19 March 2025

Louis Roy

The 12 Best SEO Tips for WordPress

Introduction

WordPress, one of the most popular content management systems (CMS), is used for almost 40% of websites worldwide. Its influence on the visibility of these websites remains one of its strongest advantages.

More precisely, WordPress has two assets that contribute to the visibility. On the one hand, it is easy to optimize for natural search engine optimization (SEO) or, if you prefer, it is effective in making sure that your website appears on the first pages of search engine results. On the other hand, it increases web traffic, i.e. the number of visitors interested in your site.

In this article, we present 12 tips that will help you make the most of WordPress to optimize SEO and web traffic:

choice of an SEO-friendly theme;
use of plugins;
configuration of website visibility;
images optimization;
good internal linking;
inclusion of external links to reliable sites;
creation of categories and tags to facilitate navigation;
optimization of meta titles and meta descriptions;
compliance with Google’s E-E-A-T rules;
keywords identification;
activation of last update date display; and
use of an RSS feed subscription system.

Choose an SEO-Friendly Theme

It is a proven fact that your website’s theme (the graphic elements that make up its pages) has an impact on the user experience.

Of the thousands of themes available from WordPress, it is up to you to choose one that guarantees page responsiveness, good loading speed and excellent ergonomics. In particular:

choose themes that respect up-to-date coding standards, making it easier for search engine web crawlers to index your platform;
check that your theme offers content hierarchization;
ensure that the layout is adapted to the screen size and resolution, both on smartphones and computers; and
favor a fluid theme such as Astra, Twenty Twenty-Four or GeneratePress, for example, as these templates are renowned for their lightness, good tag structuring and page-loading speed.

Use Plugins to Optimize SEO

Plugins are pieces of code written by developers. They can be installed on your website to add new functionality, ensure the security of your platform and, in this case, help improve your SEO.

We suggest two WordPress plugins that have been designed solely for this purpose:

Yoast SEO; and
Semrush SEO Writing Assistant.

Yoast SEO

With over 13 million users, it is no surprise that Yoast SEO remains one of the most highly regarded plugins for WordPress website SEO. The main features of this plugin are:

Google preview (to show pages before publication on the Web);
SEO analysis (to identify strengths and areas for improvement in page content); and
content readability analysis.

In addition to these features, Yoast SEO suggests internal links to reinforce the structure of your WordPress website. By inserting these links, you will make navigation smoother and enable search engines to efficiently crawl your platform. Internal linking will be discussed in detail in a subsequent section.

Semrush SEO Writing Assistant

The Semrush SEO Writing Assistant plugin is used to evaluate the readability of the content on your WordPress website pages. It checks the relevance and originality of texts, as well as the appropriateness of keywords. The tool can also suggest a reformulation of texts that might otherwise have been considered plagiarized.

Semrush SEO can be used in conjunction with Grammarly, a tool that helps find and correct typos. This judicious combination can detect superficial or complex sentences and modify them to improve content quality.

Configure Website Visibility

The generation of a sitemap.xml file allows Google’s robots to crawl your platform’s pages more quickly, in order to index their content. What is more, using an SEO enhancement plugin like SEOKEY sends the file directly to Google Search Console.

During the development phase of your website, it may be a good idea to prevent search engines from indexing its pages. To do this, simply access your WordPress Dashboard Settings and, in the Reading tab, check the box Discourage search engines from indexing this site:

This setting must of course be deactivated before your website goes online, so that users can access the content.

Optimize Images

Many people are unaware that every image on a WordPress website must have a title and a description. The inclusion of this information makes it easier for search engines to index your content, thus improving your platform’s natural referencing.

To ensure that the images on your WordPress website are accessible to everyone, including the visually impaired, enter an ALTERNATIVE TEXT (ALT tag) for each one. Of course, the alternative text must describe it clearly and precisely. You can also add the main keyword of the page you wish to reference.

Finally, go to media settings to redefine default image sizes (thumbnail, medium or large). You can check the Crop thumbnail to exact dimensions box to obtain dimensions adapted to each computer medium:

Ensure Good Internal Linking of Websites

Internal links or hyperlinks, which direct users to other pages on your website, help to prioritize the content of your platform. In addition to contributing to your platform’s natural SEO, internal links help search engines identify related URLs and understand the relationships between different articles.

We differentiate between internal navigation links and internal contextual links.

Internal navigation links are usually found in the main menu or sidebar of your website. Users use them to access the pages they need, which greatly enhances their experience on your platform.

Contextual internal links, on the other hand, are in-text links placed within the main body of page content. On a product sheet, for example, the description may include a hypertext link to a section giving more details on the product’s features.

To take advantage of the SEO benefits of internal links on your WordPress website, create hub pages and adopt a strategy based on topic clusters. These elements provide an overview of topics related to the central theme and redirect users to more in-depth content. Each of these elements must be optimized for SEO purposes.

Include External Links to Reliable Sites

We have stressed the importance of internal links. External links, too, improve your platform’s search engine ranking.

