How to Optimize WordPress to Drive Traffic to your Blog
OK, so now you have a great new WordPress site with a snazzy design and a couple of article posts to get you started. Writing all those articles is going to be a lot of work, and will go to waste if no-one reads them. You need to remember to work on one of the most important aspects of your blog: internet marketing, and driving traffic to your blog.
But how to do it? Here’s a rundown on the top 10 ways to optimize for more traffic.
1. Page Titles
When naming your pages and posts, use descriptive titles that are relevant to the article you’re posting. Also, do not use time-specific titles to avoid seeming outdated in searches. For example, “June 2006 – The newest craze in cell phone technology”. No-one’s going to click onto that link if it’s years down the road!
2. Content Keywords
In addition to having important descriptive keywords in your title, make sure you repeat these in your content too. You may even want to bold or italicize these repeated keywords to ensure they’re picked up by the search engines.
3. Permalinks
When it comes to permalinks, less is more. Instead of selecting the typical date and post name option http://www.myblog.com/2009/10/03/my-posting-title/, use a simpler permalink structure like http://www.myblog.com/my-posting-title/. This will allow the search engines to see the relevant keywords in the link title, without making the link look ugly and confusing to the end user.
4.Header Tags
Header tags like <h1>, <h2>, and <h3> are very useful SEO tools. They add emphasis and importance to keywords placed inside. You may consider making sub-headings within your post using these tags. Also, <strong> and <i> tags are great to highlight important keywords within the content itself.
5. Related Posts
Once someone visits your blog, you want them to hang around as long as possible. Related posts are a great way to get them to stick around and read more of your articles. Perhaps if they find enough useful information, they’ll subscribe and maybe even tell their friends about your blog. A great plugin to display related posts is Efficient Related Posts.
6. Sitemaps
Make sure Google and other search engines index all of your blog pages. If Google can’t see all of your pages, then it can’t index them for searches! A good sitemap tool is the Google Sitemaps Generator.
7. Keep it Fresh
Search engines visit sites that have updated content more often than those with stale, static content. Try posting daily, or use WordPress’s timed post feature so you can blog when you have time, but post on a future date. Even if you don’t have time to post daily, try at least posting one article per week.
8. Be Unique
Do not copy and paste info from other blogs or websites. Summarize facts and articles that you find; write posts in your own words. Duplicate content does not help anyone with Search engine ranking, or copyright issues for that matter. Write about things that interest you personally, so your muse can give you the spark needed to write a full blog article with ease.
9. Backlinks
Spend time commenting on other blogs and use trackbacks and other means of spreading links to your blog throughout the web. Hopefully it will catch on and others will start posting links to your blog as well. Not only will this help drive traffic from referrals – search engines find backlinks favorable because they help make your site appear more relevant and useful.
10. Social Networking
Sites like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Digg, and others are great ways to get the word out. Links posted on social networking sites have the potential to go viral and increase traffic exponentially as people share the links with their friends. A great tool to encourage social networking is the Sociable plugin.
With these tips, you’re well on your way to optimizing your WordPress blog for search engines and traffic. Stick to it and eventually you’ll build a good traffic base, and be commenting with fellow blog readers and subscribers.
By: Professional Custom Web Design in Southern California | Jackie Taferner | JT Website Design – JT Website Design specializes in professional custom website design, flash animation, ecommerce website services, and more. Located in Southern California (SoCal).
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