What is SEO? (Search Engine Optimization) In 2024

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a continually evolving practice of learning how search engines, notably Google, index and rank web pages and content.

By learning SEO techniques and applying them to your WordPress blog, you can increase the amount of traffic that comes to your blog from search engine keyword queries.

This post teaches you some of the most commonly recommended SEO tricks for increasing your blog’s search traffic, including link building, writing SEO-friendly content, and researching keywords.

Furthermore, this post explains which SEO tactics to avoid if you want to stay on good terms with search engines.

Boosting Blog Traffic with SEO

Google and Bing are the two most popular search engines, with Google far surpassing even its closest competitors in terms of use and the amount of traffic it sends to blogs and websites via user searches.

For simplicity, this post frequently refers to Google, but the information in the following pages also applies to other search engines.

Search engines like Google use proprietary algorithms (arithmetical sets of rules that aren’t publicly available) to analyze every page on the web.

They crawl through the content of those pages and rank them in terms of relevance to keyword searches.

Sites that rank high on search engine results pages (SERPs) for keywords related to their sites and content get more traffic from search engines than similar sites that rank lower in the exact keyword searches.

Search engine optimization aims to write and publish content using SEO tactics that can raise its visibility in relevant keyword searches.

How WordPress Helps SEO

You can use many search engine optimization tricks on your blog to boost search traffic; some are built into the WordPress blogging application. Setting them up on your blog pages and posts takes just a few minutes.

First, configure your WordPress settings so your site is visible to search engines and pings are sent when you publish new content. This helps Google and other search engines index your content quickly and efficiently.

Next, in the settings of your WordPress account, create a blog title that uses targeted keywords.

This title appears in the bar across the top of a browser window when someone visits your blog, and it can help your search engine optimization efforts.

As you write posts on your blog, be sure to use the tools available to enhance your search engine optimization efforts.

For example, as you write a post, you can add keyword tags, use heading font styles (discussed in the “SEO Tips” section below), configure your posts and pages to accept trackbacks and pings and use strategic links within your posts.

Use the media upload tool when you upload images to publish in your blog posts or pages. You can, for example, add an image title and alternate text using keywords.

Finally, plugins that help with search engine optimization should be used. For example, the All in One SEO Pack, Rank Math SEO, and Yoast SEO are very popular among WordPress users, as is the Google XML Sitemaps plugin. Both are thought to help with search engine optimization.

SEO Tips

Search engine optimization is constantly evolving as search engines update their ranking algorithms, and SEO experts work to figure out what those algorithms are and release their findings and recommendations.

Two of the most important aspects of search engine optimization you can use to your advantage are link building and keyword research.

Both are discussed later in this post, but this post focuses on specific tactics you can employ on your blog as you write new posts because every little bit helps!

Here are a few easy tips you can use now:

Use keywords in your post titles.
Use keywords in hyperlinks or around hyperlinked text.
Use keywords in text formatted using heading styles in your WordPress post editor.
Use keywords in alt-tags and image file titles in the WordPress media library.
Tag your posts with specific keywords using the Tags module in the WordPress Add a Post page.

SEO Resources

Search engine optimization requires ongoing analysis and learning to understand how it works truly, so keeping up with SEO research is a good idea.

Fortunately, several websites can help you with this. If you’d like to read a step-by-step SEO guide, the following are links to some valuable and free guides you can access online.

Importance of Link Building

One factor search engines like Google use to rank keyword search results is the number of incoming links a web page has.

The theory is that pages with many incoming links, particularly from popular websites, must contain suitable content, or no one would want to link to them.

So, pages with many incoming links will likely rank higher in keyword search results than those with fewer.

Blogpluginscial, so your readers are likely to share the posPluginyour blog they like plugin audiences.

Therefore, writing great content and making it easy for people to share it is essential for driving links and traffic to your blog.

Use plugins like the Ablog’sy Share Buttons, Social Forms Plugin, and Social Warfare plugin to enable one-click sharing of your content on the social web.

