Is WordPress really a good SEO choice? The short answer to that is yes.
As an application that powers more than 32.5 percent of the Internet WordPress needs to be optimized, search engines can easily locate, index, and rate content. Many professionals even suggest WordPress for SEO purposes.
If you are the site owner and on the fence in which CMS you should manage your content, keep reading for 10 reasons why WordPress can boost your search engine optimization strategy.
1. Built for content creation
If content marketing is a key component of your marketing plan, you will need a CMS that makes it easy to publish content on a regular basis. Originally a medium for blogging, WordPress makes content creation easy. From its drag-and-drop editor to its easy-to-use multimedia library, both technical and non-technical users can share their content with the world using the web.
Moreover, while WordPress comes with a number of built-in SEO features, there are a number of places where those features don’t cut it completely. That’s where WordPress SEO plugins will come in and expand the optimizing capabilities of your platform. For example, many enjoy optimizing their content with Yoast’s WordPress SEO.
2.WordPress Makes Crawling Easy
Crawling is when a search engine combs the web for new content and indexes it when people search. This is done by reading the code on which the web page is based. If the code is messy or hard to read, it can be a problem to crawl. If your site isn’t crawled properly, it’s almost impossible to start rating the search terms you want.
WordPress sites are structured such that the code looks consistent across all pages of the web, making it easy for Google spiders to search, index, and rate pages. All you have to do is put in your stuff.
3. Site Speed
Although site speed itself is not a ranking factor, a slow site can lead to a decrease in conversions, a higher bounce rate, and other issues that can affect your search ranking. If you’re running a WordPress site and it’s running slowly, there’s probably something wrong with how you optimized your CMS or your hosting infrastructure.
In general, WordPress pages are fast and light since WordPress uses limited resources on its own. You can check the pace of your site by using a lighthouse. If you find that your site is slower than it should be, it may be a good idea to check in with your hosting company to see if they have any advice, or try to optimize your site for yourself.
4. Social Media Integration
In one survey, 82% of agencies said that their social strategy was strongly integrated with their SEO strategy. With Google’s modern emphasis on commitment and purpose, this shouldn’t be shocking. Multiple studies have shown that participation in social media contributes to better rankings. And the higher your ranking, the more you are supposed to communicate with others.
Social networking is also a perfect medium for assessing and iterating what works and with whom. Built-in audience analysis tools like Facebook’s Audience Insights, make it easy to define and discover new audiences. Measuring interaction with your social posts would make it much easier to identify the best and most important content. If you haven’t started working on social issues, then it’s probably time for you to do so.
5. Meta Data
Meta data is information that is not shown on, nor linked to, a website. Title tags, meta descriptions, and URLs are good examples of meta data. This information is encoded directly on the page itself, so it can be submitted to search engines and crawlers. Although not always a direct ranking factor, meta data affects a number of other factors that can lead to higher or lower rankings.
However, inserting all this information manually can be a time-consuming process. Luckily, WordPress helps you to automate this operation. Using the SEO plugin, the CMS will generate the right HTML tags for you.
6. Permalinks
As you’ve been browsing the Internet over the years, you’ve probably found that some URLs are easier to recall than others. For example, if you want to visit our blog, it’s pretty easy to remember the permalink: seorankserp.com/blog. As such, we made it easier for users to get back to the page as they wish.
But did you know that these clean permalinks (like the one listed above) also have an effect on SEO? In reality, using important keywords in the permalink of a web page can have a positive effect on the page’s ability to rank. Likewise, pretty permalinks result in a higher CTR (click-through-rate) that can also improve your rankings.
You can easily customize the format of your URLs with WordPress. For example, you can do this so that your blog posts are always created in the following form: your site/blog/title. You may also edit individual permalinks to reflect your desired format. And with the aid of these clean permalinks, search engines can find your content easier.
The ability to customize WordPress permalinks is an extremely powerful feature, and one that can help a site in danger of losing to low rankings get back on top.
Other CMS might include their own permalink structures like: seorankserp.com/blog/here-is-the-title-0948502
7. User Experience
Good user experience can lead to sites that are doing extremely well. The reverse is real, too. Strong user experience (UX) is more complex than just making it easy to access the web; it involves maximizing the pace of the site, streamlining the customer’s journey, and more.
