WordPress SEO

Around 65% of all websites run on WordPress, and good search engine visibility is desirable for virtually all of them. We do have a few tips on that.

Simply thinking, “We’ve got WordPress with the Yoast SEO plugin installed,” isn’t enough to make Google happy. WordPress is merely a CMS (content management system), so it needs to be set up correctly. There are many plugins available for WordPress. On the one hand, that’s an advantage, but there are also drawbacks. SEO Ninja recommends using as few plugins as possible to keep WordPress secure and fast. With every plugin, you’re dependent on the community. The community isn’t obliged to keep the plugin up to date.

Setting up Yoast SEO properly

The most commonly used plugin for laying a solid SEO foundation is Yoast SEO. This plugin is Dutch-made and free. Simply installing it is certainly not enough. SEO Ninja installs this plugin on every website and then we go through each settings page line by line. The best features are:

• Standardising meta tags. For each module (pages, news, etc.), you can enter the page title and meta description using a few variables. You must use these variables to ensure that the meta tags are always filled in and remain unique.
• Optimising meta tags on a page-by-page basis. If you want to highlight specific pages and articles, you can set a focus keyword and adjust the meta tags accordingly. This overrides the default settings and allows you to keep improving the quality. We also refer to this as on-page optimisation.
• XML Sitemap. Search engines can quickly find and index new pages using sitemaps. The plugin keeps the sitemap up to date.

There’s a lot more you can do with the plugin, but that depends on the purpose of the website. 

Optimising loading times

Fast loading times are a ranking factor. By default, WordPress does not take this into account. There are various plugins that bundle script and JavaScript files (all files are combined into a single file), compress them (unnecessary spaces and comments are removed) and cache them (store them in temporary memory). Reducing image file sizes and minimising database queries also help to speed up websites. SEO Ninja uses various plugins for this, such as W3 Total Cache. We also use JetPack (which backs up articles) and CloudFlare (which protects against DDoS attacks and provides SSL encryption).

Keeping internal links healthy

Broken links are a real pain when it comes to user-friendliness. With the Redirection plugin, you can identify broken links and add 301 redirects. A 301 redirect is a redirect that effectively tells Google that page A is being permanently moved to page B. The valuable link equity of page A is then neatly transferred to page B. It’s important to check this regularly.

Curbing the hassle caused by themes and plugins

According to W3Tech WordPress has a 65% market share. So, out of every three websites, two run on WordPress. This also makes it an attractive prospect for web developers to create themes and plugins. Many of these are free, whilst the better plugins are paid for, or you can get free versions that can be further expanded with paid subscriptions. There are a number of very good plugins, but there are also some that aren’t so good. When choosing a template or plugin, make sure it has been downloaded a lot and has a high rating. Another thing to look out for is who the developer is. Is it a company or an individual? Have they developed one plugin or several? How long has the company been active in developing plugins? Is the plugin being actively maintained and is it compatible with the latest version of WordPress? If development of a plugin stops, you’ll need to look for an alternative quickly.

We believe you should install as few plugins as possible. Many plugins are so broadly designed that you don’t use 85 per cent of their features, yet they still have a negative impact on loading times. The same applies to many themes. That’s why bespoke themes are better, as they allow you to use only what you need.

WordPress is a brilliant CMS, but that doesn’t automatically make it the best SEO-friendly solution. You really need to invest time and effort to set up your SEO as effectively as possible. Very few web agencies actually do this properly, despite claiming to do so. Experience shows otherwise. That’s why you should let us carry out an SEO audit for you.