SEO Best Practices We Can Expect Marketers to Follow When Optimizing a WordPress Site

Now that we are a few months into 2018, it is time to start evaluating how SEO strategies are faring and what effect they have on a website. If you own a WordPress website that is not performing as expected, maybe it is time to rethink your current SEO tactics. Among your digital marketing efforts, search engine optimization requires considerable attention. While you may have come across essential SEO trends for 2018, it is also crucial to know how you can make the most of these trends. You must be wondering what practical steps you should be taking to prepare yourself for the ever-intensifying competition. Read on to know what you can do to future-proof your SEO strategies for WordPress sites.

Optimizing a WordPress Site

Optimize for voice search and digital assistants

Everyoneuses voice search and digital assistants now. The appeal lies in the convenience they bring. That is why most of today’s customers use queries that look or sound like human conversations rather than an interaction between humans and systems. Besides the voice searches conducted by people on their smartphone, the smart home hubs introduced by Google, Amazon, and Apple should also be considered. Optimizing your WordPress site for these can improve your ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs).

Optimize for natural language queries

Gone are the days when just optimizing keywords will suffice. Today, we are witnessing a rise in natural language queries. People prefer to conduct searches in the exact way they speak. Given that considerable amount of searches today are conducted through voice commands, people do not have to type the words in the search box. While keywords are still relevant, it is the long tail keywords that have taken center stage. So, previously if you optimized for ‘Tom cruise age,’ now you will have to optimize for “What is Tom Cruise’s age” or “how old is Tom Cruise.” To get the best results, you must first think what questions your visitors or target audience is most likely to ask. Also, you must generate content in a slightly conversational tone. This way, you will be able to match the queries that your target audience is making.

Optimize for actions and apps

Nowadays, it is not enough to limit your SEO to just your site. It is also necessary to optimize for your apps and the actions your target audience performs. For optimizing activities on apps, deep linking and app indexing are required. That is how you can optimize for commands that people perform on your apps.

Optimize with linkless link building

Even if it seems like a contradiction, it is useful. You already know that you should have a good linking strategy in place for local SEO. While the fact that link building is essential for SEO still stands strong, it is also true that over time the quality of links has become more important than anything else. Google has been penalizing sites for having poor quality links. Now that Google’s Penguin and Fred have rolled out, freebie links are not going to be beneficial anymore.  Rely on good PR and outreach for building relevant relationships and getting valuable links. Also, put stress on getting linkless mentions. A mention on high authority sites can help considerably with your SEO.

From the above discussion, you can get an idea about the specific trends that are most likely to be dominant in 2018 when it comes to WordPress optimization. However, there are still general actions that you can take to make sure your SEO strategies continue to yield desired results well beyond the current year and the next. Be particular about the technical elements, especially mobile SEO. Experts at Eterpro Tampa suggest that using a web crawler tool can also be wise, especially for a routine check to identify issues within the website.

Smart marketers will also invest in developing intelligent content, which can instantly adapt to any device. It is crucial that a brand’s content marketing and SEO strategies are in sync. Also, the website should not take an indefinite time to load. As per reports, websites that take more than five seconds to load are likely to be abandoned by visitors who will then move on to competitors’ sites. Lastly, there is the importance of staying on top of Google ranking factors. Familiarize yourself with all the vital points that can help you rank better on Google’s SERPs. Strengthen your off-page SEO and overall web presence. All these will help your site to perform better and keep the visitors coming.

Author bio: Gwen Andrews is a digital marketer with almost a decade’s experience in helping brands strengthen their digital presence. She often blogs on the importance of search engine optimization, trends that dominate the sector, new practices and more. Many of her articles have been published on the Eterpro Tampa website. She has been associated with this renowned SEO firm for more than five years now.

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