Next, click the gear icon to access additional settings:

Access other link settings in the Classic Editor

Under the URL and Link text fields, you will see a check box marked as opening the link in the new tab. Select it to apply this feature to your link:

Open the link in the Classic Editor as a new tab

This willtarget="_blank"Element is added to the linked HTML tag. The result will be as follows:

 
If desired, you can manually merge it into a text editor.
 
   14. Add anchor links to longer content 
 
You may have encountered anchor links, especially if you read a large number of long blog posts. These links allow you to jump to different parts of the article.
 
We use them on blogs to create directories for some of our articles:
 
    
 
Anchor links in articles
 
Anchor links are ideal for improving the user experience because they enable readers to correctly find the answers they are looking for. In a lengthy article, some readers may need some of your content information, which is very useful to prevent excessive scrolling.
 
In addition, your anchor links may also appear in the form of Google Site Links under the title of your article on SERP, as follows:
 
    
 
Anchor links in Google SERP
 
Users looking for precise information that may have been passed on in your title may click on one of your site links.
 
This can help you generate more natural traffic.
 
   15. Create a professional website footer 
 
Footer links are an important part of your site because they appear on every page, so make sure they contain links to your key pages that can help your users better navigate your site and show search engines which pages are most important to you.
 
Earlier, we showed how creating key pages can help improve Google and your users' perception of your EAT. Users want to find links to these important pages in your footer, so including them is a good start.
 
It is also important to remember that links pass weights between pages, so footer links are site-wide, including links here that send a clear signal to Google that these pages are important to you.
 
If you check our footer, you will see a series of company links to our information, contact information, privacy policy, etc., as well as other important links.
 
If you are using a third-party theme, scroll to the bottom of the site without any changes, and you may find only two links: one may be the "WordPress-driven" link that comes standard with each WordPress site; the other is usually a link to the theme developer's website:
 
    
 
Footer theme developer website and "Powered by WordPress" link
 
Although these links are not malicious, they do not look particularly professional. In addition, as we have seen in this article, links have a significant impact on your WordPress SEO. It is a best practice to remove unnecessary links from your site.
 
You can check out our guide and remove the "Powered by WordPress" link from your footer. You may be able to delete them through the customizer:
 
    
 
Theme custom editing or you can delete these links by editing the theme's footer.php file. But if you are not familiar with the code, this can be tricky, so modify it as customized as possible.
 
   16. Stay away from negative SEO 
 
Negative SEO is a crucial topic because many people don't know how to deal with it.
 
You usually use SEO, and you want to get backlinks from other sites, which helps establish your domain and page permissions. But manipulating links violates Google guidelines, so if your site is marked as involving a link scheme, you may be punished for linking.
 
This is the opportunity for negative SEO to display its talents. Anyone can link to your site, so if someone can add many links to make it look like you are manipulating search results, your site may be punished for linking. This may cause your site to lose traffic or be excluded from search results.
 
This is why you should monitor your backlink profile. If you find a sudden spike in backlinks or links that use unusual, usually adult-themed anchor text, you can quickly investigate.
 
For example, a company found more than 200000 low-quality backlinks to its website in one case. It took more than two years to clean up the mess:
 
    
 
Viagra spam links
 
At first, this seems unfair because you can't stop someone from creating a bad backlink to your site. To solve this problem, Google provides "Disavow tool" to help webmasters reject these junk backlinks. In this way, you can create a list of junk backlinks that you want Google to ignore to protect your domain name.
 
   Part 3-Technical search engine Optimization 
 
Select your preferred domain
 
Set up friendly fixed links
 
Install SSL certificate
 
Set up XML site map
 
Submit site map to Google Search Console
 
Submit your site map to the Bing webmaster tool
 
Submit your site map to the Yandex webmaster tool
 
Request fetching to speed up indexing
 
Check for crawl errors
 
Check to see if Google can crawl your web page
 
View the content crawled by Google
 
Push links to search engines
 
Using structured data
 
Perform SEO detection periodically
 
Avoid indexing duplicate content
 
   17. Select your preferred domain 
 
Www and non-www
 
If you are just starting to set up a website, you may be confused about whether the domain name of the site contains www. Some people think that this will affect the SEO of WordPress.
 
In short, having www in the domain name of a website will not bring any benefits to SEO, nor will it affect the ranking of websites in any way. However, this does not mean that non-www addresses should always be used. You may even want to use www because:
 
It used to be standard to use www as part of the domain name of a website. Of course, there is no such explanation right now, and many websites do not use www. You may see that many websites in the past continue to use www domain names, one of the reasons is that changes to them can be complex and problematic. Many older websites can only continue to use the www domain name.
 
Because of the Domain name system (DNS) records, large websites with high traffic may want to use www. Technically, bare domains (without www domains) cannot have CNAME records that are used to redirect traffic for failover. However, there is a solution to this problem.
 
In the final analysis, whether to use www domain or non-www domain is more a matter of personal preference. Maybe you prefer the shorter URL, in which case you can use a naked domain.
 
Keep in mind that no matter which version you choose, you can set redirection so that you can access each version. For example, if you access wbolt.com, it will be redirected directly to www.wbolt.com.
 
Previously, you could set the preferred domain displayed in search results through Google Search Console. However, the Google webmaster platform removed this option in 2019. Today, it will determine the version of the domain name based on the information collected from the site, such as structured data tags.
 
Avoid duplicate URL
 
As mentioned above, you should only allow access to one version of URL and use redirection to transfer users and crawlers to the correct URL. This goes a step further when considering other factors, such as the case used in your URL. For example, the following URL might load the same content, which means that search engines can index them as two separate pages.
 
www.wbolt.com/about-us/ www.wbolt.com/About-Us/
The same is true for URL that ends with a slash and does not end with a slash. For example:
www.wbolt.com/about-us/ www.wbolt.com/about-us
And it's also protocol-based. For example:
https://www.wbolt.com/about-us/  
About us.
 
This is bad for SEO because each duplicate version is effectively competing with the original version. Redirecting any duplicate URL to the original URL will ensure that all ranking signals are transferred to one version, making it more likely to appear in search results.
The redirection rule ensures that anyone accessing the wrong version is directed to the correct version.
If you want to make sure that Google knows which domain to use, you can add the specification tag to your site manually or using a plug-in (more on this later). Submitting a site map is also helpful.
   18. Set up friendly fixed links 
Search engines like clean, organized and structured websites. This includes the use of short URL, which can help you increase your click-through rate. MarketingSherpa conducted a study and found that it was 250% more likely to be clicked on the search results list if:

The URL is very short.
Appears in the search results list in a more complete form.

By default, WordPress creates messy fixed links (URL structures) that are not very clean at all (learn how to change the URL of your site). The default structure currently inserts the date and the article or page name into the URL, as follows:
https://yourdomain.com/2020/03/31/sample-post/
Google prefers a URL that contains content titles and / or keywords, but a shorter URL is generally better. We recommend using the article name fixed link setting because it is clean and beneficial to your site's SEO:
https://yourdomain.com/sample-post/
You can change the permalink structure to the article name by clicking permalink under the Settings menu in the WordPress dashboard. Select the article name and click Save changes:
    
WordPress fixed link. You can follow these steps to shorten the URL of a WordPress article or page. In both the Classic Editor and the Gutenberg Editor, you can find a permalink setting that allows you to edit the slug of the article or the URL section that appears after the last backslash (/). In the Classic Editor, it appears directly below the title of the article:
    
The permalink in the Classic Editor is set in the Gutenberg Editor, and you can find the permalink option in the articles tab in the right sidebar of the article:
    
Gutenberg Editor modifies permalink settings
However, it is important to note that changing your permalink structure after the article is online may break all your previous links.
If you want to change the permalink structure on your old site, be sure to redirect the previous URL to the new URL through a third-party plug-in, such as Permalink Manager Lite.
If you are on a different host, be sure to redirect the previous URL to the new permalink by editing the .htaccess file.
   19. Install SSL certificate 
Google has officially stated that HTTPS is a ranking factor. This is nothing new. HTTPS is also one of Google's page experience metrics (described in more detail later).
Matthew Barby analyzed 1 million URL and found that more than 33% of all the top three pages in Google's SERP used HTTPS:
    
HTTPS usage and Google ranking
To use it, you need to install an SSL certificate on your site. Although this may only be a small ranking factor, HTTPS has become the Internet standard. Web sites that do not use SSL certificates may see warnings in Chrome, Firefox, and other browsers highlighting that the site connection is not secure.
    
