WordPress SEO Best Practices for 2020 & Beyond

The SEO  ¿Qué es SEO o search engine optimization?   Conjunto de prácticas destinadas a mejorar el posicionamiento de una web en el ranking de resultados de los motores de búsqueda. Al contrario que la estrategia SEM, que contempla la inclusión de enlaces contratados para obtener este objetivo, el procedimiento SEO se ocupa exclusivamente de los resultados naturales (no pagados) localizados por el algoritmo propio de cada buscador. Para esto contempla ajustar plus landscape of the future is a volatile place. And do you know why? The powers that be (aka Google) are doing their best to build a better, faster and secure web for all of us. Of course, they stand to benefit ten times more, but who cares? Well, you should which is why WordPressWordPress es el software de blogs líder en el mundo, y es concretamente fácil de utilizar y adaptable. Con WordPress, es factible crear con éxito sitios web con la ayuda de funciones ya predefinidas, sin mucho esfuerzo, y para proporcionar contenido como texto, imagen y vídeo. No se requiere conocimiento de HTML. WordPress además facilita la gestión y el mantenimiento de contenidos extensos. Al mismo tiempo de su fácil manejo, plus SEO best practices are so important.

At least if you own a WordPress site and still want to rank highly (or well) for your terms. You see, to offer an enhanced search experience (and make billions of dollars in profits at some future date), Google must keep updating their search algorithms, much to the chagrin of SEO experts (yes, that includes you).

In the recent past, I could easily score top positions on Google (SERPs – Search Engine Result Pages) by literally “pumping” keywords into my content. What? That’s what was up – that’s how SEO experts were doing it left, right and center. I didn’t even touch link buildingEl enlace building o creación de enlaces, es el aprovisionamiento de enlaces externos entrantes, además llamados backlinks. La construcción de enlaces es una medida de SEO offpage. Antecedentes Desde el lanzamiento de  Google, las web ya no disponen que registrarse en los motores de búsqueda debido al nuevo algoritmo de Google que revisa los sitios web basándose en sus enlaces externos entrantes. Esto dio a los SEOs la posibilidad de plus but my rankings soared high like eagles on steroids.

Then Google cracked the whip, and keyword stuffingEl Keyword Stuffing es una práctica de Black Hat SEO penalizada por Google y significa “uso excesivo de palabras clave”. En esta práctica se utilizan palabras clave de forma excesiva en los metadatos, en el contenido o en los enlaces con el objetivo de incrementar el posicionamiento del portal web para palabras clave determinadas. Este uso excesivo aumenta la densidad de las palabras clave y los motores de búsqueda la plus was shown the door. Without a doubt my rankings plummeted just like Icarus, but that’s not the point. A new era in SEO was born: the era of relevant and valuable content, alt tags, title attributes and what not.

Still, Google kept the algorithm updates coming, and denied SEOs and web masters all the juicy info that would definitely help your SEO campaign. Today, you just need to step a bit out of line, and Google won't hesitate hanging you out to dry.

But there is still hope for you seeing Google shows you exactly what you need to do to clinch the best of rankings. It’s these WordPress SEO best practices that we’ll outline in this postConcepto de Post¿Qué es un Post?Un Post es todo aquel contenido, sea post, opinión, noticia u otro género, que un autor publica en un blog. Este puede ser de carácter corporativo o meramente ocioso; pero siempre tiene como meta arrojar información o reflejar una idea, al mismo tiempo de facilitar que los usuarios encuentren la web donde se recoge por medio de de buscadores y demás plataformas online.Generalmente, se han plus, so get ready to have fun and build a formidable SEO profile that will withstand the next algorithm shakeup. Here we go…

1. Carry Out Astute Keyword ResearchConcepto de Keyword Research¿Qué es un Keyword Research?El Keyword Research, o la investigación de palabras clave, es uno de los procesos más importantes de cualquier estrategia de posicionamiento. Se trata del proceso mediante del cual un consultor SEO o un editor web detectan las palabras clave que deben usar para obtener escalar puestos o buscar un buen lugar dentro de las búsquedas de su público objetivo.Un proceso tan antiguo como plus
2. Focus on Content - the King of SEO
3. Use SEO-Ready WordPress Themes and Plugins
4. SEO-Friendly URLs
5. Mobile-Friendly Website
6. Social media¿Qué es Social Media?Término en inglés que puede traducirse como medios sociales y que designa al conjunto de plataformas, herramientas, apps y medios de comunicación donde la información es creada y visualizada por los usuarios, que pueden compartir y transferir textos, fotografías, audio, vídeo… Dos ejemplos de social media son Facebook y Wikipedia.Otras denominaciones: Medios sociales plus Signals
7. Beat Your Competition
8. Improve Page Load Speeds
9. HTTPSHTTPS (protocolo de Transferencia de Hiper-Texto) es un protocolo que permite determinar una conexión segura entre el servidor y el cliente, que no puede ser interceptada por personas no autorizadas. En resumidas cuentas, es la versión segura de el http (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol) Cómo funciona Una conexión HTTP estándar en Internet puede ser fácilmente secuestrada por partes no autorizadas. El propósito de una conexión HTTPS es evitar esto: encriptar plus as a Ranking Signal
10. Local SEO
11. Submit Your Site to Search Engines
12. Sitemaps
13. Get Some Juice (backlinks¿Qué son los backlinks o enlaces entrantes?Hipervínculos que redireccionan a un determinado portal web desde páginas ajenas.Otras denominaciones: Enlaces entrantes plus)
14. WordPress SEO Tools and Resources

What Are The Best Practices for WordPress SEO?

