The Search engine optimization sphere has been so ever-evolving that keeping pace with the current SEO trends can come up as quite anintimidating task for a beginner. If you are a WordPress user and have ever wanted to make a blog SEO optimized, you are almost there. This is so because the amount of versatility offered by the WordPress CMS, makes it the most effective tool for your SEO campaign. There is a solid proof to this statement because most of the world’s leading websites like Mashable, TIME etc. run on WordPress.
In spite of the of ease and feasibility that has been made available to users through the WordPress platform, there are still areas that challenge the accuracy of SEO strategies. There are several components that have to be carefully addressed so that your WordPress blog or site are completely optimized as per the latest trends. But, you need not shrink at the thought of not having an SEO expert for your website or of the mere fact that you are not into the technical aspect of handling a WordPress powered site’s SEO. Running a properly search engine optimized WordPress blog or a website will be a piece of cake if you pay a little attention to what this article holds. We shall discuss the major, yet common issues that challenge the SEO accuracy of your site along with the ways and means to tackle them.
- Too many Plugins
WordPress plugins are magical lifesavers. They offer so many extensive functionalities to our WordPress blogs and websites. However, if you have too many plugins installed on your site, consider your SEO almost killed. A plethora of installed plugins can slow your website down and cause conflicts in the working among different plugins. Some of the free plugins are not secure and they may instantly erase your precious data. So, always choose your plugins from among the Top-rated plugins in the WordPress directory.
- Not every Theme works for your site
Each and every website functioning in the realm of WordPress belongs to a common genre like Sports, Photography, Viral News, e-Commerce etc. People often feel that going for the most famous premium theme from their genre is going to work wonders for their WordPress business. They ignore or are unaware of the fact that they might have a different subject approach to the same genre. Some websites need a lot of code in order to display the customization in its true glory. However, there may be sites or blogs that can do just as well by adopting a minimalist WordPress theme.
You must consider choosing a responsive theme that is regularly updated. We all know that ‘Free’ is always fun but going for the premium themes that have much more reliable features to offer, is a wiser decision to make.
- The ‘Links’ game
We all know that web links render the most important feature to the game of SEO. There are several sorts of links that work to enhance the SEO of your website when put onto a webpage or added into blogposts. To make them actually work, it’s important to add the right number of links in a way that over-stuffing doesn’t occur. Relevant links in place of unconnected, irrelevant ones is a plus. Always consider adding both internal as well as external links to your websites, blogs and blogposts. They win linkbacks from other sites and also help add value to your old content. Make sure that only the important links find place on the homepage so that visitors are not overwhelmed to find a lot of garbage on the site. Also, you can use the Broken Link Checker Plugin to regularly check that none of the links are broken.
- Plagiarized or copied content
Many site owners experience a drop in their rankings and traffic because of copied content. The bigger threat here is the ‘duplicate content penalty’ that makes search engines not to crawl and count the SEO of that particular page, providing less relevant results. Though, there are loopholes in this but considering white hat SEO technique is a wiser option. Also, trust the fact that duplicate content murders the vibe of a website. People will eventually know that you have plagiarized a huge amount of content from the internet and that will lower your chances of being a trustable brand. You can protect your content and also make sure that the content you are uploading isn’t plagiarized by choosing plugin from this content plugins directory.
- Omitting those alt text on your images
Search engines also look out and pick up alt text, if you have added them to the images. Optimizing images is a thing of the past and ‘content is the king’ now, literally. So, always shell out some time to provide proper and relevant alt text and an alternate description to the images you use. These may contain the subject matter of your deliverables. You can also use the WordPress plugin, ‘SEO Friendly Images’ to help you out.
- The Schema Markup
A strong SEO technique available today is the schema markup. This code in the semantic vocabulary boosts a website in the search engines listings. It functions by helping Google figure about what your website is about. It marks data for the type of service your blog or website provides. If you are skipping the use of this form, you are missing a lot on the informative front by the search engines.
If not taken care of, these common SEO challenges are slow bombs that can shred away the integrity of your SEO strategy. They need to be addressed regularly in order to keep your website awesomely search engine optimized. We, as a community are in a constant pursuit to arrive at an absolutely ‘functioning’ list that keeps the fundamental of SEO running for beginners and experts, alike. If you feel that there is a factor we have probably missed, kindly drop the same in a comment below.
Author Bio:
Catherrine is a web developer and master in developing WordPress themes. She is also an enthusiast blogger who loves to share her knowledge with other bloggers.