WordPress and search engine optimization (SEO) are almost synonymous these days. WordPress software on your own server with a proper setup, theme, few specific plugins, and some off site collaboration, have become hands down the most powerful SEO tool one can use to push their site higher in the search engine results pages (serps). In this blog, I will show you the proper steps involved in setting up your own hosted WordPress software from wordpress.org so that you can rank really high in the search results with little effort.

First things first. I have to make it clear that I am going to discuss how to set up wordpress software properly while hosted on your own server with a copy of WordPress 2.7 or above from wordpress.org. I will not be discussing anything that has to do with wordpress.com social network blogging. Same software, different solutions.

I am going to assume that you already know how to install the software too. So I won’t be discussing how to install it. However, if you are looking for hosting with wordpress for free, and one click installs, then see our hosting plans. All of our hosting plans include simple one click Installs and Upgrades.

Some of the steps that I touch on are going to be slightly advanced. If you understand web development, then you’ll understand the advanced language that I mention. For you beginners, I’m sorry, but successful SEO is not a simple process, so therefore neither are some of the steps involved. We offer the information for free for you to do it yourself, but charge a minimal price for our SEO Plans that involve much of what we discuss here plus a whole lot more.

So let’s get started on that checklist.

Go to “Settings >> General” and name your website under “Blog Title”, then put in a blurb about your site under “Tagline”. Keep it short and simple. Save and move on.

Go to “Settings >> Privacy” and make sure that the radio button that says “I would like my blog to be visible to everyone, including search engines (like Google, Sphere, Technorati) and archivers is checked. This is the number one most common mistake people make when setting up WordPress. They forget to check this and if “I would like to block search engines, but allow normal visitors is checked, then you are telling all the search engines to stay away. And believe me, they will.

Go to “Settings >> Permalinks” and select “Custom Structure” the enter this in the box:

/%postname%.html

You will have to either be able to copy the .htaccess code provided that will look like this

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]

or rely on your install of wordpress to have already set the correct permissions for you so that when you save this, it might automatically save. If your .htaccess file has the right permissions set, the wordpress will create it for you. Never give full 777 permissions to your htaccess file. This is asking for trouble with hackers. 666 usually does the trick, and when complete, change the permissions back to 644. Save your changes and go to the next step.

Go to “Settings >> Writing” and put all the following ping addresses in your “Update Services” pinglist box.

http://rpc.pingomatic.com/
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
http://search.yahooapis.com/SiteExplorerService/V1/ping
http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2
http://1470.net/api/ping
http://api.feedster.com/ping
http://api.moreover.com/RPC2
http://api.moreover.com/ping
http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2
http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping
http://bblog.com/ping.php
http://bitacoras.net/ping
http://blog.goo.ne.jp/XMLRPC
http://blogdb.jp/xmlrpc
http://blogmatcher.com/u.php
http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc
http://coreblog.org/ping/
http://mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatt
http://www.lasermemory.com/lsrpc/
http://ping.amagle.com/
http://ping.bitacoras.com
http://ping.blo.gs/
http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/
http://ping.cocolog-nifty.com/xmlrpc
http://ping.blogmura.jp/rpc/
http://ping.exblog.jp/xmlrpc
http://ping.feedburner.com
http://ping.myblog.jp
http://ping.rootblog.com/rpc.php
http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php
http://ping.weblogs.se/
http://pingoat.com/goat/RPC2
http://rcs.datashed.net/RPC2/
http://rpc.blogbuzzmachine.com/RPC2
http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/
http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080/
http://rpc.newsgator.com/
http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
http://topicexchange.com/RPC2
http://trackback.bakeinu.jp/bakeping.php
http://www.a2b.cc/setloc/bp.a2b
http://www.bitacoles.net/ping.php
http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2
http://www.blogoole.com/ping/
http://www.blogoon.net/ping/
http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates
http://www.blogroots.com/tb_populi.blog?id=1
http://www.blogshares.com/rpc.php
http://www.blogsnow.com/ping
http://www.blogstreet.com/xrbin/xmlrpc.cgi
http://www.mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatter/ping.php
http://www.newsisfree.com/RPCCloud
http://www.newsisfree.com/xmlrpctest.php
http://www.popdex.com/addsite.php
http://www.snipsnap.org/RPC2
http://www.weblogues.com/RPC/
http://xmlrpc.blogg.de
http://xping.pubsub.com/ping/


This pinging function automatically notifies all on your list upon a new article post. Once pinged, the bots–like Google– come to your website looking for the new page to crawl and index it. Within 10 minutes, your new page should be searchable in Google and all around the web, once you have been writing regularly and gained trust. What did I just say? I said this service is not going to be fantastic right from the start as the places you ping may sniff you out for a few weeks and several articles before you can gain their trust to put you in their serps faster than you can order a number 1 at McDonalds. Once I post this very article about this WordPress SEO checklist, it will no doubt be in the Google search results in 10 minutes and people will find it right away. It won’t be number one, but it will be there and as time goes by, it will slowly climb up with other efforts to get it thereLook for areawebsolutions.com now http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&rlz=1B2GGFB_enUS264&q=Wordpress+SEO+Checklist&btnG=Search
Don’t forget to save your changes before you move on.

Now on to the plugins. Download and install the plugin “All in one SEO Pack“. After successful install, now go to “Settings >> All In One SEO” and set your “Home Title”, Home Description”, and “Home Keywords”. The title should be 70 characters or less. The Description should be no more than 150 characters in length and don’t use more than 10 keywords in the keywords box. The rest of the defaults should be fine unless you know what you are doing. Press the ‘Update Options” button and go to the nest step.

