With SEO in mind, making a WordPress site that converts well needs a plan that balances user experience, site speed, content optimization, and search engine best practices. This guide will walk you through the steps you need to take to get more visitors and sales, whether you’re making a new website or improving an old one.
1. Pick a good WordPress host and domain name
Your domain name and server company are very important to the speed, security, and SEO of your website.
The best hosting for SEO on WordPress:
✦️ Pick a dependable host like SiteGround, Kinsta, or WP Engine to make sure pages load quickly.
✦️ Choose a managed WordPress hosting plan if you want changes and speed improvements to happen automatically.
✦️ To make pages load faster for people all over the world, use a Content Delivery Network (CDN) like Cloudflare.
How to Choose a Domain Name That Is Good for SEO:
✅Make it short, easy to remember, and related to your niche.
✅Not using numbers, hyphens, or hard-to-spell words is best.
✅Use a.com ending if you can, because it’s the most well-known.
2. Put in a WordPress theme that is good for SEO
Not every WordPress theme is SEO-friendly. If your theme isn’t written well, it can slow down your site and hurt its rankings.
What to Look for in a Theme That Is Good for SEO:
✔ Quick to load and light (avoid themes with lots of graphics or features that take up a lot of space).
✔ Fully designed for all mobile devices and mobile-friendly.
✔ Support for schema code to make your site more search engine friendly.
✔ Constant changes and work with the newest version of WordPress.
Themes that are good for SEO:
✅Press Generate
✅Astrid
✅Kadence
✅Neve
✅OceanWP
3. Put in place the most important WordPress SEO plugins
You don’t need to know a lot about coding to use plugins to simplify and improve your SEO work.
Important SEO add-ons:
✦️ Yoast SEO: This tool helps improve titles, meta descriptions, and readability.
✦️ Rank Math has powerful SEO tools such as keyword tracking and schema generation.
✦️ WP Rocket – Caches and minifies your files to make your site load faster.
✦️ Smush: This tool shrinks pictures so that pages load faster.
✦️ Redirection: This tool helps you handle 301 redirects and fix broken links.
4. Make your website’s URL structure work better.
A well-structured URL makes it easier for people to use your site and for search engines to understand what it’s about.
➡️ To change the permalinks, go to Settings > Permalinks and choose “Post Name” (yourwebsite.com/sample-post/).
➡️Do not include numbers, special characters, or things that are not needed in URLs.
➡️ Make URLs short and include main keywords.
5. Make your website run faster and better.
Site speed is a major ranking factor that has a direct effect on sales. More people leave websites that take a long time to load.
✦️ Put in a tool that caches your site, like WP Rocket or W3 Total Cache.
✦️ Use plugins like Smush or ShortPixel to make pictures look better.
✦️ Turn on lazy loading to wait for pictures that aren’t important to load.
✦️ Small down HTML, JavaScript, and CSS files.
✦️ Pick a theme that isn’t too heavy, and don’t use too many apps at once.
✦️ Pick a server service that is quick and good.
6. Make good content that is optimized for search engines
Content is what SEO is all about. Your website needs useful, high-quality material that keeps people interested and helps it rank well.
✦️ Use Ahrefs, SEMrush, or Google Keyword Planner to do keyword study.
✦️ In-depth blog posts that answer user questions are what you should be writing.
✦️ Make sure you use headers (H1, H2, H3) correctly for better content organization.
✦️ Make images work better by adding informative alt text.
✦️ For better SEO reputation, add both internal and external links.
✦️ Use interesting CTAs (Calls to Action) to get people to convert.
7. Make sure it works well on mobile devices and for users
Google gives mobile-friendly pages more weight. Rankings and sales can go down if the mobile experience is bad.
✔ Make sure you use a theme that works on all platforms.
✔ Use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test to see if your site works well on phones.
✔ Make buttons and navigation work better on touch computers.
✔ Get rid of annoying pop-ups that can ruin the user experience.
✔ Make sure you can read the words without having to zoom in.
8. Use the best practices for on-page SEO
✦️ Use catchy meta names (less than 60 characters) that include your main keywords.
✦️ Make meta titles that are unique and get people to click on them (under 160 characters).
✦️ Use header tags (H1, H2, H3) to organize your text and make it easier to read.
✦️ To get people more interested, use bullet points, numbered lists, and short lines.
✦️ Put in related movies and pictures to make people stay on your page longer.
✦️ Use structured data code to make your site more visible to search engines.
9. Get high-quality backlinks to boost your SEO authority
Search engines can tell that your site is trustworthy and reliable because it has backlinks.
✦️ Post as a guest on well-known websites in your area.
✦️ Add your site to directories and listings in your business.
✦️ Get the word out about your posts on groups and social media.
✦️ HARO stands for “Help a Reporter Out.” Use it to get published in trustworthy news outlets.
✦️ Find links that don’t work on other websites and offer your content as a solution.
10. Keep an eye on how SEO is doing and make changes based on data
SEO is an ongoing process, and you need to keep track of your progress to make smart choices.
✦️ Track how people use your website and how many people visit it with Google Analytics.
✦️ Use tools like Ahrefs or SEMrush to keep an eye on how keywords are rising.
✦️ Check Google Search Console for mistakes on your site and problems with indexing.
✦️ Do SEO audits on a regular basis to fix broken links, improve site structure, and make material more relevant.
✦️Test different ads, calls to action, and page layouts to get more people to buy.
Last Thoughts
To make an SEO-friendly WordPress site that converts well, you need to do a lot of technical work, make sure the content is good, and keep making changes. By doing these things, you’ll make a website that loads quickly, is easy for people to use, and is SEO-friendly. This website will bring in visitors and turn them into buyers.
✅ Pick out the best name and hosting.
✅ Use a theme that is good for SEO and the necessary tools.
✅ Make URLs, speed, and the mobile experience better.
✅ Make great material and get backlinks to it.
✅ Track how well your SEO is doing and change your plan as needed.
If you follow these best practices, your WordPress site will be more successful in the long run and rank higher in search engines.