In my recent post, I discussed 5 Reasons Why You Should Choose WordPress when looking for a blogging platform… So you have created your new blog, but do you know how to leverage WordPress in order to attract unlimited traffic and make boatloads of money with your blog?
Well, today is your lucky day as I’m going to share with you how you can optimise your blog for the search engines and start getting more traffic and followers. WordPress makes this process easier if you install the right plugins.
Here are the plugins that I personally use to optimise my blog and increase my rankings:
1) Install the All in One SEO Pack plugin by Michael Torbert and use it to add the title, description and keywords for your blog, posts and pages.
After installing this plugin, you will need to configure the settings in your back office. Here’s a great video to help you with that:
2) Optimise Your Blog URL
a) Permalink settings: change the permalink (links to your blog posts) settings from the url that includes the number to the one that includes the blog post title like this: http://www.attractionmarketingonline.com/optimise-blog-7-deadly-blog-seo-mistakes-avoid/. The url without the number but with the relevant keywords ranks better in the search engines.
Caution: Don’t rush off to change your permalink setting as you can break your existing links (bookmarks, backlinks and rankings)!
To prevent this, go to your WordPress backoffice and install a plugin called, Redirection 2.1.27 by John Godley (third on the image below and activate if it doesn’t by default).
Settings > Permalinks > Custom Structure
Now if you change your permalink settings after installing and activating this plugin, it will automatically redirect all your old permalinks to the new ones.
You can use /%postname%/ or /%category%/%postname%/ – it’s your choice. I personally use just /%postname%/.
b) Slugs: remove the extra words from your blog post title and use only the significant keywords. For example: http://www.attractionmarketingonline.com/10-ways-promote-blog/ instead of http://www.attractionmarketingonline.com/top-10-ways-to-promote-your-blog/.
You can change this when writing your posts, under the title where it says Edit Permalink or do it the better way by installing a plugin called, SEO Slugs 1.0 by Andrei Mikrukov.
After installing this plugin, it will automatically remove words like ‘the’, ‘is’, ‘to’ and so on from your permalinks.
3) Hide Archive Pages that contain full content from search engines. WordPress is set up initially to have duplicate content, which will KILL your blog’s SEO rankings. Be sure to prevent the search engines from indexing your admin pages, category pages, author pages and tag pages to avoid duplicate content. You can do this by installing the Robots Meta plugin by Joost de Valk.
After installing this plugin, you will need to activate it: Settings > Robots Meta > Prevent Indexing.
4) Optimise Your Blog Structure
a) Create HTML Sitemap - a page that has a link to all your pages and posts. When indexing, search engines can see all your other links. To do this, install a plugin called, Dagon Design Sitemap Generator 3.15 by Dagon Design (second on the image below):
After installing this plugin, configure the easy settings. Then add the following line to your blog page where you would like the sitemap to display (I have added the last page to my blog for this):
<!-- ddsitemapgen -->
Note: If you are using the new rich-text editor – be sure to click the ‘html’ button to edit the page source directly. Otherwise WordPress will wrap code tags around the line which generates the sitemap and it will not work properly.
b) Create XML Sitemap – it basically does the same thing as the HTML Sitemap but it’s structured in a way that a computer can read it. It lists all the pages on your blog in a way that the search engines can consume very easily. The plugin for this is called, Google XML Sitemaps by Arne Brachhold.
5) Optimise Your Blog Speed
Speed is very important – if your blog is too slow to load, then you’re going to lose a lot of visitors. And your ranking is affected by how quickly your site loads. The best way to have your blog pages load incredibly fast is to install the plugin called, W3 Total Cache 0.8.5.2 by Frederick Townes and configure it to cache the pages of your blog.
Now that you know what to do, get to work and install the must-have WordPress plugins!
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you fill out this form to receive my post updates via e-mail, leave a comment and share this with your friends.
Happy Optimising!
