WordPress is a wonderful blog/Content Management System (CMS) platform, but the default install is not optimized for Search Engine crawling and indexing. There are several things to consider and do to get your WordPress blog optimized for search engines. For each of these, I’ll be following up with specific posts on keyword research, domain purchasing, a review of WordPress SEO friendly themes, etc.

1. Get the best domain name you can find/afford. Three main reasons the domain is important:
   1. The words in the domain name (www.domain.com) are an important first step in defining what content you are blogging about. If you want to be found for different variations on optimization strategies then go get www.optimizationstrategies.com – I’m willing to sell it for BIG MONEY ;-0. No really, do your keyword research – think about which keywords you want to be found for, what are the major themes and get a good domain.
   2. The brand impact of having a memorable domain is not to be underestimated. By having an easy to remember site name, it will help with repeat traffic and trustworthiness.
   3. Buying an active domain name (not a parked domain) will give you valuable history and page rank in the eyes of the engines who include site age in their algorithms.
2. Select an SEO friendly theme. While any theme can be more optimized for keyword rankings (SEO), some themes are inherently built for search engine rankings vs display and design. Here are some guidelines for this: First of all, look for themes that proclaim ready for SEO, look for themes that are text heavy vs image heavy (search engines like text more than images) and look for themes that are plug-in and widget friendly as these extensions can help with search engine optimization.
3. Think about where you install the WordPress software. If you are just installing WordPress as the core/root of your website, this is not a decision you really need to make. However, if you are installing WordPress as a part of a bigger site and need to put the wordpress software into a domain (blog.domain.com) or a directory (www.domain.com/blog) then use a rich keyword to define that directory. Instead of www.domain.com/blog, install the blog in a directory with a highly relevant keyword like this www.domain.com/keyword-blog. This gives you the advantage of always having that keyword in the URL and potentially title tag structure of your blog posts.
4. Include Critical Keywords the Name and Description of Your Blog. Depending on which theme you select, the blog title and description are variables that show up in different places including the header, about us, etc. Make the name and description of your blog consitent wiith the keyword themes you are working on.
5. Update the PermaLink Structure. By default, wordpress organizes the URL structure for your posts (the permalink) with a www.domain.com/?p=1. This robs you of the opportunity to place relevant, targeted keywords into your URL structure which is an important SEO consideration. Fortunately, wordpress gives you some options to improve this. Here are the steps:
   1. In the wordpress dashboard, click on settings > permalinks.
   2. Click on the custom structure radio button and type in the following to use the best SEO set-up for permalinks – this structure gives you both the category and the post name in the URL: /%category%/%postname%/
   3. Depending on how your hosting server is set-up, you may have to manually add some specific code to your .htaccess file. Click here for a discussion of this file and it’s importance. If WordPress cannot automatically update this file for you, it will give you the code to put into this file.
   4. Click save changes.
6. Add critical plug-ins. The following plug-ins help give you more content and control over your blog:
   1. All in One SEO Plugin. Some themes will have SEO elements built-in, but most will not and this plugin gives you control over many of the on page elements of SEO including: Good title tags,  meta descriptions, URL structure and more. Get it, it’s good.
   2. Google Analytics Plugin. Generates the code on every page for you to track your performance with Google Analytics.
   3. Related Posts. A great way to keep visitors reading your content is to keep showing them related posts to what brought them in the first place.
   4. Google Sitemap XML Generator. This plugin creates a sitemap that updates itself with every new post, page and comment. You will need to register this sitemap with google and yahoo.
7. Write 10 Good Articles/Blog Posts. This is a starting point for the content of your site and is important to help establish the authority of the blog around your subject.  Write in several different categories so that the site feels rich and full.
8. Categorize Your Posts in Keyword Relevant Categories. Treat your categories as a keyword rich way to organize your content. Do the keyword research to see if SEO or Search Engine Optimization is a better category for your post (for example).
9. Submit Your Blog to Directories to Start Getting Links. Here are some to get you started:
   1. Google Blog Search
   2. Best of the Web Blogs
   3. Technorati
   4. Blog Catalog
10. Get Links Back to Your Site. Getting other people to link to your site is critical, here are a few resources to help you understand linking strategies.
    1. SEOMoz.org. Here is the link building category with all of posts related to links at SEOmoz – awesome.
    2. Eric Ward – King of  link building.  This links to his best practices blog. He should have called his blog link-building-best-practices instead of best-practices, but I digress.

By optimizing your WordPress blog installation, you will be in a much better position to rank highly in search engines and drive new traffic. If you want help optimizing your site – drop me a line!