By definition, external links point to pages on other websites and enable users to delve deeper into the subjects covered in your articles. In this sense, they are useful for quoting a source, illustrating a point or giving an example. In addition to positively influencing the quality score assessed by Google, they reinforce the relevance signals of your content. But beware! Despite their many advantages, external links must be inserted sparingly, otherwise you risk achieving the opposite effect.

Take care to use appropriate anchor text to indicate to search engines the subject matter of the external link’s destination page.

It is extremely important to ensure that the sources you link to are reliable and trustworthy. There are many tools and plugins available to analyze a website’s domain authority (DA) and credibility.

Sometimes you will create external links to platforms you do not want to be associated with. By including the nofollow attribute, you will prevent Google’s robots from crawling the indexed site. To do this:

go to the WordPress code editor;
select the linking text;
press CTRL + K;
enter the URL in the corresponding field;
activate the nofollow option; and
proceed to registration.

Create Categories and Tags for Easy Navigation

Categories are used to group relevant items on your WordPress website into a hierarchical structure. Tags (or labels) are used to describe an aspect common to several pages on your website.

An example may help us understand this taxonomy. Let’s suppose we are interested in the solutions offered by PlanetHoster as a web hosting provider. We could create three categories: shared web hosting, managed dedicated servers and Private Cloud (coming soon). But each category has excellent security. By creating acalled “security”, users can easily click on it to access all hosting categories at once, and explore their particular security features.

Warning About Categories and Tags

Never forget that too many categories and tags can overwhelm and confuse the persons visiting your site. Make sure you choose them carefully, focusing on their relevance.

Optimize Your Website’s Meta Titles and Meta Descriptions

When you make a query in a search engine like Google, the results presented contain a meta title followed by a meta description, giving users an idea of the subject matter.

More precisely, the meta title, or title tag, is simply the title of your page or article. It is the most important tag for the search engine. The meta description is a short summary:

Even if they do not directly affect SEO, meta titles and meta descriptions have a significant impact on your website’s click-through rate.

Here are a few tips to help make your meta title information more relevant, so that Internet users are more likely to visit your platform:

make sure the meta title is not too long (10 to 12 words and 60 characters maximum);
make sure it contains the main keyword of the article or page concerned;
use active voice and calls to action to encourage users to click on the link.

In addition, your site’s meta descriptions must be relevant to your content. If they are not, search engines may rewrite them.

The Yoast SEO plugin for WordPress allows you to easily fill in your meta title (called SEO title in WordPress) and your Meta description:

Also install WordPress SEO plugins such as AIOSEO, which offer SERP previews of your web platform’s page title and description.

Respect Google’s E-E-A-T Rules for Your Sites

The aim of search engines is to provide users with answers that correspond to their needs. The quality and relevance of website content is therefore analyzed according to E-E-A-T criteria (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trust).

When the content on your WordPress website meets these conditions, it appears on the first pages of search engine results, especially Google. Here are a few tips to help you integrate them:

experience: pages must reflect real experience of the subject in question (testimonials from product users, for example);
expertise: page content must provide value to users;
authoritativeness: your site must generate traffic and be targeted by external links;
trust: the design of your site must take into account aspects of computer security and the veracity of information.

Identify the Right Keywords

To find content online, the majority of users use specific keywords in search engines. The pages of your WordPress website must therefore be optimized for these terms in order to appear in the first results and attract the maximum number of visitors.

Determining the ideal keywords is closely linked to understanding the search intent of your visitors. Use tools such as Ahrefs to evaluate Google query volumes, trends (by region, among others) and keyword difficulty scores.

Then create content centered on these keywords, since each article on your platform must respond to a specific search intent. By approaching topics from a unique perspective, offer information that users would not find anywhere else.

Enable Display of Last Update Date

The majority of Internet users tend to look for content with recent information. By activating the display of the modification date, you encourage them to click on links leading to pages on your website.

Some WordPress SEO themes automatically display content modification dates. If this is not the case, installing a plugin like WP Last Modified Info will allow you to add this date.

After configuring the plugin, go to the Settings section of your WordPress Dashboard. Toggle the button next to Show Info on Frontend. Modify any other settings and save. Then check your website’s posts and pages to make sure the last update date is displayed.

Set Up an RSS Feed Subscription System

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a web feed through which subscribed users receive regular updates from your WordPress site. This means they do not have to manually follow up to see what changes you have made.

Although it does not have a direct impact on search engine optimization (SEO), RSS does increase organic traffic and the time visitors spend on your pages. This contributes to a better positioning of your platform in search engine results, especially Google.

On WordPress websites, RSS is enabled by default. If your chosen theme does not include this feature, you can add it manually. From your dashboard, insert an RSS block, enter the feed URL and save the changes.

Conclusion

These days, SEO is an art. Indeed, its complexity stems from the need to implement it in a highly competitive world. By putting into practice the 12 best tips we have explained in this guide, you maximize the chances of getting your platform onto the first pages of search engine results and attracting quality traffic.

You also need to keep a constant eye on the evolution of Google’s algorithms in order to adjust your content and improve your search engine optimization (SEO).

In addition to its SEO power, there are many other factors that justify WordPress’ popularity. In this regard, we invite you to read our blog “WordPress or Wix: Which CMS Should I Choose to Create Your Website in 2025?“.

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