Often we notice that beginners install and activate the SEO plugins, but they never use it properly. We asked some of our users about it, and their response was “I didn’t know that I was suppose to be doing this”. Yes, we are talking about SEO meta data such as title and meta description. By using SEO functions properly for each post, you can definitely improve your search rankings. There is a lot you can do to optimize your blog posts, so they can perform better in search results. In this WordPress SEO tip for beginners, we will show you how to properly use SEO functions in WordPress posts.
At WPBeginner, we use WordPress SEO plugin by Yoast to optimize our blog posts. Therefore, all screenshots will reflect that.
Choosing a Focus Keyword
A focus keyword is the main keyword that you are hoping people will look for and find your post. If your blog is in a competitive niche then chances are that you will be competing with many other established and reputable publications for popular keywords. In such situation, you can get more organic traffic by using long tail keywords. Always remember that your audience is humans not search engines. People don’t just type one keyword in search engines, they use phrases. Your focus keyword can be a phrase.
WordPress SEO by Yoast allows you to choose a focus keyword for your individual posts. It also helps you find similar keywords as you type your focus keyword.
Once you have chosen a focus keyword for your post, WordPress SEO will show you how many times you have used the keyword in different areas of your post.
Writing a Good SEO-Friendly Post Title
A good SEO friendly post title is human readable, contains your focus keyword and is within the 70 characters limit. However, it also needs to be catchy. When your page appears in the search results, a user will decide whether or not they want to click on it based on the SEO title and the description in the search snippet. The description part may change as search engines display the most relevant part of your article as the description. But the title will remain the same. Make sure your SEO title describes exactly what people will get if they clicked on the link. And finally, simplify your title, rather than using “A Comparison between Categories and Tags From SEO point of view” or “My thoughts on Categories and Tags” try something like “Categories vs. Tags – SEO Best Practices for Sorting your Content”. This title is not only catchy, it also contains the right keywords that people would be searching for.
Post SEO Meta Description
Some SEO experts believe that Meta description tag on a page has become irrelevant. However, many others would disagree. At WPBeginner, we recommend using meta description for all of your posts. A good meta description can explain a lot more about an article. Meta Description is also shown in social media sites like Facebook, Google+, and in Twitter via Twitter Cards.
Since now you know that people are going to be reading your meta descriptions, you want to make sure that it is helpful. You also want to make sure that you at least mention your focus keyword in the meta description for search purposes. The character limit for Meta Description is 155 characters. Try to stay within that limit or your meta description will be truncated after 155 characters. Try to use your focus keyword earlier in the meta description rather than later.
Categories and Tags
Categories and tags help you sort your content not only for your reader, but for yourself as well as search engines. Earlier we have written a detailed guide on how to use Categories and Tags in WordPress. Think of your website as a book. Categories are the table of content, and tags are the index part of the book.
Make Internal Linking a Habit
Once you have blogged for a while, you will have enough content that you would want people to read. With internal linking you can send new readers to check out your older relevant posts. Internal linking is a great way to develop context between your new and old posts thus passing relevant link juice. WordPress allows you to search for your old posts right inside the post editor. Press the link button in your post editor and click on “Or link to existing content”. This will open a search box. Search for older posts that you want to link to and it will show the results as you type. Select the post you want to link and press Add link button.
Each post you publish on your website has the potential to increase your search engine traffic. By adding meta data to your posts, writing good headlines, and cross linking between your older articles, you will soon start noticing an increase in your search traffic. We hope that you found this WordPress SEO tip for beginners helpful. Let us know, what you are doing to optimize your WordPress blog posts?
Hi,
What a fantastic post! This is so chock full of useful information. I can’t wait to dig deep and start utilizing the resources you have given me.
Glad you like our article
Do you have a suggestion on this scenario… if we have a ’round-up post’ we do each week showing the posts for the week… and then delete those posts after 4 weeks, is it better to post a brand new post each week and delete them like we have been OR reschedule the same post each week with a new post date and forward the old post to the new one?
Hi Valery,
We are not sure about the format of content you post. However, deleting a post creates a 404 error and you need to set up a redirect for it. Assuming you do that every week, this is not a very good system. Perhaps, you can send the round up to your readers as a weekly email?
New to this whole thing, and having major problems with developing good focus keywords. For example, I have a post about stress in cats in the spring. So I choose “stress in cats” as focus keyword. I use these words multiple times throughout my article. But I can’t always make it work to write exactly “stress in cats”…I might say something like stressed cats, cats that are stressed etc. so youst downgrades my posts based on that…but I AM using the keywords all throughout the article. Any advice on these kinds of problems?
Hi Jenne,
The content analysis tools in Yoast SEO are there just to provide general guidelines. You should use your best judgement and use keyword variants as they come naturally while writing.
Thanks for article, I am doing as you said but the traffic is not increasing. I do not know how to approach to this in the future.
Hi Okhun,
It will take some time. You need to keep adding high quality content to your website.
Sir, thanks for this article. please tell me you that how to rank any particular keyword.
