What is SEO? In this lesson, we will look at improving our SEO rankings. But what is SEO? Search engine optimization refers to techniques that help you make your website rank higher in search engine results. The aim is, of course, to get more visitors to your site organically. Search engines send bots to a site to crawl through it and find out what the content is about and where it links. They also check out what the images are about, test if the site loads quickly, and also investigate if the layout of a site is accessible and good for mobile devices. Once they are done crawling, bots figure out keywords from your site and then record them in the search engine database. So now, when anybody starts to search, search engines match a user’s search query with the keywords in the database to recommend closely matched sites. Let’s look at some tips that we can implement. De-select the search engine visibility box The first thing we need to do is deselect the search engine visibility box. This means removing the box that appears on your website that says “This site is listed on Google” or similar. By doing this, we are telling search engines that our website should not be ranked based solely on whether or not it appears in search engine results. Optimize your website for mobile devices Next, we need to optimize our website for mobile devices. Mobile devices are becoming more and more popular, and search engines are starting to prioritize websites that are mobile-friendly. This means making sure that your website is easy to navigate on smaller screens, as well as ensuring that images and videos load quickly. Create high-quality content Finally, we need to create high-quality content. Search engines want to see fresh, relevant content on their websites. This means creating content that is informative, engaging, and unique. By doing this, we can improve our SEO rankings and attract more visitors to our site. Firstly, make your way to Settings. Click on Reading and ensure that you have de-selected the search engine visibility box. If this box is ticked, it will discourage search engines from indexing the site, and we don’t want that. This option is only used when a site is still being created. Fresh content The second thing to note is that search engines love sites with fresh content, so keep your site up to date with new content as much as possible. If your home page and other pages rarely change, it is advised to have a blog page or news page and ensure that you frequently post about your products, brand, clients, and various other topics. Quality content To attract more visitors and generate more traffic, it’s important to focus on creating quality content. This includes writing informative articles, creating visually appealing graphics, and crafting engaging headlines that grab attention. By providing valuable information and entertainment, your site will be more likely to rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs). SEO optimization Another crucial aspect of SEO is optimizing your website for different search terms. Use relevant keywords in your titles, meta descriptions, and throughout your content to help search engines understand what your site is about. Additionally, use internal and external linking strategies to improve your site’s authority and relevance. Mobile optimization As more people access the internet on their mobile devices, it’s essential to optimize your website for mobile users. This involves ensuring that your site is responsive and can be easily navigated on smaller screens. Mobile-friendly design elements like larger font sizes, clearer images, and easy-to-read buttons can greatly enhance user experience and boost your site’s rankings. User experience Finally, consider the user experience when building your website. Ensure that your site is easy to navigate, loads quickly, and provides a seamless user experience. This includes using intuitive navigation menus, clear calls-to-action, and concise language that is easy to understand. A well-designed website can significantly increase engagement and conversion rates, ultimately leading to more traffic and sales. The third tip is to ensure that your website has quality content. Google has published an E-A-T guideline, which essentially states that search engines look at expertise, authority, and trustworthiness. Therefore, let’s first discuss expertise. Write about the content you are knowledgeable and passionate about. What about authority? If you have demonstrated expertise, it will be viewed by search engines as authoritative if others link to your site, if people talk about it on social media, and if you link to reputable sites in your content. Lastly, ’T’ stands for trustworthiness. Make sure the information you share is trustworthy and factual. Here is an important question you can ask yourself: Is your content shareable? Things to consider include whether it is funny, too long, has good taste, uses plain language, or has a summary but is too long. It basically comes down to ensuring your content is worth reading and sharing. Keywords Next, let’s talk about keywords. Keywords and keyword phrases in your content make it easier for people to find your site via search engines. A well-optimized site speaks the same language as its audience, so to speak. We, therefore, need to know what folks are searching for and include those words or phrases on our pages and in our posts. Keyword research will help you know what keywords people search for when looking for similar sites. You can use free tools such as WordStream or Google Keyword Planner to find those keywords that you can use in your content. Linking is an important part of SEO (Search Engine Optimization). This means that you should link to other websites that are relevant to your own. When people search for something on Google, they will often see a list of websites that have been linked to by other websites. The more links you have, the more likely it is that your website will appear in those searches. To get links from other websites, you can create quality content that is useful to the readers of those websites. You can also reach out to bloggers and writers who have a similar audience to yours and ask them to link to your website. Additionally, you can participate in online forums and social media groups related to your niche and engage with other members to build relationships and opportunities for link building. Let’s talk some more about linking. Search engines will travel through your links to understand your site structure and to look for more content. Link to other posts already on your site, as search engines consider pages linked multiple times more important. Also, remember to set external links to reputable sites with good E-A-T expertise, authority, and trustworthiness, as this will make your site more credible as well. Metadata is another critical aspect of link building that can significantly impact your site’s ranking. This includes the title, description, and keywords used in the meta tags, as these elements help search engines better understand your content and provide relevant results to your audience. Moreover, it’s essential to ensure that your internal links are optimized for both users and search engines. This means using descriptive anchor text that accurately