Here are some key fundamentals that I have learned about SEO blogging and gaining results organically.

Write for People

I’m pretty sure you have heard this before but has it sunk in yet? It’s all too tempting to consider writing line by line of keyword rich, uber-optimized text or even using spinning tools as a shortcut to having content. But not all content is created equal. Good content is useful, informative, interesting, easy to read, well organized and engaging not to search engines – but to people. Search engines only make your content available to be found, people are the ones seeking out the information you have to share and should be treated with content they can follow and that they want to read. Beyond that, of course, people are likely to only want to share or link to good engaging content, not gibberish.

Make it Unique

I’m not reinventing the wheel here, only trying to hammer in the most important aspects of SEO blogging. Unique content is paramount. It doesn’t matter if the subject has been blogged about over and over again as long as you write your own unique content. Plagiarizing, text spinning or rewriting is not an effective shortcut. Google is constantly updating their search algorithms to weed out cookie-cutter, duplicated, automated, and just plain bad content. Think about it – Google’s main product is search and of course they are only going to drive to improve their product to keep users happy. Writing good unique content will make Google happy, make your site visitors happy, and allow for results to follow naturally.

Make it Fresh

Another thing that makes Google as well as your site visitors happy is fresh content. That is the beauty of blogging. Publishing fresh content is easier than ever. In the past, you hardly ever knew when a static website was last updated. Blogging gives your content a timestamp which highlights fresh content and shows a timeline of your blogging which can help lend itself to credibility once you have been established for some time.

Make it Relevant

The majority of the content of a given blog post should be as relevant as possible to the subject you are writing about and the keywords you hope to rank for. Even better is if your blog as a whole is relevant to a specific niche. At the risk of sounding redundant, but Google also loves relevancy and cohesiveness. This doesn’t mean you can’t get creative and go off-topic a bit to illustrate an example. As long as the majority of your content is on-point and relevant to the subject matter, you should be fine.

All-in-all, if your blog is naturally written for humans, has unique content, and is fresh and relevant to the type of traffic you hope to get from search engines, you are doing it right.

Combine these plugins with quality content and these 5 WordPress SEO Tips and Best Practices to make your WordPress website have a great chance of ranking on Google and increase traffic.

Tip: You don’t have to manipulate search engines to get traffic. Do it right and the traffic will come. Use the right mix of SEO tools and keep writing good quality content.

1. All in One SEO Pack

Automatically optimizes your WordPress blog for Search Engines (Search Engine Optimization).

All in One SEO Pack will help you manage your home title and description, canonical URLs, will rewrite titles using default format or your own custom format, specify indexing of categories, archives, and tags, as well as auto-generate descriptions. Titles and descriptions can be manually set in each page or post.

This is the main SEO plugin I use on all sites I build. With All in One SEO Pack, I can configure all of the basic SEO elements in a few simple steps:

1. Install All in One SEO Pack plugin
2. Enable the plugin under Settings > All in One SEO Pack
3. Choose my Home title and description (leaving the keywords field blank)
4. Typically, I use only %post_title% in the “Post Title Format” field
5. Uncheck all of the “Keywords” related fields (you don’t need em)
6. Check “Autogenerate Descriptions”
7. I leave the rest of the settings as default and save the options

Requires: 3.0 or higher
Compatible up to: 3.3.1
Last Updated: 2011-12-10
Downloads: 9,951,869

Visit WordPress Plugin Page

Visit Developer’s Plugin Page

2. Google XML Sitemaps

This plugin will generate a special XML sitemap which will help search engines to better index your blog.

This is another must have SEO plugin for WordPress. An important part of search engine optimization is telling Google and other engines what to index on your site. Sure, they can crawl your site without a proper sitemap, but this just makes it easier for them and shows you are serious about setting up your website properly. This plugin is great out-of-the-box but there are also many different configuration options. I usually leave mine fairly default but I do modify frequencies and priorities at the bottom of the plugin settings.

