Definite Guide to WordPress SEO for Rapid Mass Traffic
WordPress SEO Optimization
If you rank high in Search Engines for high volume keyword phrases you’ll get steady stream of targeted traffic. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) comes down to 3 simple areas that you need to master, 3 corner stones if you will:
- Keyword research
- On page optimization
- Off page optimization or Link Building
Just by getting these 3 things right, the odds of success are stacked in your favor. But by getting even one of them wrong, the odds of success are stacked against you, and it’s easy to waste all of your time and energy on projects that never have a chance of bringing any substantial results.
4 Golden Rules of Keyword Research
Here is what you need to know about keyword research to uncover high-traffic, gold-nugget keywords that can send hundreds, even thousands of free visitors to your site each day:
- High level of Traffic – Target keywords that have strong consistent levels of traffic. As a general rule of thumb look for keywords that have at least 1000 searches per month in Google Keyword tool.
- Relevancy – If someone is searching for “hunting dog training” and you’re trying to make money by recommending an ebook on “dog grooming training”, you’re probably not going to make a lot of sales ranking for that keyword because you’re not offering what your visitors are looking for. Target keywords that are relevant to what you have to offer – so you can get targeted traffic that converts.
- Commerciality – When it comes to keywords, there are plenty of keywords that have tons of traffic… But having traffic isn’t enough if you want to run a PROFITABLE web-site. Does this traffic consist of people who are going to spend a ton of money at your site or are they tire-kickers who will ask a load of questions, expect free stuff, and then not spend a cent with you? You need to target the buyers who make you money – not the tire-kickers who cost you money. Unless you’re targeting buyers instead of “tire-kickers”, all of your SEO efforts will be completely wasted on attracting traffic in worthless markets. Quick way to tell if a keyword has any commercial value is to check CPC prices (cost per click) in Google Adwords. Search for your keyword in Google Keyword Tool, click “Views > Customize Columns > Avg. CPC”. This will show you how much advertisers are willing to pay for that keyword so their ad can appear when someone is searching for it on Google. If they’re spending money advertising for this keyword that means they’re making money. Use it, piggyback off their efforts and target profitable keywords within your market.
- Acceptable level of competition – There is no point trying to rank for keyword with high levels of traffic and commercial value if there’s no possible way to get a front-page ranking in Google, and actually GET the traffic and customers for that keyword. So, if you have a brand new website I would recommend target keywords that have 30 000 or less competing pages in Google index. To check how many indexed pages are in Google search for your keyword in quotes and right below search box you’ll see “About XX,XXX results” (“hunting dog training” – 47 000 pages ). If you have aged website with a lot of backlinks with good quality you can target and rank for more competitive keywords.
Thus if you want traffic and money – aim for relevant keywords with high level of traffic, good commercial value that you can rank for.
On Page SEO for WordPress Blog
Second thing you need to get right to be successful at SEO is – “on page” optimization (factors within your website that influence SE rankings). While there are a lot of speculation around different “on page” factors we’re going to focus on most important ones that have significant influence on rankings. Take a look at this great post about WordPress blog SEO optimization http://yoast.com/articles/wordpress-seo/
Off Page SEO
Link Building Strategies to Propel Your Website to TOP positions
Off Page SEO Techniques – are, as the name suggests, factors from outside the site itself (in other words from other websites) that impact the blog’s ranking in Search Engines. When it comes down to “off page” SEO, it is mainly about quantity and quality of external links (links pointing to your blog pages from other websites). The more keyword focused links from aged authoritative website you have in your niche the higher are your rankings.
The best links you can get are:
- from aged authoritative websites;
- relevant to the topic you’re writing about;
- they link to you using keywords relevant to your page (ie – using link text “dog training” instead of “click here”).
There are multiple schemes and techniques to obtain backlinks. We’re going to focus on those ones that have the most impact and will help you build your brand and authority while providing value to your readers.
How to Get Quality Backlinks While Building Your Blog Brand and Authority
Linkbait + Viral Content Creation
If you write great content that is interesting, useful and worth recommending – other websites will link to you. How to advice, tutorials, TOP lists are a great way to produce high-quality content that attracts links from other websites.
Here is what you need to do: Follow “3E” rule – create content that is Educational, Entertaining or Enlightening or all three and then let other people know about – tweet it, send short email to people on your mailing list. Let other bloggers that write on a same topic know. Go to Technorati.com and search for main keyword of your post – find posts that supplement and expand what you’re writing about and simply link to them. Major blogging platforms will automatically send a trackback/pingback letting bloggers know that you link to them.
