Underrated.co.uk – Search Engine Optimisation

Wordpress is one of the most popular blogging applications available, and better still it’s free. There are a variety of themes and widgets available to provide both impressive visuals functionality and appeal to your blog. No doubt many of the blogs you view on a daily basis use wordpress, so that give you at least some idea of how powerful and seful the software is.

Many bloggers post daily and accumulate hundreds if not thousands of pages of unique of content. This being the case it makes sense ensure that SEO techniques take centre stage. Wordpress is by default pretty well optimised for search engines like google but you can take further steps to ensure that you get the most out of efforts:

Plugins

All in One SEO Pack - This plugin automatically optimises page titles for search engines and also generates META tags. It’s possible to override the auto title and META tags should you need to do so. A real time saver and great SEO.

Internal Link Building v2 – An incredibly handy little plugin which allows you to assign keywords to given URLS in the admin panel. This allows you to give users the opportunity to click through to various article of relevance. More importantly though, as set keywords over various blog posts link through to the same page it increases your chance of ranking well in search engines for that keyword (or key phrase).

Tips

Appreciate your users – If someone comments on a blog post, then reply to them. Building visitor rust is a core component of operating a successful blog. Perhaps consider thanking people after they leave their first comment. This can be achieved through use of the comment redirect plugin.

Image Optimisation – Guve consideration to how you name image files and also add appropriate ‘alt’ text to the images. There are programs to add the page title as the alt tag for each message, but I would advise you to be more specific than that in your approach. Done correcty and this can defeinitely bring extra traffic your way.

Permalink Options – By default posts will contain an ugly post id featuring equals signs and question marks. This certainly doesn’t help you with you SEO efforts. Instead you should login and go to ‘Settings > Permalinks’  and under ‘common settings’ select ‘Custom Structure. In this box enter /%postname%/. This will result in the URL being based on the post title, which for search engine optimisation purposes is certainly preferable. 

I hope these tips are of use to you. Feel free to add any of your own to the comments section.

Much like networking in the real world, it’s important to make your presence known on the net. Whilst it’s no substiture for earned inbound links, link exchanges can play a meaningful role in any website promotion process. Exchange links with website in the same niche as yours, or in related topics can really benefit your site in terms of search engine ranking. The below tips link should give you a basic understanding of link exchanges can benefit you:

1) Exchange links with sites in the same niche as yours

Google and co like to be about to present relevant content to visitors. What better way to prove to them that your site is relevant then to be linked to by a series of sites in the same niche as yours.

2) Attempt to exchange links with authority sites

Of course this won’t be achieved overnight. In fact, if you have a new or not so popular site, approaching a site with high in the raking for your keywords of choice will likely not even gain a reply. If you can build your site popularity over time though, this may eventually appear to your to-do list.

3) Scan the top 30 or 40 listings in google for keyword terms you wish to rank well for. These sites may be worth approaching

Similiar to the previous point, but if you’re approaching sites on the top 30 or 40 it may allow you to get a foot in the door ranking wise. From here at least you have a base to build from.

4) Try to exchange links with sites of similiar popularity to your own (check out alexa and extreme tracking if available)

Whilst you’re attempting to work on SEO do not simply discount sites on SEO value alone. It may be useful to you in the short term to approach sites of similiar worth as it should filter some visitors your way. SEO work is a long term project so it occasionally helps to feel that you are moving forward in a short term sense too.

——-

I would suggest that site wide link exchanges are not always the way to go. If a link is sitewide it is not naturally occuring (like a link within an article for instance. Excessive sitewide links may could against you with google and co. I would instead suggest that you either go the route of exchanging links on index pages, or set up a link partner page.