WordPress SEO: Optimising texts for search engines

If you want to achieve top rankings with WordPress, you should try to write SEO-optimised texts. Search engine optimisation alone won’t get you to number 1 on Google, but it helps immensely in the long term. I will show you step by step exactly what is important and how WordPress SEO can support you.

Many people with a website don’t even know it, but WordPress already offers good support for SEO optimisation. Because SEO starts with writing a high-quality post. Well, actually way before that. With some plugins, you can also take WordPress to another level. This makes it easier for you to create posts that later achieve good results.

SEO starts even before writing

Please be aware that search engine optimisation is a very complex area of online marketing. It is not enough to create a text and place a few search terms (keywords) in it. Even before writing an SEO-optimised article, you should know exactly who your target audience is. This also means knowing what interests your readers have and what type of content interests them.

In technical jargon, SEOs refer to this as target group analysis and keyword research. With their help, you determine the focus of the content and determine the frequency of search queries in the search engines. HubSpot has published a great article on determining your target group. To roughly plan the topic of your text, I advise you to use some SEO tools.

Discover potential with keyword research

Unfortunately, there are only a few free tools for determining keywords. For example, Google Search and the other information provided there (including similar questions, rich snippets, Q&A). You can also make limited use of Ubersuggest, the keyword tools or the Google Keyword Planner (in Google Ads).

Limited in the sense that such tools – if they are free of charge – are usually restricted in scope. Ubersuggest only allows 3 queries without registration. With the keyword tools, the limit is 10 queries.

The alternative would be an SEO suite, which usually includes a corresponding module for keyword research. There you enter the main topic and other search terms are suggested. However, these tools cost money. This may not be possible within the budget of every blog.

The structure of SEO optimised texts

Let’s move on to the practical part: How you can create an SEO-optimised text with WordPress. Basically, it doesn’t matter whether the text is created using WordPress or other software. The basic features of high-quality content and its structure are the same everywhere, even if you programme the website yourself. Of course, it differs slightly depending on the interface or tool.

Below, I’ll show you what makes a great text. I also want to give you some insights into WordPress SEO and how you can make adjustments there. First of all, it’s about creating a clear structure for your headings.

First level headings (H1)

One of the most important elements in a text are the headings. You can use these to structure the article and emphasise important things. This makes it easier for the reader to “scan” your content. This is becoming increasingly important because most visitors only skim the text. They use the headings to select relevant paragraphs.

Google also looks at the headlines when assessing how relevant or good the content is. However, the lower levels have become less important in recent years. This is because Google, as the largest search engine, is able to understand correlations even without keywords. The level 1 headline, the so-called H1 headline, has the greatest influence. As a rule, this is the title of your article, which you don’t just use to describe the content.

The H1 should be seen as an instrument with which you want to attract the visitor’s attention. That’s why the title has to be convincing! Because it will be displayed everywhere, including on the homepage of your blog and when the post is shared on social media.

Second and third level headings (H2, H3)

I would also advise you to focus on the second and third level headings (H2, H3). In search engine optimisation, these play a lesser role than the aforementioned H1 heading, but should still be used urgently.

By the way, WordPress offers a great function that allows you to monitor the correct structure of your headings. You can easily find this in the backend in the Gutenberg editor directly when writing. Take a look at the screenshot below:

Elements of the fourth heading level are no longer very relevant for SEO-optimised text. However, you can use them to structure your text for a better overview. This is particularly useful for very long and detailed articles.

With Google, however, this has little or no effect if you use relevant search terms there. The smaller search services such as Bing or Yandex etc., on the other hand, still analyse them to some extent.

Use a table of contents for a better overview

In addition to a good structure for the headings, an article optimised for search engines is characterised by a table of contents. Especially with long texts, it helps your readers to keep track of the relevant sections.

It is best to include jump labels in the table of contents so that visitors can jump to the relevant section with one click. This also contributes to the usability of your website, which Google also takes into account as a ranking factor.

In WordPress, you can easily use a plugin for this. A large number of such plugins make it possible to automatically display a table of contents. Alternatively, many offer shortcodes that can be used to manually determine the contents. I use the Easy Table of Contents plugin in most of my blogs. This is available free of charge and is relatively easy to use.

A table of contents is then displayed in my posts, which can be expanded or collapsed using an icon. The heading can also be freely defined. I have illustrated this in the following image and highlighted the open/close button in red:

Images and videos liven up your text

Media has become important in search engine optimisation. Apart from headlines, they are almost the only elements that can be used to prevent sections of text from becoming too dry and lengthy.

In SEO, it is usually advised to use a different element every 300 words. This can be – as just described – a headline. But at some point, your text may contain too many headings. That’s why you should never do without media such as images or videos.

They also have another advantage. You can be found via the media in an image and video search. And not just on Google. Pinterest marketing would be another alternative, or a YouTube video if you use one.

Optimise images for a WordPress post for SEO

However, an article that focuses on search engine optimisation does not just contain any images. The images should be of high quality, use the search terms at the same time and of course be relevant. The use of keywords is recommended both in the name of the file and in the meta information.