Your connection to this website is not a security error.
If you have not already installed a SSL certificate on the website, install one as soon as possible.
If your server uses the pagoda control panel, you can directly apply for a free SSL certificate at BT backend and deploy with one click.
If your server or domain name service provider fails to provide a free SSL certificate (Note: Aliyun, Tencent Cloud, Baidu Cloud and Huawei Cloud all provide free SSL certificate applications), you can also apply through freessl.org.
If you are on a different host and have not installed the SSL certificate on your site, check out our in-depth HTTP-to-HTTPS migration guide for WordPress.
Although this is only a small ranking factor, there is no reason to give up any chance to beat competitors. In addition, the advantages of installing SSL certificates for websites outweigh the disadvantages.
In addition, considering the trend that most search engines are pushing webmasters to migrate to HTTPS, the weight of SSL is likely to increase in the future.
   20. Generate site map 
No matter foreign search engines such as Google,Bing and Yandex, or domestic search engines such as Baidu, Sogou and 360, all support Sitemap to understand the hierarchy and structure of WordPress sites and ensure better crawling.
A site map is an unnecessary part of a site, but creating a site map can help you access more reporting data about your site.
It is recommended that you create a XML sitemap file for your WordPress site as much as possible.
Although WordPress now provides the ability to generate XML sitemaps, it is recommended that you use plug-ins to generate Sitemap with a clearer structure, such as the Smart SEO Tool plugin, whenever possible:
Step 1: enable XML Sitemap settings
Assume that you have installed and enabled Smart SEO Tool. To generate a site map file, go to the settings of the WordPress dashboard & gt;Smart SEO Tool>Sitemap generation, make sure that Sitemap generation is enabled, and turn on the content switch where you need to generate the site map, and finally save the settings:
    
The Smart SEO Tool plug-in generates Sitemap
Step 2: test the site map
Check whether the plug-in automatically generates the XML file. You go directly to your website domain name + sitemap.xml to make sure the sitemap is generated (or you open any sub-sitemap list shown in the plug-in):
   https://domain.com/sitemap_index.xml 
The result should be similar to the following figure:
    
Example of XML site map of
We will further detail how to submit this file to Google and Bing below for faster indexing and fetching. You can also check out our in-depth study of using WordPress site maps.
   21. Submit site map to Google Search Console 
Once you have obtained the XML site map file, it is recommended that you submit it to Google Search Console so that you can access additional data about the status of the WordPress site. Let's assume that you already have a Google Search Console account. For more information, check out this more in-depth article to learn how to submit your site to search engines.
In Google Search Console, click Sitemaps under Index. Then enter the location of your site map file, and then click Submit:
    
Submit site map to Google Search Console
Then you will see how many pages / articles have been submitted and how many URLs are actually indexed. Google will automatically crawl your site map files on a regular basis to retrieve or update URLs.
   twenty-two。 Submit a site map to the Bing webmaster tool 
Like Google Search Console, we recommend that you use Bing Webmaster Tools to submit your WordPress site.
You can register with your Google account, and you can now verify the Bing webmaster tool if you have verified in Google Search Console with your associated Google account.
Simply log in, click the site map in the side menu, click the submit site map button, and then add your site map index URL.
    
Submit a XML site map to the Bing webmaster tool
   23. Submit a site map to the Yandex webmaster tool 
Like Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools, it's smart to submit your WordPress site to Yandex. This is a Russian search engine, but if you have global traffic, it can help!
For more details, see our in-depth guide to how to submit your site to major search engines (and when to submit it).
In addition to submitting Sitemap to Google, Bing and Yandex, webmasters should choose to submit Sitemap to more other search engines according to their actual needs, such as:

Non-indexed Sitemap address submission for Baidu search Resource platform
How to submit data to Toutiao search through Sitemap
How to add Sitemap map to the webmaster platform

Domestic webmasters should prefer to submit websites Sitemap to Baidu, Google, Bing, 360Search and Sogou. Because, these search engines may be the search platform with more natural flow of domestic websites.
   24. Request fetching to speed up indexing 
Typically, when you post content on a WordPress site, Google determines how fast it can index your content. It could be any time from minutes to hours or days.
However, there is a way to encourage Google to use the request indexing tool in Google Search Console to index a single page.
This convenient tool can be useful when testing page ranking after updating the page. It is worth noting that there are usually delays, so don't expect your update page to be indexed immediately.
Google often advises users not to rely on request indexing. Googlebot is very good at finding new pages naturally by crawling sites and XML site maps, so if your page is not indexed, there may be other page problems.
In Google Search Console, click the URL check option under overview in the sidebar, enter the URL of the page you want to index, and then click "Enter" to confirm.
    
URL check tool in Google Search Console
It is wise to use the URL inspection tool to periodically check your most frequently visited pages to identify index errors and to ensure that your pages are displayed correctly in search results.
After Google Search Console processes your request, you should receive a confirmation message like the following:
    
Index request confirmation message
Warm Tip: if you want to quickly request Google Index's newly released WordPress article link, it is recommended that you install the automatic push management plug-in for all-in-one search, which can automatically push the link to the Google request index.
   25. Check for crawl errors 
Crawling errors occur when crawlers (search engines, robots, etc.) cannot access the page. This can happen for a number of reasons, from incorrect link settings or content deleted without redirection, to server errors that prevent the server from performing response fetch requests.
A good way to check for crawl errors is to go to your Google Search Console account. You can find coverage reports here that provide details of any errors Google encountered while crawling your site.
    
Coverage reports in Google Search Console
Clicking any error type will take you to see some examples of the URL that encountered the error. You can then click the check URL icon next to each link to learn more about how Google discovered the URL.
    
Check the URL Google search console
This will give you a clue as to where Google first saw the broken link through the reference page.
    
Reference page URL check tool
You can now contact a site with a damaged link and ask them to update it, or if the link comes from a page on your site, you can update it yourself. Another option is to add 301redirection from the damaged URL to the correct URL.
Google Search Console also has another useful tool that highlights other crawling errors. Click Settings in the menu on the left, and then click Open report under crawl.
    
"Open report" in Google Search Console
Under the by response section, you will find a breakdown of the crawl request type. Click and view any related errors for more information about the error.
    
Crawl error report in Google Search Console
For example, we want to see everything except OK and Not modified, which are standard crawl requests.
As before, you can now check the URL to learn more about the causes of bug fixes.
Search engine spider crawling seems to have little to do with SEO optimization.
But the premise of search engine inclusion is search engine spider crawling, which means that if your WordPress site is crawled without search engine spiders or is crawled very frequently, then it is only a pipe dream to expect the ranking of the site to be included.
How to view the WordPress website search engine spider access log, the most traditional way is to view the analysis site access log, which may require you to have some understanding of the server.
The most editing method is to install the spider statistical analysis plug-in-Spider Analyser.
Using this plug-in, webmaster can easily view and analyze the access frequency, access path, hot articles and so on of all search engine spiders.
    
Spider Statistical Analysis plug-in Interface
Using these statistics, webmasters can cooperate with other SEO optimization techniques in this article to optimize a certain search engine to further attract search engine spiders to crawl and improve the ranking of search engine results.
   twenty-six。 Check that Google can crawl your page 
Crawling is the key to the index, and the index is the key to ranking. If Google cannot crawl your pages, they will not be indexed, which means they will not appear in the search results.
Fortunately, the URL checking tool in Google Search Console can help (again) because it allows you to check that the page is crawled and indexed correctly.
This provides details, including how Google first discovered the URL, when the URL was last crawled, and when the user detected the specification and the specification selected by Google.
To check the page, enter URL in the search box at the top of the page.
    
Check to see if the page is indexed
   twenty-seven。 View the content crawled by Google 
You can also see how Google renders the HTML of an indexed page. This allows you to check that your content and links are indexed correctly. Simply click View Crawled Page to view the HTML, then copy it into a text editor to view, or use the search tool to check specific content or links to make sure they are displayed.
    
