Presentation from Winwar Media on SEO Tips for WordPress, first presented on 15th January 2014 at The Manchester WordPress User Group Download Our Plugins! http://winwar.co.uk/ Follow us on twitter! http://twitter.com/winwaruk Like Us on Facebook! http://facebook.com/winwaruk

1. SEO Tips For WordPress
Rhys Wynne
@rhyswynne - @winwaruk

2. About Me
• Rhys Wynne (@rhyswynne)
• Lead Developer at FireCask
(@Firecask)
• Making WordPress Plugins for
4 Years – Winwar Media
(@winwaruk)
• SEO for 7 Years
• Swears a fair bit (sorry!)
@rhyswynne - @winwaruk

3. First Public Speaking I’ve Ever
Done*
@rhyswynne - @winwaruk

4. @rhyswynne - @winwaruk

5. What Google Says…
“Create a useful, information-rich site, and write
pages that clearly and accurately describe your
content.”
(source: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35769?hl=en)
@rhyswynne - @winwaruk

6. What I think…..
@rhyswynne - @winwaruk

7. Why?
•
My site –
http://www.retrogarden.co.uk/
•
180 posts, written by me or
editorially approved guests.
•
No link building, only links
naturally obtained.
•
Banned from Google Adsense for
“low quality”.
Who is Google to decide what is good/poor quality content?
@rhyswynne - @winwaruk

8. Early Takeaways
• Listen to Google, but question them.
• Content helps SEO by improving number of phrases you can
reasonably rank for.
• Often, regular content beats irregular “quality” content (good source
- http://www.quicksprout.com/2013/12/02/how-to-grow-your-blog-to100000-visits-a-month-in-18-months/ - popups, sorry )
• Never ever say “Create Good Quality Content to Improve SEO”.
• Never ever ever say “Content Is King”!
@rhyswynne - @winwaruk

9. The Best Thing You Can Do To
Improve the SEO of Your
WordPress Site
Install Yoast WordPress SEO
@rhyswynne - @winwaruk

10. If You Have Multiple Users…
Prevents authors from redirecting/canonicalising their posts to other
Locations.
@rhyswynne - @winwaruk

11. If You Have One User…
Yoast SEO > Titles & Metas > Other
@rhyswynne - @winwaruk

12. Focus Keyword…
• Every post/page should have a
focus keyword, which is the
keyword you want that page to
rank for.
• Plugin analyses page and lets
you know where that keyword
is located.
• Also suggests keywords to
rank for (highest up the list
gets more searches).
• More info http://yoast.com/focuskeyword/.
@rhyswynne - @winwaruk

13. General On Page SEO Tips
•
Write content first as you normally do, and then add keywords in such a way
so it still reads correctly.
•
Use your Title attribute for a keyword rich description. Include “| [Site
Name]” at end for branding.
•
Include in the Meta Description your unique selling point to encourage
clickthroughs.
•
Internal Link where Relevant
@rhyswynne - @winwaruk

14. Page Analysis Tab
@rhyswynne - @winwaruk

15. Facebook
• Create a 200 x 200 pixel logo for the site.
• Add Image URL to Yoast WordPress SEO > Social >
Facebook > Front Page Image URL & Default Image URL.
• Add a Description to Front page Description too.
@rhyswynne - @winwaruk

16. Google+
• Create Google+ Page for your site/business at
https://plus.google.com/pages/create
• Add your site URL to your Google+ About Page
• Add your Google+ Page URL to Yoast WordPress SEO >
Social > Google+ and “Don’t Show” Author for Homepage.
@rhyswynne - @winwaruk

17. Site Speed
•
Site speed good for User Experience, but also has an SEO ranking element.
•
Use a CDN (or the very least Jetpack Photon) for Media File Hosting.
•
Caching plugins
– WP Super Cache (Simple):
http://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-super-cache/
– W3 Total Cache (Advanced):
http://wordpress.org/plugins/w3-total-cache/
•
Use Google Libraries - http://wordpress.org/plugins/use-googlelibraries/ - pulls jQuery etc. from Google CDN.
•
Test your Site speed using Google Pagespeed Tools https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/.
@rhyswynne - @winwaruk

18. Theme Development Tips
• Most “SEO Friendly” thing you can do to your theme is make it
100% compatible with WordPress SEO.
• Keep database calls to a minimum.
• Make bloginfo('name') the H1 on home page, and the_title() the H1
on pages/posts.
• SEO Doctor for Firefox - https://addons.mozilla.org/enUS/firefox/addon/seo-doctor/ - good for giving an overall audit.
@rhyswynne - @winwaruk

19. Thank You 
Questions?
@rhyswynne - @winwaruk