Requires: 2.1 or higher
Compatible up to: 3.3.1
Last Updated: 2011-9-19
Downloads: 6,974,807

Visit WordPress Plugin Page

Visit Developer’s Plugin Page

3. Quick Cache (Speed Without Compromise)

Speed up your site ~ BIG Time! – If you care about the speed of your site, Quick Cache is a plugin that you absolutely MUST have installed.

This is more of an indirect SEO plugin but very worth mentioning. This plugin will not only help ensure a pleasant user experience with quicker loading cached versions of your website, it also helps make Google love you. How? Well, Google likes fast pages because users like fast pages. It is only one of the hundreds of ranking factors but nevertheless, make your website faster by using this plugin. Just intall and enable. That’s it!

Requires: 3.2 or higher
Compatible up to: 3.3.1
Last Updated: 2011-12-4
Downloads: 262,506

Visit WordPress Plugin Page

Since then, there have been some great and not-so-great themes released. I have reviewed them all and came up with 10 that I really think you should see. What is my criteria for what free themes make the cut?  There is no real science to it, but I know what I like and themes that I like are typically professional, clean, effective, good functionality, sometimes minimal, and always have great attention to detail.

Note: If you are worried about downloading free themes that might contain security exploits, you should be. That is, you should be worried if you are not downloading them from reputable sources. All of the themes I list have been approved and made available on wordpress.org or from reputable theme developer sources. Be careful when searching for free WordPress themes. Make sure you trust the source of the theme.

Here are my top 10 latest free WordPress themes for March 2012. Please leave a comment below and let me know if you agree or not and why.

1. Responsive

Responsive is a great free responsive theme from ThemeID that will look great on any device. It’s clean and minimal but I would personally want to change the menu font. I pulled it up on my HTC Inspire and it looks great, although, I would rather see the menu take up much less space. With some customizing, this can be a great responsive theme to build off of and make your own.

Demo | Download

2. Dzonia Lite

Dzonia Lite is an amazing feature-packed free business theme from InkThemes that can serve many different uses. It’s got a classic homepage layout featuring a very slick image slider, tagline, and service blocks. I am not crazy about the bubbly menu but that could be customized. Note that the “lite” version is free but the premium version is not.

Demo | Download

3. Hatch

Hatch is a free super-clean minimal photography and portfolio theme from AlienWP. This theme is also responsive so it will automatically detect if you are on a mobile device and adjust accordingly.

Demo | Download

4. Delicacy

Delicacy is an elegant blog theme that would be great for a food related blog but also has many other uses. It’s simple, clean, and has a neat featured post slider.

Demo | Download

5. Oxygen

Oxygen is a minimal magazine style responsive theme from AlienWP with a very clean modern look.

Demo | Download

6. Photolistic

Photolistic is a minimal photography or portfolio theme from Buzzrain where the photos are center-stage.

Demo | Download

7. PageLines Lite

PageLines Lite is the free version of the PageLines framework. It allows you to create simple blogs and sites without messing with code. The Lite version is a great way to get introduced to the PageLines framework but it does have a lot of limitations. The differences are described here.

Demo | Download

8. Hey Cookie

Hey Cookie is an elegant, customizable grid-style theme from CarolineThemes, perfect for artists and photographers.

Demo | Download

9. Sundance

Sundance is a free video blog theme from Automattic. This theme is simple but elegant with fantastic typography. Make your video content shine with this free WordPress theme.

Demo | Download

10. My Life

My Life is a blogging theme with great typography and attention to detail.

Demo | Download

What do YOU think? Please comment below, I would love to hear your thoughts on these themes.

1. Forget META Keywords

Yes, I know. You’ve been trained to always fill out that darn META keywords box if it’s there. The truth is that you no longer need to waste even a moment of your precious time with META keywords. They don’t matter. Trust me. Search engines do not pay any attention to them. Still don’t believe me? Check out this officially official Google Webmaster Tools Blog post by Matt Cutts.

