress SEO.

We’ll reveal more than 20 SEO tactics in this in-depth guide on WordPress SEO, which has helped us build our organic traffic on a consistent basis here at Projects Engine. We are confident that these will help you increase traffic to your WordPress site and outperform your competitors.

On-Page SEO

1. Install an SEO plugin

WordPress is already quite SEO-friendly out of the box. However, we usually advise users to use an SEO plugin as well. This gives you total control over what Google sees when it visits your website.

The free Yoast SEO plugin is the obvious winner in terms of popularity.

2. The title tags should be optimized

Include your major target keyword in the title tag of your blog article or page. In the past, SEO experts advised putting your keyword first in the title wherever feasible, as this would give it more weight in search engines.

Pixels limit title length, therefore Google will only show the first 600 pixels. Many SEO plugins rely on character counts, which are only a rough approximation.

3. Write meta descriptions

When it comes to rankings, meta descriptions have little impact on your WordPress SEO. They do, however, have an impact on your CTR. A compelling meta description can persuade visitors to click on your content rather than the one above or below it in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).

The better your CTR, the more traffic you’ll obtain. If users don’t return to Google, it’s a strong indication that your information was a success, and Google is more likely to give your website a better ranking. In this way, meta descriptions might have an indirect impact on your SEO.

4. Using proper heading tags is encouraged

To establish the relevance of your site’s content, the Google crawler (Googlebot) examines HTML header elements (H1, H2, H3, etc.). The ideal practice is to use a single H1 tag per post or page, followed by many H2 and H3 tags beneath it.

Consider it a hierarchy of importance. Your target keyword should be included in the H1 tag, which is the most important header. Your keyword or long-tail versions of it might be used in other headers.

5. Word count is important

In 2022, the old saying “Content is King” still holds true. High-quality content is favored by both Google and your visitors. It’s also preferable to offer long-form content rather than shorter bits.

6. Create key pages to increase your credibility

Although this isn’t a direct ranking element, we believe it is nonetheless important. Every high-quality website should have a few crucial pages. If you don’t have them, you risk seeming less-than-trustworthy to your visitors.

• About Us page
• Privacy Policy page
• Terms and Conditions page
• Disclosure page

Off-Page SEO

7. Build quality backlinks

When it comes to WordPress SEO, backlinks are still crucial. They are used by Google to determine the authority of a webpage and to display another relevant or important site with supporting information.

When a high-authority domain links to you, it accomplishes far more than you may expect.

8. Create a list of sites that link to your competitors

It might be tough to get other websites to link to your content. However, it’s likely that sites comparable to yours have already spent time doing so, so looking behind the scenes to discover which sites are referring to them might help you find possibilities to establish connections in the same way.

9. Qualify your outbound links

It’s occasionally important to draw attention to the connection between your website and the websites to which you link. If you include affiliate links in your content to make money from the connected site, for example, the links should not pass SEO value because they appear artificial. Sponsored advertisements that connect to other websites fall into the same category.

10. Use Affiliate Links

Affiliate links are used by a large number of WordPress blogs. When you wish to monitor a commission, a referral of a product, or a registration between websites, affiliate links are typically employed.

Unfortunately, affiliate links that lack the required ‘rel’ attribute are frequently frowned upon by Google. Some websites have even been punished as a result of their excessive use of affiliate links. To utilize affiliate links securely, make sure they include the “sponsored” tag.

11. Internal linking strategy is important

Internal links connect one page or post on your website to another on the same website. They’re important for both SEO and site navigation.

You’ll usually use them to allude to other content you’ve created or to connect to your landing pages.

Each article or page should include at least three to five internal links, according to our recommendations. You can add even more depending on the length of your article.

12. Broken links must be fixed

Broken links irritate everyone, including Google. They degrade the user experience and disrupt link juice flow, potentially affecting how high your sites rank in search results.

• Broken outbound links
• Broken internal links
• Broken inbound links

13. It is perfectly normal to link to external resources

You should link to pages on other websites, just like you should link to internal pages, to provide your viewers with more context surrounding the issues you cover. You may, for example, include a link to a thorough guide on a topic that you don’t cover on your website. By including links to external information, you’re providing your readers the ability to go further into various topics, making your content a valuable resource and deserving of a high rating in the search results.

Within each piece of content, we recommend including at least two external links. Making the link open in a new tab or window is a good little tip to keep users on your site.

14. Incorporate anchor links

If you read a lot of long blog articles, you’ve undoubtedly come across anchor links. You may use these links to move to various parts of the article.

15. A professional site footer is encouraged

Because footer links are displayed on every page of your website, make sure they include links to your most important pages. This will assist your users in better navigating your site while also showing search engines which pages are most important to you.

16. Negative SEO

Negative SEO is a hot issue, and many people aren’t sure how to handle it.

