WordPress SEO

WordPress SEO is the process of enhancing the organic visibility of websites using WordPress, which is the most widely used CMS (Content Management System) globally.

Billions of users and websites are served using the WordPress infrastructure. These WordPress sites can be personal, corporate, or even e-commerce sites. Given this information, it can be confidently stated that there are billions of websites that need to conduct WordPress SEO efforts to be visible online and reach their potential target audiences.

As an SEO expert and WordPress user, within the framework of these requirements for WordPress sites, I will try to share my experiences specifically related to WordPress sites and how they can reach their target audiences through a guide on what WordPress SEO is and how it is done, aimed at WordPress site owners.

In our WordPress SEO article, we will answer the following questions:

• What is WordPress SEO?
• How is WordPress SEO Done?
• What should we pay attention to when doing SEO work on our WordPress sites?
• WordPress or Wix for SEO?
• Is WordPress Compatible for SEO in International and Multilingual Projects?
• Is WordPress SEO Compatible for E-Commerce Sites?

What is WordPress SEO?

WordPress SEO refers to SEO efforts specifically made for sites with a WordPress content management system infrastructure. In other words, WordPress SEO is about making sites with WordPress infrastructure comply with search engine quality guidelines to increase organic visibility. The term WordPress SEO is used to generally refer to search engine optimization processes that can be considered specifically for WordPress sites.

How is WordPress SEO Done?

In doing SEO work for our WordPress websites, we will examine the following steps.

WordPress SEO to-do list includes:

• Choose an SEO-friendly hosting,
• Use an SSL certificate,
• Update your WordPress reading settings,
• Use SEO-friendly permalinks,
• Perform property setups,
• Optimize your site architecture,
• Conduct keyword analyses,
• Use WordPress SEO plugins,
• Focus on social interactions,
• Use site acceleration plugins,
• Create SEO-friendly content,
• Explore blogging,

General WordPress Settings

We will start our traffic-increasing guide for WordPress sites with general settings that can be done inside and outside the WordPress panel. The general settings of WP sites must be implemented before the other steps and are crucial.

Our general setting recommendations in our WordPress SEO guide are as follows:

• Choose an SEO-Friendly Hosting
• SSL
• Readability Settings
• Permalink Settings
• Choose an SEO-Friendly Theme
• Property Setups

Choose an SEO-Friendly Hosting

The choice of hosting affects many criteria such as your website’s security, speed, and naturally, user experience. Therefore, a good hosting selection is one of the most healthy steps that can be taken to optimize our site in an SEO-friendly manner.

When choosing hosting for your WordPress sites, pay attention to the following:

• Do not choose shared hosting,
• Choose hosting specifically prepared for WordPress,
• You can choose LightSpeed Server options,
• Choose hosting that also offers email usage rights,

Select IPs suitable for the general target audience location of your site. If your target audience is in Turkey, then ensure that your website is served from an IP in Turkey, Choose Cloudflare-compatible hosting, These selections will significantly benefit you in your efforts to increase the organic traffic rates of your WordPress site, especially putting you a step ahead in terms of site speed.

Install SSL

SSL stands for Secure Socket Layer. In Turkish, it translates to “Güvenli Geçiş Katmanı” (Secure Transition Layer). This is related to the HTTP and HTTPS states in the domain name’s prefix, where the “S” indicates secure. The presence of SSL is closely related to the security status of a site and directly affects user experience. Due to its importance for security, it is a topic that absolutely should not be overlooked in SEO efforts for our WordPress websites.

• Ensure that the WordPress server/hosting you purchase offers a free SSL certificate,
• Then, activate the SSL certificate for your domain through your WP Hosting admin panel,
• If the SSL certificate is not active on WordPress despite these steps, then you can install the “Really Simple SSL” plugin and activate the SSL certificate.

Optimize Your WordPress Reading Settings

The “Reading” settings in WordPress are directly related to the index status of your site on search engines.

• To access the WordPress Reading Settings, open “Left Menu > Settings > Reading.”
• In the reading settings area, make sure the option “Discourage search engines from indexing this site” is definitely not selected.