Google Search Console rendering HTML
The screenshot tab in the tool provides a snapshot of how the page is rendered, but it appears only above the first screen. A great technique for viewing a fully rendered page is to copy and paste the HTML into the HTML test tool. This helps you understand what Google can grab, so it can help you highlight any problems with fetching.
    
Test the rendered HTML
   twenty-eight。 Push links to search engines 
In addition to submitting a link to the search engine webmaster platform through the site map, another very effective method is to use the push channels provided by some search engine webmaster platforms for link push.
Among them, the general included push and fast included push provided by Baidu search resources should be actively used by webmasters.
As the push method provided by Baidu search resource platform is mainly API push, if you are not familiar with the development, it is recommended to use relevant push plug-ins, such as search push management plug-ins.
The biggest advantage of the plug-in is the integration of Baidu search resources, Bing website management tools and the push of the webmaster platform.
First, install and enable the search push management plug-in.
Then, in the WordPress management background, click "search push-plugin Settings" on the right to enter the plug-in settings interface, and click the "push API" tab:
    
Search push plug-in Settings
According to the requirements, enable relevant push and fill in the major search engine webmaster platform push interface address, JS code or API key. When the configuration is complete, click Save Settings.
Then, only the webmaster needs to publish or update the article, or there are users to visit it, and the relevant push will run. The following figure shows some push data statistics of the website:
    
Search and push statistics interface
Note: in addition to search and push, the search push plug-in also provides Baidu collection query, article spider crawling history, site-wide profile and other functions. In addition, the push plug-in is only SEO optimization assistance, webmaster should be combined with other SEO optimization techniques mentioned in this article, in order to get twice the result with half the effort.
   twenty-nine。 Using structured data 
I believe that most webmasters will not feel unfamiliar with the terms "structured data tags (schema markup)" or "structured tags (structured markup)". Architectural tags are basically additional code that helps search engines provide more data information to visitors.
If you've ever seen stars next to comments on SERP, that's the effect of structured data markup. This can help your website page get a special location display on SERP, which can greatly increase the click rate.
A study by the CXL Institute found that the company used star ratings to get up to 35 per cent of the natural flow of content displayed at specific locations on SERP. The conclusion is that structured data tagging strategies do produce better SEO results.
Some WordPress topics have integrated structured data tag coding by default, but others do not. You can use the Google structured data testing tool to test your website to see if structured data tags have been made:
    
Well-known movie archives website IMDB page Google structured data
The test tool will return structured data tag parameters on the right side of the screen. If it is completely blank, your WordPress site has not added any structured data tags.
Yoast SEO has some structured data built in. In the WordPress administration background, under the SEO menu, click Search Appearance. Fill in your organization name and upload your organization logo. After you save your changes, you will have organizational schema settings that should be visible in Google's structured data testing tool.
Yoast also adds structured data to your page, which means that all blog posts should appear along with architecture articles.
To add structured data tags to your WordPress site, you use the free Schema plug-in, which automatically adds the necessary code to your WordPress. After installing and enabling the plug-in, we recommend that you use Google's structured data testing tool to test the final results.
   thirty。 Perform SEO detection periodically 
A good way to check the optimization of WordPress sites on a regular basis is to conduct rapid WordPress SEO testing. There are many free SEO testing tools online that can help you do this.
SeoSiteCheckup is a free tool that provides more than 50 check functions to help webmasters understand SEO optimization. Varvy is another excellent SEO tool for checking Googlebot access, mobile device availability, security, accessibility, page speed, etc.:
    
Varvy SEO tool
Other SEO tools, including Ahrefs and Semrush, allow you to schedule weekly site reviews, which can help you quickly identify any problems that may cause problems with SEO.
The functions provided by these tools are very basic, but they can help webmasters to complete some basic evaluation and analysis work.
   thirty-one。 Avoid indexing duplicate content 
It's absolutely silly to provide two identical copies of the same content, but the incidence is higher than you think. Specifically, this usually occurs when Google indexes temporary sites or test sites.
Unfortunately, indexing multiple copies of the content can cause some serious SEO problems. Although search engines will not formally punish you for duplicate articles or pages, this will still have an impact on your site ranking.
The main problem is that when search engines display two identical articles, they may not know which ranking is higher. Hypothetically, this is embarrassing when a temporary site or a test site exceeds the page of a formal site.
The easiest way to solve this problem is to unindex a temporary site or a test site. Log in to the test site or temporary site WordPress background, go to "Settings" & gt; "read", and then select the check box next to "it is recommended that search engines do not index this site":
    
Unindex the WordPress website
In addition, we should also avoid some other repetition problems:

Avoid duplicate titles-each page should have a unique title that does not apply to other pages. Because the title will be displayed in the list of search results, the same or similar title results can confuse the user. Repeated titles also make it difficult for search engines to determine which page is most relevant to the search query. Each indexable page on the site should contain unique content, so you should avoid repetition or similar titles by providing a more accurate and specific title for each page.
Set authoritative links-all pages should specify valid authoritative links to better help search engines deal with duplicate URL. When a set of URL on your site returns the same content, the search engine will select a unique URL for that content, called an authoritative link. This URL will be crawled more frequently, will take precedence over the URL of other repetitive content in search results, and treat the backlink of the URL of repeated content as a link (weight transfer) to an authoritative link. Note that self-canonicalizing the page by setting its authoritative link to itself is both effective and useful because it can help eliminate potential duplication, such as when the page can be linked to the tracking URL parameter. To suggest the standard URL of the page, you can 1) add aAdd Link to the tag (most common) or 2) in the page tag:; To the page response header.

Use a unique H1 title-one H1 title should be set for each page and should be unique to avoid duplicate content issues. Each indexable page on the site should have unique content, and each indexable page should have an H1 title that accurately describes the theme of the page. Duplicate H1 headings indicate duplicate content, which may affect search rankings.
Use a unique page description-each page should set a description and should be unique. Similar to the page title, it is absolutely unprofitable for users or search engines to display duplicate page descriptions in search results. Google says it's better to repeat the page description than not to write at all.
Avoid duplication of page content-each page should provide unique content that is different from other pages on the site. Search engines punish or even do not index similar pages at all, because displaying duplicate search results is of no help to users. Repeating pages also reduces the search ranking advantage of backlinks, because backlinks only point to a single page compared to backlinks that are scattered to pages with repetitive content. Crawling repeated content pages means a waste of search engine spider resources, which may lead to a decrease in spider crawling frequency or even be reduced by search engines. Using redirects or canonical tags will repeat the page collection and put it into a URL to resolve the duplicate content page problem.

   Part 4-user experience Design 

Optimize the page experience
Optimize core web page indicators
Optimize website speed
Ensure that the website is compatible with the mobile side
Use short brand domain names
Use short links
Reduce the bounce rate
Increase the stay time of visitors
Do keyword research

   thirty-two。 Optimize the page experience 
Google's page experience metrics are a set of signals that Google focuses on when reviewing web pages, enabling its algorithm to understand how users view your page in terms of page speed, interactivity, visual stability, and security. This includes Core Web Vitals (see the section "improving your core web metrics" for more information).
The page experience is now used as a ranking signal for mobile and desktop rankings. To view your page experience scores, navigate to the Page experience section in Google Search Console.
    
Google Page Experience reports in Google Search Console
Mobile and desktop charts have been split into separate reports, allowing you to check that your pages have good page experience scores on each device. If your site scores high on mobile devices but does not score well on desktops, your page will only benefit from higher rankings in mobile search results, and vice versa.
The signals taken into account when evaluating the page experience include core web page metrics, mobile device friendliness, HTTPS, and intrusive insert ads. If the percentage of pages rated "good" is low, you may need to check each of these signals to investigate the cause.
   thirty-three。 Optimize core web page indicators 
Core Web Vitals (optimized Core Page Metrics) represents a set of measurable performance indicators to analyze the operation of the website from the perspective of user experience. They are based on the following factors:

Loading performance
Page interactivity
Visual stability
Actual data from Google browser.

Core Web Vitals also checks to see how friendly your pages are to mobile devices, whether they use HTTPS, and whether they contain intrusive insert ads.
You can use the Core Web Vitals report in Google Search Console to check how your page is performing, which rates the page as "good", "in need of improvement", or "poor".
What is Core Web Vitals?
The report consists of three factors:

Maximum content rendering (LCP) measures the time it takes to load the main content on a web page.
First-time input delay (FID) measures how long it takes a user to interact with elements on a web page.
Cumulative layout offset (CLS) analyzes how the page is loaded and whether changes in the layout inadvertently cause the user to click on other elements on the page.

