8 tips to enhance your WordPress blog SEO

Posted by Jean-Baptiste Jung on Oct 25, 2008 in WordPress • 76 comments

Do you ever wanted to get great SEO results? If yes, you should definitely read this list of 8 WordPress tips to enhance your blog SEO.

1 - Optimize your title tag

In terms of SEO, the title tag is one of the most important things: In fact, the title appears as a link in search engines results and social bookmarking sites. Unfortunely, most WordPress themes displays the title tag in a non-optimized way. I had recently written a tutorial here at Cats Who Code to obtain a really SEO-friendly title tag.

2 - Create an archive page

In my opinion, all blogs should have an archive page: It allows your readers to quickly browse your blog and find what they’re looking for, and this page is also very good for SEO. Some months ago, I wrote a tutorial on wphacks.com, showing you how you can easily create this kind of page, with or without the help of a plugin.

3 - Use the correct H tag structure (h1, h2, h3..)

When I download free WordPress themes, I'm often scared to see how badly the H structure is used: h2 are everywhere. In order to get the best SEO results possible, you should use the correct structure:

h1 for the post title
h2 for inside titles
h3 for inside subtitles
and so on...

4 - Use a good permalink structure

If you're not using permalinks yet, don't even ask why do you get so bad results from search engines. Permalinks is a complete must have.
To enable permalinks, go to the "Customize Permalink Structure" page in your Wordpress Admin : Dashboard>Options>Permalinks and choose a permalink structure.

In my opinion, you should choose "custom" and use one of the following structures:

/%postname%/%post_id%
/%post_id%
/%category%/%postname%-%post_id%

5 - Increase your Pagerank by leaving comments on other blogs

Having backlinks is really important, in terms of SEO. But, especially if your blog is quite new, having quality backlinks isn't always easy. The solution is to leave (relevant, of course) comments on blog who don't use the rel="nofollow" attribute, or have the Top Commentators widget, or even Comment Luv.
Some times ago, I have compiled a list of 250+ links to get free backlinks. You should definitely check it out, and leave some comments!

6 - Install the "ALL In One SEO Pack" plugin

In my opinion, All In One SEO Pack is one of the best ever WordPress plugins: It allows you to enable meta descriptions and keywords, avoid duplicate content by noindexing pages as such as categories or tags, and tweak titles.

7 - Create a robot.txt file

Duplicate content can really hurt your blog rankings. One of the best things against duplicate content is to create a robots.txt file.
robots.txt is a simple text file, containing instruction for search engines (follow that link, don't index this directory, and so on...) and uploaded on your server root.
A good robots.txt file can be found here. There's also a great exemple in Kyle Eslick's Success With WordPress ebook.

8 - Read WordPress SEO ebooks

As I told you last week, ebooks are a very good way to get and keep useful information. Jai from Blog Oh Blog wrote a whole ebook about WordPress SEO. It is free, so you have no reason not to download it. Also, I recommend Kyle Eslick's Success With WordPress ebook, which contain a very good chapter about WordPress SEO.

And you, any technic not listed here to get great SEO results? Share your knowledges with us!

76 reactions

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1 - banji on Oct 25, 2008, 9:53 am:

Thank you for the very informative entry. I have a question though

Ive actually created two archives for my blog. The primary one is grouped by category, and another by date. For a clearer picture, please see it here.

I’ve also set up the All In One SEO plugin and put a noindex on archive in its setting.

My question is, do the two archives covered? or am I being penalized for the second archive?

Thanks in advance
2 - banji on Oct 25, 2008, 9:56 am:

Oops.. I forget to put up a link to my archive
3 - Sue on Oct 25, 2008, 10:24 am:

Thanks for the great information.
4 - jbj on Oct 25, 2008, 11:55 am:

@banji: Interesting question! I’m not sure about it, but I don’t think that All In One SEO Pack noindexed both the archive pages. You should create (or edit the existing one) a robots.txt file to prevent indexing the second archive page.
5 - Maigret on Oct 25, 2008, 12:25 pm:

Great tips but I personnally prefered Platinum Seo Pack more complete.
6 - Rainbow on Oct 25, 2008, 12:43 pm:

