Easy SEO Optimization for WordPress {Blogging}

SEO Optimization – short for “search engine optimization” was developed to increase the likelihood your blog or website will shows up when searched for, especially on Google.  Although I am no expert on SEO optimization, I want to pass on a method for easy SEO optimization that I’ve implemented in this blog.  I can definitely tell that it’s working – the amount of hits Running Blonde gets due to people searching for me has increased exponentially in the past three months.  The method I am describing is specific to self-hosting on WordPress.org

Easy SEO Optimization

1. Install the WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin on your blog.

2. Follow the checklist suggested by the plugin – that’s pretty much it!

Here’s a little more detail:

I’ve optimized this post for the keyword search “easy SEO optimization”.  To increase the likelihood that Running Blonde will show up if someone searches “easy SEO optimization”, I’ve done the following:

1. Put “easy SEO optimization” in the post title

2. Put “easy SEO optimization” in the blog URL

3. Looking at the Yoast plugin, you can also see that I used “easy SEO optimization” for the SEO title and in the meta description.  This basically determines what your link will look like in a search engine.  If you don’t edit your meta description, Google will randomly pick words from your post to display.  This way, you can make something catchy/relevant for Google to display:

4. In the above picture, I added “easy SEO optimization to the “Title” and “Alt Text fields”.  This can be shown by the fact that “easy SEO optimization” appears when you hover the mouse over the picture.

5.  I used an H2 heading with the phrase “easy SEO optimization” in the post.  You can find this setting in the paragraph drop down menu at the top left of the post.

6.  I used “easy SEO optimization” throughout the post, especially in the first paragraph of the post.  In this post, the phrase “easy SEO optimization” appears xx times.  Obviously, this is much, much more than in a typical post.  I usually try to use the keyword at least two times in a post.

7.  Although I didn’t do this in this post, I try to pick a unique search phrase that won’t necessarily pick up big, widely-read blog posts.  For example, you are more likely to get hits on the phrase “Olin Park Wedding Reception, Madison, WI” versus “Wedding Madison, WI”.  There are so many well written articles by big blogs about SEO optimization that despite my efforts, this post will be unlikely to show up if you do search for “Easy SEO optimization”.

8.  All of these things are summarized in the “page analysis” checklist on the WordPress Yoast SEO plugin.  Your post then receives a green, yellow or red rating to determine how well your SEO optimization for that keyword is:

 

Feel free to leave a comment with any questions.  Any suggestions on things I could do better?  Let me know in the comments.