Let’s talk. You’ve got a new website and you want web traffic. How do you get it? Spreading the word via social media is important, but more critical than that are your websites results on search engines. Search engines drive the Internet, and you want your business to be located on the road that everyone is using. Thankfully, WordPress-based websites are extremely search engine friendly. We’ve seen WordPress-powered sites web design by our own staff surpass businesses who earn millions (and spend a hefty budget on search engine optimisation) simply by using one powerful tool—WordPress SEO by Yoast.

And because we want your business to be successful and generate tons of revenue, we’re going to tell you how to use that tool.

SEO by Yoast is all about keywords. When you post a new blog or page, it’s important to help tell search engines what that post or page is about. And that’s essentially what SEO by Yoast does: you define a keyword or phrase, and the plugin helps you optimise your content for that topic.

Let’s say you write a new blog post about tree frogs. You’ll want to consider what people who find your post via search engines might find most relevant. So, you want to type “red frogs” into your SEO by Yoast plugin (located just below the space that you type your story in). It doesn’t make sense to type in anything else in your story—trees, ponds, toads, whatever. People who search for the term “red frogs” are going to find your post most helpful.

As such, you should include the phrase “red frogs” several times in your story. Link to a few possible sources of further information on red frogs, as well as any other pages or posts on your website that discuss them as well. You can apply the same logic to jewellery or footwear or whatever your website is about. SEO by Yoast will give you a green, orange, red or grey light depending upon how well your post ranks for the keyword you tell it to optimise for. Just like in traffic—green is best, orange is poor and red is bad. Grey means you haven’t entered a keyword, so shame on you!

Alright, so you wrote an excellent post about red frogs but didn’t include the phrase in your title? SEO by Yoast is going to tell you to change that. Your best bet is to make like William Riker and “make it so.” Didn’t include the title in the URL of that page? You can fix it above your content edition section. Did you include the phrase in your featured image? It’s a good step.

Now, if you’ve tried all of those things are you just can’t get that green light—trust us, you really do want the green light—check out the “Page Analysis” within the SEO by Yoast plugin. That tab is going to give you loads of information about what’s right and what’s wrong with your optimisation. Get as many right as you can, but don’t worry… nobody’s perfect.

If all of that sounds like a dump truck full of work for you, it is. Search engine optimisation requires a little research and a lot of dedication. And more than a little patience. Just keep at it and you’ll get there!

Does your website need to improve your search engine results? Feel free to get in touch to discover more about the range of services we offer and how we can assist you in achieving online success.