This marks an important step for Google in how to incorporate user experience into its ranking algorithm.
    
Example of Core Web Vitals reports in Google Search Console
How to check your website Core Web Vitals
The Core Web Vitals report uses field data to display page performance based on actual user data. Although you cannot check all the pages on the site at this time, you will find sample pages, and selecting a page from the results list will usually provide more results for other similar pages.
    
Google search console Core Web Vitals report
Other Google developer tools, including Lighthouse and PageSpeed Insights, also allow you to use lab data to check the Core Web Vitals of any page, which helps identify problems.
However, these tools will produce results based on your machine data and Internet speed, which may not reflect your user experience.
Google has included Core Web Vitals in its ranking algorithm since May 2021, which means that your better-performing pages will now get higher rankings, while poorly performing pages may decline.
The report provides both mobile and desktop search results, so getting high scores in both areas means that your page will improve its ranking in both mobile and desktop search results.
How to improve Core Web Vitals
Through the Core Web Vitals report, we can see how the page performs on each metric, so here we can see what Google thinks is "good", "in need of improvement" and "bad".
As with all reports available in GSC, only URL examples are provided, but this gives us a good idea of the type of page in question. For example, many blog posts on a website may be marked as "poor". After careful examination, it is clear that all blog posts contain "related articles" that have a negative impact on LCP.
CLS problems may be more difficult to find. This is why we have listed some of the most common causes of poor LCP and how to solve them.
Other tools for debugging problems
You can use Google developer tools such as Lighthouse and Google PageSpeed Insights to explore the reasons behind the low-scoring URL.
Once you think they are fully improved, you can re-evaluate the URL using the "verify fix" button in Google Search Console.
It is worth noting that your update results may take some time to display in your Core Web Vitals report, so don't panic if you don't see the results immediately.
Be sure to check out our in-depth guide to optimizing your site for Core Web Vitals for more details.
   thirty-four。 Optimize website speed 
To pursue the ultimate optimization of the WordPress website SEO, you must make sure that your site loads fast enough. Google announced as early as 2010 that it would indeed affect your ranking. In addition, page speed is also very important to the visitor experience. Here are some statistics to prove this:

If the load time exceeds four seconds, 1/4 of the visitors abandon the access.
46% of users will not revisit ineffective websites.
The site has only five seconds to attract visitors before they consider leaving.
If the load time exceeds five seconds, 74% of the users accessing the mobile will leave.
Every second delay in page loading could cost online merchants like Amazon 1.6 billion dollars in annual losses.

The following screenshot shows the use of Pagespeed Insights to check the score of the official website (see how to achieve a full score in the Google PageSpeed Insights test):
    
Website Pagespeed Insights test score
There are many strategies to improve the loading speed of websites: the two most important ones are to increase CDN and optimize websites. Here are some articles that can help you in this regard:

WordPress website uses Gzip Compression to improve site loading Speed tutorial
A detailed and simple tutorial on website Speed performance testing
How to remove JavaScript and CSS that block rendering
WordPress site Optimization plug-in Autoptimize setup tutorial
How to achieve lazy loading of WordPress images and videos

Of course, the server used by the website also plays a vital role. If you are going to build a website with guaranteed and stable speed, choose server custodians with high reliability, such as Aliyun and Linode.
   thirty-five。 Ensure that the website is compatible with the mobile side 
Google announced a test of its mobile first indexing strategy in 2016. Their algorithm will eventually rank pages mainly using mobile versions of the site's content. This is a big change in the way Google indexes content. This means that mobile pages are now more important than ever:
    
Comparison of desktops, mobile devices and other traffic
If your site does not yet support responsiveness, it is recommended that you take immediate action to adapt the site to mobile devices. You can use the Google mobile friendly detection tool to see if your current WordPress website has passed the test:
    
Google mobile device-friendly test results based on
You can view the traffic from mobile devices through Google Analytics or Baidu statistics, which can help you analyze the search optimization results of mobile devices:
Comparison of visitor traffic between mobile and computer
Another option is to implement Google AMP, an open framework that allows websites to build lightweight web pages.
However, AMP is not for everyone. Please check out our AMP case study and the reasons for removing AMP from the website.
   thirty-six。 Use short brand domain names 
The domain name of your website is very important. It usually represents the user's first impression of the site or even the entire brand. For this reason alone, be careful when choosing the domain name of the site.
The domain name of a website should be based on the following basic principles (refer to domain name selection tips):

Choose a domain name that is relatively short and easy to remember.
Pinyin combination or word combination or combination of keywords.
Domain name sounds like a brand name.
Avoid using exact matching domains (EMD).

This last tip is particularly important for the SEO of your site. EMD is a domain that exactly matches the keywords that the site is trying to rank.
For example, if we try to use EMD, our site domain name may be similar to wordpressthemes.com or wordpressplugins.com.
Although this was once an effective SEO strategy, it brought a lot of problems. Websites are at the top of the SERP list because their domains show that they are highly relevant to users' searches, but many of these sites are of low quality.
In order to adapt to this situation, Google changed its algorithm to make EMD the focus of debate. Basically, using EMD helps only if your site also contains high-quality content.
   thirty-seven。 Use short links 
Google likes clean, organized and structured websites. This includes using short URL. They can also help increase your click-through rate. MarketingSherpa conducted a study and found that executives were 250% more likely to click on a natural list if the following conditions were met:

There is a rather short web site
Appears directly below the list with a long URL.

Therefore, keeping your URL as short as possible can be a huge competitive advantage. Keep in mind that WordPress automatically creates a URL for your article based on the title of the article. For this article, we finally get the following results:
https://www.wbolt.com/wordpress-seo-tips
Follow these steps to shorten the URL of an WordPress article or page.
Step 1: find the permalink settings
Go to the WordPress Management backend-Settings-fixed links, and set the fixed links to the article name or custom structure/%postname%Or/%postname%.html.
    
Step 2: edit the Slug of the article
Next, just enter a new slug for your article. Remember to separate words with hyphens. In addition, every article and page on your site must have a unique URL, so you cannot repeat the slug you have already used. Doing so causes WordPress to automatically attach "- 1" to your slug.
In Classic Editor, click the OK button when you are finished to save the new permalink:
    
Edit the slug of your article
After you finish typing, the Block Editor automatically saves your new URL:
    
The slug of your article in the Block Editor
   thirty-eight。 Reduce the bounce rate 
When it comes to a site, "pop out" means that the user visits the page of your site and then leaves the page immediately. A high bounce rate is often considered a bad thing because it means that the shorter the visitor's stay on the page, the lower the chance of conversion.
If you are using Google Statistics, you can check the bounce rate of the page in Google Analytics. Just navigate to the behavior & gt; Overview and view it below the main diagram.
    
Google Analytics visitor behavior statistics
If your website uses Baidu statistics, after logging in to the Baidu statistics background, select the corresponding website and click the overview of the website to view the jump rate of the same day and the previous day, as shown in the following figure
    
Overview of Baidu Statistics website
It is important to note that the bounce rate is not a direct ranking factor for Baidu, Google or other search engines. In addition, the bounce rate is strictly related to the type of website you are viewing. News sites, for example, have the highest bounce rate on the market, but this is not a problem in itself, because their main goal is to provide news.
However, a high bounce rate may indicate that other potential problems on your site may sometimes affect the site SEO.
There are many reasons why users jump out. Sometimes it is due to chaotic navigation of the site, misleading titles or links, or even simple errors caused by visitors inadvertently clicking on something.
This may make it difficult to determine what should be done to reduce the bounce rate. But the most basic strategies are:

Optimize traffic and content
Avoid pop-up windows
Website navigation menu user experience is very important
Leave the appropriate page blank
The typographic font size is suitable.
Recommend human content as much as possible
Customize the 404 error page
Text fluency and readability
Open the outer chain in the form of a new tab window or new window
Properly chained rather than chained throughout
Mainstream browser compatibility
Mobile device adaptation
Advertising that is appropriate and of interest to users

