Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is a mystical and often misunderstood aspect of the web. I have mentioned SEO in a few posts (here and here) and am a bit skeptical of many SEO consultants. SEO is more of an art than a science. There are certain things that you can do to improve your Search Engine Rankings, but there’s no silver bullet. I hope that this post gives you a bit of background on SEO and a few tools to incorporate into your blogging routine to increase your rankings.
SEO refers to any series of actions taken to improve your sites search rankings. There are two types: white-hat (or ethical) SEO and black-hat (deceitful) SEO. In this post we will only discuss white-hat SEO and internal SEO. Internal SEO is focused on improving your site based on actions taken on your site. This does not include listing your site in directories or receiving links from other sites.
First, let me tell you what SEO cannot do. I don’t care what the consultant tells you, he or she cannot guarantee that your site will do better on a Search Engine Results Page, or SERP. Period. Full stop. Search engines are controlled by complex and secret algorithms. Unless your SEO consultant has access to these, which they don’t, they cannot assure you that they will be successful.
That being said, there are techniques that, generally, can drastically improve your ranking in SERPs. The first is a real no brainer: create quality content. I’ve said this over and over again, both in the context of SEO and as a general rule on your blog, Twitter, etc. This is the most important aspect of any SEO work. If you have a great looking blog, awesome widgets, dozens of links, and no quality content, you fail. I don’t think I need to get too specific here, just write accurate and strong content related to your firm or organization. Make sure you use important keywords in your content, but do more than just list popular phrases. Your writing should sound professional and keyword rich.
Second I highly recommend tagging your content in WordPress. I use a WP plugin called Simple Tags, but there are many others that have good reviews and recommendations. Simple Tags can show you local tags that you have already used and incorporate tags from Yahoo and a few other sites.
Another plugin that you must have is the All In One SEO Pack for WordPress. This robust plugin allows you to add keywords, descriptions of content, and excerpts for each post.
I also highly recommend Google XML Sitemaps plugin for WordPress. This plugin creates an easily digestable sitemap for Google to index. No WordPress blog should be without these three plugins.
If you’re feeling a bit brave, I’d also recommend Zemanta. This plugin, according to it’s description, provides contextually relevant links, pictures, and tags. I’ve been using it for a few months and it’s pretty awesome. However, it does take a bit of memory to run and can slow down your posting. However, I find that it’s completely worth the performance hit.
Finally, for the sake of SEO and for your readers, I highly recommend the Yet Another Related Posts Plugin. Based on your settings, this plugin creates links to other relevant content on your site. It’s a great way to increase the interlinking of content on your site.
This is a great start for SEO on your WordPress site. However, this is only a start. SEO is a complex and ever-changing field; what worked last week might not work this week. I mentioned these plugins because they are ones that I use for a basic WordPress install. With the exception of Zemanta, I would not launch a WP site without the listed plugins.
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There is a possibility that consultant can predict if they will success or not in SEO. Although consultant do not create and have access in Google. There are thousands of way to win SERP.
I still wonder, many people say if to make sure we get win in SERP by writing quality content. But I never read people discuss or explain what is quality content? what sort of article that determine as quality content? As human being what I know about quality content is useful information that add some knowledge or give inspiration. Of course this article should well- written. For human, quality content is depend on taste. I don’t know if search engine also can determine this just like human being. All I know If someone want to win SERP, they should include their keywords in the body of article.