Thursday, January 22, 2009

Vital Factors for WordPress Search Engine Optimization

There is no shortage of advice in terms of what folks must do to improve a WordPress web site's position in the search engine listings.

Some people agree, some disagree, and some people are out-and-out puzzling.

Recently a well-known group of SEO experts provided their professional opinions to SEOmoz with reference to what is relevant to gain high search engine listings today.

In summary, below are the 4 most important SEO ranking elements, in accordance with their consensus views.

Keywords in the Title

It is extremely important to insert the correct keywords when writing the text used in the title tag of a WordPress page. It does not only assist with improved rankings, it also assists with the click-through from the SE listings to the destination page. It's of reduced value to be listed high in the search results without receiving that many clicks. The primary goal should be to gain as many visitors to the web pages as feasible.

The SE highlights in bold the keywords that were entered by the web surfer. If part of your title is shown in bold, it gives the listing a higher chance of being seen and receiving that mouse click. However, highlighted keywords aren't the only element to consider when composing the title tag.

A wisely crafted title tag, that entices the searcher to click through, can gain a lot of additional clicks. It is more advantageous to gain 100 clicks from the fifth listing with an eye-catching title tag than 50 clicks from listing number 3 with a boring title tag.

The Anchor Text that's Used in Links to Your Site

The anchor text that's employed in the hyperlink that points to your site from another web site counts a lot in the SE computations to determine what your site is all about. Additionally, what your web site is all about defines largely what keywords it will rank for in the SERPs.

If at all you can exert any influence on the anchor text that other sites utilize with their links to you, then it is a very productive investment of your time.

A greater number of sites that link to your web site with a certain keyphrase, or alternate versions of that keyword, will prompt the SE's to more eagerly believe that your site is all about that specific keyword.

It is even better if the content of the page on your web site contains that particular keyphrase and phrases similar in meaning.

The Universal Link Popularity of the Web Site

The number of hyperlinks that are pointed to a site is utilized by the search engines to figure out the relative importance of your site. This includes both the quality of links and the quantity of hyperlinks.

The importance of your site rises in the eyes of the search engines in accordance with the number of distinct web sites that contain links to your web site.

Link building is a never-ending effort.

One can never have enough links pointing to your site. True, it is possible to build backlinks too fast and that can trigger some flags in the algorithms of the search engines.

Notwithstanding, if it's done as an ongoing effort with a longer term view, every link is worth the resources spent in acquiring it. They all contribute to an improved deemed importance of your web site.

The Internal Link Structure of Your Web Site and the Resulting Link Popularity

It's a fact that some of your pages will get more external links than other pages. The pages that do not attract lots of backlinks might be the real money pages that you would aim to rank well in the SE indexes. The internal linking structure, and the anchor text utilized in the internal links, is how you distribute PageRank and reputation inside the perimeters of your site.

The best way to do that is to install the plugin for WP SEO that's expressly built to perform that task.

Some SEO experts believe that an internal link carries the same weight as a link from an external page.

That doesn't mean the site will rank by having only internal links. What it does mean is that you could get a certain page ranked by pointing internal links to it even if it does not have lots of external links, on the condition that the rest of the site has acquired adequate trust from external links.

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