Before we get into WordPress SEO best practices, allow me to mention a few things you might want to know about s as the perfect beginner.

Firstly, SEO involves two strategies namely on-page and off-page optimization. On-page optimization consists of all optimization activities that you do on your site (or web pages). This includes content creation, adding keywords and optimizing title and meta tagsMeta Tags¿Qué son los Meta Tags?Las Meta tags, además metaetiquetas o items meta, son fragmentos de código escrito en lenguaje HTML que se introducen en páginas web con la intención de que sean detectadas por los correspondientes motores de búsqueda. En estas etiquetas se incluyen una serie de datos o de información clave de la web en cuestión para su correcta detección. Son, al mismo tiempo, algo básico para poder plus. Off-page optimization is every other SEO activity that involves third party websites such as BlogEl término blog se usa para describir un diario virtual en Internet. El autor de un blogger puede publicar posts sobre cualquier tema. Los posts suelen estar presente de forma cronológica. El estilo de redacción de un blog suele ser informal y se escribe en primera persona. No obstante, además son posibles otros estilos, por ejemplo en el caso de los periódicos online, en los que la atención se centra plus commenting, guest blogging, directory submissions, link building and social bookmarking.

Secondly, we have white and black hat seoEl término Black Hat SEO se refiere a todas las prácticas para la optimización de los motores de búsqueda que no siguen los estándares establecidos por Google (Google webmaster Guidelines) y su uso es penalizado. Su nombre proviene de las películas del Oeste en el que los villanos siempre mostraban un sombrero negro. El héroe, a pesar de todo, blanco y de ahí deriva el término White Hat SEO. Información plus. The former is an SEO strategy that adheres to SEO rules established by Google and other search engines. On the other hand, blackhat SEO involves gaming search engines, which will only land you in hot soup. You should endeavor to build a white hat SEOWhite Hat SEO se refiere al tipo de optimización de motores de búsqueda que alcanza con las directrices de calidad de los operadores de motores de búsqueda y no se involucra en métodos de spam. Definición El White Hat SEO es ético, un tipo de SEO al que no se le puede objetar nada y que promueve la calificación positiva por un motor de búsqueda. Se realiza a través la plus strategy, and never once think about manipulating search engines using black hat¿Qué es black hat?Estrategia de enlace building que, en su esfuerzo por mejorar el posicionamiento de una web, recurre a técnicas que incumplen las normas de los buscadores. Consiste en prácticas penalizables como el cloaking, las granjas de enlaces, los textos ocultos o el abuso de palabras clave que sólo son efectivas a corto plazo y a la larga impactan de manera negativa a la imagen de la compañía que las plus techniques. In simpler terms, don’t try other dirty tricks that are not contained in, say, this resourceful SEO Guidebook by Google.

With that out of the way, let us move on to WordPress SEO best practices you need to keep in mind and implement in 2020 going forward.

1. Carry Out Astute Keyword Research

Keyword stuffing used to work as an SEO technique in the days gone, but today Google frowns upon this practice. At the same time, the keyword as a ranking factor is not dead. Google and other search engines still rely on keywords to rank websites, meaning your SEO strategy should be guided by astute research.

Would you like to rank highly in Google for the phrase 'WordPress themes' or 'WordPress plugins'? A tool such as Google AdWords Keyword Planner can help you to determine the competitiveness of your terms as well as derive keyword alternatives to use in your content. You can also use Google Analytics to check the keywords people are using to find your website. Your WordPress site statistics is another a source of keyword ideas.

For each of your keyword, endeavor to derive ten (10) alternatives. For instance, if your choice keyword or phrase is 'WordPress themes', you can derive alternatives such as 'responsive WordPress themes', 'multi-purpose WordPress themes', 'premium WordPress themes' and so on.

Need some help deciding on your keywords? Try Ubersuggest. This free tool from one of the world’s top SEO experts helps with related keyword ideas as well as provides helpful insights. If you click¿Qué es un click?Es la acción de pulsar un botón del ratón una vez colocado el puntero del mismo sobre un elemento determinado de la pantalla. El click determina la interacción del usuario con el sistema.Otras denominaciones: Clic plus on the Keyword Ideas link you’ll see an estimated success rate for your keyword targetConcepto de Target¿Qué es el Target?El Target es uno de los conceptos primordiales del marketing. Se usa para hablar del público al que se destinan las acciones y estrategias de cualquier campaña publicitaria o comercial. Es el objetivo al que ha de hablarle marca para suministrarle sus servicios o productos, aquellos a los que les interesa lo que brindan o pueda resultarle interesante por afinidad o por necesidades.Es uno de plus as well as the current ranking competition. In the screenshot above you can see that ranking for the keyword “WordPress” is tough – especially since the current top sites for that term have great domain scores and solid social presence.