With WordPress, you can customise the meta data in the backend. All you have to do is select the image file in the media overview and adjust it according to the screenshot below. I have highlighted the important entries in red in the following illustration:

You should also avoid using the same image in several articles. This is because the name and meta files are optimised for one article. In another text, the search terms will most likely no longer be optimised.

You can of course upload the image again and give it a new file name, description and alternative name. This way, the media is optimised for SEO for each text. Or you can at least manually change the metadata of the image from the media library in Gutenberg.

Customise subpage metadata with WordPress SEO plugin

To achieve the best possible search engine rankings, you can’t avoid using an SEO plugin when using WordPress. This is because the blog software is only slightly optimised for search engines by default.

Which plugin you use is not so important. Yoast SEO, RankMath and other providers also improve the findability of your content. There has already been a comparison between the SEO plugins mentioned here in the magazine.

Rather, it is important that the relevant data is available at all. Only then can it be analysed and used by search engines. Google no longer needs quite as much information, but the competition is still much more reliant on it.

Improve meta data with Yoast SEO

But let’s take a look at this using Yoast SEO. I have been using this plugin on many of my blogs for several years. However, I also know many bloggers who achieve just as good results with RankMath and wpSEO. The approach may differ slightly there.

First of all, you should optimise the basic information. This allows you to define how the plugin should behave and how your website should appear in the search results. You can also define the appearance for the social networks. And you should also make use of this. Firstly, adjust the details for the homepage, i.e. for your start page:

I have outlined the important data in red. You should definitely add a meaningful meta description, i.e. the description of your website. In addition, select below whether you are a company or an individual and then add the details accordingly or upload a logo (or select this from the media centre).

You can also preset the meta description for pages and posts. However, this doesn’t make much sense because you should always customise them individually. But more on that in a moment.

Do not index categories and tags in WordPress

In my opinion, it is important not to have the category and tag pages indexed. These usually don’t offer any added value for your readers. Sure, they help people find their way around the site. But they don’t offer enough quality to achieve good rankings in the search results.

That’s why it makes sense not to let Google include them in the index. Which in turn can lead to a better overall result for your blog. In Yoast SEO, you only have to make two clicks to do this. In the settings, go to the Taxonomies menu item. There you can simply switch the indexing of tags and categories to No.

Check and adjust each content again

Despite the default options, you should check each individual post again. Yoast SEO provides useful tips for this below the editor. You don’t have to follow all the instructions blindly. But they roughly show you what to look out for. I have not added any text in the following image, which is why almost all analyses are red:

You should edit the focus keyword and the description manually for each post. The keyword helps you to avoid optimising several texts for the same search term.

The description or the text passage behind it is displayed by Google in the search results. However, Google replaces poor descriptions with its own. I have created an example for you in the following image:

As you can see, the display in Google Search is shown at the top. Below you can see the link or slug (under the bar in orange).

The description is entered directly below this. If you want to create an SEO-optimised text, this must not be missing. However, it must also have a certain length and contain the keyword.

In the example above, Yoast SEO thinks I’ve done a pretty good job of optimisation. You can recognise this by the green bar as a result. This means that the length is optimal and the keyword “marketing” also appears in it. The red smiley is due to the fact that I have no written text in the editor and therefore most analyses fail.

Internal and external links

A text optimised for SEO doesn’t just consist of great wording and a high-quality structure, supplemented with images and videos or other media. You also need links to other pages in any case. Both internal and external links are used for high-quality texts.

If you completely dispense with the use of topic-relevant links, you are missing out on a lot of potential. Creating links can be positive in many ways. With internal links, i.e. links to other posts in your blog, you show search engines how important the individual subpages are. It can therefore be a good idea to link the best content in the navigation and also in other posts.

External content usually emphasises a thesis that you have put forward. Or they can point out other opinions. Experts refer to these as trust links. Highly credible websites are particularly popular, such as Wikipedia.

You can add links quite easily in the Gutenberg editor in WordPress. All you have to do is select the words you want to link to and click on the link icon. A search will open where you can either insert a link or search for internal posts. You can see this better in this picture:

WordPress SEO: The work is worth it

If you want to run a successful blog, website or online shop with WordPress and WooCommerce, then you can no longer avoid optimisation for Google and other search engines. Writing SEO-optimised text is not as difficult as you might think.

You should always focus on your readers. Because they are the most important thing. Especially since Google usually also rates a website optimised for visitors well. Nevertheless, you shouldn’t lose sight of the keywords. It is also important to pay attention to the structure of your headings. Supplemented with a table of contents, media and the appropriate links, your chances of good rankings in the search engines increase immensely.

The problem with many blogs is ignorance. WordPress is not SEO-optimised by default, nor is WooCommerce. At least not in all areas. That’s why you need at least one SEO plugin to help you out. It is also important that you stay on the ball: Good results in the search engines usually only appear weeks, months or even years after an article has been created. This is because backlinks exist and the article has been frequently expanded.