Now download the WorPress Plugin, “Google XML Sitemaps” and install. Don’t be fooled by the name. It’s actually a sitemap for most compatible search engines that conform to the xml sitemap technology. After installation, go to “Settings >> XML Sitemap” and leave most of the settings as-is. However, you will need an api code from yahoo to notify yahoo. They are free and take a little time to setup at Yahoo Site Explorer Once there, make sure that you add your sitemap to their list within Site Explorer. Your sitemap will be at youraddress.com/sitemap.xml
Another important third party communication that you will want to setup is at Google Webmaster Tools. You don’t need an API with Google, but you do need to add your site to your account with them and also add your sitemap.xml file with them.

After setting up Yahoo Site Explorer and Google Webmaster Tools, in the same “Settings >> XML Sitemap” area of your site, make sure you check the box to “Notify YAHOO about updates of your Blog” and insert your api code along with all the other search engines being checked. Make sure that the box “Modify or create robots.txt file in blog root which contains the sitemap location.” is also checked and scroll down to “Sitemap Content” and check the following at a minimum:

Now would be a good time to mention finding a good theme. I won’t suggest one over the other because there are so many good ones, but I will suggest one of these fine themes for your business if you can’t find a free one to fit your needs. Find A Theme Once you find a theme you like, make sure that you have the following widgets installed under “Appearance >> Widgets”. Turn on “Recent Posts” set to 5 and save. Then turn on “Tag Cloud” if you do not have a theme with tags under the individual articles that you write. I highly recommend that you find a theme with tags (not tag cloud) under each post on the article page itself. Not only that, but when you actually write new articles, make sure you utilize the tags feature by entering in keywords relevant to your post and separated by a comma or hit enter after each tag. Don’t use more than 10 tags per post.

The next step might depend on how your theme is setup, but it is also good to have an actual sitemap page that not only search engines can fine, but one that humans can read too. WordPress makes this easy. simply go to “Pages >> Add New” and creat a page called “Sitemap” Leave the text box empty and go to “Attributes” on the right side under the “Publish” button. Under “Templates” select “Sitemap” and then “Publish” your page. If you don’t have a Sitemap option, then “Archives” may suffice.

A newer discovery to me is a very effective wordpress plugin called Simple Tags. Simple Tags plugin automatically suggests which tags to used based on what your article is about. It can also suggest yahoo search related tags and auto suggest them for you. You have the option to use some or all of the suggesstions by simply clicking on which ones you want to use.

Simple tags even goes beyond making it easier to get the right tags for your articles. It can also optionally create links for all the used tags in each article; making a wiki like clickable blog that goes to yourblogdomain.com/tag/flowers, etc for all your tags. You can limit the tags per page so that it does not get too clouded up with links. This linking method is another important method for SEO because it will link all of your articles together in a fashion that wordpress does not do out of the box, and simple tags makes your site more crawlable while the search engine bots scan your site for new pages.

You can download simple tags right from wordpress.org by clicking here >>

Installing it is just like any other plugin. Works with wordpress 2.7.1 also. Don’t forget to configure the settings after successfully installing it. After installing it, you will find that it does a little more than what i touched on here. you will have to be a little savvy to understand what takes place under the other settings, but none the less, an all around great plugin that needs to be in your SEO/Wordpress toolbox.
My most interesting SEO technique that I use with WordPress is a neat little weapon, I mean plugin called PingPressFm. What is PingPressFM you ask? It is a wordpress plugin that utilizes the ping.fm service. Ping.fm is a service that manages over 30 different social networks all from one control panel. It gives you the power to update your status with Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, etc, all from one neat little place. The really cool thing about this service is that ping.fm lets you choose that place. You don’t need wordpress to use http://Ping.fm. However, you will find that together they make a powerful combination. And since you are already logging into your Wordpress Blog powered site, then you won’t even need to log into your ping.fm account that broadcasts your new posts all over the internet for you. Simply install the PingPressFM plugin into your WorPress site and follow the instructions. Enjoy all your free time. This plugin allows you more time to actually write new stuff. Which is way better that logging into 30 different accounts to write that same stuff over every time.

Finally, start blogging. Blog about whatever it is you would like to blog about, but try to stay on topic with what your site was intended for in the first place. Jumping from topic-to-topic is going to hurt you in the long run because Google will not know what you are thinking and neither will your visitors.

Write unique articles no more than 5 times per day and no less than 3 times per week. Remember setting the “Recent Posts” widget to 5 posts? Well this is why. If you bump your 5th post off the list, the it will not have enough time to sit around for the search engines to hit it and give you relevance in the serps. The words used in your link act as the keywords people will type into a search engine. Search engines place a lot of weight on these and calculate the time they first find the link to the time that it disappears. So let it site there for no less than 24 hours and no more than every 3 days or so.

I hope you find these tips useful like I do. Many of them I have self discovered, tested and found that they work really well. After you have all this set up the way I described, and then actually blog new articles on a regular basis for about three to four weeks, then you will find your new articles will show up in the search results only moments after you publish your new posts. This will allow for people to find your website faster and more frequent, thus hopefully converting visiters into customers.

If you have something you would like to add to this list or have anything else to say, then post your comment below. If you need help with Internet Marketing, then contact us at (616) 953-6185 and ask how we can help your business. We just gave you one of our techniques for free. Imagine what we can do with the many more that we know and implement for businesses! Contact Us

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