While doing your research, think longtailSe denomina “longtail” (traducción literaria: cola larga) a aquellos productos que no se encuentran disponibles fácilmente en el mercado por su escasa demanda, es decir, productos nicho. En SEO el término longtail se aplica a palabras clave minoritarias que los usuarios usan en sus búsquedas, además incluye combinación de palabras clave. Descripción Las búsquedas “longtail” ocurren menos habitualmente y aportan menor tráfico que las palabras clave populares. A pesar de plus keywords. Stretch your keyphrase to a maximum of four (4) words, and you will have a higher chance of ranking well for your single-word keywords. For example, ‘WordPress themes’ is more competitive than ‘responsive multi-purpose WordPress themes’, meaning it will be harder to rank first for the former as opposed to the latter.

Sprinkle a few of these keywords within your content and you should start enjoying better rankings in about a month or so. Yeah, that's right, SEO takes time - you won't enjoy the results overnight. Any SEO "expert" who promises you the golden number one position on Google in a "couple of days" is taking you for a ride. SEO is a long-term and continuous process that lasts throughout the life of your website.

Back to sprinkling keywords in your content, we will talk about keyword density as a part of WordPress SEO best practices in a moment so don't sweat it.

2. Focus on Content - the King of SEO

Content still is. Unique, valuable and relevant content that is. Apart from being the greatest of all SEO ranking signals, high quality content is, foremost, the lifeblood of your website.

A website without content is, well, not a website. Along the same lines, a website with poor quality content is like a blunt knife – it might do the job but you must exert more force. A website with stale content is dead both to search engines and human visitors. This I understand firsthand because, severally, I went long periods without posting on my own blog. The results? Lower user engagement¿Qué es el engagement?Grado de compromiso del consumidor con nuestra marca. Para lograr un fuerte engagement, hace falta crear una vinculación recíproca y sólida con el cliente, para que se sienta parte de la marca. plus and lost SEO rankings.

We just mentioned your content needs to be unique, valuable and relevant. What does this mean? First off, your content should be unique because search engines, more so Google, do not entertain plagiarism - or duplicate content. Your content should bring something fresh to the table - it should be unique if you want to rank well.

Without a doubt, you can pull out quotes from anywhere on the internet, but copy-pasting an entire page will only land you in trouble.

In other words, eliminate duplicate content on your site including URLs. Google does not see httpEl HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol) es un protocolo que se usa para transmitir datos en redes. HTTP es un estándar técnico generalmente aceptado que establece cómo un cliente web se comunica con un servidor para que los datos solicitados por el cliente puedan ser cargados y mostrados. Información general Junto con el URL y el HTML, HTTP es uno de los conceptos más importantes de Internet (www). Fue desarrollado plus://yoursite.com and http://www.yoursite.com as the same entity, meaning your rankings are split between the two URLs. You might even get penalized for the same.

I faced this challenge once, and resolved it easily. If you know your way around your server and WordPress folders, adding the following code to your .htaccess file should do the trick:

RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond % {HTTP_HOST} ^ example.com [nocase, OR] RewriteCond % {HTTP_HOST} ^ www.example.com [nocase] RewriteRule ^ (. *) Http://www.example.com/$1 [last, redirect = 301]

Replace example.com with your domain name. The above code will redirect all yoursite.com and www.yoursite.com requests to http://www.yoursite.com, meaning search engines won't be confused. You can also use a technique known as URL canonicalization as explained by R Marketing Cutts.

The unique content you create should be valuable, not just fluff or filler content meant to trick search engine spiders. Wait…what spiders? Google and other search engines use special type of softwareConcepto de Software¿Qué es el Software y cuál es su función?Un Software es la parte lógica, o más bien el soporte lógico, de cualquier sistema de tipo informático. Sea un PC, un teléfono teléfono celular o inclusive una tablet, es todo aquel programa que se ejecuta en él gracias a la coordinación de la parte física, es decir, el hardware, para llevar adelante alguna tarea concretamente o un recopilatorio de plus (scriptsConcepto de Scripts¿Qué son los Scripts?Los Scripts son fragmentos de código que se usan para dar forma a herramientas tanto en Internet como en el sector de la informática en general. Son una parte crucial del software, puesto que se trata exactamente del código que conforma a una aplicación en su totalidad o a una de sus funciones, como además el que puedes hallar explorando cómo está hecha una web.Desde plus) known as crawlersConcepto de Crawlers¿Qué son los Crawlers?Los Crawlers, además conocidos como arañas web, son los rastreadores enviados por los motores de búsqueda para ver qué existen de nuevo en todo Internet. Se les conoce además como indexadores o indizadores debido a su función. Estos programas son los responsables de analizar todo el conjunto de Internet para detectar las nuevas webs o actualizaciones que haya en las ya existentes y hacer que plus or spiders to find and indexUn index o índice es generalmente un directorio en un orden específico que se usa con fines de orientación. En términos de motores de búsqueda, un índice es la lista de páginas web que es emitido por el motor de búsqueda en respuesta a una solicitud de búsqueda del usuario. Información general La lista que se muestra posteriormente de introducir una solicitud de búsqueda específica se llama SERPs (Search Engine plus your content.

