WordPress SEO"Getting started"

By Peter Mead petermeadit.com - @petermeadit

What is SEO...?Everybody wants to get their site found, not everyone can get into #1 spot on Google

What is WordPress SEOIt is two things. 1. It is that act of SEO for WordPress sites. 2. It is a WordPress plugin that takes some of the hard work out of SEO and give you a start towards getting your site found. 3. it is a lot of work... oh that's three things :|But is it enough on its own?How far down the rabbit hole do you want to go?

So you want more visits?● You have a WordPress website but not

many people visit.● You need visitors to your site, to succeed● You can get traffic by appearing in the

SERPs - Google's result pages● This usually does does not happen by itself● We can use WordPress SEO plugin to help● It will help us get onsite SEO under control● Follow the plugin guided steps to success

Onsite WordPress SEO● Onsite deals with SEO details onsite

○ optimize your pages content○ images titles○ meta descriptions ○ XML sitemaps○ and a lot more optimization to boot.

● Offsite optimization considerations○ should be done after onsite optimization○ inbound links - 'the holy grail' ○ social media, web 2.0 properties etc. ○ bookmarking, StumpleUpon, digg, Squdoo etc.○ it takes a lot of work == it gets a lot of traffic.

Titles and meta tags● set templates for titles and meta descriptions

for all types of pages● the WordPress SEO meta box to optimize

your post title and meta description● the snippet preview shows what it would look

like in Google

robots.txt to hide pages● robots.txt is used by Google and other

search engines to know which pages the spiders should index.

● edit robots.txt with WordPress SEO plugin. ● can control each page or post if desired.

Canonical● Google introduced canonical link to

distinguish the “original” page from derivative pages in your site, to avoid

"duplicate content!"● set in the settings of your wordpress site

● set it on a page level for each page if needed

XML SitemapsSitemaps are used by GWT (Google Webmster tools)● Wordpress SEO lets you create and control details of

said xml sitemaps. Tells google what is important

Where to from here?

● download WordPress SEO● http://wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-seo/● learn more: http://yoast.com/wordpress/seo/● it is a journey, 'patience Luke...'● Moz beginners guide● http://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo

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