Link-Building Tips

In addition to using the plugins suggested in the previous section, you can use other easy tricks to increase the number of incoming links to your blog.

Here are a few to get you started:

Publish fantastic content on your blog that others will want to read, share, and write about on your site.
Leave comments on other blogs, and include your blog’s address in the comment forms’ URL space.
Accept trackbacks on your blog posts so that people who link to them receive an incoming link to their sites.
Promote your content on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social networking profiles.
Submit your content to social bookmarking sites like Digg and StumbleUpon.
Write for multiple sites and interlink your content.
Write guest blog posts for other popular blogs, and include a link back to your blog in your author biography.

Anything you do to share your content with interested audiences increases the potential that people will read it.

If they like it, they might write about it on their blogs, link to it, or share it through their social web connections.

Each time your content is shared and viewed, it increases the potential for others to write about it and link to it—the more incoming links, the better in boosting your search engine rankings.

Link Building Vs. Link Baiting

Link building and link baiting are different and serve two distinct purposes. While link building is a blog-growth strategy that helps boost your blog’s search engine rankings and traffic in the long term, link baiting causes short-term traffic you’ like.

However, some people who arrive at your blog through your link bait might like what they read and become readers.

By definition, Link baiting is the process of writing a blog post about a hot topic to drive short-term traffic and boost incoming links.

For example, if you write a blog about business and see a hot topic about Britney Spears climbing the trending topics on Twitter, Google, or another site that tracks hot issues, you can post about Britney on your blog.

Hopefully, you’ll catch some traffic from people actively looking for online information about here.

It’s best to try tIt’site about hot topics (or link-bait topics) you can associate with your blog topic somehow.

The business blogger could link a Britney-related post to the blog’s featured fragrances or personal brand strategy in the Britney Spears example.

This way, the post fits on the blog and takes advantage of the potential link bait it could draw. You can get ideas for link-bait blog posts by checking the trending topics on the home page of X (or on your X side if you’re logged in to X).

Keyword Research

One of the most important aspects of search engine optimization (SEO) is determining the keywords likely to drive the most traffic to your blog.

Those keywords should be related to your blog’s topic. In other words, what keywords are people likely to type into Google to find content like what you write about in your blog posts?

To yield the best search engine optimization results, you must focus on and feature those keywords in your blog content.

There’s more to keyword research. Pick the keywords you think fit your blog’s content.

For example, write a blog about parenting. If you focus your search engine optimization efforts on leveraging the keyword parenting, you’ll have a lot of competition and vast and powerful sites.

However, if you focus on more specific keyword phrases, you might attract less traffic, but that traffic will be more focused and more likely to be happy with the content they find on your blog.

Instead of focusing on parenting, a blog with a lot of content about parenting twins could concentrate on that more specific keyword phrase: parenting twins.

Many options are available to a parenting blogger other than the twins. The trick is finding the right keywords to maximize the focused season traffic to your blog. Please keep reading to learn precisely how to do it.

Focusing on specific keyword phrases (three- or four-word keyword phrases are best) is called long-tail search engine optimization.

What to Research

The first steps to keyword research involve defining your blog, what you want it to be about, and what your desired target audience wants.

Once you clearly define your objectives and your audience’s needs, you can research the best keyword phrases for your blog content.

You don’t have to pick a single keyword phrase for your entire blog. Instead, choose a specific keyword phrase for each piece of content.

Chances are, many pieces of content will use the same or a similar keyword phrase. After all, you want traffic to your blog that’s likely to be interested in your broader blog topic so they stick around to read more posts, return, and tell their friends about it.

It would help if you researched the popularity of keyword phrases related to your blog topic that people are currently typing into their search engines.

The tools listed in the next section can help you find a variety of relevant keyword phrases. The trick is to choose keyword phrases that are focused enough that more prominent online publishers aren’t likely to compete for that traffic but broad enough that an actual audience is searching for them.