Backlinks from other sites assist develop your domain and page authority, which is often the goal of SEO. However, manipulating links is against Google’s standards, so if your site is recognized as being part of link schemes, you may face a link penalty.

This is when bad SEO enters the picture. Anyone can connect to your website, so if someone can make it look like you’re manipulating the search results by adding a lot of links, your website might be penalized. This might result in your website losing visitors or being removed from search results.

Technical SEO

17. Set up good permalinks

By default, WordPress generates clumsy permalinks (URL structures) that are difficult to read (learn how to alter your website’s URL). The date and post or page name are presently included in the URL by default, as shown here:

• https://projectsengine.com/2020/03/31/sample-post/

Google favors URLs that include the title and/or keywords of your content, although shorter URLs are typically preferable. The Post name permalink setting is recommended since it is both tidy and beneficial to your site’s SEO:

• https://projectsengine.com/sample-post/

18. SSL Certificate

You’ll need to install an SSL certificate on your site to use it. HTTPS has become the internet norm, despite the fact that it is merely a minor ranking factor. If a website does not employ SSL certificates, warnings will appear in Chrome, Firefox, and other browsers, indicating that the connection is not secure.

19. XML Sitemap is a must

As a result, we always advise using an XML sitemap file. It will provide search engines with a clear image of your site’s structure, which will improve your chances of getting Google sitelinks, among other things.

20. Submit your sitemap to Google Search Console

It’s a good idea to upload your XML sitemap to Google Search Console once you have one so you can get more information on the status of your WordPress site. We’re going to presume you already have a Google Search Console account.

21. Submit your sitemap to Bing Webmaster Tools

We propose that you submit your WordPress site to Bing Webmaster Tools, just like you did with Google Search Console.

You may join up with your Google account, and you can now validate your Bing Webmaster Tools account if you’ve already been confirmed in Google Search Console with the same Google account.

22. Submit your sitemap to Yandex Webmaster Tools

Submitting your WordPress site to Yandex, like Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools, is a good idea. This is a Russian search engine, however, it might assist if you have international traffic.

23. For faster indexing, request crawling

The Request Indexing feature in Google Search Console may be used to persuade Google to index specific pages

This valuable tool may be used to see how your pages rank after you make changes to them. It’s important to keep in mind that there’s typically a wait, so don’t expect to have your modified pages indexed right away.

Users are frequently advised not to rely on Google’s Request Indexing tool. If your pages aren’t being indexed, there might be other page issues at play. Googlebot is quite excellent at spontaneously discovering new pages through crawling sites and XML sitemaps, so if your pages aren’t being indexed, there could be other page issues at play.

Click the URL Inspection option in the sidebar of Google Search Console, input the URL of the page you wish to request for indexing, and then confirm by clicking “Enter”.

To uncover indexing mistakes and guarantee that your sites can be presented correctly in search results, use the URL Inspection tool to examine your most frequented pages on a regular basis.

24. You should check for Crawl Errors

Crawl errors arise when crawlers are unable to access a website. This can occur for a variety of reasons, including broken links, which are caused by links being set up improperly or content is being deleted without redirects, and server problems, which occur when your server is unable to reply to the crawl request.

Going to your Google Search Console account is a wonderful approach to check for crawl issues. The coverage report, which outlines any issues Google identified while scanning your site, may be found here.

25. Check if Google can crawl your pages

The key to indexing is crawling, and indexing is the key to ranking. If Google is unable to crawl your pages, they will not be indexed, and so will not appear in search results.

Fortunately, Google Search Console’s URL Inspection Tool can assist, since it allows you to check whether a page was properly crawled and indexed.

This includes information like as when Google originally identified the URL, when it was last scanned, and whether the URL was recognized as canonical by the user or by Google.

UX Design

• Improve your loading performance
• Ensure that your website is mobile responsive
• Use short URLs

Reduce Your Bounce Rate

When it comes to websites, ‘bouncing’ refers to when visitors arrive at a page and then instantly leave.

Content Optimization

• Keyword Research – In 2022, keywords are still relevant. That is why ranking is important. Remember, Google is still a computer algorithm. To compute ranks, it needs to look at something, and keywords are still a large element of that.
• Focus Keyword – You may quickly define the target term you wish to write about with the Yoast SEO plugin.
• Keyword Cannibalization – When two or more of a site’s pages compete for the same keyword, this is known as keyword cannibalization. While both pages may rank in some cases, it’s typically easier to concentrate all of your efforts on a single page rather than spreading page authority over numerous pages.

Image Optimization

• Always name your image files
• Always use hyphens between words when naming image files
• Add alt text

Tracking

Setting up a free Google Analytics account is the greatest method to see how well your WordPress SEO is performing.

Summary

SEO is a never-ending “game” with several variables to consider. As a result, knowing SEO tactics may help you position your company for success.