reflects the content being linked to, as well as ensuring that internal links are strategically placed throughout your website to improve navigation and user experience. Finally, don’t forget to monitor your backlinks profile regularly. Analyzing your backlink profile helps identify any potential issues or opportunities for improvement, such as broken links or low-quality backlinks. By staying informed about your backlinks and taking proactive steps to address any issues, you can maintain a strong and sustainable online presence. The next topic we want to explore is metadata, which are tags in your page content that are visible to search engines. While they are often hidden behind the scenes, they provide crucial information about your site to search engines. One of the lesser-known aspects of this is meta descriptions, which are the information shown below each individual search result. WordPress automatically creates these metadata, making it difficult to edit them directly. However, most SEO plugins allow you to modify and customize these metadata settings to better suit your content needs. Typically, no more than two sentences should be used for these descriptions. One way to optimize these descriptions is to write an excerpt for a post. This can be particularly useful if you use WordPress’ built-in tools to generate metadata automatically; otherwise, the top paragraph from your content may be used as the excerpt. It is important to include your keywords in the excerpt, as this will help search engines understand the context of your content and improve its ranking in search results. Another aspect to consider when creating metadata is site speed. Fast website loading times can significantly impact user experience and search engine rankings. Optimizing images, reducing HTTP requests, and minimizing server response time can all contribute to faster load times. Additionally, using caching plugins or techniques like lazy loading can further enhance the performance of your website. By understanding and implementing these strategies, you can effectively leverage metadata to improve both the user experience and search engine optimization (SEO) for your website. Website speed is crucial for search engines to rank websites correctly. As such, it is an integral part of SEO efforts. Here are some tips that can help you enhance your site’s speed:

  1. Check your hosting’s performance: Your web host plays a significant role in determining the site speed. Ensure that your hosting provider ranks highly concerning website speed.
  2. Enable caching: Caching helps to reduce server load and improve page load times. Some hosts offer built-in caching functionality, while others may require the use of a caching plugin.
  3. Optimize WordPress themes: Certain WordPress themes can be slow to load due to the number of plugins they use or their design complexity. Be mindful of this when selecting a theme.
  4. Ensure smooth image and video optimization: Images and videos contribute significantly to a slow loading time. Optimize them by reducing file sizes, using lazy loading, and ensuring they are properly optimized for the web.
  5. Install reliable plugins: Choose plugins that are well-built and optimized for speed. Avoid plugins that come with unnecessary features or those that have been reported for compatibility issues.
  6. Test your site’s speed: Use tools like GTmetrix or PageSpeed Insights to test your site’s speed and identify areas for improvement. These tools provide detailed reports on how your site performs compared to competitors. By implementing these strategies, you can significantly improve your site’s speed and enhance its overall user experience, which is essential for ranking higher in search engine results pages (SERPs). Image optimization is an essential aspect of search engine optimization (SEO). Before uploading images to your website, there are several steps you can take to ensure they are optimized for both display and loading speed. Firstly, choose the right file format. PNG, JPEG, or WebP are some common file formats that are well-suited for images. In this example, I’ll use Squoosh, an open-source website that allows you to change the file format for free. It also has other settings worth exploring. Secondly, scale the image dimensions. Images that are too large will be resized when they appear on people’s browsers, which can affect the loading speed of your site. Therefore, it’s important to ensure that your images are not too large. Most monitors worldwide have a resolution of 1920 by 1080 pixels, so make sure your images are within this range. Lastly, consider the size variation of your images. WordPress offers three different size variations when you upload an image. However, these large images still take up space on your server. To optimize your images further, consider using smaller sizes or cropping them to reduce their size without losing quality. Number three, reduce the image file size. You want to minimize the size of images without compromising their quality. There are several tools available such as TinyPNG or Squoosh that can help with this task. When an image is uploaded to WordPress, it is recommended to include alternative text or ALT text and a description of the image. Search engines value ALT text highly, using it to understand the context of an image, its purpose, and what it represents. It’s also important for accessibility purposes to have alt text on your images. Ensure that at least one of your images has your keyword or key phrase as part of the ALT tag. Lastly, create a sitemap. A sitemap helps search engines crawl your website more effectively, providing them with a comprehensive overview of your content. This will improve your website’s visibility in search results and enhance user experience. The second last tip is about creating a sitemap. It is something search engines use to navigate your website’s content. While sitemaps don’t directly boost search ranking, they help the engines understand where all your content is located on your site. Most SEO plugins will automatically generate a sitemap for you, so it’s not something you need to code if you’re not tech-savvy. Local SEO Finally, let’s talk about local SEO to optimize your site for local search results. If your customer base is primarily in the same city or metropolitan area, there are several things you can do to improve your local SEO. Firstly, conduct local keyword research to identify relevant keywords that your target audience may be searching for. Next, add your contact information in your footer or contact page so potential customers can easily reach out to you. Additionally, post localized content such as reviews, testimonials, and articles related to your industry or service offerings. Finally, get local backlinks – meaning, get local sites to refer or link to your site. In conclusion, while sitemaps and local SEO are not the only factors that determine your website’s search engine ranking, they are crucial components of an effective SEO strategy. By creating a sitemap and optimizing your content for local search results, you can increase your chances of appearing higher in search engine results pages (SERPs) and attract more targeted traffic to your website. 在您致力于提升自己的搜索引擎优化（SEO）排名时，请确保安装并激活一款最适合您的SEO插件。