But since our objective is to rank higher and higher in Google (and BingBing es el sucesor del motor de búsqueda "Live Search" de Microsoft y se considera una ayuda para la toma de decisiones. Desde su entrada en el mercado en 2009, Bing ha estado tratando de alcanzar a su competidor superior Google, pero no ha sido capaz de ganar una mayor cuota de mercado. Siendo eclipsado por el dominio de Google, el algoritmo de Bing no ha estado recibiendo mucha atención. plus and Yahoo!Concepto de Yahoo¿Qué es Yahoo?Yahoo es una de las principales plataformas que se pueden visitar en internet. Una de las firmas pioneras en materia de buscadores web que, actualmente, ofrece además servicios de email, de noticias y muchas más posibilidades al alcance de cualquiera que ingrese en su web. Es uno de los nombres más reputados y vinculados al fenómeno digital y a la red tal y como la conocemos plus!), how do we create unique and valuable content that’s not meant to attract or “trick” the now-smarter search engine spiders? The simple answer is you should never look into creating content for search engines. Instead, create content for your human readers, and search engines will follow. Trhrefy your best to provide valuable content because…

Search engines are rapidly developing the intelligence to discern between websites that provide value from sites that create the illusion of value. - James McDonald, Lyons Consulting Group.

Don't get me wrong. You shouldn't create valuable content because search engines are getting smarter. Create valuable content to help your real human visitors. It's what great brands do.

Speaking of writing for human visitors first (and search engines second), your content should be relevant to your target audience. This is one of the reasons why you need to define your target audience from the word go. Create unique and valuable web content that's relevant to your target audience. Write in their language, use terminology they understand and if you've done your keyword research well, you shouldn't have a problem adding keywords to your content.

If your content is well written and valuable, your readers will share the same with family and friends, scoring you brand mentions on the web, which if you're wondering, is yet another SEO ranking signal.

On adding keywords to your content, you should do it naturally - don't force keywords into your content. This is why having ten (10) alternative keywords is so important. If one keyword does not fit, you have nine (9) other alternatives 🙂

But this makes SEO sound rigid, when on the contrary, its very flexible. After I lost my rankings thanks to keyword stuffing, I devised a new approach that has never failed to yield the desired results since.

I start off with some keyword research, deriving several alternatives to my primary keyword. But instead of writing content first and adding keywords later, I do both at the same time. How? I commit my primary keyword and a few alternatives to memory, and then write away. Provided you've researched your keywords as well as your content, the former will fall right into the latter. The keywords will fit right in. I don't think about the keywords but when I'm done writing, the post is SEO ready. Of course, this is my own personal technique and might not work in your case. And I have perfected the technique over time, so feel free to devise your own technique - just make sure your keywords appear naturally in your content.

How many times should you mention your keyword within your content to make it ready for search engines? 2.5% is the standard keyword density but you can take that to about 4% at any given time. This means if your post is 2000 words long, your primary keyword (phrase) should appear fifty (50) times. Naturally.

Other than that, add your keyword to post / page titles, which quickly communicates to search engines (as well as human visitors) what the post / page is all about. As an illustration, 'WordPress SEO' appears prominently in the the title of this post, which tells you this post has to do with WordPress and SEO. If your post / page has headings and / or subheadings, add keywords to these as well. Just keep things natural and you will be okay.

On creating engaging and shareable content, don't forget to mix it up by adding media such as videos, images, presentations, infographics, podcasts etc. These improve user engagement tenfold and add value to your content, both of which are important to SEO.

Google loves WordPress blogs - regularly updated blogs - so keep your blog section fresh. Make an attempt to update your static web content eg about and product pages as well. While it might take some webmasters the coming back of the Messiah to update the content of their static pages, the blog feature of WordPress allows you to feed your website with fresh content on a regular basis. Make use of the blog!

Posting once or twice per week should be enough to earn a decent spot in SERPsLa expresión SERPs proviene de las siglas de los términos en inglés Search Engine Result Pages es decir, páginas de resultados de los motores de búsqueda. En las SERPs es donde se encuentran los resultados de búsqueda de los motores de búsqueda y se organizan de mayor a menor relevancia. El posicionamiento lo determinan los motores de búsqueda de acuerdo al análisis de muchos factores y criterios de relevancia y plus in about two months. You can post daily as well, just make sure you don’t compromise quality in the name of quantity, since the latter does not count as much as the former in the new world of SEO.