Look for the sweet spot, the keyword phrase between the popular and unpopular keywords, and then start to claim that keyword through targeted content.

Popular Research Tools

One of the first things you need to do is set up an analytics tool on your blog so you can track the keyword phrases people are using.

Once configured, you’re ready to start writing keyword-targeted content and tracking the results of your efforts.

To determine which keywords you should focus on in your blog content, you can use two free tools offered by Google:

Google AdWords Keyword Tool
Google AdWords Traffic Estimator

In addition to the Google tools, check out Wordtracker and Keyword Discovery. These paid keyword research tools offer free trials to test before purchasing.

Both tools provide significant information and valuable features that enable you to analyze keywords in great detail.

If you’re serious about keyword research and search engine optimization, paying for one of these tools might be worth it.

The free Google AdWords Traffic Estimator lets you enter a keyword and determine advertisers’ bids.

Look for keywords related to your blog that fall in the middle of the pricing spread. These keywords generate a decent amount of traffic but aren’t excessively competitive.

What Not To Do

So far in this post, you’ve learned tricks and tools to help you boost your search engine optimization efforts.

Now it’s time to learn about everything you shouldn’t do unless you want your blog to get banned from search engine results.

Google and other search engines will flag your blog as spam or eliminate it from search results if you’re caught using search engine optimization tactics that artificially inflate your blog’s popularity or contextual relevance.

Once your blog is flagged as spam or banned from Google search results, getting back into Google’s good graces is nearly impossible.

Search engines like Google can send a lot of traffic to your blog, so if you want your blog to grow and be successful, avoid these tactics:

Keyword stuffing: Don’t overuse your keywords. Including your keywords within your content is allowed, but if you overuse your keywords or publish lists filled with your keywords in your blog’s sidebar or footer, Google could view that as keyword stuffing and flag your blog as spam.
Hiding keywords: Don’t try to hide a list of your keywords in a tiny font at the bottom of a page or the same color as your blog’s background. Google will find it and flag your blog as spam.
Paying for links or publishing paid links: Incoming links are an essential factor in determining Google search rankings, so sites that pay for incoming links or publish links paid for by another site are flagged as spam and removed from Google search results entirely.
Copyscraping: Don’t republish content already published on another website. Not only is that plagiarism, but Google considers it a spam tactic and will penalize your blog.
Publish links and ads without content: Google views pages filled with links and ads as spam. Be sure every page and post on your blog provides more original content than links and ads.

If you take the time to write great content, don’t stress about keyword density. Allow keywords to flow into your content naturally and avoid dishonest or spam tactics, and your blog’s search traffic will grow organically in time.

Heed this warning: companies that promise pie-in-the-sky results such as “We’ll get your site to #1 on Google in two weeks!” are likely using spam tactics to get that fast and unnatural jump.

Always remember that long-term sustainable growth is better than short-term spikes, but using honest tactics from both strategies can help you meet your blogging objectives without fearing retaliation from Google or other search engines.

KEEP READING:

Wrapping Up

WordPress offers several built-in features that can help you with search engine optimization. Use them!
Search engine optimization analysis is constantly evolving. What works today might not be recommended tomorrow.
Link building and keyword research are two of the easiest ways bloggers can achieve success in search engine optimization.
Some search engine optimization tactics are considered spam techniques and could get your blog banned from search results entirely. Avoid those tactics at all costs!

That all. Let’s meet in the comments column below.

Let us discuss.

If you liked this article, What is SEO? (Search Engine Optimization), please follow us on the following Social Networking:

Find Us On Facebook
Connect with WordPress Experts and other WordPress Users in our free Facebook Community.
Join Us On Twitter
Follow Us On the Telegram Group
Find Us On the WhatsApp Channel
You can also reach Us by using the Contact Form.
Also, find Our Blog Page for more tutorials.
Follow Us On Google News for more updates.