…… There is no way to explain the strategies to reduce the bounce rate one by one. Later, you need to have time to write a special article on how to reduce the bounce rate of website visitors.
   thirty-nine。 Increase the stay time of visitors 
"stay time" refers to the time spent by the searcher on the site found on SERP before returning to view other results. This is a direct ranking factor for Google, so it is important to encourage visitors to spend as much time on your site as possible after arriving through a search engine.
Of course, increasing the duration of a page is not a completely boring process. However, you can try several strategies. For beginners, make sure that important information is always placed on the first screen (that is, the first screen line) that is easy to find.
The "front screen line" refers to the location on the page where the user must scroll down to see the rest of the content. For example, on our home page, the leading navigation menu is located at the top of the home screen with (CTA) button rotation bits and some WordPress theme templates (in other words, the home screen also needs to be further optimized, especially the third part of the first screen):
    
The first screen of the home page
The navigation menu should ensure that the content of the site is clear and easy to understand, and can also help you increase your stay time.
In addition, the first screen should minimize features that users may hate. Pop-up windows and auto-scrolling videos are two items that have been shown to have a 100% impact on the user experience, and visitors may even be reluctant to stay on the site for a second.
Finally, be sure to answer the questions the user is searching for. You can check the query that your page ranks in Google Search Console's search results report to understand the intention behind it. You just need to make sure that the page is good at answering them.
   Part 5-content Optimization 

Do keyword research
Always use core keywords
First paragraph layout core keyword
Avoid keyword infighting
Publish evergreen content
Update old content
Delete worthless content
Consider content centers and taxonomy
Access to Google featured clips
Optimize your content for Google Discover

   forty。 Do keyword research 
Keywords are always the reason why SEO rankings are important. Any search engine is based on the algorithm to determine the site page search ranking. It has to consider something to calculate the rankings, and keywords are still a big part of it.
The following is an example of a new website where monthly visits have increased from 0 to 260K +, with fewer than 30 articles:
    
Monthly SEO traffic
How does this website do it? They found a good niche market and conducted strategic keyword research. There are many keyword research tools, such as KWFinder,SEMrush and Ahrefs (we shared 11 keyword research tools before). The trick is to find a good keyword in the number of searches, while not choosing keywords that are too competitive.
Also, don't forget multilingual SEO (which I'll talk about later)! Keywords in other languages are sometimes much less competitive. In terms of content marketing and SERP, markets such as China, the US and the UK are very saturated.
For example, find the word "marketing strategies" in English. As we can see, the global monthly search volume is about 47000. If you look at the SERP of this word, you will find that trying to rank it means competing with large websites with highly weighted domain names. How difficult it is:
    
Number of searches for "marketing strategies" keywords
In other words, it's hard to rank "marketing strategies" English keywords.
However, if you use the same term "estrategias de marketing" in Spanish, you can see that the number of searches is still considerable, although about 37,000 per month:
    
Number of searches for "estrategias de marketing" keywords
However, most of the domain names that compete with you are websites with less than 40 domain name weights. Using multilingual SEO, you will find that many search terms are easier to rank.
In addition to multilingual SEO strategies, long-tailed keywords are also a good way to read more about long-tailed keyword optimization.
   forty-one。 Always use core keywords 
When doing SEO optimization for WordPress sites, please keep in mind that any search engine will have a ranking algorithm. Among them, keywords are very important in the ranking algorithm, and will not change much even in 2021.
Always put readers and visitors first, which can not be violated, so the content should be smart enough to meet the habits of readers and cater to the taste of search engines at the same time.
Some alternative search engines such as Bing and Yahoo sometimes rely even more on what some call "outdated" SEO practices.
Whenever you write a blog post or post a page on a WordPress site, you should always keep in mind the use of core keywords. Don't write articles just to post more content.
With the Yoast SEO plug-in, you can easily set the core keywords to write. For example, for this article, we use the core keyword "WordPress SEO". You can see that Yoast SEO analyzed the keyword density and reported that the keyword density for this article was a bit low:
    
Core keyword example
In general, the ideal keyword density is 0.5% or higher. This means that we should find a way to include keywords multiple times in our content, and this way looks natural and makes sense in the context.
   forty-two。 First paragraph layout core keyword 
The first paragraph of any article or page is very important. It is recommended that you add core keywords at the beginning as much as possible. The reason is that search engines grab content from top to bottom, and the layout of the core keywords in the first paragraph can help spiders find your keywords quickly, so they are more likely to regard articles as related to search needs.
It is also a problem to correctly "set up the scene" for your readers from the start and increase your click-through rate to deliver what they are most interested in.
The Yoast SEO plug-in checks this to ensure that you follow the following best practices:
    
Yoast SEO plug-in-article introduction keyword detection
But keep in mind that keywords are used naturally, rather than cramming keywords into the content just for the sake of SEO.
It is also worth noting that Google can index a single paragraph in a page instead of simply indexing the entire page.
This means that Google will focus more on your articles and specific parts of the page, making it easier to display specific content, regardless of the main focus of the page.
    
Google article ranking
Meta keywords are a thing of the past for some search engines. But we still put them on this list, because it may not be invalid for domestic search engines such as Baidu, 360search and Sogou.
Google and Bing have used the meta keyword in their ranking algorithms in the past, but now they no longer focus on this area.
Yahoo may still rely to some extent on the meta keyword, but we do not recommend using them for that reason alone. However, searches such as Yandex search engine and Baidu Chinese search engine still use meta-keywords.
Therefore, whether to use meta keywords, if the site is for domestic visitors, it is recommended to continue to use.
Whether it is the title or keyword page meta tag, you need layout keywords, you can use popular keyword recommendation plug-ins to help you achieve.
(1) keyword recommendation: when you write the title or tag of a WordPress article, the plug-in will recommend hot keywords related or similar according to the words you enter.
    
(2) keyword selection: due to the limitation of WordPress article title or tag editing area, the recommended keywords according to input are also limited. However, the word selection tool provided by the plug-in can help you expand the thesaurus related to keywords indefinitely, as shown in the following figure:
    
   forty-three。 Avoid keyword infighting 
Keyword infighting occurs when two or more pages of a site compete for the same keyword. Although this sometimes leads to ranking on both pages, it is often easier to focus all your efforts on a single page rather than diluting page permissions on multiple pages. In theory, this will help a version rank higher.
If you are lucky enough to get more than one page of ranking in the first two locations, you can count your luck and move on to another keyword.
In the following example, we can see that there are two results in the Yoast ranking. By combining these two pages with the signals that follow, they are more likely to rise in the rankings:
    
Keyword inner fight example
Keyword infighting can also lead to unstable rankings and fluctuating page positions, because search engines may not know which page is most relevant. This means that one page may rank well in a few days, and then another page may take its place, but at a lower position.
How to check the keyword infighting
There are several ways to check whether keyword infighting is causing problems with your WordPress site. Using a tool such as Ahrefs allows you to check whether the target keyword has multiple page rankings.
You can quickly view any ranking change, in which different pages jump in and out of the ranking.
    
Keyword inner fight example
You can also use Google Search Console to see when multiple pages rank exact keywords.
In the search results section, select the query tab and filter the rows by location, where the location is less than 20. This displays the first two pages of the Google search results.
Next, select "clicks", "display times" and "average ranking", and then view the high display times keywords with a ranking higher than 1.
You can display whether the selected query has multiple page rankings by clicking each keyword and selecting the pages tab.
You may want to add the target country to the filter at the top, especially if you translate the content into another language.
Below, you can see that we have provided two page rankings for querying "wordpress multi-site hosting". Notice how the average position is inconsistent. With this data, we may decide to merge the content into a "super" page, or review the content to avoid locating keywords on one of the ranking pages.
    
