WordPress Makes SEO Easy

photo credit: r0bz   Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of making your site attract the search engines like a magnet attracts iron.  It is part science, part art and maybe a little bit of luck. 

The goal is to make sure your blog is high in the search engine rankings for the keywords that you think people will use to find you.  And that of course, makes it easy for prospective customers to find you!

WordPress blogs are designed to help make SEO as easy as possible.  There are a few simple tasks that you need to do to make sure that your blog setup is optimized.

• Custom Permalinks-customize your permalinks instead of using the default links. The permalink should include a keyword and a category that is also a keyword. See Plugins,Widgets & Permalinks for a detailed explanation of permalinks.
• Text-when writing make sure to include your keywords in your posts. Just make sure that using them is natural and it doesn’t look forced. And don’t overdo them either…one or two mentions is good. It is also a good idea to bold or underline one or two of them.  That makes the search engines notice them.
• Post Titles-make your titles as descriptive and attention getting as you can. It is also a very good idea to include your main keyword if possible.
• Page Titles-another great way to insert keywords into the blog.
• Category Names-Guess what? You should use your keywords for your categories too.
• Photos and Video-WordPress makes adding images and video easy.  And the search engines love them!
• <ALT>tags- An <ALT> tag provides a description of an image or photo.  This is useful for a text-based browser or for screen-reading technology for visually impaired people.  The benefit for SEO is that the search engines read the <ALT> tags as keywords.  So guess what you should be putting in your <ALT> tag? If you guessed keywords, you’re right!! 

So those are a few steps you can take to make the search engines love your blog!  As a matter of fact I think I need to make sure all my images have <ALT> tags!