Table of Contents
Optimizing a WordPress website for SEO is important to improve its visibility in search engines, attract quality organic traffic and increase brand credibility and authority.
1. First step to configure your website for seo
Check the visibility settings in WordPress.
To check the visibility settings in WordPress, follow these steps:
- Log in to your WordPress administration panel.
- Go to “Settings” in the side menu and select “Readability”.
- On the read settings page, look for the section titled “Search Engine Visibility”.
- Make sure the “Allow search engines to index this site” option is checked if you want your site to be visible to search engines like Google.
- If you want to temporarily hide your site from search engines, check the “Discouraged” option to discourage search engines from indexing your site.
- Click the “Save Changes” button to apply any changes made.
2. Decide whether to use “www” in your URL or not
Having both the “www” and non-“www” versions of your website can cause SEO problems due to duplicate content. Search engines like Google may consider the versions with and without “www” as two different websites.
To set this up in WordPress, follow these steps:
- Log in to the Administration Panel
- Go to General Settings
- Configure the WordPress URL: In the “WordPress Address (URL)” section, choose whether you want to use “www” or not in your website URL. For example, you can select “http://tusitio.com” or “http://www.tusitio.com“.
- Save Changes: scroll to the bottom of the page and click the “Save Changes” button.
- Configure Redirects: To avoid duplicate content problems, it is important to configure redirects so that the version without “www” redirects to the version with “www” or vice versa.
3. Install a Seo plugin
The Rank Math plugin is a very powerful SEO tool for WordPress websites, it makes Seo tasks much easier and centralized.
The first thing you should do is go to the general settings of the tool and activate all the options for Seo or according to your preferences.
Use the Seo options.
With Rank Math you can work many things for Seo like:
Image optimization for seo:
Descriptive file name: Before uploading an image to your website, make sure the file name is descriptive and relevant to the image content. Use relevant keywords in the file name to help search engines understand what the image is about.
Alternative text (alt text): Add alternative text to all your images using the alt tag. Alt text provides a description of the image and is important for web accessibility as well as SEO.
Optimized file size: Optimize the file size of your images to improve page load time. Use image compression tools to reduce the file size.
Relevant context: Make sure images are contextualized within the content of the page. Images should be relevant to the topic of the page.
XML Sitemap:
Automatically generates an XML sitemap that helps search engines index and understand your website structure more effectively.
Relevant Keywords:
Enter your main keyword in the “Focus Keyword” field while creating or editing a post or page in WordPress.
It is important that the keyword is in key places such as the title, meta description and headings.
In addition, you can use synonyms and related terms to enrich your content by adding 4 more words.
Social Media Integration:
Allows you to optimize the display of your posts and pages on social networks by configuring platform-specific metadata.
Integration with Google Search Console:
Connect your website with Google Search Console to get detailed information about search performance and potential errors.
Redirects and Internal Links:
Facilitates the creation of 301 redirects and internal link management to improve site structure and navigation.
Access Control:
Allows you to control which users have access to the plugin’s SEO features, which is useful in multi-user environments.
4. Schema in wordpress
First make sure the “Enable Schema Markup” option is enabled in the plugin’s general settings.
When creating or editing a post or page in WordPress, you will find options to configure the specific Schema type for that post or page. Select the most appropriate Schema type and fill in the relevant fields with the corresponding information.
Once you have set up Schema for your content, review and validate the markup using tools such as Google’s Structured Data Test.
5. Manage the security of your site
Although the wordpress service takes care of it, and also the company you purchase your Hosting from, it never hurts to improve the protection of your site.
- Keep WordPress Updated:
Keep your WordPress installation, themes and plugins always up to date.
Updates often include important security patches that help protect your site against known vulnerabilities.
- Use Trusted Themes and Plugins:
Download themes and plugins only from trusted sources, such as the official WordPress repository or reputable developer websites. Avoid pirated themes and plugins or plugins of unknown origin, as they may contain malware.
- Install a Security Plugin:
Consider installing a WordPress security plugin, such as Wordfence, Sucuri or iThemes Security.
- Use Strong Passwords:
Use strong, unique passwords for all WordPress accounts, including admin and user accounts.
- Set up Regular Backups:
Make regular backups of your website and store the backups in a secure location off the server. This will allow you to restore your site quickly in case of an attack or security issue.
- Protect Admin Panel Access:
Limit access to the WordPress admin panel to authorized users only. You can do this by using security plugins or by setting up access rules through the .htaccess file.
- Monitor Site Activity:
Use activity monitoring tools to be aware of any suspicious activity on your website, such as failed login attempts or unauthorized changes to important files.
- Protect Sensitive Files:
Protect sensitive site files, such as the wp-config.php file, using additional security measures, such as appropriate file permission settings.