The last few days I have been following your helpful posts on SEO. I thought I could do it on my own by using your posts. I have done a lot then.
Can you list all what I have to do after the first post in self-hosted wordpress?
Many thanks.
Hey Syed,
Thanks!
Glad to know all the SEO operations.
Nice article would love to see more on the SEO topic.
What a wonderful post, thanks for teaching us SEO.. I use Yoast Premium on my site and my post doesn’t rank well on google.. any ideas?
Seo is the stand on more than 200 ranking factors, You need to more work for #1 ranking like On-Page SEO, OFF-Page SEO, Link building, Guest posting and some important steps for ranking! Keep learning more and more! Keep it Up like Syed balkhi .
When I go to “All Posts” on my Dashboard should I be adding in tags, SEO title, SEO description, and SEO keywords there? If so, is there a guide of what specifically to add to those places?
Great article. This has really helped me to understand how to set up my seo on my blog…..Thnks to wordpress and everyone that comments on this thread
Sir can you please tell me that what are the reason behind sudden drop down in all keywords of my job alert website. The traffic suddenly reduced to 500 from 5000 in a single day. what should i do sir???
I think your site has spammy links. Check your Webmaster tools by following. Click on property> Search Treffic>Links to your Site
Now you need to check all these sites spam score one by one with MOZ Site Explorer
I hope it will work for you to get back your audience
Hi Syed,
After reading your blogging tips. Now i have to do lot of changes on my blog. i have been blogging from last six month but haven’t got good results.
Can you please tell me When I write article, I always link my old post to the article. For example, if I am writing about how to save money so I insert the related link to the money of my older post. Can you tell me is it OK to doing that?
Does it make sense?
Thanks
Hey Ankit,
Yes, it is a very good practice from SEO point of view. Link to your older articles whenever you think it is with in the context.
Hey, I was confused about how much Internal links we can add in our current post? Is there any limit for this?
Hey Umang,
You can link as often as you like as long as it comes naturally in the context of your article.
Thank you for the great tips! I am super clueless when it comes to techy stuff and I hope I don’t sound too stupid for asking these questions:
1) Are all of these only available AFTER google has indexed my site?
2) I have installed YOAST SEO but I can’t seem to find the place that I could type the key words.
3) The colour of the SEO button under all of my posts are grey and I have no idea how to change them.
4) I only have the free version of Yoast SEO. Does that changes anything?
I know I am probably an idiot for not knowing all of these super basic stuff, but your help is much appreciated!
Hi Ashley,
Please our guide on how to install and setup Yoast SEO for detailed step by step instructions.
Amazing post, we read it as a team and like it but one thing came in mind that if we stuff keywords more than 50 times, is it will be spamming.?
Hey Mike,
Stuffing keywords (using them unnecessarily) is ofcourse considered spamming and it would also make your articles look funny to your actual human users. Your goal should be to use keywords naturally in the context of your article.
I’ve subscribed to another forum on how to create a blog that makes money, but you have some really useful ideas as well. Looking forward to implement them.
how to write focus keywords for post like top ten smartphones under 10,000 rupees and use it in the entire article to maintain keyword density in yoast seo?
Hi Abhishek,
Think about the keyword/phrase that users are most likely to type in search if they were looking for the information you are offering in your article.
i have the keywords/phrase which i’ll be using in Yoast Seo plugin but how to use it in the entire article so as to maintain keyword density..we have to use that keyword 6-7 times in the entire article so as to maintain the keyword density…
I really enjoyed your article and found it to be very useful. I have the All In One SEO Pack installed and I have been trying to install the Yoast SEO without luck. After searching for the plugin and selecting Install Now after a few seconds I get the message Install Failed. I have the newest version of WP which is 4.7.1. any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated. Thank you.
Hi Michael,
You can try manual installation method. See see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin and scroll down to “Install a plugin using the WordPress admin plugin upload” section.
your post is very helpful .thank you for sharing this with all…
I shudder to think what I could have done without your training materials. I have a new blog that I recently moved from wordpress.com to wordpress.org. I didn’t understand a thing what the difference was in the first place. I got a rude awakening of this when I subscribed to SBI! for WP and I could not install the plugin in the free hosted blog. Your easy to follow instructions on moving the blog to a self hosted site helped me a lot. To cut a long story short, I have a couple of articles that I have written and optimised using Yoast SEO (as per your recommendation). I am learning a lot and it’s exciting to say the least.
Thanks again.
Hey Themba,
Thanks for the kind words. We are happy to hear that you found WPBeginner helpful. Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook for more WordPress tips and tutorials.
Really Good work! Keep it up
Beautiful and informative, thanks.
Helpful article. I’m a beginner in wordpress and blogging in general. I have a recent problem with links in my latest post. It’s not clickable anymore, while links in my previous posts are okay. What could be the problem? This happened after my site went off for a few days. Thanks for any help
You’re a top guy! You’ve been the perfect companion as I’ve joined blogosphere for the first time. Thank you.
Thanks. Very useful. I wish I had read some of these stuffs earlier. However, it is not too late.