Thanks to the reading settings, the index status of your WordPress site will be open, and unless you specify otherwise in your page settings or category settings, your site will be visible on search engines. This is a vital situation for WordPress SEO efforts.

Optimize Your WordPress Permalink Settings

Permalinks are the identifiers in your website’s address bar. Search engines and users will start to understand your pages through these permalinks. Therefore, the settings you make here are of vital importance for your WordPress SEO efforts.

How to Set WordPress Permalink Settings?

• Open the Settings > Permalinks tab,
• Select your permalink structure setting as “Post name”,
• If you have categories and product structures (e-commerce structure), do not forget to set the bases for categories and products from the same page as well,

To ensure an SEO-friendly permalink setting, pay attention to the following:

• Directly include your page’s primary target keyword in your permalink,
• Use your category structures in the URL,
• Avoid using special characters in the URL structure,
• Do not frequently change your URL structures, as it can lead to index loss.

Choose an SEO-Friendly Theme

Themes are the first visual structure your users will see. As we always say, WordPress SEO efforts should be “user-focused” and should grow based on user experience.

When choosing a theme that will add value to your WordPress SEO efforts, pay attention to the following:

• Page loading speeds,
• Blog page layouts,
• Category page layouts,
• Homepage templates,
• Mobile compatibility,
• Optimization and update options,
• The ability to easily change the components you want,
• Clean and fast code structure.

Paying attention to these steps – especially to page loading speeds – will provide you with significant gains in your WordPress SEO efforts.

Property (Tool) Installations

Property installations, meaning the setup of necessary tools, are essential for WordPress SEO efforts. The SEO tools to be integrated into the site will enable the tracking of acquired traffic and view counts, interactions occurring on the site, user journeys, and other metrics vital for our digital marketing efforts. Therefore, we must also install these tools in our WordPress SEO work.

Tools we need to install for WordPress SEO efforts include:

• Google Search Console
• Google Analytics
• Google Tag Manager
• Microsoft Clarity

Google Search Console

Google Search Console is a webmaster tool that shows organic traffic and impression values for websites, including information provided by Google search engine bots, such as page experience and crawling statistics.

Every site must definitely have Google Search Console installed. After installation, the metrics to be followed include:

• Number of organic clicks,
• Number of organic impressions,
• Average organic position,
• Organic click-through rate,

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a free data collection tool that provides metrics about all channels through which your website gains traffic and shares detailed dimensions about user interaction. It’s a vital tool for measuring the traffic and interactions your WordPress sites gain. It must definitely be used in our WordPress SEO efforts because it’s free and can be installed on every site.

Important metrics to follow on Google Analytics include:

• Number of sessions,
• Number of new users,
• Number of conversions,
• Number of events,
• Number of interactive sessions,

Google Tag Manager

Google Tag Manager is a free Google tool that allows us to set up and manage tags on our websites for tracking specific events we want to follow. It will significantly contribute to creating special events that you might need in your WordPress SEO efforts. It is also beneficial for e-commerce setups and must definitely be installed on WordPress.

Microsoft Clarity

Microsoft Clarity is a webmaster tool that allows us to collect data focused on “user behavior” for websites for free. It facilitates easy setup and usage due to its connection with Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager.

It will be especially important for projects where we need to analyze user behaviors.

Metrics to follow on your WordPress sites with Microsoft Clarity include:

• Invalid clicks,
• Heat maps,
• Live recordings,
• Scroll depth,

Site Architecture

The site architecture ensures a good browsing experience for both users and search engine bots. It also allows search engine bots to more clearly understand the hierarchy and makes the content on the site more meaningfully handled. Ultimately, all pages scanned by search engines are subjected to a URL read. The position of that URL in the hierarchy, how well the page is interpreted, and if it is read as intended are important. Therefore, having a well-planned site architecture is an important topic for our WordPress SEO efforts. Points to consider in site architecture include:

• Category Settings
• Page Settings
• Post Settings
• Tag Settings

Optimize Your WordPress Category Settings

Our WordPress categories can be either product or blog categories. It’s one of the content types that can exist on WordPress and is a situation that must be handled.

