WordPress 3 Search Engine Optimization Optimize your website for popularity with search engines Michael David BIRMINGHAM - MUMBAI WordPress 3 Search Engine Optimization Copyright © 2011 Packt Publishing All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews. Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book. Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information. First published: April 2011 Production Reference: 1180411 Published by Packt Publishing Ltd. 32 Lincoln Road Olton Birmingham, B27 6PA, UK. ISBN 978-1-847199-00-3 www.packtpub.com Cover Image by Ed Maclean ([email protected]) Credits Author Project Coordinator Michael David Jovita Pinto Reviewers Proofreader Patrick Rushton Aaron Nash Srikanth A.D. Graphics Sonia Munoz Hoyos Nilesh Mohite Acquisition Editor Indexers Chaitanya Apte Hemangini Bari Tejal Daruwale Development Editors Hyacintha D'Souza Production Coordinator Reshma Sundaresan Adline Swetha Jesuthas Technical Editor Cover Work Mohd. Sahil Adline Swetha Jesuthas Copy Editor Leonard D'Silva Foreword I remember when bloggers would take pride in the obscurity of their blogs, believing wholeheartedly that blogging represented the last true meritocracy of the Internet, a place where if you were a good writer and had interesting things to say, you'd gain a readership. Otherwise, if you were lucky, your Mom might read your occasional ramblings but that was probably it, your brilliance doomed to languish in digital obscurity. Times change and the way people find information online has evolved from our friend's online recommendations to Google. Google! Google! Google! If you're talking about finding information in the online world, it seems to be the first and almost only place people go to find things, whether they're on a mobile device, sitting at a cafe with their laptop or at a fancy desktop system. Heck, one of the most common search terms on Yahoo is the word "google"! The techniques and best practices have changed for maximizing the number of readers that find your content too. It continues to be important to have high quality content—after all, what are people going to encounter once they get to your site?— though the best writer in the world isn't going to be a success if their site's at the end of a dusty, isolated, and abandoned e-road. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) consists of both on-page and off-page tactics and this book goes into both areas in great detail, explaining why something is more important than showing how to improve it on your own blog, hands on and with case studies. Not only that, Michael knows that saying "I want to rank well on Google" makes no sense, because you can't begin to have success until you decide for which terms you want to rank. Know the language of your customers, weave that into your content and site and you'll reap the benefit. I think about SEO in terms of "findability" and when I talk about findability with bloggers, I talk about the benefits of learning how to maximize the chance of someone who is searching for your information, your product, your service, finding you, not a competitor. Sounds good, doesn't it? That's why you've picked up the right book. Michael has captured all the key concepts associated with both search engine optimization and blogging and neatly explained them in this must-have book for any WordPress blogger. Here's something else to think about: even if you're not using WordPress this is a good read because it'll help explain why search engines already like blogs (lots of fresh, narrowly focused content) and how you can rethink your own approach to blogging and increasing your site traffic. And who among us bloggers doesn't want more readers, more traffic, and more comments on our blogs? Dave Taylor Blogger at AskDaveTaylor.com, DaveOnFilm.com, and APparenting.com About the Author Michael David is a programmer, web designer, and search engine optimization consultant with a wide range of expertise in Web and search technologies. He is a panel speaker at Webmaster World's PubCon educational conferences for web professionals, and a speaker at SCORE—a national non-profit organization that offers business mentoring services to small business entrepreneurs. He is the founder and President of TastyPlacement, a search placement and internet marketing firm based in Austin, Texas. TastyPlacement serves national and local businesses through search marketing, pay-per-click management, website development, content development, and social media strategy. TastyPlacement's clients span a wide range of niches and properties, from national e-commerce outlets and national brands (MonsterRax, SpiBelt), photo sharing sites (WreckedExotics.com, ExoticSpotter.com), to businesses in local markets from Hawaii to Maine. I'd like to thank my family for their help and support in bringing this book to completion. I'd also like to thank Dave Taylor for getting me started in the writing game. I also relied upon members of my staff, Peter Attia, Marshall Owen, and Beth Parker for ideas and insights. About the Reviewers Patrick Rushton is a British designer / developer living and working in the Netherlands. He works as Senior Interaction Designer at Amsterdam-based digital agency LBi Lost Boys where he creates brand-building digital experiences that combine rich interactivity, motion graphics, and gameplay. He has contributed to other Packt publications as technical reviewer for Papervision 3D Essentials and WordPress with Flash 10.x Cookbook. Patrick blogs about UX, web design, 3D and interactive television on his website http://www.patrickrushton.com Srikanth A.D. is a Web Developer & SEO Consultant. He is passionate about developing and optimizing websites for better search engine visibility and user experience. Sharing interesting tools and services pertaining to web development and SEO across technology blogs is one of his active hobbies. He has written articles for some of the popular blogs such as MakeUseOf, TheNextWeb, QuickOnlineTips, Lost in Technology, 1stWebDesigner, and others. Blog: http://www.readaboutseo.com I would like to thank Packt Publishing for giving me this incredible opportunity to review a prolific book. Sonia Munoz Hoyos is a web programmer in Valencia, Spain. She has completed her upper computer systems management and has now finished studying the upper development of computer applications where is learning the Java programming language and PL/SQL. She has worked with tools such as PHP, MySQL, HTML, CSS, JQuery, JavaScript, Codeigniter, Joomla!, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Oracle, and PL/SQL, but is willing to learn new programming languages. After completing her studies, she would like to start her own web development business. To Manu and my parents www.PacktPub.com Support files, eBooks, discount offers and more You might want to visit www.PacktPub.com for support files and downloads related to your book. Did you know that Packt offers eBook versions of every book published, with PDF and ePub files available? You can upgrade to the eBook version at www.PacktPub. com and as a print book customer, you are entitled to a discount on the eBook copy. Get in touch with us at [email protected] for more details. 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