Social Bookmarking / News Stories
With growing influence of Web 2.0 websites (i.e. YouTube, Twitter, Digg where content is created and driven by users) Search Engines give more and more weight in ranking algorithms to social buzz factor and interaction around particular piece of content going on social media properties. So, if visitors actively engage with your content – vote, bookmark, comment, tweet you will get backlinks coming from different Web 2.0 properties and will see higher positions in SERP’s (Search Engine Result Pages).
Here is what you need to do: Choose your main networks (I use Twitter, YouTube, Facebook) ask your visitors to spread your content on these networks aka – vote, retweet, discuss, bookmark…
Article Marketing
Article marketing is the practice of posting keyword-focused articles on article sites that then syndicate your content. Some article sites will allow you to include HTML links in your articles. Then you can link your keyword phrase to the page on your website you’re trying to promote for that keyword; others won’t allow you to do that, but they’ll have no problem with you including links in your resource box (your profile or signature information used to let people know who you are), which adds important one-way backlinks to your website. The reason this is an important website promotion technique is because some of these article syndication sites are considered by Search Engines as trusted authority websites and they have significant readership following so your articles have very good chances for high positions in SERP’s bringing you even more traffic.
Here is what you need to do: Create free accounts on some or all of these websites and start publishing articles with keyword rich backlinks to your pages:
- ehow.com
- ezinearticles.com
- articlesbase.com
- hubpages.com
- answers.com
- associatedcontent.com
- squidoo.com
Press Releases Distribution
Press release distribution is similar to article marketing but press release has slightly different nature and purpose. A press release is simply a statement prepared for distribution to the news media announcing something claimed as having news value with the intent of gaining media coverage. A press release should be written in third person. Instead of using we, us and ours, you should be using they, them and theirs. For SEO benefit include keyword optimized backlinks to your pages in the about box.
Here is what you need to do: Create free account at Prlog.org and start distributing your press releases.
Blog Commenting
Blog commenting is one of the easiest ways to obtain quality backlinks. But due to the fact that this technique was heavily abused by spammers Search Engines and major blogging platforms introduced “nofollow” attribute. Now by default all links in the comments have “nofollow” attribute added so they do not give any ranking benefit. But some webmasters choose to stimulate comments on their posts and reward quality comments with backlink to their website by removing “nofollow” attribute from comments section. A lot of them use CommentLuv plugin which does exactly that – removes “nofollow” attribute. So, now you can get SEO benefit by posting quality comments on dofollow blogs.
Here is what you need to do: Go to CommentLuv Enabled Sites Search Engine and search for your niche related dofollow blogs. Make quality blog comments. That’s the key word here – QUALITY. Nobody wants to read (and it is much likely it will get removed) comments like “great post!”, “lol”, “click here for cheap Viagra”. In short, don’t be a another comment spammer.
Internal links
I will tell you a little “secret” that will help you boost your rankings in Search Engines. As you already know your rankings greatly depend on quantity and quality of external links. But external links come from other websites and most of the times we don’t have control of how they link to us. You’re not going to tell every webmaster that links to you “Hey Buddy – use this link text when linking to my pages…”, right? So getting keyword optimized links from other high ranked websites is not easy. But here is a “secret” that not many SEO experts talk about – “Top Ranking” hiding in your site. Yes, that’s right: links within your website improve Search Engine rankings and the best part about it – you have complete control over how and where link to.
Here is what you need to do: Make sure all your least important pages ALWAYS link to your most important, money-making pages (pages you’re trying to rank in SERP’s) make sure for the link anchor text you use keywords that you’re trying to rank for. For example, if you’re trying to rank page A for keyword “dog training” link to page A from other pages on your website with link text “dog training”. Install Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARPP). This plugin helps improve internal linking structure of your blog by giving you a list of posts and/or pages related to the current entry, introducing the reader to other relevant content on your site.
Take Action
Proper SEO optimization can be the game changer in driving traffic to your blog. Do not drop the ball by leaving this post without taking action – improve 3 SEO aspects of your blog and your traffic will soar. Automate hardest aspects of SEO by using Market Samurai – pinpoint and dominate high-profit, low-competition niches.
Download Free Copy of Market Samurai Now
Hi,
Thanks for this awesome post,I was looking for this a long time….
Thanks Much again.
Thank you Soe I will try to publish more great posts so everybody can learn and benefit.
even though i have gone through many onsite seo wordpress plugins, none of them mostly do the onpage seo. most of them just touch the title tag and the description tag. thats all.
As long as you maintain html semantic structure – use proper heading tags and optimize internal link structure you should be good with onpage SEO for the most part.