When creating your posts, add SEO-friendly tags and categorize the posts accordingly. If you use SEO plugins such as Yoast SEO, you get fields to add meta descriptionMeta Description¿Qué es la Meta Description?Las Meta descriptions, o meta descripciones, son unas metaetiquetas que se usan para resumir brevemente el contenido de una página web. Son aquello con lo que buscadores como Google acompaña al título y al link al momento de mostrar resultados en sus SERPs tras hacer una búsqueda, y lo que ayuda al usuario a saber qué existen en ese lugar al que se plantea acceder.Algo plus, SEO title, and focus keyword to your post. Utilize these features to SEO-up your post. While optimizing your content, the Yoast SEO pluginConcepto de Plugin¿Qué es un Plugin?Un Plugin es un fragmento o componente de código hecho para ampliar las funciones de un programa o de una herramienta. En el ámbito del marketing digital, especialmente dentro del marketing de contenidos, es algo que se utiliza con mucha frecuencia dentro de entornos como WordPress, puesto que sirven al momento de contar con añadidos que hagan mucho más cómoda y completa la experiencia de plus also helps you to determine the SEO score of your article long before you hit¿Qué es un hit?Cada una de las solicitudes de archivos (imágenes, sonido…) que realiza el navegador al servidor durante la carga de una misma página web. Existen quien lo emplea erróneamente como indicador de popularidad de una web, pero la cantidad de componentes que integran una página es muy variable, por lo que es preferible tener en cuenta al número de visitas como medida. plus the publish button.

Add meta titles, keywords and descriptions to your other pages, not just posts. This kind of information goes in the section of your website, where it's easily picked up by search engine spiders for indexing.

Write unique and valuable (shareable) content that's relevant to your target audience. If you need more guidance, be sure to check out these posts:

• How to Write Great Blog Content - ProBlogger
• The Nine Ingredients that Make Great Content - KISSmetrics

And as a reminder, never write for search engines; write instead for your human readers - talk to them via your content as if they were standing in front of you. Would you drop unnatural keywords then? I doubt.

On-page SEO involves both creative and technical expertise. As a marketerConcepto de Marketer¿Qué es un Marketer?Un marketer es aquella persona que se encarga de ayudar a los equipos de ventas al momento de vender un servicio o un producto. Aplica todas las estrategias posibles, o las desarrolla, junto a las técnicas imprescindibles para llevarlas a cabo con la finalidad de alcanzar el éxito con dicha comercialización. Es decir, es la figura o el conjunto de figuras que encarnan el papel plus, you need to create fantastic content for your website that your audience will love. And you want to ensure that your website helps Google (and human users) find and share that content easily. – Justin Deaville, managing director atReceptional.

Image and Video SEO

Before we move on to the next section, I would like to mention a few things about the images and videos you'll use in your content to reinforce your SEO.

To begin with, adding images and videos to your content is one among SEO best practices that many rarely implement. And that’s just sad because optimized images will bring you great traffic from Google Images and the likes. Videos can garner you traffic, links, mentions and more from sites such as YoutubeConcepto de Youtube¿Qué es Youtube?Youtube es una de las plataformas más utilizadas e importantes de todo internet. Consiste en un rincón del océano digital dedicado única y exclusivamente al contenido en vídeo, permitiendo a los usuarios tanto publicar contenidos audiovisuales como consumirlos. Es el principal lugar al que acudir al momento de buscar algún documento en forma de vídeo o de ver cualquier tipo de publicación elaborada en este formato.Una plus, Vimeo, Tumblr and more.

We've talked about optimizing images for WordPress before, but how do you optimize images for search engines? This is the easiest part. To begin with, you should optimize your images for fast loading. Don't use heavy images that will only slow down your site. If you need a 650 x 300 featured image for your next post, upload one that's 650 x 300 and not a pixel more.

Secondly, make sure your images are relevant to your content. Apart from gaining you better rankings, images should enhance your content - their original purpose.

Thirdly, give your images appropriate file names. Is the image about WordPress SEO? Name the image as such - don't leave your images looking like IMAGE001_2020.jpg. Why? It's bad for user experience and SEO since search engines don't see images as human readers do. On top of that, try to squeeze your keyword in the image file name.

Speaking of search engines “seeing” your images, you have to add the ALT tag to your images to make it easier for the spiders. The ALT text represents alternate (alternative) text, the text that's shown should the image fail to load for whatever reason. The ALT tag has another purpose. It was meant to help screen readers “see” your images. Screen readers are used by visually challenged people to consume content on your site. Search engines spiders use the info contained in the ALT tag to “see” your images as well.

Optimizing images in WordPress is slight work. Just click “Add Media” in your post editor, and choose your image on the screen that appears. Once the image is selected, you'll notice areas on the right side that allow you to add the title, caption, alt and description. Just focus on the "alt" field, but feel free to fill out the other details if you have the time.

