By krbaker@hubspot.com (Kristen Baker)

Imagine you own a delicious bookstore cafe in Boston. If someone searches “bookstore cafe near [insert a neighborhood in Boston]” on Google, you want your WordPress website to pop up at the top of the search results, right? You can ensure your company does so by implementing the most effective WordPress SEO strategies.

Having your website appear at the top of a search engine results page (SERP) is something you can achieve if you spend some time optimizing your site. By investing in WordPress SEO and implementing tried-and-true techniques, you can stand out from the competition and garner more traffic.

• What is SEO?

• Why is investing in WordPress SEO so important?

• A Guide to WordPress SEO: 13 WordPress SEO Best Practices

What is SEO?

SEO, or search engine optimization, is the process of increasing your website’s free, organic traffic by improving your ranking and visibility on search engines such as Google. When you optimize your content, the likelihood it will appear near the top of the SERP for the keyword you’re targeting increases.

Now that you understand what SEO is, let’s dive into why it’s crucial for your business.

Why is investing in WordPress SEO so important?

One important note to kick things off: The importance of search engine optimization isn’t specific to WordPress websites. Regardless of where — or how — you create your site, investing in SEO will prove worthwhile. Your WordPress website is no exception.

Optimizing your WordPress website and content makes you more likely to reach the people actively searching for information about services and products related to yours. Because this happens organically, you’re not paying Google or another search engine to place your content at the top of the results page.

Creating organic content that ranks on Google is also beneficial because your website and information are more likely to seem reliable and trustworthy for visitors (versus a paid advertisement at the top of the SERP). Anyone who owns a business website should improve their SEO as it is a simple and effective way to increase traffic and notability, number of leads, conversions, and more.

A Guide to WordPress SEO: 13 WordPress SEO Best Practices

Ready to dig into a dozen WordPress SEO best practices you can enact to improve your website, boost organic traffic, and increase your brand’s authority on search engines? Here’s what you need to know to get started.

1. Check Your WordPress Visibility Settings

Rule #1 of figuring out how to add SEO to WordPress: Check all your boxes. By making sure your visibility settings in WordPress are set up accordingly, you’re doing yourself a huge favor. The software has a setting allowing you to hide your website from search engines. This can come in handy when building or rebuilding your site; you don’t want visitors to see your work in progress.

The …read more

Source:: HubSpot Blog

Author: Aaron