Things to consider for blog categories to make your WordPress sites stand out on search engines:

• Can be used as Index open or Noindex, ensure there’s no clash with another page if Index open,
• If Noindex, appearing in Breadcrumbs could harm your hierarchy,
• A Noindex blog category structure not appearing in your URL hierarchy could be more beneficial,
• If Index open, you can subject it to short text usage.
• If Index open, it should be included in the sitemap.

Things to consider for product categories to make your WordPress e-commerce sites stand out on search engines:

• Must definitely be Index open,
• They should be the primary focus in e-commerce SEO efforts,
• Should be subject to an internal link plan from main categories to subcategories,
• Should be subjected to SEO-friendly content efforts,
• Must appear in the permalink structure,
• Should be included in the sitemap.

Optimize Your WordPress Page Settings

Pages are the second type of content that can be used on WordPress-powered sites. Page type content will be used for all needs such as Contact, Home, About Us, etc. It’s a mandatory type of content. Therefore, it holds vital importance in our WordPress SEO efforts.

In our WordPress SEO efforts for page settings, we should ensure:

• They must definitely be open to indexing,
• An internal linking structure must be established from main pages to our subpages,
• They should be subjected to an SEO-friendly permalink structure,
• Consider them as Pillar (Column) content. For example, a “Treatments” page can be created with a “Teeth Whitening” page as a sub-category.
• They should be included in the sitemap.

Optimize Your WordPress Post Settings

Posts, or Posts in WordPress-powered pages, are content types of vital importance. They enable the production and sharing of blog content. Therefore, they hold vital importance for our WordPress SEO efforts.

In our WordPress SEO efforts, post settings should be done as follows:

• They must definitely be created for every project and be open to indexing,
• They should be subjected to SEO-friendly content efforts,
• They should be categorized,
• They must definitely include additions such as FAQ, Author Box, Images, and Videos,
• In internal linking efforts, they should be considered at the bottom layer and structured with all kinds of links.
• They should be included in the sitemap.

WordPress Tag Settings

Tags are structures that can be added to both products and posts. They can be used in multiple ways and subjected to filters. However, they are not highly recommended. Designing and monitoring a tag system effectively is quite challenging. Instead, structuring a category system in a healthy manner is more feasible.

How should tag settings be for WordPress sites?

• They should be set to noindex,
• They should not be included in the sitemap,
• Due to their difficult optimization, they have a low traffic potential,
• Not recommended for WordPress SEO efforts,
• It is advised to disable them.

Conducting Target and Keyword Analyses

A keyword is a query that your target audience uses in search engines to find the services we provide or the products we sell. Getting impressions and clicks on these queries is everything for SEO efforts. Therefore, keywords are “everything” for WordPress SEO efforts as well. They need to be well-analyzed and identified in accordance with the target audience. Otherwise, every step taken in our WordPress SEO efforts will be unstable.

Keyword Identifications

When identifying keywords, a good analysis must be put forth, and significant effort must be made. The following steps should be implemented for a successful keyword analysis in WordPress SEO efforts:

• Planning should be made according to user intent. For product detail or product category pages, the “purchase” intent should be prioritized,
• For blog pages, the “information gathering” intent should be prioritized,
• If the work is for a new site, long-tail keywords with low volume and competition level should be preferred,
• Focus should be on keywords and keyword groups that will provide a long-term, sustainable contribution to the website,
• In long-term planning, keywords with low competition but high volume can be preferred,
• Competitor analyses should be conducted to determine which keywords your competitors are indexed for on their target pages.

Category Structure

For WordPress sites or any other websites, the process of determining keywords for SEO efforts is crucial, as is categorizing these keywords. It’s necessary to identify main and related keywords and plan topics for all categories and pages.

To give an example of the categorization mentioned here:

When targeting the keyword “WordPress SEO,” you need to become authoritative specifically on the entities (concepts) of “WordPress” and “SEO” to rank well for that keyword. This means you also need to be prominent in highly searched terms related to WordPress and SEO.

Being present in sub-keywords like WordPress SEO, E-Commerce SEO, etc., can provide benefits.