Check keyword infighting in Google Search Console
   forty-four。 Publish evergreen content 
When doing WordPress SEO optimization, you want to get continuous natural traffic from search engines over a long period of time, and evergreen content is very important. Evergreen content means that it does not become worthless over time.
In general, the author sometimes needs to update the article when publishing evergreen content. After all, most industries change slightly over time.
Another advantage of evergreen content is that you can share it over and over again to build a lot of backlinks and attract social traffic. If you can choose to publish evergreen content and news, then the combination of the two is the best.
(1) tutorial skills
They are the main types of evergreen content. However, technology-related tutorial articles may need to be updated from time to time.
For example, you are writing a tutorial on how to use Photoshop to pull people out of photos. Such articles are usually valuable to the audience for months or even years. However, the software is updated every year, and the tools or menus in the software may change, so some of the tutorials you write may be outdated and need to be updated in a timely manner.
(2) solve the problem
If the website offers online business, including selling products or services online. Then you can turn such readers into potential customers by accumulating past customer questions or predicting in advance the types of problems that customers may encounter, and writing evergreen content by answering questions. Visit the following sites and search for specific keywords or questions:

Quora
Stackoverflow
Answers.com
Ask.com
Yahoo answer
Baidu Knows
CSDN
Zhihu
More other Q & A sites

Once you have found a question that needs to be answered appropriately, you can write the appropriate content or opinion for such a question, and attach a link to your article (if allowed) in the answer. You can establish backlinks while helping users solve problems. There is no doubt that finding feasible content creativity through Q & A sites is definitely an effective way.
(3) list articles
Whether you like list articles or not, there is a lot of data to prove that they are popular. A variety of studies have been conducted on the click-through rate of list articles, SERP effect, social media participation, and so on. A few years ago, Conductor conducted a survey of title preferences, and it was not surprising that list articles topped the list, surpassing the second 71%.
    
Title preference
As a result, list articles can always be excellent evergreen content. But to keep in mind, the stationmaster must update them according to the theme in time to ensure their timeliness.
(4) readers' recommended comments
If you can persuade fans and customers to write a letter of recommendation and post it on your website, it will be an important source of evergreen content. In addition, recommendations from customers can help close the gap between customers and the brand, increase brand customer trust, attract more customers or expand your audience.
(5) Brand books
There are several types of branded books, starting with simple educational manuals for employees, to making e-books for people who are interested in your brand, industry, company, or website. Brand guide is a good direction for evergreen content, if you have enough creativity and patience, don't miss this opportunity.
(6) Historical data
If you are active in a specific market segment, you can write the history of your industry, the history of the website, and other relevant information about the area of interest. There are many people interested in historical data. These data reports do not change over time, so they constitute another important form of evergreen content.
(7) Video content and podcasts
Video blogs and podcasts may provide you with the content you need to increase your brand and reputation. You can create podcasts and videos that may belong to the evergreen category. Although it may take more time to produce them than to write articles, they have become more and more popular over time. Today, a large proportion of viewers pay more attention to visual and audio content than to written content. Or the fact that Douyin is so popular at the moment proves it.
(8) Visual image
Images and graphics can become independent articles for professional photographers, visual artists and graphic designers. In addition, you can use images with text as a good form of evergreen content in social media advertising series. For example, if you are a graphic designer with artistic skills, you can create your own templates and cartoons to promote your personal brand or website.
(9) terms or phrases
It takes a lot of professional knowledge to write your own dictionary, and everything is difficult at the beginning. However, there will always be terms and phrases specific to your industry that you can classify as Wiki-type websites or blogs. Expertise is also evergreen content, and it can be of great value to industries that work with you or people who are trying to learn more about a particular product before buying it. The glossary of terms and phrases may also be useful to translators, students and teachers.
Other types of evergreen content can also include papers, excellent articles and reviews.
   forty-five。 Update old content 
As we have mentioned many times in this article, updating old content is a reliable SEO strategy that we use and recommend. Google will consider the content "fresh" when ranking the results, so carefully reading and modifying the content to better reflect industry changes can significantly improve visibility.
As pointed out by Alfred's Lua, you may need to update what Yoast SEO can recognize. If the article you marked as cornerstone has not been edited in the past six months, it will appear under an outdated cornerstone link in your list of articles.
Or, you may need to study the free online tool Animalz Revive:
    
Animalz Revive tool
Just enter your URL and allow the tool to access your Google Analytics. It will then point out articles that need to be updated that can help you optimize your SEO.
Note: for updating old content, it is recommended that you read the article "website content Reconstruction".
   forty-six。 Delete worthless content 
You can also try to delete some of the site content, which involves removing outdated content from the site if it is not possible to update and update outdated content. This can be a very frightening process. After all, it takes courage to delete what you've been trying to create.
However, instead of having a lot of articles that have nothing to do with the visitor or have no value, it is better to have less content but ensure the high quality of each article. This will also improve your "crawl budget" or how many pages your site can be indexed by search engines at a given time.
Deleting website content is a technical task, and we do not recommend deleting more than half of the links to articles on the site. But you can refer to HubSpot's case study on deleting worthless content, in which they deleted 3000 articles from their Blog.
Finally, remember to create 301 redirects for deleted content, otherwise the weight of the included pages will be wasted and the user experience will be affected.
Note: we recommend the previous update strategy rather than delete the article.
   forty-seven。 Consider content centers and taxonomy 
This strategy is optional, but indexing categories in Google can increase the relevance of your content, thereby increasing your page ranking, increasing your traffic, and improving your WordPress SEO.
By default, many WordPress topics do not display classification descriptions. We recommend that you set the title, description and keywords of the classification as much as possible, as follows:
First, install and enable the Smart SEO Tool plug-in
Then, in the WordPress management background, enter the plug-in settings interface through "Settings-Smart SEO Tool". After entering the interface, select the "TDK Optimization" tab, enable the TDK optimization option, and fill in the title, keywords and summary of each category of the WordPress website below, as shown in the following figure:
    
SEO optimization of WordPress classification pages
Also, make sure that your XML site map contains a classified page index:
    
Enable classified page site map index
   forty-eight。 Access to Google featured clips 
Have you ever seen a box at the top of Google search results? It is called Google knowledge graph (full name Google Knowledge Graph), sometimes also called Featured Snippets. If you can display articles from and's website in this box, the natural surge in traffic is a normal and good thing:
    
Google knowledge graph
Featured Snippets (featured clips) takes up more space than traditional blue links and descriptions. This can have a positive impact on the number of clicks your page gets, so getting selected clips is a good way to bring more traffic to your site.
The question is, how do you do that? Unfortunately, there is no shortcut to add 100% of your content to Google Knowledge Graph.
So how do you optimize the page for feature clips?
First of all, a number of studies have found that in most cases, pages must be ranked on the first page of Google search results to qualify for feature clips.
You can build a list of opportunity keywords by mining your query report in Google Search Console and filtering by location (including all queries that you have ranked in places 1 to 10). Be sure to select your target country. The more times each query is displayed, the more traffic you are likely to get if you move to zero.
Check Google to make sure your page ranks where it is displayed. If a feature clip has appeared on another site, it will let you know the problems you are facing.
Unfortunately, there is no magic secret to turning your content into feature clips. However, based on our personal experience, we have found that the following can help:

Add structured data tags to help Google understand what your content is about and how it fits your site
Effectively use the title tag (

-

), bulleted list and numbered list
 

Organize your articles in an organized manner
Keep your paragraphs short-featured clips tend to be about 40 to 50 words long
Use the question as the title and answer below (questions usually trigger feature clips)
Use high-quality images and videos

Note: Baidu Aladdin data open platform is also similar to Google's Google Knowledge Graph, the difference is that Baidu database open platform supports website application to join, but you must meet the conditions and learn more.
    
   forty-nine。 Optimize your Google Discover content 
Google Discover is the content suggestion service of Android. It's basically a feed that Google thinks users will find relevant. As mentioned earlier, the ​​ of mobile streams is growing wildly, so the articles that optimize this platform will only help you.
Because Google Discover is not search-based, keyword research and optimization will not help you post articles to user feeds. However, you can take some practical steps to improve your opportunities, all of which we have discussed in this article:

Create high-quality content.
Optimize your title (clicking on bait may do better here).
Use images and videos in the article.
Mix your content types and try different styles of stories, such as lists, Q & A, and hot topics. Create evergreen content as well as new and timely articles.
Build trust in your content by integrating into social sharing.
Create multilingual version of content.
There is a website suitable for mobile devices.
Understand and enhance EAT signals (expertise, authority and trustworthiness).

For the images included in your article, you may also want to consider enabling large images for Google Discover. Statistics show that this leads to an increase in click rate, web browsing time and user satisfaction. You need to use this form to select the program that joins Google to use the larger image.
    