If you use the All in One SEO Pack like I do, go ahead and leave the “Home Keywords” field blank, uncheck “Use Categories for META keywords”, “Use Tags for META keywords”, AND “Dynamically Generate Keywords for Posts Page”. Go on, it will feel great!

2. Use Post Name Permalink Structure for Posts

Arguably the best permalink structure is to use simply the “post name” after the domain name. WordPress version 3.3+ now has an option for “post name” permalink structure and even fixes the slight speed performance issue that was once used as the only logical reason to avoid this permalink structure. I go into more detail on permalink structures on my post asking: What is the Best WordPress Permalink Structure?

3. Use Target Keyword Phrase in the Title

Whenever possible, use your target keyword or phrase in the post title, preferably as close to the beginning as possible. Remember, though, do not compromise quality. The title must make sense to humans and be natural. Use it once only. Keep your post title under 70 characters.

4. Emphasize Your Keyword Phrase in the Article Content

Again, natural human-focused writing in very important here. Naturally use your keyword phrase in the body of your content. You need a certain density to cue Google that you are an authority on the subject but without triggering spam filters. There really is no clear optimal keyword density so just use common sense and use when appropriate without over-doing it. Make it natural and easy to read. Read it back to yourself. If it sounds spammy to you then it will most certainly sound spammy to your readers and could trigger search engine spam filters.

5. Optimize Image Title and ALT Attribute

The images in your post should should also contain the keyword phrase you are trying to rank for. Use it once in the image title but the ALT attribute is a little tricky. The ALT attribute is meant as descriptive text to convey what the image is conveying in a visual way. It is not always appropriate to use your keyword phrase in the ALT attribute unless it makes logical sense.

I hope you find these WordPress SEO tips useful in some way. They are basic and really only the tip of the iceberg, however, sometimes it’s easy to lose sight of the fundamentals. SEO is really an art. There is a science to it, yes, but there is also such a thing as over-optimizing.

Free themes are not for everyone or every project, though. There are many times when a free WordPress theme is lacking in functionality, design, and customization options. In those cases, a premium theme from professional developers like StudioPress can offer theme solutions that far exceed what a free theme may offer.

Nevertheless, there is an important place for free WordPress themes and so here I have a small collection of some of the latest themes for February 2012…

1. ColorWay

A very clean theme that can work for many different types of businesses. Offers a homepage image slider and gallery page template. Can also be used for a blog based website.

Demo | Download Free Version | Premium Version Info

2. Wootique

I’m very excited to showcase this free WordPress theme from WooThemes for use with their (also free) WooCommerce plugin. I have never seen a free eCommerce theme and backend solution this powerful and well designed. Another great free WordPress theme for 2012.

Demo | Download

3. Skeleton

Wow, another fantastic free WordPress theme find. I like it so much I almost want to keep it for myself! Ok, fine, here ya go. Skeleton is a responsive (means it works great on different devices such as mobile phones and tablets), simple, and lightweight WordPress theme. This theme also includes eCommerce functionality as well as a forum component making it great for selling products and for customer support. My pick so far for best free WordPress theme in 2012.

Demo | Download

4. Leadescent

Leadescent  is an awesome WordPress theme which is great for any blogger who wants to impress their readers with their contents and a premium quality design blog at no cost.

Demo | Download

5. gRID!

And finally, we have a very elegant, clean and fast loading WordPress theme with minimalistic approach. Super design with premium functions for free.

Demo | Download

We all want legitimate comments from people interested in our articles which is why it’s extremely frustrating to get so much comment spam from automated bots and backlink builders.

Here is an example of a typical spam comment. This is one I see quite often…

[Title of Article] I was suggested this web site by my cousin. I am not sure whether this post is written by him as nobody else know such detailed about my problem. You’re wonderful! Thanks! your article about [Title of Article] Best Regards.

You must find a balance between allowing real people to comment easily and blocking comment spam.