Hi Syed,
Its great article.Thanks and Cheers.
Best,
Ramesh
Do you recommend using the same focus keyword for multiple posts/pages?
No, try to use a different variant if possible.
Thank you, Syed. For the first time since I started blogging, I feel hopeful. Even though I am a total non-techie, I find the way you break things down quite encouraging.
I don’t use posts. I use pages. Is it possible to tag pages?
Thanks.
See our guide how to add categories and tags for WordPress pages.
How to focus on multiple keyword at certain blog post?
Thanks for the great article. I’m always looking for quality tips for clients and this post is a good referral option for those who are new to SEO. Not too broad!
Thanks for the informative article on SEO functions in WordPress Posts.
Heay Syed,
I am going to start my new blog on wordpress, most of users using plugins for their sites to focus the main keywords. Is really important to use plugins for site to check keyword? How many time we need to use our focus keywords in the post? Most of site are in top ranking, but when i search their focus keywords in main post i have not found any long tail words in the post. Is there any google guidelines available, how many time we can use keywords in the post when we are writting a post with maximum 300 words.? Hope your reply will help me to publish my first post in wordpress site.
Regards
Hi,
Let’s say my focus keyword is “winner info”.
Can I use that focus keyword in 2 posts or more?
Hello, Can I add two or more keywords in Focus Keyword place? If yes, then how?
I find your posts about SEO and keyword search extremely helpful, and I am glad to know that I have been using it correctly the entire time, however, my site has been live since March, and I am still not getting Google traffic. A friend of mine, who has a site of her own, told me that something must be wrong. My SEO is always green, so I know that I am at least filling out the fields correctly, but I wonder if perhaps my keywords are poorly chosen, or if there are other factors that could be throwing Google off. Do you have other recommended posts that you have written that could shed some light on why Google would be ignoring my site, even though I have Google Webmaster Tools set up (with no issues), and SEO Yoast set up correctly?
You need to read more about Search engine ranking factors the major factors is on-page SEO, off-page SEO, link building( backlinks) competitor analysis,
Very interesting post; I was one of the peoples who didn’t bother to fill the fill the entire SEO section but, now, I figure out that everything is important and nothing has to be left in random.
As a beginner I will learn at my pace and step by step.
Anyway, thank you for you tips and advices you provided to me .
On the post editor screen, click on the Screen Options button at the top right corner of the screen. A fly down menu will appear. Under Show on Screen section make sure that the checkbox next to All in One SEO plugin is checked.
My All In One SEO pack works for my pages; but not for my Posts. There is no option to fill in the information on the backend when making a post, while it works fine for the pages. Has anyone else ever experienced this? Is there a setting I need to change/update? Thanks!
The main purpose of the focus keyword in Yoast’s WordPress SEO plugin is to help you analyze how optimized your post/page is for the focus keyword.
Gottcha! That’s what I thought but I was creating a website and didn’t add the focus keyword on a few pages and wanted to make sure I wasn’t missing out on any of that SEO goodness, thanks for the reply!
I’m really sorry as this might sound like a dumb question but I can’t seem to find a definitive answer on this topic. My question is this, does the focus keyword matter inside the Yoast SEO plugin matter for SEO purposes or just internally for the purpose of analyzing whether your post is optimized for a certain keyword? I’ve checked the page source for pages that I do set the focus keyword and pages where I don’t set the focus keyword and my ‘focus keyword’ that I enter into the ‘focus keyword’ field of the plugin isn’t outputting in the page source. I know the ‘seo title’ and ‘meta description’ fields are important and what they do but does the ‘focus keyword’ field actually mean anything to Google or is it just for use in the plugin to tell you or not if you’re post or page is optimized?
In other words does the ‘focus keyword’ field actually hold any weight with Google themselves or is it just used for the internal purpose of the plugin to analyze whether you’re post or page is optimized or not (i.e. so the green light comes on)? Sorry if this is a dumb question but I can’t seem to find a definitive answer
Hello, Can i add two or more keywords with commas in Focus Keyword place?
Very interesting tips, I’ve finally understood the way SEO should be used
great article, lo the internal linking tip!
Hi, I am using the All in One SEO plug-in. On each specific page I create I am given the option to list keywords in the admin area of that page. How many keywords or keyword phrases do you suggest listing for each page?
Thanks!
Keywords are totally optional. Most SEO experts do not recommend using them. However, we have found there is no harm in adding at least a few. Make sure keywords describe your article, make sure your main focus keyword is in the title and description as well.
Reading it in 2014 and still finding it useful, that’s what I call an ever green post
Bravo Sayed Balki
plz tell me on my mail too that how search engines decide that which are key words in an article,howto insert signatures in forums, and beginner tips for first 30 days regarding seo
i agree, on page seo is best for ranking high in Google & other search engine.Although one page seo is not that hard but it’s fairly complex when it comes to writing article.but you post certainly rectify this one issue.thanks for sharing.
=.=” i know about Internal Linking when i read this post… so sad