Making such groupings will significantly enhance your WordPress SEO efforts and make it easier to stand out.

WordPress Plugins

Thanks to its open-source nature, WordPress allows many developers to create plugins and share them either for free or for a fee. These plugins benefit WordPress users in many processes, including SEO.

Plugins we should use in our WordPress SEO efforts include:

• Rank Math SEO
• Yoast SEO
• All-in-One SEO
• WP Rocket
• LiteSpeed Cache
• W3 Total Cache
• WP Optimize
• Blog2Social
• Zapier

WordPress SEO Plugins

SEO plugins are definitely necessary for sites built on WordPress. With the WordPress SEO plugins mentioned here, you’ll find that your processes move forward more quickly and healthily.

These tools help in optimizing your site for search engines by improving various aspects like on-page SEO, technical SEO, and performance optimizations. By leveraging these plugins effectively, you can significantly enhance your website’s visibility, user experience, and overall search engine ranking.

The Rank Math SEO plugin

The Rank Math SEO plugin is among the most highly recommended tools for SEO efforts on WordPress sites. It offers significant momentum, especially in WordPress technical SEO efforts, for free. Therefore, as an SEO expert, I strongly recommend it.

With Rank Math SEO on WordPress sites, you can:

• Create a sitemap,
• Perform automatic structured data markup,
• Set index and noindex statuses,
• Manage internal and external link adjustments,
• Disable unwanted content types,
• Plan archive pages,
• Implement instant indexing settings,
• Conduct keyword-based SEO analyses and receive suggestions,
• Edit titles and meta descriptions,
• Implement 301, 302 redirects.

Rank Math provides a comprehensive suite of tools that enhance your website’s SEO by automating many of the technical aspects, simplifying the management of on-page elements, and offering valuable insights to optimize content for better search engine rankings.

Yoast SEO Plugin

The Yoast SEO plugin is one of the most widely used SEO plugins for WordPress-powered sites. It positively contributes to our WordPress SEO processes with its numerous features. When compared to Rank Math SEO, it is my second choice for an SEO plugin, although I generally prefer Rank Math.

What can you do with Yoast SEO on WordPress sites?

• Create a sitemap,
• Use automatic schema markup,
• Set index and noindex statuses,
• Make internal and external link adjustments,
• Disable unwanted content types,
• Plan archive pages,
• Perform SEO analyses based on focus keywords,
• Edit titles and meta descriptions,

How to Install Yoast SEO?

• Go to your WordPress dashboard and open the “Plugins” section,
• Click “Add New” at the top left of the page,
• In the plugin library, type “Yoast SEO” in the search bar on the right,
• Find the plugin and click “Install”,
• Then click “Activate”.

All-in-One SEO Plugin

The All-in-One SEO plugin, along with Yoast and Rank Math, is one of the most used WordPress SEO plugins. Generally, it is not my first recommendation due to its features being less comprehensive compared to Yoast and Rank Math.

What can you do with All-in-One SEO on WordPress sites?

• Create a sitemap,
• Set index and noindex statuses,
• Make internal and external link adjustments,
• Disable unwanted content types,
• Plan archive pages,
• Edit titles and meta descriptions,

WordPress Site Speed Optimization Plugins

Site speed is crucial for WordPress SEO efforts as it directly relates to user experience. It should be a primary focus of technical SEO efforts. Therefore, our WordPress SEO guide will also cover site speed optimization plugins.

Before starting, you can analyze your site’s speed using Google’s PageSpeed Insights.

WP Rocket

WP Rocket is a plugin designed to quickly and reliably improve site speeds for WordPress-powered sites. It is a premium plugin without a free version. When compared to other site speed plugins, it tends to be more effective and comes highly recommended.

What can you do with the WP Rocket site speed optimization plugin?

• CSS optimizations,
• JS optimizations,
• Add missing image dimensions,
• Lazy-load,
• Combine CSS,
• Caching,
• Preloading,
• Defer JavaScript, By doing so, you can gain a significant advantage in your site speed optimization efforts.

Of course, after making all improvements, you must ensure there are no issues with your themes.