Here are 3 easy steps to reduce comment spam in WordPress…

1. Change Moderation Settings

Inside your WordPress Dashboard, go to Settings > Discussion.

• Check “Comment author must have a previously approved comment”. Puts all new user’s first time comments in the moderation queue. After they have had an approved comment, they can comment freely.
• Change the value after “Hold a comment in the queue if it contains” from 2 to 1. This will put any comment with 1 or more hyperlinks in the moderation queue.

2. Block Spam Bots

Add the follow code to your .htaccess file in your WordPress directory to block the automated spam bots. This alone will block an enormous amount of comment spam. Make sure to change “yourwebsite.com” to your actual domain.

# BEGIN BLOCK SPAM BOTS #
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD} POST
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} .wp-comments-post\.php*
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !.yourwebsite.com.* [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ^$
RewriteRule (.*) ^http://%{REMOTE_ADDR}/$ [R=301,L]
</IfModule>
# END BLOCK SPAM BOTS #

3. Install Spam Free WordPress Plugin

Install the Spam Free WordPress plugin to block a large amount of comment spam automatically by requiring users to copy and paste a provided password. It’s an extra step for your users that are not logged in but it’s easy and dramatically reduces the amount of comment spam you receive.

Harbor All Glass has been in business since 1946 and their existing website had been around for 15 years. I saw so much potential for their website to really show off the fantastic work they do from residential fronts, to store fronts, to marine glass, and everything in between. Really, they do it all.

BEFORE

AFTER

Thank you Ryan!

Harbor All Glass & Mirror Inc. hired Ryan Townley to update our antiquated website and to manage our online search engines. Harbor All Glass & Mirror Inc. established a professional relationship with Ryan in January of 2012. He was able to update our website within a week. He did an outstanding job redesigning our website (HarborAllGlass.com), he connected our customer reviews/testimonials, cleaned out old pictures and has the newer pictures rotating very efficiently. Now our website is user friendly for all of our customers. He also set up and manages our Google Adwords. We have seen a significant difference in our call and email volume. I would recommend Ryan’s services to anyone that was in need of promoting their company with eye appealing website and managing on line Adwords with Google. Also as an added bonus, Ryan answers his phone and always returns calls in a timely manner.

- Jim Solis, Harbor All Glass & Mirror, Inc., Costa Mesa, CA

It was such a pleasure working with Jim and the rest of the friendly folks at Harbor All Glass & Mirror on their website redesign and I am also continuing to help them fine-tune their SEO.

If I can help your business with a fresh new website redesign, please contact me today.

Of course you do. Not only do you want your visitors to have a good experience but search engines like Google love fast loading websites and you can be rewarded with higher search engine rankings and more traffic.

Here are some tips to make your WordPress website load faster…

Know Where You Stand

It feels like your site is taking longer to load than it should but in order to measure your improvements, you need to know where you stand first. Google’s Page Speed test is nice but make sure to head over to GTmetrix for much better analysis and suggestions on what to fix.

TIP: While the grading feature on GTmetrix is important and you want to strive for the highest grade possible, make sure to focus more on getting “Page load time” down as low as you can. Ideally, you want your site to load faster than 4 seconds on average so that visitors don’t bounce off your page before it loads. I have seen very high grades but very long page load time so it’s important to focus on what really counts.

Optimize Images

This applies to any website whether WordPress based or not: optimize your images! You want the smallest file size possible without compromising quality or function. I highly recommend you install the WP Smush.it plugin to automatically reduce image file size as you upload them. You can also go into your media library after installing the plugin to process existing images.

Disable Plugins

Do you really need that plugin? Analyze your current plugins and if you can’t remember why you installed it or if it’s not giving you enough value to warrant the extra load on your site then remove it! Some plugins are essential but ditch the ones that are not. Take it further with a plugin (go figure) that will tell you what plugins are adding the most load on your site: P3 (Plugin Performance Profiler). You will most likely want to remove it after you have used it to help you determine which plugins to get rid of.

