Improve Your Search Engine Ranking Potential

The basic "out the box" WordPress SEO settings are not enough to fully optimize your blog, but there are a number of plugins you can use to enhance your WordPress blog further:

1) Make a decision - to use, or not to use, the www. prefix in your blog URL's...

If your blog uses URL's which include 'www.' and others which do not, the search engines will index two versions of your blog and aside from the possible waste of bandwidth from double spidering, one of them will be filtered as duplicated content. While this problem might be real or just a storm in a tea cup, being pro-active seems to be the wisest option.

You need to decide which system you want to use and stick to it, always!

The Redirections plugin by John Godley allows you to specify which system you want to use and will automatically create '301 redirection' for other URL's. For example, if you decide to use the 'www.' prefix any link to your blog that does not contain the prefix will automatically be redirected to the correct URL which contains the 'www.' prefix.

The major advantage of using this plugin is that it also creates re-directs if you choose to change a post slug (used for the post file name). It also creates redirects if you decide to change your permalink structure and already have posts indexed in the search engines using the old permalink structure.

2) Create Optimized post title tags

The SEO Title Tag plugin by Stephan Spencer is an essential plugin. By default WordPress places your blog name, a separator and then your post name in the title of each page (i.e. between the [title] tags). The SEO Title Tag plugin reverses this and places your post name before your blog name in the title. From a search engine optimization stand point this is advantageous, because:

- It gives the keywords in your title more prominence.
- It provides more meaningful search engine listing results.
- It provides more meaningful browser bookmark names.

One of the major advantages of this plugin is that you have the ability to create a unique title tag for your blog index page and separate title tags for your category pages. By default, WordPress just uses the blog name for the index title and category names for the category page titles.

3) Include description and keyword meta tags in your blog's [head] tags

Including meta keyword tags in your blog's header is not a necessity, most search engines ignore them, but including them won't harm your search engine optimization chances on some of the simpler search engines.

Some search engines will use your meta description in their search listings, others like Google will display all or part of a sentence which contains the first instance of the keyword or phrase being searched. The most obvious thing to do would be to add your keyword phrases into the meta description tag, but these must contain a call-to-action (e.g. make the reader want to read your article).

Creating a compelling meta description which includes all your keyword phrases makes it somewhat difficult for programmers to build a plugin for creating automated meta description tags...

The most common meta description solutions are plugins which take the first 100 or 150
characters from the first sentence to include them in the meta description. The most effective meta keywords plugins are those which also handle the tags you add to each post.

Here are two plugins for you to consider:

i. The Ultimate Tag Warrior plugin by Christine Davis is the ultimate tagging solution for bloggers, but it can also include the tags you add to your posts as meta keywords. This plugin can be used for a number of different features on your blog, so it makes sense to use it instead of different plugins for each feature.

ii. The Head META Description plugin by Kaf Oseo takes your post excerpt or if you don't enter one, the first 20 words of your post content and includes them in a meta description tag.

To get the most out of this plugin you need to get into the habit of writing an attention grabbing post exert (or first sentence) for all your posts. This is a good article writing habit to get into whether you use the plugin or not.

Submitting your web site to web directories

Submitting your web site to web directories is a great way to build high-quality inbound links, increase your Page Rank, and improve your SERPS.

The Internet now features a large number of both general purpose and specialized directories. The specialized directories focus on a specific topic or region. Unfortunately, submitting your web site to the available directories requires a significant investment of time and effort. The key to achieving a positive ROI (Return On Investment) from directory submissions is to focus on those directories, which will provide you with high-quality inbound links.

It is important to note that many web directories have issues, which prevent them from providing useful links. Taking the time understand these issues and submit only to the directories which will provide value will provide significant timesavings in promoting your site.

Taxonomy of Web Directory Issues

Web Directories Which Are No Longer Managed - A survey of 79 general-purpose web directories revealed that 62% of those web directories do not appear to be processing submissions. In many cases, this is because the operators of the web directory launched their site with great enthusiasm, became overwhelmed by the amount of effort required to maintain a web directory, and stopped maintaining their directory. These operators leave their directories online to take advantage of the residual advertising revenue, but no longer invest the time required to process directory submissions.

Web Directories which Block Search Engine Robots - Some SEO's believe that they can preserve Google Page Rank by not giving outbound links from their web sites. Web directories, which operate in this manner, will sometimes block Googlebot and other search engine robots from their directory pages using robots.txt or meta tags.

Before submitting to a web directory, check the Page Rank of the directory page upon which you expect your listing to appear. If that page has a Page Rank of zero, it could mean that the site operator is blocking Googlebot. However, this same symptom can also mean that the site or the page is new, and has not been assigned Google Page Rank yet. To research this further, examine the sites robots.txt file and the source code to the directory page upon which you expect your listing to appear.

Web Directories which use Scripted Links - Many web directories use scripted links to avoid leaking Page Rank. Scripted links use PHP or JavaScript links to redirect the user to the target page. Although these links work correctly for most site visitors, they do not work for most search engine robots.

Free Directory Scammers - Several web directories pretend to accept free submissions, but in reality these free submissions are never processed. These directories claim to accept free submissions as part of a bait-and-switch tactic to upsell webmasters into paid submissions. Often these web directories will claim to provide free service for web sites, which meet certain defined criteria. It just happens that no web site ever manages to meet those criteria!

Web Directories, which Require Reciprocal Links - Some web directories require you to link back to them in order to be listed. This helps build the Page Rank of the directory, which benefits all web sites in the directory. Some people view these sites as link-farms. If your web site is unable to provide a link back to these directories, do not invest your time submitting your web site to these directories. Reciprocal linking is not an appropriate strategy for all web sites.

Paid Directories - Some web directories charge for submissions. These web directories charge either a subscription fee, a one-time fee, or a Cost-Per-Click (CPC) fee. Some of these web directories charge exorbitant fees -- and a few of these web directories charge this fee whether your site is accepted or not! Although there are exceptions, the general rule is that paid directories do not provide a positive ROI.

Better Directories - A few web directories stand out by offering good user interfaces, speedy inclusion, and plain HTML links which pass Page Rank:

All The Web Sites / Ezilon.com / illumirate.com / Jayde.com / JoeAnt.com / Massive Links / Mavica.com / Search City.com / The Super Ultra Mega Web Directory / Tygo.com / World Site Index / Wow Directory.com /

Summary

Submitting your web sites to web directories is an excellent method of building quality inbound links.