Hi jbj,
some techniques i use :
display related posts at the end of an article
registrate on free directories like Dmoz
Platinum Seo Pack rather than All In One Seo
publish my articles on 2 or 3 digg-like
Google webmasters tools (sitemap, robots.txt…) of course
etc…

PS : dans le titre 7. tu as oublié le s à robot.txt si je ne me trompe pas !
7 - Christopher Ross on Oct 25, 2008, 1:52 pm:

I just rewrote the robot meta tag to ensure duplicated content from multiple categories only shows up once, this should help web sites SEO a lot as well. The link is Fixing duplicate content so Google doesn’t see it.
8 - Remkus on Oct 25, 2008, 2:28 pm:

Nice read through.What’s your motivation on this one: /%postname%/%post_id% ?
9 - jbj on Oct 25, 2008, 2:38 pm:

@Maigret/Rainbow: Thanks to both of you for suggesting Platinum Seo Pack!

@Remkus: I know this is very rare, but if you’re using the /%postname% permalink structure and for some reason you have 2 posts with exactly the same title, some problems will occur.
As the ID is unique to each post, you can avoid this kind of problem by using the /%postname%/%post_id% permalink structure.
But I must admit that this is a bit paranoid
10 - Remkus on Oct 25, 2008, 3:14 pm:

Thanks for the answer. I was wondering if maybe it had SEO advantages like Joost de Valk mentions here.
11 - eddai on Oct 25, 2008, 3:48 pm:

thanks for tips.how do we know if a site uses rel=”nofollow” attribute?
12 - Bingu on Oct 25, 2008, 5:21 pm:

h1 for the post title.

oh, I make a big mistake in my blog, I always use it for the blog title.
13 - Wei Liang | ABloggerBlog on Oct 26, 2008, 2:39 am:

Great tips to improve SEOs. I believe working on LSI and keywords are also crucial in improving SEOs. Google has been mentioning about LSI in its SERP algorithm.

Wei Liang
14 - jbj on Oct 26, 2008, 2:59 am:

@eddai: You should use Fast Blog Finder to know if a blog is dofollow or nofollow.
15 - fromtheold on Oct 27, 2008, 1:25 am:

Wow

My favourite part is the permalinks. I think that makes a massive difference on search engines.
16 - tinyurl script on Oct 27, 2008, 3:45 am:

great tip.. thanks for the robot.txt file it is very effective and helpful..
17 - Tyler Hayes on Oct 27, 2008, 9:12 am:

Thanks for the tips! I used to use the All In One SEO plugin myself, but stopped when more collaborators started posting on my site and didn’t use it. I guess I’ll just have to suggest they use it harder!
18 - PS3 Guy on Oct 27, 2008, 6:02 pm:

Nice tips, i’ve just downloaded the All in One SEO Plugin.
I’ve tried to change my permalinks to %postname% but it always messes up my blog. The CSS for the blog disappears. Anyone know what the cause could be?
19 - CraigC on Oct 27, 2008, 11:50 pm:

Thanks so much! These are exactly the kind of tips I’ve been looking for.
20 - Taylor Thompson on Oct 28, 2008, 9:34 am:

I just want to make note that using the h1 more than once per page is not a good idea.

This is where WP has an Advantage over Blogger.

WP users can make multiple post titles on their home page h2 tags. And then on specific article pages WP users can make that post title an h1 tag.

Blogger users on the other hand have to have things one way or another. Thus, they have to stick with the H2 tag.

Still, I haven’t noticed any issues with my rankings. Then again, maybe that’s because I am not using WP.
21 - Catrin W on Oct 28, 2008, 1:22 pm:

Great tips once again. These days these tips are crucial for the competition race, and everyone should spent some time on optimizing blogs if they want to make some serps.
22 - Connie on Oct 28, 2008, 8:53 pm:

Wonderful tips, I will put them to good use.
23 - SEO Test on Oct 29, 2008, 7:50 am:

I also use Platinum SEO Pack. It is more complete.
One more thing, I like to use custom permalink without category. Do you think it is better? Anyway, thanks it is a simple but great information for me.
24 - kouji on Oct 29, 2008, 6:36 pm:

That’s my code for the title:

|

<?php
if((is_home() && ($paged < 2 )) || is_single() || is_page() || is_category()){
echo ”;
} else {
echo ”;}

if (is_single() || is_page() ) : if ( have_posts() ) : while ( have_posts() ) : the_post(); ?>
<meta name=”description” content=”" />