Professional Internet Marketer
Certified Marketing Consultant
Mavis Nong is the creator and author of this blog.
She is passionate about helping others create success online.
{ 53 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks for sharing this list, Mavis. I'm using these plugins as well, with the exception of your last one. I have been using WP SuperCache, but I may try out the one you recommended. Another important thing to consider with plugins is one that provides a back-up for your blog. I'm about to currently test a couple, so I'll let you know if find a favorite.
Thanks,
Rich
Great list Mavis…I love plugins!
Rich,
My favorite backup plugin is “WordPress Database Backup”. It has great scheduling flexibility and I have tested it in battle (i.e. my site crashed and I had to restore it)…it worked flawlessly.
Cheers,
Karen
Thanks for the great info Mavis- must admit I'm still stuck in the prehistoric realm of BLOGGER! On my to do list to join you Wordpress savvy folks….lol
Cheers Kiaran
True – I recently wrote a post about the backup plugin that I personally use: WordPress Database Backup”. It's fantastic and I highly recommend it.Thanks for visiting, Rich. All the best, Mavis
Yes, same here – I highly recommend WordPress Database Backup plugin. Thanks for stopping by, Karen. All the best, Mavis
Lol! Come and join us, Kiaran! Thanks for visiting. All the best, Mavis
Great list of plugins Mavis, I just added the W3 Cache plugin, thanks
Mavis, Great plug-ins Mavis. I have been using most but will add the W3 Cache.
Thanks for sharing.
All the best,
Michael
Hi Mavis,
Awesome material as usual.
There are a couple we are not already using.
Thanks for sharing this info.
Hey Mavis,
Good stuff here, I am definitly going to have to look into a few of these I do not have and see hwo they will work with my WordPress blog. Thank you
You definitely hit all the highlights, Mavis – I've got nothing to add! Great job; I look forward to your next post.
Best,
Ana Hoffman
You're welcome,Peter. Thanks for visiting. All the best, Mavis
You're welcome, Michael. Thanks for visiting. All the best, Mavis
I'm glad you found this helpful. Thanks for visiting, Mike and Midge. All the best, Mavis
I'm glad you found this useful. Let me know how you get on
Thanks for stopping by, Robert. All the best, Mavis
Wow, that's great to hear! Thank you for stopping by, Ana. You're an inspiration! All the best, Mavis
Hi Mavis,
With all of the Plug Ins available sometimes it's hard to find the good ones. Two more to install.
I just ran over to configure my Robots Meta Plug in. i got the Plug In last week but hadn't figured out how to configure it, ok, I hadn't tried yet.
Thanks for the great plug In tips,
Mike
True, there are many plugins available today. Thanks for stopping by, Michael. All the best, Mavis
2 great post in 1 day… you have alot of value here mavis. Keep rockin’!!
Eric Burnett invites you to check..Fast And Easy Internet Marketing Tips To Remember
Thank you for your kind words, Eric!
All the best,
Mavis
Well you did it again, Thanks for sharing this list with us Mavis this was a big help.
Thanks,
Michael
Andrea-Michael invites you to check..Attraction Marketing And Things to Remember when Creating
Hi Michael,
I’m glad you found this helpful.
Thanks for the visit and comment.
All the best,
Mavis
Good Stuff Mavis,
I have been on a WordPress Blog Optimization fix lately. I am going to look into w3 total cache plugin. I am currently using super cache and am wondering which one of the cache plugins for wordpress is the best to use so I have been trying them all! l
Larry Rivera invites you to check..To Widgets Or Not To Use Widgets That Is The Question
Hi Larry,
I recommend w3 – it works well for me.
Thanks for stopping by and for commenting.
All the best,
Mavis
Good choice of plugins Mavis. Most of which I either have or have taken other steps to cover the issues you raise. I did get myself a little lost with W3 Toral Cache but then I hit the Reset To Defaults button and everything was fine. I still do after installing any new feature/plugin that uses scripts or CSS. Security is something not mentioned a lot but I found a report with 30 way to protect WordPress against hacker attacks. Only 1 or 2 plugins involved as well.
