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One of the best ways to get traffic to your site is through the search engines (specifically Google). It is one of the best free ways to drive targeted traffic to your blog. People use sites like Google because they are often looking for answers to questions they have. If you have successful answered their question and rank well in the search engines, you will get floods of traffic.
Still, I believe that we have often complicated the process of SEO (Search Engine Optimization). I am talking to myself here. My goal today is to just get you started down the road of optimizing your content. This will take you an extra 3 minutes of your time but can give you some great traffic benefits over the long haul.
Why We Like the WordPress SEO Plugin by Yoast
As you are probably aware, Bob and I provide a free blog set up service. Part of that service is adding some essential plugins that we believe are important to have. One of those plugins is called WordPress SEO by Yoast. Now, there is a lot of things that this little plugin can do for you, but my goal is to just focus on one specific area.
Once you install this plugin, there will be a new feature added just below your content box inside WordPress. This is what allows you to quickly optimize your content.
For example, Let’s say I have chosen the keyword phrase “how to become a mechanic.” If someone uses that phrase to search in Google, then I want to be on the first page and get traffic. The phrase is actual used over 1,300+ times each month.
After I write or paste my content in WordPress, I scroll down to the WordPress SEO feature. It asks for my focus keyword, so I put in “how to become a mechanic.” Now the plugin will tell me either yes or no if my blog post is optimized for the search engines. You can then make some simple changes that the plugin suggests, and then hit publish. See the picture below for a better view.
Now, of course, there are some more advanced features to SEO, but what I have just showed you is really all you need. Start using this nifty little plugin and start better optimizing your content for the search engines!
Cool. Thanks, Jonathan. I downloaded it and tried on today’s post. I had a yes for each area, but what do the numbers mean? Also, do you have a post that describes what meta description means?
Can this be done with blogger? I am having a real big problem with my seo
I am not entirely sure to be honest. I just prefer to host my own site cause it gives me more control. Just like the ability to add the plugin mentioned above.
I am not entirely sure to be honest. I just prefer to host my own site cause it gives me more control. Just like the ability to add the plugin mentioned above.
Good point. I probably should have explained each of the areas in my post. Basically, you have:
Title: Which is the title of your post.
Page Header: Which WordPress uses the title of your post
URL: if you set your permalinks correctly, your title will be your URL (which means your keyword will be there)
Content: how many times the keyword phrase is used in your post
Meta Title: this is what shows up in the search engine (you can place the title you want just below the analysis portion see picture above)
Meta description: is the short teaser description that shows under your title in the search engine (again see the pic above)
Hope that helps a little.
Jonathan another great post from BYP. I started using this plugin yesterday and saw a significant increase in traffic yesterday. I went back to older posts (mostly my top viewed posts) and optimized the content using the Yoast Plugin. After taking a little bit of time to do that I doubled my daily traffic. Here is hoping that it keeps going up. Thank you for sharing.