ALT text is great for SEO, makes for valid HTMLHTML (Hypertext Markup Language) se usa para estructurar el contenido de texto de un documento web. No sólo se marca el contenido, sino además la meta-información que describe este contenido. Las páginas HTML se almacenan normalmente en el directorio raíz del servidor. Cómo se creó En la era digital, a los usuarios les resulta difícil hallar su camino en las webs y hacer un seguimiento de las estructuras de las plus when utilized, and helps visually challenged readers assimilate your content in it’s entirety. As such, make the ALT text descriptive (and relevant to the image and post) but short.

3. Use SEO-Ready WordPress Themes and Plugins

WordPress is so popular today because you can have a website up and running in the time it takes to down a hot mug of coffee. Thanks to WordPress themes and plugins, anybody (and I mean anybody) can build a professional website in no time. But that's only true if you pick the perfect theme and plugins. In terms of WordPress SEO the themes and plugins you pick should be SEO-friendly from the get go.

Obviously, you can start with any theme and any set of plugins, but SEO-ready ones give you the head-start you need to take Google by storm. What do you need to look out for when choosing your WordPress and plugins?

Firstly, your choice should utilize clean and valid HTML. If the structure of your theme is all over the place, you are going to have problems not only with your WordPress SEO, but also with your design. Look for themes that utilize the canonical UrlEl URL (Localizador Uniforme de Recursos), es una dirección definida que apunta a la posición de un archivo en un servidor y lo recupera. Las URL se introducen en un navegador web para ingresar a documentos en la web o se incrustan como hipervínculos dentro de un documento. Se puede usar un Permalink para que una URL esté disponible de forma permanente. Componentes de una URL • prefijo de protocolo plus meta tag. A canonical URL meta what? This is just a fancy term for a certain type of meta tag that stores the top URL of your page. If it’s your homepageConcepto de Homepage¿Qué es una Homepage?Homepage es la página de inicio de un sitio web. Se asemeja a la portada de un libro o a la puerta de entrada de un negocio. Es el lugar donde se da la bienvenida y se informa al usuario sobre las soluciones que se ofrecen en el sitio.Además se conoce como página de portada o página inicial. Es lo primero que ve un usuario plus, the canonical URL meta tag will store your domain name. If it’s a post, the tag will store the URL of the post.

The theme should also support the correct usage of headings (h1Concepto de H1¿Qué es un H1?El H1 es un elemento primordial en cualquier página web y algo que nace del lenguaje HTML. Consiste en una etiqueta que suele utilizarse para indicar el fragmento más importante de una página, normalmente la cabecera que más ha de señalar en ella y captar la atención del lector.Su conocimiento y su utilización son algo primordial de cara al SEO e inclusive de cara a plus, h2, h3…h6) and title tags. You should also go after WordPress themes that integrate the Open Graph meta tag to enhance social media sharing.

How do you determine all these factors? You can read the developer's promotional materials, contact them directly or inspect the demo. What to look for? Right click on the demo and choose “View Page Source” or something equivalent. You need to focus on the first part of the code - the area between and tags. Find tags eg or .

Don't mind if your favorite theme does not have these areas though. You can always add them tags later on using SEO plugins or manually by editing the code. I would go for plugins any day. A theme that does not support page titles and headings is a complete no-no, you know, if such a theme exists in the first place.

4. SEO-Friendly URLs

Also known as Pretty Permalinks in WordPress, SEO-friendly URLs are a key component of WordPress SEO best practices as well as user experience. For instance, which URL is easier to remember:

• https://www.yoursite.com/article300152
• https://www.yoursite.com/?p=3424
• https://www.yoursite.com/wordpress-seo

Of the three, which URL do you think will “excite” search engine spiders? The third URL on the list is the absolute winner. It's disheartening to see webmasters using URLs such as http://www.example.com/?p=123 when WordPress makes it so easy to create SEO-friendly URLs (and where there are great plugins like Pretty link that you can use to create easy to remember external links).

Just go to Settings> Permalinks and select Post Name or Month and Name. Do this long before adding content to your blog to avoid broken links. If you had no idea, broken links are bad business for SEO, and if you'd like to learn more, Elegant Themes published a great post on why you should never use the default permalinks setting.

5. Mobile-Friendly Website

Perhaps a bugLos bugs son errores en los programas de PC que hacen que el software no funcione como debería. Por lo general, los bugs son causados por un error en el código que usualmente sólo es descubierto por los usuarios cuando usan el programa. Información general El nombre bug viene de la época en que se desarrollaron los primeros ordenadores. Las enormes máquinas calculadoras trabajaban con grandes circuitos, relés y items plus bit me because every time I’m on a great website, I always resize my browser to check if the site is responsive. The same bug must have bit someone at Google as well, because if you haven’t noticed, they’ve already introduced mobile friendly labels in search results.