Dennis O’Brien invites you to check..Response cached until Mon 6 @ 2:03 GMT (Refreshes in 29 Minutes)
Great to see you here, Dennis.
Thanks for the visit and for adding value to the discussion.
All the best,
Mavis
Bloggers can actually optimize their blogs to consume less server usages and less bandwidth. There are different ways to do the web optimization for Wordpress, for example you can install plugins to monitor, tweak and speed up the loading speed of your Wordpress blog.
Besides installing the plugin, you can tweak your theme and remove the unnecessary features so that your Wordpress system consumes less resource and load faster.
seph from engine optimization invites you to check..Site Map
I found your blog by googling W3 Total Cache ddsitemapgen, because W3 seems to cause ddsitemapgen to show a totally blank page. I can’t find a solution. Was hoping to find some mention of it here.
bowtrolreviewguy invites you to check..Discover Truth About The Acai Colon Cleanse Diet
Hi and welcome to my blog! Glad you found you here
I’m not having that problem even though I’m using both plugins.
Did you add this line to your blog page where you would like the sitemap to display?:
Please keep me posted.
Mavis
Hi! Thanks for the warm welcome.
Err.. what line would that be, Mavis?
Bob invites you to check..Discover Truth About The Acai Colon Cleanse Diet
My pleasure! For some reasons it doesn’t show up here. Please go back to the post and check under 4) Optimise Your Blog Structure
a) Create HTML Sitemap
http://www.attractionmarketingonline.com/wordpress-blog-optimisation-plugins-blog/
Well, I guess something is breaking your text; still not showing. But I guess you’re referring to the d-d-s-i-t-e-m-a-p-g-e-n code.
Yep, I put that. Turns out it was the theme I was using, I guess. I was giving the Hybrid Theme a try, but apparently it’s like a bull in a wordpress china shop – it breaks things.
toodle-oo
Bob invites you to check..Discover Truth About The Acai Colon Cleanse Diet
Ok, this is getting confusing. I guess you and I were typing at the same time and you edited your last reply as I was leaving mine. Feel free to edit my comments as you see fit to make them make sense.
And thanks for the tip, I will check out that other post! Maybe it wasn’t the theme after all.
Bob invites you to check..Discover Truth About The Acai Colon Cleanse Diet
Hi, nice post, but this social sidebar is very annoying and it was almost impossible for me to enjoy the article the way I wanted. Please, do something in order to enable your visitors to disable it, for example.
Hi Ella! Welcome to my blog!
Sorry to hear you had trouble reading my post. Were you using a smartphone or a very tiny monitor?
I look forward to hearing from you, Ella.
All the best,
Mavis
Hey Mavis!
Just wrote a similar article where I shared my favorite plugins (most were the same or do the same thing as the ones in your list). One thing I would add though is WP-DBManager to back up your site.
And I definitely agree that we should keep only the pugins that we need. Too many will slow down your blog.
Cosmin Stefan invites you to check..The only “must-have” WordPress plugins that you’ll ever need
Hi Cosmin! Welcome to my blog!
Great minds think alike eh? I agree, backing up your blog is critical.
Thanks for the visit and input. Hope to see more of you here, Cosmin
All the best,
Mavis
I really owe you. I hadn’t configured “All in one SEO Pack” plugin so well. thanks for the tutorial.It really helped. I also use W3 Total Cache after attending a extensive tutorial. Whoever uses it, should really do a carefull configuration, otherwise it won’t work properly.
stevenpapas invites you to check..World Of Warcraft Burning Crusade Collector’s Edition Review
I’m glad you found this helpful, Steven
All the best,
Mavis
Mavis, this is a topnotch SEO tips I’ve ever come across. Most of the ones I see only enumerate ways but you went a step further by telling us exactly how to execute it. You’re simply the best, Mavis! Isn’t that a good rhyme?