WP Rocket plugin: https://wp-rocket.me/

LiteSpeed Cache

LiteSpeed Cache is a free site acceleration plugin available for WordPress-powered sites. Although it may not provide as universally strong results as the WP-Rocket plugin for every site, it is highly recommended due to its advantages, securing its place as the second choice among our site acceleration plugins.

If you prefer to use a free plugin, LiteSpeed Cache should definitely be your choice.

Features of LiteSpeed Cache Site Acceleration Plugin:

• Caching,
• CSS Minify,
• JavaScript Minify,
• HTML Minify,
• Lazy-Load,
• Adding missing image dimensions,
• DNS Prefetch.

W3 Cache

W3 Cache is a free site acceleration plugin offering solutions for WordPress-powered sites. From my experience as an SEO expert, it falls behind both WP-Rocket and LiteSpeed Cache. It can be a preferred option due to being free, especially if your server does not support LiteSpeed Cache.

WP Optimize

WP Optimize is another free site speed optimization plugin for WordPress sites. It isn’t generally my first choice but can be preferred in cases of theme incompatibility, offering similar usage features and advantages to LiteSpeed Cache.

WordPress Social Sharing Plugins

WordPress Social Sharing Plugins automatically share content you post on your WordPress website across multiple connected social media accounts, allowing for rapid interaction from different traffic sources. This is why they earn a spot in our WordPress SEO guide.

BlogSocial

BlogSocial is a free social sharing plugin that allows you to add and authorize multiple social media accounts simultaneously, integrating with platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Reddit, Diggo, Pinterest, Tumblr, Twitter, and facilitating automatic sharing.

Zapier

Zapier is a no-code automation system providing solutions not just for WordPress sites but for all digital marketing processes. It works web-based and can be utilized for any project or site, automating tasks like social media sharing, Google Sheets and Trello connections, email reminders, and mail setups without needing coding knowledge.

WordPress Security Plugins

WordPress Security Plugins are essential due to the potential security risks associated with WordPress’s open-source nature. Ensuring security during your WordPress SEO efforts is mandatory.

WP Hide Login

WP Hide Login allows changing the WordPress admin panel login URL, securing your login page with a custom link.

Akismet

Akismet filters and detects spam comments, offering a cleaner comment section, thus it is highly recommended.

Wordfence

Wordfence provides comprehensive security monitoring for your site, keeping a close eye on plugin vulnerabilities and overall security, offering broad security coverage for your WordPress site.

Content Optimizations

Content is a decisive factor for SEO efforts. In fact, for many SEO experts, content work is indispensable for SEO. As an SEO expert, I believe that content efforts are vital and indispensable elements of our WordPress SEO efforts.

Publishing SEO-friendly articles on your WordPress sites yields the following benefits:

• Gaining indexation for more relevant keywords,
• Achieving more impressions and increasing your visibility,
• Earning organic traffic from relevant keywords,
• Strengthening your internal linking network,
• Reaching your potential target audience.

Therefore, content identification, creation of SEO-friendly content, and content development processes are critically important.

Content Identification

After discovering potential keywords in your WordPress SEO efforts, it’s essential to identify content topics that match these keywords. This will leapfrog your entire process.

To identify content for your WordPress SEO processes, follow this to-do list:

• Identify your competitors’ blogs that are gaining traffic,
• Focus on keywords that are closely related to your target keywords, one step before the purchasing journey of your products, and match the intent of acquiring information. For example, if you’re selling “Sports Shoes,” identify keywords like “Best sports shoe brands list,” “What to buy for going to the gym,”
• Concentrate on topics that may interest your users and are related to your services, like “What is? How to do?”,
• Pay attention to the “Search Suggestions” that appear when you search your keyword on Google,
• Focus on the questions listed under “Frequently Asked Questions” that appear when you search your keyword on Google,
• Think like a user and consider the steps and queries a user might make before making a purchase,
• Utilize keyword analysis tools like Ahrefs, Semrush, Google Keywords Planner,

By implementing these steps, you can identify content topics that will significantly contribute to your WordPress SEO processes.

Creating SEO-Friendly Content

SEO-friendly content is content that has been planned and optimized within the framework of specific target keywords. Proper goal setting and planning by experts are required.

