What the heck is website
SEO, anyway?
The simple answer to this question is, “Use WordPress.” If the response to this recommendation is, “OK,” then boom, we’re done. If you ask me, “Why?” well, that’s what this post is about.
WordPress is SEO-friendly – by design
When we talk about website SEO, what we’re really talking about is the structure and design of your blogging platform, or Content Management System (CMS) [non-techy people – don’t fade – it gets better]. This structure and design can make it easy, or hard, for search engines to scan, or “crawl,” each website for useful information.
The beauty of WordPress is that it was designed and structured specifically to be Google-friendly, which also makes it search-engine friendly (to those “other search engines. Yes, there are others). Without going into a bunch of technical detail, we’ll just say that no other CMS is as SEO-friendly as WordPress (this is a good thing).
What do the search engines look for?
The search engines look for key words, what we now call keywords, to help them judge the relevancy of your site to a particular search term. A search term is what you type in to Google like: “videos of cute cats” (come on, you KNOW you do that). They first look in the most obvious places, then they dig a little deeper, if necessary. What are the most obvious places? The search engines will look for the keywords you’re using in the content or page title, of course, and in the permalink (aka the URL of the page, aka the web address, aka the thing up at the top of the screen that starts with www….), plus the headers, especially H1, and in the Meta information.
Here are places to place your keywords (if this list of things makes you cry because you don’t know what it means, skip to the next paragraph).
Website SEO techniques…
- Keyword in the Title
- Keyword at the beginning of the Title
- Keyword in the Permalink (the page/post URL)
- Keyword in the first Header (H1)
- Keyword at the beginning of the first Header (H1)
- Keyword in the Meta Description
For more information on website SEO techniques, here’s a great article at SEOmoz.
WordPress does much of this for you…
Do you remember that we talked about WordPress being a great CSM, above? Well, here’s why. WordPress does a bunch of these website SEO thingies for you! That’s right, WordPress will automatically use your title as the H1 tag, as well as placing it in the permalink for you (you have to set this up though – as your web person). Plus, with a WordPress plug-in such as “All-in-One SEO Pack,” which is FREE by the way, the Meta title and Meta description are taken care of for you, as well.
The last step to effective website SEO…
The final thing to remember is this; to make your website SEO strategy effective, you must do these things consistently and relentlessly. This means – every time you post! Since, with WordPress, some of the most important website SEO functions are automated, it is the CMS of choice for the savvy web entrepreneur. You do want to be known as a savvy entrepreneur, don’t you?
(This is post 2 of 4 in a series on SEO and SEO Basics.)
[<—- go back to the first article on SEO basics] [go to the next article on Content SEO —>]
Heya! I just wanted to ask if you ever have any problems with hackers?
My last blog (wordpress) was hacked and I ended up losing months
of hard work due to no backup. Do you have any methods to
stop hackers?
Thanks for your question. We recently wrote some posts on this topic. Try these:
What happens when your WordPress website has been hacked
To prevent website hacking – Back up your WordPress website
Simple steps to take to prevent WordPress website hacking
What to do when your WordPress website has been hacked
Do you still think no one is trying to hack into your site?
If you want your site just taken care of to have the greatest chance of avoiding this in the future, try our new service.