Anne Sales invites you to check..epc Belfast
Wow, thank you very much for the compliment, Anne!
I love the ryhme
All the best,
Mavis
Just what I needed to hear, Mavis.
As a man who thrives on leverage, I am always looking for cool plugins that will both make my life easier and my business more successful at the same time.
You provide such a valuable service through your blog in helping others.
Congratulations on all your success. You are a true leader!
Dr. Bob Clarke invites you to check..Success With Attraction Marketing- Our Story of Failure…and Success
I’m glad to hear that, Dr Clarke
Thanks very much for your kind words and encouragement.
All the best,
Mavis
Mavis – that is a very useful list – could you possibly enlarge on the duplicate content issue and why that plugin is necessary? I can see that there is a lot ‘duplicate content’ in a wordpress site, why does Google dislike it so much? I thought Google loved Wordpress sites?
jane from faux floral arrangements invites you to check..Ideas for Easter Arrangements
Thanks, Jane. Welcome to my blog!
Of course, Google loves WordPress sites and is relying on these sites for new content. However, from the SEO point of view WordPress has a big drawback of duplicate content issue, unfortunately it has not evolved enough so far to deal with this.
When you write a post using WordPress you will get the post on your home page, then you can find the exact replica of the post in the particular category page, tag page and archive page as well. This brings in a serious site duplicate content issue which sometimes search engines do not like at all. So, the Robots Meta plugin will disallow indexing of subpages to your homepage, category pages, author pages and tag pages, to prevent duplicate content.
Hope this helps. I appreciate your visit and comment.
All the best,
Mavis
Hey Mavis,
I have downloaded all the plugins and just want to make sure I am doing it right. For the Robots Meta plugin you have to go to settings > Robots Meta> Prevent Indexing. Do I check every box that is in that category?
Just want to make sure I do it right
Thank you
Forrest Miller invites you to check..How The Power of 90 can Change Your Life
Wow, Same question asked by Jeff, lol
Tick the following options:
All admin pages, Author archives, Date-based archives, Disable the author archives, Disable the date-based archives.
You’re welcome
Mavis
Hi Mavis,
Get information. I unistalled wp-cache and installed W3 total cache, it sounds better.
I have a question about Settings > Robots Meta > Prevent Indexing. On that page there are a number of
options, do I check all of them under the heading of prevent indexing or certain ones?
Thank you for you contribution,
Jeff Faldalen
Wow, Same question asked by Forrest, lol
Tick the following options:
All admin pages, Author archives, Date-based archives, Disable the author archives, Disable the date-based archives.
You’re welcome
Mavis
I also use All in One SEO Pack, and it seems to be the most recommended plugin of this type. For redirection I use Simple 301 Redirects. I’ll have a look at the others on the list, and from the information in this post I’ll probably be adding them to my toolbox. I’m particularly interested in W3 Total Cache, because I know that having a lot of plugins installed can slow your site down. Anyway, thanks a lot for sharing this information.
You’re welcome. Glad you found this helpful.
Hey Mavis thanks for listing the must-installed Wp Plugins for WP benefits, however I have a questions from other forums or blogs I have read that they are comparing between All In One SEO Plugin and Platinum SEO Plugin, and from your personal experience — if you have tried the Platinum SEO Pack — which is one is the best? And tell me the reasons because I am about to install one of which and need more information.
And one more thing, is it true that All In One SEO Pack is poorly coded, because about 1 years a go my account was suspended by Dreamhost because using this plugin and they say the plugin caused high database resource usage for its poorly written code.
Thanks
Nagib invites you to check..Parse Your Code First Before Posting Tutorials
Hi Nagib! Welcome to my blog!
I haven’t used the Platinum SEO Pack and haven’t experienced any problems with the All in One SEO Pack plugin.
All the best,
Mavis
{ 5 trackbacks }