Creating SEO-friendly content on your WordPress sites offers you the following advantages:

• Faster traffic,
• More internal links,
• More reliable pages,
• More positive signals (to algorithms), These items will bring you quick and long-term sustained SEO success.

How to Write an SEO-Friendly Article for WordPress?

• Identify original content,
• Use a natural writing style,
• Include keywords,
• Keep the text as long as necessary,
• Pay attention to your title structure,
• Use an SEO-friendly URL structure,
• Add images and video materials, For more, refer to: guide to creating SEO-friendly content.

Content Update

Content update is the process of optimizing outdated or underperforming content within the SEO criteria framework. This process is based on adding new and current information to outdated content, conducting competitor analyses, and making keyword-based updates.

Updating content will provide advantages in the following areas:

• Achieving better performance from articles that previously performed poorly,
• Sending freshness signals,
• Enhancing competitive standing.

As an SEO expert, I recommend regularly updating your content to gain these advantages.

What are the steps for updating SEO-friendly content?

• Identify content that ranks in the 10-15th positions,
• Conduct competitor analyses for updating these contents,
• Identify missing titles,
• Identify missing keywords,
• Analyze user experience,
• Implement the updates,
• Share over social media.

What to Watch Out For When Doing SEO on WordPress Sites?

WordPress provides a fast and suitable infrastructure for SEO efforts. However, this does not mean that you can achieve high rankings with minimal effort. Therefore, when optimizing your WordPress sites, you should pay attention to the following:

• You don’t have to do everything WordPress SEO plugins suggest,
• Avoid applying non-organic SEO recommendations to your site,
• Keep your WordPress site secure at all times,
• Always choose an optimized theme,
• Stay away from overoptimization,
• Keep your WordPress plugins and theme up to date,
• Don’t focus solely on keywords,
• Continuously monitor your site’s index count.

Is WordPress or Wix Better for SEO Efforts?

Considering SEO efforts, I can confidently say that WordPress infrastructures offer more advantages compared to Wix. Based on my experience, WordPress sites have many features that provide advantages in SEO.

Advantages of WordPress sites in SEO include:

• Providing a free infrastructure,
• Having thousands of SEO plugins,
• Being open source, allowing easy modifications in the code structure,
• Possessing thousands of SEO-friendly themes,
• Being user-friendly and accessible.

Is WordPress Compatible for International and Multilingual Projects in Terms of SEO?

One of the greatest advantages of WordPress is its ability to produce solutions for every structure with thousands of plugins. Thanks to these plugins, we can comfortably say that WordPress sites are SEO-compatible for managing international and multilingual projects.

It provides significant contributions to international projects and gains an advantage in international SEO through its translation and multilingual plugins.

Plugins contributing to the multilingual capability of WordPress sites include:

• Polylang
• WPML
• GTranslate
• TranslatePress

Considerations for multilingual WordPress sites include:

• Check for hreflang structure compatibility,
• Ensure there is a sitemap for each language,
• Ensure easy language transitions between pages.

Is WordPress SEO-Friendly for E-Commerce Sites?

WordPress provides significant plugins and advantages for e-commerce. Especially with the WooCommerce plugin, it makes e-commerce very easy. Thanks to the advantages offered by plugins, we can say that WordPress sites are SEO-compatible for e-commerce projects.

Advantages of WordPress infrastructure for E-commerce SEO include:

• WooCommerce plugin,
• Optimization of category and product pages,
• Easy payment system integrations,
• Marketplace integrations,
• Mail marketing optimizations.

Interested in this question? You may also want to visit our article on How to Do E-commerce SEO.

What is WordPress SEO Consulting?

WordPress SEO consulting is a service specifically conducted for WordPress-powered sites. It is a process managed by expert consultants in both WordPress and SEO. The planned SEO consulting process aims to perfect the WordPress website in terms of both technical and on-site elements and to bring the website to the forefront in keywords.

This SEO consulting for WordPress sites can cater to categories of websites including personal, e-commerce, and B2B sites. Therefore, it is imperative to have the necessary equipment and experience to provide such a service.