WordPress SEO for a Brand New Website

You have built a fabulous website and need some traffic now?

Driving search engine traffic to any website more importantly to a new website is a difficult task.

In fact, 55% of companies say growing traffic to their website is their top priority and 61% say SEO is their main focus when it comes to growing traffic.

But where should you begin?

Start by assessing on-page WordPress SEO for your website first.

The easiest way to do this is by installing Yoast SEO plugin and checking out their comprehensive WordPress SEO guide, which has simple and actionable points such as:

• WordPress SEO basics
• Template optimization
• A site structure for higher rankings
• Conversion optimization
• Comment optimization
• How to improve your page titles for SEO
• Advanced WordPress SEO and duplicate content
• Offsite blog SEO
• Measuring results

Once you have taken care of the above basic WordPress SEO tasks and looking to take your on-page WordPress SEO to the next level, check out the Advanced Guide to SEO.

In this advanced guide to SEO you’ll find:

• Indexation & accessibility
• Site speed and performance
• New search
• WordPress SEO
• Advanced data research
• Keyword research
• Link building techniques
• Search verticals

That’s a lot of WordPress SEO work.

You can supercharge your website’s WordPress SEO by doing the recommended work in these top SEO guides.

WordPress Hosting

Hosting is the place where your website lives.

Deciding the right host is important for WordPress SEO and you should check the following key points before choosing one:

• Uptime reliability – A lot of downtimes can hurt your SEO
• Page load speed – Google is putting a lot of emphasis on this
• Security – Very important
• Designed for WordPress
• 24/7 Customer services

Recommended web hosting providers:

• Bluehost – a good start
• SiteGround – for serious businesses
• WP Engine – bigger websites

Web hosting does not affect your SEO results directly but your website performance does.

The right hosting partner will give you the right foundation for your website’s overall performance and WordPress SEO If you are just starting out.

SEO Friendly WordPress Theme

Picking up a simple and powerful WordPress theme such as Genesis Framework can help you with your WordPress SEO and save you a lot of trouble in the long term.

Changing your WordPress theme, later on, could affect the following:

• Page Speed
• Design and UX
• Site Architecture
• Internal Linking
• It could affect your URL structure and metadata.

In short, to avoid losing your WordPress SEO efforts down the line, it is better to start with the right WordPress theme.

Few important features that most SEO-friendly themes often have in common:

• Clean code: I think this goes without saying. Clean code is the foundation and fundamental thing to look for in a theme for your website. The well coded theme followed by WordPress best practices is very important for your WordPress SEO efforts.  

• Page Speed: Google has indicated site speed (and as a result, page speed) is one of the signals used by its algorithm to rank pages. And research has shown that Google might be measuring time to the first byte when it considers page speed. In addition, a slow page speed means that search engines can crawl fewer pages using their allocated crawl budget, and this could negatively affect your indexation.

Page speed is also important to user experience. Pages with a longer load time tend to have higher bounce rates and lower average time on page. Longer load times have also been shown to negatively affect conversions.

• Security: Popularity of the WordPress also makes it vulnerable and it is important that the theme you choose, have top-notch built-in security to reduce the chance of your site being hacked.

Research by Word Fence shows that 45% saw search traffic impacted by a hacked website.

• SEO: SEO requires a lot of effort you want to make sure that you’re ranking well in the search engines so your customers can find your website. A clean, optimized code, with easy-to-navigate design is important for achieving the best rankings possible.

Your WordPress theme must support Schema.org code, which allows you to output microdata in your site’s code.

One of the latest evolutions in SEO is called schema markup. This new form of optimization is one of the most powerful, but least-utilized forms of SEO available today. Once you grasp the concept and method of schema markup, you can boost your website in the search engine result pages (SERPs).

• Responsive: A web page that fits all device sizes is the standard requirement by internet users now.

A research study by Experienced Dynamics showed that 79% of users will search for another site to complete their task if the website is not optimized for their screen size. Also, mobile users are 5X more likely to abandon the site if a website is not optimized for mobile.

I think that is a lot of on-page WordPress SEO for a brand new website for now. Let’s see what off-page things are important to do for a solid SEO for your website.

Local SEO

If you have a physical business location and serve local customers then local SEO can help you a great deal.

46% of searches on Google are local searches.

In fact, you must get this right before you look into organic SEO, which is usually a long-term project.

What is Local SEO?

Local SEO fundamentals are the same as organic SEO but with particular emphasis on your location.

For example, if you are a plumber based in Ilford, Greater London, you want to ensure that you rank in the first 3 local results Google shows when someone searches for a plumber in Ilford.

Ranking for plumbers in Manchester will not be any help to you.

Important Local SEO Factors

• Add a map to your contact page
• Claim your Google business page
• Collect reviews
• Create local content
• Add schema markup
• Build links
• Add citations

Fighting to climb the SERPs can be tough for small businesses, especially if you’re just starting out. Follow this ultimate guide to local SEO to lock your business in the first 3 spots in your local Google pack.  

By improving your local SEO, you’ll increase your organic traffic, find more leads, and grow your business.

Organic SEO

Doing on-page SEO is great.

But creating high-quality content regularly that attracts links is the main factor when it comes to winning the long-term organic SEO game.

Content that attracts external links is the backbone of SEO.

An average company that blogs regularly generate 55% more traffic.

The skyscraper technique by Brian Dean is my personal favorite organic SEO strategy to build links.

There are 3 steps to The Skyscraper Technique.

Step 1: Find link-worthy content

Step 2: Make something even better

Step 3: Reach out to the right people

You should check out Brian Dean if you are serious about your long-term SEO.

Conclusion

It is hard to secure Google rankings. It also takes time to get reasonable organic traffic through SEO.

To get any sort of traction, you need to continuously produce high-quality content to answer searcher’s questions as best as possible.  

Follow the best practices I shared above to help your brand new website to rank well in Google search results to start bringing traffic and eventually customers for your business.  

If you have a brick-and-mortar business, first focus on local SEO to rank on the first page of Google.

What are other WordPress SEO strategies you use to boost your brand new website’s SEO?