Google Discover report
You can track the traffic that Google Discover sends to your site and the pages that appear by going to the Discover report in Google Search Console.
Note: if your website content is only for domestic users, you can ignore this chapter.
   Part 6-Image Optimization 

Name the image file correctly
Add alternate text to your image
Use high-quality images
If you are using CDN, make sure the image is accessible
Do not index the image attachment page

   fifty。 Name the image file correctly 
This is where many WordPress webmasters are prone to make mistakes. The image file name is very important! According to WordPress SEO optimization practice, using accurate image file names can help your site get good rankings in SERP and image search.
Some of the criteria include:

Always name the image file with the actual word or pinyin associated with the content of the image itself before uploading the image file to WordPress. For example, name the image wordpress-seo.JPG instead of DC0000.JPG.
Always use a hyphen between words or pinyin in the image file name. For example, if you name a file wordpress_seo.JPG or wordpressseo.JPG, the search engine may not accurately understand the meaning of the file name. Search engines only read files with hyphens that contain a single word, so you need to name the image wordpress-seo.JPG.
If applicable, at least add the core keywords to the featured pictures of the article. We always use the focus keyword in the names of selected images in blog posts.

It is recommended that the webmaster upload accurately named image files as much as possible, although it is difficult to implement them at ordinary times.
   fifty-one。 Add alternate text to the image 
ALT text refers to the ALT attribute or alternate text that applies to images on a WordPress site. Google uses the ALT tag to see how relevant your picture is to the content around it. Screen readers also use them for visually impaired users.
For example, if someone uses Dragon Naturally Speaking software, ALT text can actually help them navigate the page better. When viewing the HTML of a website, you can view it in theThe alt attribute is found in the tag, as follows:
    
You should always add ALT text to the image. If you haven't already done so, you can go back to do it now. With WordPress, you don't need to know any code to add ALT text. You can simply enter an image by selecting it in the library or clicking an image in the WordPress editor.
On adding image ALT alternative text, there have been separate tutorials written before, so I will not expand the instructions here. Check out: WordPress add Image title & ALT alternative text tutorial.
In general, it is useful to add your focus keyword if it applies to images. However, don't just add your focus keyword as ALT text in all images. As with all SEO, operate in moderation. Google doesn't like to send spam.
   fifty-two。 Use high-quality images 
Website images can attract traffic to the site through image searches such as Google, Baidu and Bing. Visual content (such as feature images, screenshots, graphics and charts) can also help users read text and understand content.
In other words, adding images or graphics to a page can benefit a site in the following ways:

Images can be ranked in search engine image search, thus bringing more natural traffic to the site (how to analyze the source of image search traffic).
Pictures can help to prove the relevance between articles and search engine crawling.
Visual effects make the content more interesting and easy to read.

Google now supports the use of high-quality images, which is an excellent opportunity to enrich visual content. You can consider updating some older content by replacing undesirable images with high-resolution versions.
Note: WordPress now supports reading the most appropriate image size based on different device resolutions. So don't skimp on space, upload as clearly as possible and the maximum size can meet the mainstream resolution equipment.
   fifty-three。 Make sure the image is accessible when using CDN 
With the development of the network, the traffic from the image may actually increase a lot, so the webmaster should verify that the image is indexed. According to Jumpshot, Google images accounted for more than 22% of web searches in 2018.
If you use CDN for picture distribution, be sure to index the images. For users using the Yoast SEO plug-in, you will need to add the following code to the bottom of the functions.php file.
function wpseo_cdn_filter( $uri ) {  return str_replace( 'http://yourdomain.com', 'http://cdn.yourdomain.com', $uri );  }  add_filter( 'wpseo_xml_sitemap_img_src', 'wpseo_cdn_filter' );
Note: you need to change it to your own domain name and CDN domain.
If you do not do so, it may cause your images to be unindexed (shown below), which means that the site will lose the benefits of Google image search. In September 2018, Google also adjusted its image algorithm.
Google announced changes to its image search algorithm:
-they give priority to freshness.-the images on the page rank higher.-content theme authority is more important.
Search engine optimization for related paragraphs as shown in the attached image:
    
Ross Hudgens (@RossHudgens) via pic.twitter.com/0Kp9wakuEq
   fifty-four。 Do not index the image attachment page 
When WordPress uploads an image and inserts an article or page, it creates a separate attachment page. Search engines may actually start indexing these pages, which is sometimes not a good thing.
For example, if someone clicks the image attachment page in the search results, they see only the image, not the content of the article. Such a monotonous page will only allow visitors to leave quickly, which in turn leads to an increase in bounce rate.
If you find this problem on the WordPress website, you can use the Yoast SEO plug-in to fix it with the redirect option. Simply navigate to the SEO> search appearance, then click the Media tab and select "Yes" to redirect the attachment URL to the attachment itself:
    
Yoast SEO attachment Redirection Settings
   Part 7-Social and Video 

Declare your social profile
Using social signals
Specify social tags
Make full use of video

   fifty-five。 Declare your social profile 
It is smart to declare all the social media accounts corresponding to the site as soon as possible, especially those that maintain Facebook groups and Twitter. Although most backlinks on social media sites are nofollow, they can still generate a lot of traffic for you.
Another important reason for maintaining social media accounts for websites is that social media profiles are usually ranked high in SERP. For brands, this invisible is a very effective marketing method.
If you use Google to search for a well-known server-"Linode", you can see that the Twitter profile corresponding to Linode is located at the top of the search results. As you can see, promoting your brand through social media has an immediate effect, much faster than serious SEO optimization:
    
Ranking of Linode social media pages in Google
If you are maintaining a foreign trade brand website, we suggest you implement this strategy as soon as possible to avoid being preempted by others. You can use the free tools of the Namechk class to see which names are available on all social media networks.
In addition, domestic webmasters can also use Baijia number, Penguin account, NetEase number and other ways to get the brand exposure of search engines. This is slightly different from Facebook and Twitter, because it is difficult for you to get display from search engine search results through Weibo and Wechat official account.
   fifty-six。 Using social signals 
"Social signals" includes online activities related to your brand, business, and website that are not carried out on your WordPress site. This includes the dissemination of reports on your brand, business or website on Twitter,Facebook,upvotes, Weibo and Zhihu.
Will social signals affect WordPress SEO? Unfortunately, the answer is not black and white. However, according to our research on Reddit and Y Combinator, we found that social signals temporarily affect your site's ranking in SERP.
In the past, we found that hot topics on these sites quickly made their way to the front page of search engines. Even if the fever fades, the ranking of this information fluctuates and eventually falls, but it will have a better ranking position for a long time.
What caused this to happen? Our conclusion is that a large amount of traffic and social signals will cause Google to think that these contents are very relevant and will be quickly indexed and displayed in the previous location of SERP.
Some SEO experts argue about this, but facts speak louder than words. For example, you visit the home page of Reddit and immediately rank it on the first page on very competitive terms. For example, you get on the front page of Reddit and immediately get a highly competitive keyword ranking on the front page of search results.
Over the past few days, the article has returned to its original position, and the search results have fallen back to the middle of the second page of SERP. In this case, you need to further optimize the article, which you can do through some of the other strategies we mentioned in this article.
Here's an example. The day after we wrote something with some keywords, it soared in SERP because we got a lot of social traffic:
    
Social signal traffic
The biggest gain is sharing. Social signals and more traffic are likely to affect your ranking. Therefore, we recommend that you use social media as much as possible.
   fifty-seven。 Specify social tags 
Similar to structured data tags, webmasters also need to consider configuring social tags on article pages. When sharing WordPress articles to Facebook or Twitter social networking sites, you will see the sharing content with thumbnail format, which is generated by obtaining the social tags corresponding to the articles.
Some topics use social tag codes by default, but some topics do not. For themes that do not exist, we can use the Yoast SEO plug-in to supplement these page code tags. The necessary social networking site data tags are added after the installation is configured with this plug-in. While it's not clear how much impact this will have on WordPress SEO, it doesn't hurt to let Google know which social media materials are relevant to your brand.
The Yoast SEO plug-in also allows you to add social tags. This helps Google connect these to your website, which is used to provide information to your brand's knowledge panel. Simply list your social media profiles and use structured data to associate them with your site.
Go to the Social options interface of the Yoast SEO plug-in and fill in all available fields:
    
Yoast SEO plug-in Social Settings
You can also change settings, such as the default thumbnail displayed when sharing site content to social networking sites and the type of thumbnail used by Twitter:
    
Use Yoast SEO to change the default Twitter card metadata type
The following is an example of code that is automatically added to the article page after using the Yoast SEO plug-in.
Note: Facebook and Google use so-called OG tags (Open Graph) to get information, while Twitter uses its own unique meta-information (Twitter cards). If you need to regenerate thumbnails, you can review this guide.
   fifty-eight。 Use video 
This technique has two parts:

Reuse the content into a video format and include related videos in the content
Optimize video visibility with structured data to better display them in video search

1. Reuse written content in video assets
YouTube, a platform owned by Google, has grown rapidly in recent years, ranking second among the top 100 search sites. This means that adding a video version of the content will help you locate new visitors in the new channel.
If you think about it, people like to consume content in different ways.
Some people like to read long blog posts, while others like to watch video content. If you offer these two options to your users, you can target a wider audience.
    