What does that mean? If your website is not mobile friendly, you will enjoy worse rankings than mobile friendly websites. Your readers will also know your site is not mobile friendly long before they get to your homepage, which reduces your click-though rate.

Google recommends adopting responsive web design (RWD) - a web design technique that allows developers to build website following a mobile-first approach. Websites built around RWD techniques will always look and function great on all devices.

If RWD won't work for your business model, which is unlikely, you can go for a hybrid mobile solution. Just make sure mobile visitors get to your mobile site, and there are no content (or URL) conflicts that will end up messing your WordPress SEO. Este Google SEO Guidebook has an entire section explaining how to go about it.

Otherwise, just pick a responsive WordPress theme and plugins from the start. Don't know where to start? Total Responsive Multipurpose WordPress theme is a great choice for many an entrepreneur like you.

Mobile Optimization Tips

6. Social Media Signals

The growth of social media in recent years has created a new and profitable channel for WordPress SEO. Even without struggling, you can see the great traffic potential of social media. It also gives you the chance to build a community around your brand and / or products.

Search engines are using brand and content mentions to determine ranking. The reason behind this approach is simple: If more people like, retweet, pin, stumble etc your content, it must be valuable and vice versa.

Be careful with social media though. You want to open up two-way communication as opposed to talking at your prospects. You need people to engage with your brand to “… improve the pass-along value and online word of mouth.”

Use social media to create your own audience, and work hard to drive conversation and user engagement. The more the mentions, the better.

7. Beat Your Competition

When you enter your keyword in Google, the first ten (10) websites that appear are your most fierce competitors. To clinch that elusive first position, you must beat them all.

Do you recall that wise saying that goes like keep your friends close and your enemies closer? Take time to study your competition. Get answers to questions such as: Why does number one beat me? What do they do different? Are they implementing white hat SEO techniques that I might be missing?

Perhaps they aren't as good as you'd imagine - maybe their content is stale for instance. This could be your window of opportunity to get the ranking you deserve. Study the competition and beat them at their own game. A little competitiveness is awesome. Plus if the reward is better rankings, more traffic and ultimately better conversions, I'm up for the challenge any day. Are you?

8. Improve Page Load Speeds

If your website takes a millennium to load, you're losing prospects left, right and center. Further, you're flushing SEO points down the drain, and they're hard to come by.

Slow pages lead¿Qué es un lead?Persona que muestra interés por un producto, servicio o marca facilitando sus datos, normalmente por medio de del formulario de contacto de una landing page. plus to higher bounce rates, loss of traffic and customer trust, so decrease your page load time already. The post I’ve linked in the foregoing statement will show you everything you need to do to improve the speed of your WordPress site. If you wanted to do a quick site speed check on your site to see how fast it is you can use the Google Page Insights tool to check your website and see what sort of recommendations Google has for you to increase your site speed (it's important to note that page insights is focused on many micro-optimizations which sometimes don't make a lot of sense for your site to do or it won't affect your site as much as simply getting a better hosting plan, the most important factor is your actual loading time, so you should compare your loading time with your top competitors and make sure your site is faster).

9. HTTPS as a Ranking Signal

In the introduction, we mentioned that Google is doing everything to build a better, faster and secure web for everybody. By upgrading their search algorithms, they make the search experience better. With their versatile Knowledge Graph, the search engine has grown faster. And now they would like every webmasterEl término webmaster fue utilizado por primera vez por Tim Berners-Lee, el inventor de la World Wide Web, en su documento "Style Guide for Online Hypertext". La palabra se compone de las palabras inglesas "web", forma corta de World Wide Web y "master". En los primeros días de la WWW, a principios de la década de 1990, el término se usaba principalmente como un nombre profesional para las personas que disponen plus to adopt HTTPS to improve the security of web properties.

While HTTPS is not a major ranking signal, Google is still conducting tests and might decide to strengthen it in the near future. Just the other day, they published an article on securing your site with HTTPS. The post outlines the importance of site security, best practices when setting up HTTPS and how to set up HTTPS on your HTTP site. You should be in good hands.

10. Local SEO

Local SEO is just like customary (organic) SEO. The only difference is you have to go a step further with your local SEO campaign. For instance, don't forget to add your city / state in title tags, headings, content, URL, and alt text. Additionally, don't forget to claim a Google My Business page for your outfit. It's free, so don't wait.

You can learn more about local SEO at Moz or Search Engine Land.

11. Submit Your Site to Search Engines

As we've already established, search engine spiders comb the web looking for content. Then they index the content according to the various SEO ranking signals. Submitting your site to search engines manually improves your chances of getting better ranking faster. Submitting your site manually also reduces your chances of being labelled as spamEl spam puede ser definido como mensajes no deseados que se envían principalmente por vía electrónica. Se entregan sin haber sido solicitados por el destinatario, y suele ser promoción comercial. Existen varios tipos de spam, como el spam de email o el spam en las redes sociales. Los afectados pueden acudir a los puntos de contacto designados y buscar ayuda. Detección de spam El spam tiene muchas características por las plus.