And these factors do contribute to the ranking of the web. If on-page content is optimized around the search keyword but the bounce rate is high, it is a strong indication that the UX site is not up to scratch. Similarly, if the site has less than stellar time on the internet, there is possibly a problem with the quality of the page or the user’s experience.
WordPress makes it a little easier for users to experience pre-built themes. These usually follow best practices in web design and make the essential elements of your site transparent and easy to find. All you’ve got to worry about is on-page material.
8. Blockable Spam Comments
One of the benefits of WordPress is the willingness of users to leave feedback and interact with each other. This feature increases interaction, time on screen, and could have a beneficial impact on the reduction of bounce rates. Not all comments are optimistic, however. Enter a feared spam comment.
Spam comments can have a negative effect on SEO by using keywords and content that are unrelated to the keyword objectives of a website. A spam post that’s trying to sell baby shoes on a tech blog isn’t what you want.
WordPress makes spam prevention simple by combining three steps:
- Akismet – the WordPress Stock Review Checker to automatically remove and block spam.
- Comment cookies – Detects and prevents bots from posting spam in the comments section.
- “Nofollow” to links in comments – By default, WordPress links in the “Nofollow” comments section, meaning you don’t have to worry about passing PageRank to derogatory pages.
9. Optimized for Mobile
Mobile is a huge deal for site operators. In 2018, 61.2 percent of Internet users accessed websites via mobile devices. Unsurprisingly, Google and other search engines have indicated that responsive design is a ranking factor, with many professionals feeling that it has been one of the most significant factors since 2015.
WordPress, if you run on the latest version and take advantage of an up-to-date theme, is sensitive out of the box. This means that instead of having to concentrate on the interface that involves mobile users, you can focus on your content. WordPress is going to do the rest.
10. SEO Optimized Images
How is a picture optimized for SEO? Simple, by being easy to load and including the related alternative text.
WordPress makes alternative text easier by providing a dedicated box on the picture information screen. Installing an image optimization plugin can help you provide website visitors with images that are easy to load while preserving image quality.
11. WordPress SEO Plugins
One of the reasons WordPress can be a good CMS to get started with SEO is the selection of SEO plugins available to help content creators customize their posts and pages. Plugins like Yoast and Rank Math make it easy to add meta data, keywords, and tags.
There are also a range of other useful WordPress plugins available to help with SEO indirectly.
- W3 Cache is a fantastic plugin to optimize site speed and improve user experience.
- Nested Pages is useful for optimizing the URL structure and making content easier to navigate.
- Speed Booster Pack helps to speed up the site quickly and easily.
Remember, there are so many plugins and your site may be too sluggish. If that happens, you’re more likely to end up losing rankings than winning rankings.
12. Security
The protection of your site is the underlying factor that could have an effect on SEO. If Google fails to recognize your site as safe, your site will be labeled as spam or harmful to users by the search engine. Unfortunately, this means that Google might not even bother indexing your content.
That’s why WordPress is making a constant effort to stay stable. With the WordPress security team and community by your side, security bugs are always found immediately—up it’s to you to keep up with those security updates.
In fact, you can also reap the benefits of the many security plugins available, such as WordFence Security, to add an extra layer of security for your site and users.
Community support
And if you have a multitude of fantastic features at your fingertips, it doesn’t mean a lot if you don’t feel like you can get the support you need. But there’s no need to think about WordPress: you’ve got a whole group behind your back.
You should, of course, visit WordPress Support forums, Stackoverflow and connect with the group there. But since WordPress is such a popular CMS, there is a surplus of third-party websites, resources, and videos available to provide you with any additional help and information you may need.
Conclusion
If you come to this page and you’re wondering if WordPress is bad for SEO, now you know it isn’t. In reality, between stock features, feature-filled plugins, and a wide range of content and UX capabilities, WordPress can be one of the best CMS applications if you want to concentrate on SEO.
That doesn’t mean you’re supposed to stop here though. There are a variety of optimizations that you can introduce to make your site rank number 1; from optimizing your site for conversions to employing a hosting foundation that lets you deliver the value that visitors expect.
Jay
I've worked for WooRank, SEOptimer, and working on a cool SEO audit tool called SiteGuru.co. Now I have build Linkilo and SEO RANK SERP WordPress theme. I've been in the SEO industry for more than 5 years, learning from the ground up. I've worked on many startups, but also have my own affiliate sites.
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