<meta name=”description” content=”" />
25 - Bob on Oct 31, 2008, 12:43 am:

This is very helpful information. I had a few wordpress blogs and for awhile I was not taking advantage of proper SEO tactics. Writing great content can only get you so far, you need to market the thing properly as well!
26 - jesse on Nov 1, 2008, 10:47 am:

Is it right that we should use site map plugins also for seo purposes.
If we have more than 100 post, how do we separate that posts into different site map?
Your help is appreciated. Thanks.
27 - Make Money Blogging on Nov 1, 2008, 3:26 pm:

Very detailed tips my friend..
28 - James - Forex Trading Blog on Nov 1, 2008, 7:11 pm:

Thanks for the tips.

Just one question. If you already have an established blog, is it too late to change the permalink structure as I would have thought this would totally mess up the blog?
29 - Webkinz on Nov 1, 2008, 11:00 pm:

I would also recomend to use Dagon Design Sitemap Generator and Google XML Sitemaps plugins. First one is for sitemap page and second one for sitemap which search engines will get.
30 - Wei Liang | ABloggerBlog on Nov 2, 2008, 9:46 am:

Great tips to improve SEOs. Would like to add in another tip to the list.
#9 Internal linking.

Keep the great content coming dude.

Wei Liang
31 - Gutscheine, Gutscheincodes on Nov 2, 2008, 9:00 pm:

Thanks for the useful information. Especially the number 2)
32 - Aaron Patterson on Nov 3, 2008, 8:37 am:

Thanks for providing the useful information regarding SEO, keep up the good work.

It was a great help!!!
33 - Will on Nov 3, 2008, 4:41 pm:

These are great tips here, thanks!
34 - Social Wonders on Nov 4, 2008, 8:21 am:

thanx for these good tips. I liked the last one.
35 - brandon alan scofield on Nov 4, 2008, 12:41 pm:

sir , wrote :
/%category%/%postname%-%post_id%

———–
I look at this blog url structure , yeah you apply that url, nice , it’s creative
36 - John Coutts on Nov 4, 2008, 7:23 pm:

Great stuff! I thought my WordPress blog was enhanced pretty good, and it is, but I found a few tips in there to make it even better. That’s always good. Thanks.

John.
37 - John on Nov 4, 2008, 9:40 pm:

Great tips, thanks. I’m just starting out on wordpress and it’s alot to take in but slowly getting there
38 - Amy on Nov 4, 2008, 10:48 pm:

Thanks for the great tips! Especially the robots.txt one. I did not know about this.
39 - Boise Real Estate Ben on Nov 5, 2008, 1:42 am:

Thanks for the excellent info. My wordpress blog needs some work and I think that this can help.
40 - Prescott Hardcastle on Nov 8, 2008, 10:32 am:

Great ideas, thank you. Easy to implement. This really shortened my learning curve.
41 - blogshop on Nov 8, 2008, 12:58 pm:

If you already have an established blog, is it too late to change the permalink structure as I would have thought this would totally mess up the
42 - SEO Test on Nov 9, 2008, 1:59 pm:

Hi jbj, I think you forgot to mention about related post, ot’s another way’s to make your visitor stay longer on your site
43 - daiLyFeed on Nov 10, 2008, 12:36 pm:

a warm thanks for this article.. thanks for the list of the blogs which we can acquire good backlinks..
44 - Web Talk on Nov 10, 2008, 8:30 pm:

I am “using” all of your tips posted here. I also use All in one seo pack, XML and robots.txt. I am ashamed to tell you that i didnt know and understand the importance of getting quality backlinks from other blogs. Till a couple of months ago I was wondering why few people were reading my blog with just 20 backlinks in Google. Well, as the old saying goes…it is never too late to learn…thanks
45 - Swim University on Nov 10, 2008, 11:23 pm:

Great to the point post, one day I hope I’ll finally understand backlinks
46 - Ruby on Nov 12, 2008, 4:23 pm:

Keyword rich content is the basis of it all. If you master that, then the rest will be much easier to perform and increase its effectiveness.
47 - Misa on Nov 14, 2008, 9:42 am:

This is very informative post.. Keep those tips come in..
48 - Kate on Nov 14, 2008, 11:59 am:

my website is really rich in keywords and well optimised but lately looses position and indexed pages so quickly…you never know with google
49 - brandon alan scofield on Nov 14, 2008, 1:56 pm:

create robot.txt, I don’t use this method yet the rest I did
50 - charlotte seo on Nov 14, 2008, 6:30 pm:

site architecture and link structure is VERY important, great tips man thanks
51 - Carrie on Nov 15, 2008, 6:10 pm:

Thanks for this helpful post. I bookmarked it and will refer to it often as I start to move away from static websites to more wordpress blogs.
52 - Gachinpo Feed on Nov 16, 2008, 3:57 pm:

Thanks for the tips! These will surely help bloggers especially those SEO bloggers.
53 - aimyaya on Nov 19, 2008, 11:03 am:

finally i found this site. I’ve been looking for 5 hours for kind of these tips
54 - Black Hat Tips on Nov 23, 2008, 9:39 pm:

Don’t forget Sitemap with the SiteMap Wordpress Plugin
55 - Fatty on Nov 25, 2008, 5:48 am:

Great tips, thanks. I need to learn about the robots.txt, I haven’t been successful with that yet as the bots still come daily but I have 15 days on it.
56 - Paul on Nov 25, 2008, 8:51 pm:

Thanks for the tips I will keep them in mind.
57 - Web Marketing on Nov 26, 2008, 5:17 pm:

Great tips indeed for the bloggers that want better search results.
58 - Gerald SEO Tips Blog on Nov 29, 2008, 11:41 pm:

These are some great tips. It’s important to get your permalink structure changed before you blog gets too many incoming links so you won’t create broken links. I still need to create a robot.txt file for my blog. Anyways thanks for the tips.
59 - seosoeasy on Dec 2, 2008, 4:48 pm:

Thanks so much! Iam too lucky today that i got this page.i was waiting for this tips for so long.i had read many tips about seo but not too detailed.i think this article will help me a lot.iam in basic level in seo field.this article helps me to know more about seo.thanks friend.have a nice day.
60 - Janet on Dec 2, 2008, 8:06 pm:

Good information, permalinks plays a huge part in indexing, SEO is not an easy task.
61 - Sarbjit Singh on Dec 8, 2008, 8:30 am:

Just visited WP Recipes, thought should check your other site too..

Its great, Thank you for the SEO tips.. I will definitely go through the link list..
62 - seosoeasy on Dec 8, 2008, 9:52 pm:

Great tips and informative too..i had readed this and i like you to posts some useful tips realated to other topics as same like this one.thank you.
63 - drivelocity on Dec 12, 2008, 2:32 am:

thanks for the tips… I’m sure you’re aware of these, but it may be worth pointing out the DoFollow, Top Commentators and Comment Luv plugins. I’ve added them as a means to provide a value to visitors who comment on my site. Also people search out and post on blogs that use them to get more backlinks.
64 - Rundll32 on Dec 13, 2008, 3:46 am:

This blog is full of awesome wordpress tips I love it!
65 - krims@nline.be on Dec 18, 2008, 12:22 pm:

Only started some time again and created my onw photoblog, googled around and stumbled on this site. Love to read the articels over here as they always seem to be usefull in some way for a beginning (photo)blogger like me.
66 - Janet on Dec 23, 2008, 5:25 am:

Useful tips for sure, thank you so much. I think that with new 2.7 WP we will see lot’s of new options on how to use WP as an CMS platform, and new SEO options as well.
67 - Craig on Dec 30, 2008, 11:21 am:

Another way to find out if a blog is no follow is if you right click and view the source code. If you don’t see rel= no follow, you know that it is do follow and you can post away!
68 - Nancy on Dec 31, 2008, 5:23 pm:

nteresting question! I’m not sure about it, but I don’t think that All In One SEO Pack noindexed both the archive pages. You should create (or edit the existing one) a robots.txt file to prevent indexing the second archive page.
69 - cooiky on Jan 2, 2009, 10:33 am:

good tips,and i think ALL In One SEO Pack is every blogger’s first choice.
70 - Learn Checkers on Jan 3, 2009, 12:05 pm:

I am a beginner in the field of seo and and now iam very much motivated and have a clear vision for my future in this arena known as SEO.