Enable Caching

If you ran Google’s Page Speed test then you will likely have seen suggestions about caching your files. The two most popular WordPress cache plugins: W3 Total Cache and WP Super Cache I found to be tricky to configure and not all that impressive. They made improvements, but I found Quick Cache (Speed Without Compromise) to be the easiest to setup and the most effective. I switched from WP Super Catch to Quick Cache and improved my page load time from 4 seconds to under 2 seconds on average. That’s a huge improvement!

In addition to a cache plugin, I highly recommend adding the following code to your .htaccess file as described in this article: How to Leverage Browser Caching in WordPress via .htaccess…

# BEGIN EXPIRES CACHING #
<IfModule mod_expires.c>
ExpiresActive On
ExpiresByType image/jpg "access 1 year"
ExpiresByType image/jpeg "access 1 year"
ExpiresByType image/gif "access 1 year"
ExpiresByType image/png "access 1 year"
ExpiresByType text/css "access 1 month"
ExpiresByType application/pdf "access 1 month"
ExpiresByType text/x-javascript "access 1 month"
ExpiresByType application/x-shockwave-flash "access 1 month"
ExpiresByType image/x-icon "access 1 year"
ExpiresDefault "access 2 days"
</IfModule>
# END EXPIRES CACHING #

Enable Compression

Enable gzip compression by adding the following code to your .htaccess file as described in this article: Use GZip Compression on WordPress…

# BEGIN COMPRESSION #
<IfModule mod_deflate.c>
 AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/html text/xml text/css text/plain
 AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE image/svg+xml application/xhtml+xml application/xml
 AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/rdf+xml application/rss+xml application/atom+xml
 AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/javascript application/javascript application/x-javascript
 AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE application/x-font-ttf application/x-font-otf
 AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE font/truetype font/opentype
</IfModule>
# END COMPRESSION #

Choose Your Theme Wisely

The theme you are running will also have a lot to do with your site’s speed. Some are much more involved and resource intensive that others. There are both sides of the spectrum from the super simply minimal themes to the “in your face let’s load every cool feature and effect we can” themes. I always strive for a good balance between form and function. I have always had good luck finding well balanced themes at ElegantThemes.

Is Your Host Slowing You Down?

The fact is that your web host has a lot to do with how fast your site will load. Shared hosting in general is never going to be as fast as a dedicated server since you are sharing resource with other sites on the server. Some of which might be consuming so many resources that it causes slowness for the other sites on the server. Results can vary drastically and can change quickly. Also, web host’s equipment vary drastically as well. It usually comes down to getting what you pay for so go with the best host and plan you can swing within your budget. For most, a nice speed & features to cost ratio provided by BlueHost does the trick.

Embedded Content

If your site relies heavily on content from external sites such as embedded videos from YouTube, then you will always have some extra load on your website. It’s just another thing you need to decide what is more important and if it’s worth the possible extra toll on the speed of your website.

Need Help?

Head over to my services page for details on my WordPress speed and performance service.

What I needed was for the title of the post to go directly to an external URL instead of showing the actual post. This would get rid of an entire step and make it function more like a typical link directory everyone is used to.

I needed to find out how to link to an external page from the post title in WordPress.

Solution 1: Use a plugin called Page Links To.

This is the easiest solution but it is basically a redirect and not ideal if you want the links to get some SEO benefits.

Solution 2: Edit a couple of WordPress core file using this tutorial.

That’s the ticket! This was exactly what I needed to send the post title to an external URL without the link losing SEO benefits.

The 3 most common reasons for unexpected cross-domain URL selections are:

1. Duplicate content, including multi-regional websites
2. Configuration mistakes:
   1. Incorrect canonicalization
   2. Misconfigured servers
3. Malicious website attacks

Read more about Google raising awareness of cross-domain URL selections and find out how to fix the issues listed above should you have duplicate content issues.