User growth of video channel
Optimizing video for YouTube (called YouTube SEO) is a different discipline, and you can learn more in our YouTube SEO guide.
two。 Optimize video for video search
The video tab in Google allows you to search for video content. While Google is very good at extracting videos from web pages, you can encourage Google to include your videos (or videos of others you embed on your page) by using VideoObject Schema to provide more context.
VideoObject schema can be used to provide Google with more details about your video, including titles, descriptions, and thumbnails.
We found that the videos and structured data we contain usually perform well in Google video results, especially for keywords that we also rank well in Google searches.
   Part 8-Local search engine Optimization 

Use native SEO optimization techniques
Translate your website

   fifty-nine。 Use native SEO optimization techniques 
Local SEO is very important, especially for small businesses to do local services. The simplest and most direct is that if it is an overseas website, you can register your website directly with Google My Business and Bing Places.
100% free promotion channel, why not. After registration, you can help your business display in SERP, search users to conduct a specific location search, you can find your business. For example, search for "Italian restaurant" in New York:
    
Google's local search results for "Italian restaurants" are displayed
So, what should the domestic local SEO optimization do? By the same token, your website itself should be offline service or sales-oriented, you can register and authenticate your business address in Baidu Maps, Amap, Tencent Map and other map services, so that search users can easily find you in the search engine.
For example, if we search for "scaffolding rental" on Baidu map, we can find the local "scaffolding rental" service provider:
    
Baidu displays local search results for "scaffolding rental"
For local SEO optimization, it is recommended that webmasters read in depth the local SEO guide published by TheSiteEdge.
   sixty。 Translate your website (multilingual version) 
In terms of WordPress SEO and traffic, especially for websites for global users, adding multiple language versions to the site may change the rules of the game. Neil Patel (Neil Patel) experimented with this, and after translating his website into 82 languages, traffic increased by 47 per cent.
Of course, this is not for everyone, and success depends on your business and location. However, websites for global users (such as foreign trade websites) are definitely worth considering by webmasters.
    
The ExpressVPN website is available in 16 languages
However, the layout of the multilingual version on the WordPress website must be configured correctly.hreflangAndcanonicalTags, otherwise they may be punished by search engines for duplicating content.
In the following example, these tags tell the search engine that the English version is the original version, while this is only a minor version in Spanish:
English version
Spanish version
There are plug-ins that can be used to translate WordPress's content and services, such as Weglot.
But no automatic translation tool is more in line with the reading habit than human translation. If the budget is adequate, it is recommended that native tongue translators be employed to carry out the task.
   Part 9-Trackin 

Keep a close eye on Google Analytics
Track your keyword rankings

   sixty-one。 Keep a close eye on Google Analytics 
Statistical analysis of website data is an indispensable tool for any website, which can help you understand real-time visitor data, audience group data, traffic access data, visitor behavior data and customer conversion data.
The best way to know how your WordPress SEO is working is to set up a free account using Google Analytics.
The best of these tools is Google's Google Analytics, which has no rival at this stage.
First, you need to sign up for Google Analytics and add the statistical code to your WordPress website. If you need help, please refer to the add Google Statistics Code tutorial.
Then, associate the Google Analytics account settings with the Google Search Console account. Select the corresponding domain name in the Google Analytics backend, click manage in the lower left corner, enter the management interface of the domain name, click "Media Resource Settings" under Media Resources, drag to "Search Console" below, and then associate the installation instructions:
     
Google Analytics Associated Google Search Console
Then, a Search Console entry will be added under the corresponding domain name in your Google Analytics account, where you can view the landing page, country, device, query, etc.:
    
How to view Search Console data in Google Analytics
You can obtain-all traffic-channels through traffic, and view all traffic sources (including natural search traffic):
    
Natural search data in Google Analytics (Analysis)
When you click on the "Organic" item, you will see detailed information about traffic from Google, Bing, Yahoo and other search engines.
Note that the percentage of visitors through these channels can help you get a good idea of how SEO optimization works.
   sixty-two。 Track your keyword rankings 
Tracking keyword rankings is also important. This helps you monitor the progress of the core keywords in the SEO ad series. If you take the time to optimize your article, you need to monitor its progress on a long-term basis.
We found that one of the good strategies is to monitor the keywords that appear at the top of the second page of Google search results. Take some time to add content and images, establish backlinks, and other strategies we mentioned in this article. There is a good chance that these articles will be optimized on the home page of the search engine.
Google Search Console is perfect for finding out which keywords your site has been ranked for, so go to the search results report.
    
Google search console query report
If the site is aimed at overseas users, AccuRanker is highly recommended. This is a great tool and provides a range of development tools:
    
Use AccuRanker to track keyword ranking
This tool will help you focus on the effect of keywords on Google.
Note: of course, there are also types of tools in China, such as Love Station and 5118 are two popular keyword ranking tracking sites in China.
   Summary 
To fully optimize the SEO of WordPress sites, we can see that this requires both in-page and off-page optimization. Each of the SEO optimization tips we share with you above is important.
In addition, if you want to learn more, it is recommended that you learn more about the SEO checklist (and lots of time-saving automation templates) on this page and the list of the first eight SEO forums recommended by WP Buffs.
SEO is very important for any website, unless you are the Buddhist type, that is, the mindset that is dispensable to search engine traffic.
In this article, we share 60+WordPress SEO optimization techniques, which are empirical and effective. Therefore, if you can implement one by one on your own website, I believe you will also be able to improve the number of natural visitors to the site and SEO ranking.
Search engine optimization is a continuous "game", there are many aspects worth paying attention to. This is why learning SEO skills can help you build your business to be successful.
   common problem 
   What is search engine optimization? 
SEO is an acronym for Search Engine Optimization, a set of policies and strategies that focus on driving more traffic from search engines through higher rankings in the SERP (search engine results page).
   Is WordPress friendly to SEO? 
WordPress is very flexible, not only as a CMS, but also thanks to plug-ins. Plug-ins open up unlimited possibilities for adding enhancements to the site. Unlike many other CMS and website builders, WordPress does not have to master all the possible features, but leaves it to third parties to create plug-ins, which focus on whatever functionality their plug-ins provide. This also opens up competition, which means that you may have a variety of choices about which plug-in you use.
For this reason, there are many excellent SEO plug-ins that can help you achieve everything you need to optimize your site across the board.
   What is on-site search engine optimization? 
On-Page SEO (Insite search engine Optimization) refers to the optimization that can be controlled by the website. This includes optimizing title tags, meta-descriptions, title tags, and internal links.
   What is off-site search engine optimization? 
Off-Page SEO (off-site search engine optimization) refers to optimizations that can be done on other sites to help improve different sites. This includes social media signals and links from other sites.
   What is technical search engine optimization? 
Technical SEO (Technical search engine Optimization) is an optimization that helps crawlers crawl and index web pages more effectively. This includes page speed, XML site maps, and normalization.
   What is local search engine optimization? 
Local SEO (Local search engine Optimization) is an optimization that helps websites gain visibility in local search results. This includes adding Google merchant profiles and creating content related to a specific location.
   What is user experience design? 
User experience design involves improving the way users interact and navigate with the site, considering what they want to achieve, and ensuring that the process of achieving it is as simple as possible. This includes testing the user's journey to ensure that the conversion path is direct and without any unnecessary steps.

			

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