The best part is the process is quick and easy. To submit your site to Google, you can use the Add URL page or Webmasters Tools. To submit your site to Yahoo! and Bing, feel free to use Bing's Site Submission Page. Don't be alarmed, Yahoo! search is powered by the Bing Search Engine. Meaning you will show up in Yahoo's search results when you submit your site to Bing.

12. Sitemaps

TO sitemapUn sitemap o mapa del sitio es una representación estructurada de todas las páginas de una web. Tanto la estructura del sitio como los enlaces individuales entre las páginas pueden ser listados. Se pueden distinguir dos tipos de sitemaps distintos, HTML sitemaps y XML sitemaps. El sitemap HTML como árbol de navegación y vista general Los sitemaps HTML se pueden usar en las webs como una lista de todas las plus is literally a map of your site – showing all the pages, categories and more. You should create a sitemap, for both human visitors and search engines. Publish the sitemap on your site, so readers can find your content when lost. You can even link to your sitemap from your 404 error page. You can create your sitemap manually or use a plugin as Google XML Sitemaps.

While search engines can locate the sitemap on your site, you should submit it via Google Webmaster Tools to improve your chances. It's a smart thing to do, especially with a new website.

13. Get Some Juice (backlinks)

No matter what people say, link building is an important part of WordPress SEO best practices. This is how link building works. You publish high quality content and site A links to you in the process sharing link juiceEl enlace juice, Google Juice o Linking Juice, definen la distribución de los backlinks que se encuentran en un portal web y el poder o la fama que disponen estos enlaces. Tanto la cantidad como la calidad son determinantes para la clasificación de dicho Link Juice. Información general Mientras los algoritmos individuales como El PageRank, TrustRank o el author rank, que representan factores específicos de un portal web o de plus with you. If it’s an authoritative website, Google labels you with a higher link profile and your ranking goes up. Then if you go ahead and link to site B, you share the link juice as well. However, if site B is completely out of your niche (spammy) or contains low quality content, you will only tarnish your rankings and probably get a penalty.

Accept links only from high-quality websites in your niche or from authoritative websites. Link only to high quality websites (content) that adds value to your site.

The future of SEO will be the importance of the link quality. The site that links has to be socially active and have a usable and interaction user base. The importance of the link will be the value of the site which attributes to the social side of the internet. - Nick Anderson, founder of Hostoople.

Learn to build links naturally. If you buy links, Google will find out and punish you. You should endeavor to create awesome content that earns links naturally. Link farming (sowing many links at the same time or within a short period) will only land you in trouble.

That aside, use natural anchor textEl anchor text, texto ancla en español, es la parte más importante de la zona “clicable” del hipervínculo de una página web o de un documento. Funciones Al hacer un clic en este texto se te dirige a una dirección de destino, que puede ser un documento dentro del mismo dominio (link interno) o a otro dominio (link externo). El anchor text y la página de destino se especifican de plus in your links. Shun the likes of “Click here” and use text that provides meaning instead. Need an example? Just look at the linking pattern we’ve utilized throughout our blog. Finally, if you’d like to link to a website but don’t want to share the link juice, you can use rel=”nofollowEl atributo rel="nofollow" es una microetiqueta en el código HTML de una web. Se usa para etiquetar hipervínculos por lo que no se tiene en cuenta en el índice de Google. Por lo tanto le dice a los robots de los motores de búsqueda que no se les permite seguir los enlaces mientras crawlean o rastrean el sitio. Información general Google introdujo el atributo rel=nofollow- en 2005 y otros motores plus” attribute in your links.

Example: <a href="/en/”http://www.somesite.com”/" rel="”nofollow”" title="”Some" descriptive title”>Meaningful anchor text</a>

WordPress SEO Tools and Resources

Now that we have WordPress SEO best practices out of the way, what are some of the tools you need to push WordPress SEO forward?

Here's a quick list:

• Yoast SEO - A great WordPress SEO plugin that helps you to add meta descriptions, keywords and titles to your content among other things
• Social Media Plugins for social media promotion
• Google XML Sitemaps
• How to Decrease WordPress Page Load Time
• How to Rank Higher in Search Engines
• 5 Essential SEO Techniques To Master
• 10 Essential WordPress Plugins to Improve SEO & Usability

At the end of the day ...

… Keep in mind that WordPress SEO takes time. After implementing these WordPress SEO best practices, you need to allow enough time to see the results. Too bad we don't have set-and-leave SEO solution yet. Additionally, you have to keep updating your WordPress SEO strategy according to industry-wide changes. Don't forget to follow the established SEO guidelines to avoid penalties. To sum it up, create high quality content and promote your site like a mad man.

It's our hope that we've given you enough fodder; the ball is now in your court. Did we leave out important WordPress SEO best practices? Which WordPress SEO best practices do you use? Please share with us in the comments. All the best, and may God bless the work of your hands!