You can do all the marketing in the world, but if the SEO on your blog isn’t right, it will never get the Google rankings it deserves. Great SEO for WordPress is crucial for successful blogging, but many bloggers think it’s too complicated to do by themselves. Not true. It’s completely possible to create a successful blog using a DIY SEO approach. Usually, the problems are easier to fix than they appear. Check out your blog for these five most common SEO problems. Once you’ve improved these situations, see how high your blog will rise in the rankings.
The Google Search Console
If you don’t have Google Search Console set up, you’re missing key information that Google looks for. This tool allows you to check for problems such as duplicated titles, broken links, errors, and other problems that will slow down Google’s ability and desire to crawl your blog’s pages. Keeping your blog on the first page in Google is often a matter of tweaking your pages, and the Google Search Console will let you know exactly what you need to tweak.
Confusion About Google
How does Google see your blog? Do you know what pages it’s crawling and indexing? If Google is indexing duplicate content on your blog, your rankings are bound to suffer. It’s important that you find out how to do this, and to check for duplicate content on a regular basis. Here at bloggersSEO, we find that this is one of the most common roadblocks to great Google results and one that’s easily fixed.
Your Blog’s Document Structure
Do you know how to optimise page titles, headings and the URL? In order for Google to recognise your post as worthy of being ranked highly, all three of those details have to match. Using the same title for the H1 heading, the page title, and the URL itself gives it weighty significance and lets Google know that it’s worth viewing. Learn how to get into your WordPress dashboard to make changes on these items. It’s a relatively easy fix once you know where to go, and can improve your rankings greatly from one simple tweak.
Optimising Your URL
Google’s all about being simple and straightforward, believe it or not. Speed and accuracy are key, and your URL needs to be short and uncomplicated. Given the choice between your blog and another, similar one, Google will always rank the simpler URL better, all other things being considered.
Competition is fierce out there; why not take every small advantage you can find? If you’re just beginning your blog, this is an important rule to learn and always follow. If you have an existing blog with many complicated URLs, don’t go changing everything at once. Do it slowly, and make sure you include a redirect for each page that you change.
Ignoring the Power of Interlinked Posts
You spend hours each week writing blog posts, but WordPress will only show the most recent posts when a reader pulls up your site. All that work that’s gone before is important information, posts that everyone who visits should be able to see. Make a habit of linking older posts into every new post when possible, and write a sneeze page at least once every six months. A sneeze page is a post with a list of links, all connected with a common theme. Readers interested in that topic will appreciate the easy way you offer a lot of information together, and Google will see all the links together and value the page more when it crawls your site.
SEO for bloggers can seem a daunting prospect, whether you are established, or just starting out. There are many pitfalls and hazards awaiting the unwary, but following the tips in this blog should help you avoid many of the common mistakes and establish a routine for effective SEO in your blogs.
