{"id":2958,"date":"2012-01-30T06:00:30","date_gmt":"2012-01-30T11:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.allandouglas.com\/blog\/?p=2958"},"modified":"2025-04-21T01:56:41","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T05:56:41","slug":"boosting-blogs-seo-wordpress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/boosting-blogs-seo-wordpress\/","title":{"rendered":"Boosting Your Blog\u2019s SEO in WordPress"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" style=\"margin: 10px; border: 0pt none;\" title=\"SEO\" src=\"http:\/\/farm8.staticflickr.com\/7151\/6772522735_7f2ce8187a_o_d.jpg\" alt=\"SEO, blog, spiders, \" width=\"235\" height=\"225\" \/>I\u2019ve never cared much for all the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) machinations that many of the top bloggers say everyone must do to become really popular.\u00a0 So I\u2019m not going to talk about those.\u00a0 There are some basic things that we should all do to grab a reasonable amount of search engine spider attention.\u00a0 And if you want a really quick way to learn to improve your blogs SEO \u2013 and if you have a self-hosted WordPress blog &#8211; snag the <strong>WordPress SEO by Yoast <\/strong>plug-in and install it.\u00a0 If you have a WordPress.com blog, it appears you can not use plugins at all.<\/p>\n<h1>Plug It In<\/h1>\n<p>No, no\u2026 don\u2019t panic, it\u2019s really easy to do.\u00a0 <!--more-->Make sure you make a back-up of your blog before making any major changes to it &#8211; that&#8217;s just common sense.\u00a0 Right?<\/p>\n<p>From your blog\u2019s Dashboard, look down the menu on the left to find \u201c<strong>Plugins<\/strong>\u201d, hover over it (put your cursor\/mouse pointer over the title but don\u2019t click) and a menu pops up.\u00a0 Click \u201cAdd New\u201d.\u00a0 If you get all excited and click on Plugins, that\u2019s OK, there\u2019s an Add New button at the top of that page too.\u00a0 Then:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Near the top of the screen is a small input window, type \u201cWordPress SEO by Yoast\u201d in that window and click the Search Plugins button.<\/li>\n<li>The search results screen should show the WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin right up at the top of the list. If you misspelled something it may be the second or third down.<\/li>\n<li>Click the Install Now link on the proper plug-in listing.<\/li>\n<li>An \u201cAre You Sure?\u201d box opens up, click OK.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The installer script does all the work for you.\u00a0 Nibble on a cookie for a few moments and it\u2019s all done.\u00a0 It\u2019s a piece of cake!\u00a0 Oh, that sounds good too!\u00a0 But I digress.<\/p>\n<h1>Set It Up<\/h1>\n<p>Click on the Activate Plugin link at the bottom of the report and it\u2019s installed and turned on.<\/p>\n<p>Now, scroll down the menu on the left of the screen and you\u2019ll see a big \u201cCONGRATULATIONS\u201d followed by, \u201cYou&#8217;ve just installed WordPress SEO by Yoast! Click \u2018Start Tour\u2019 to view a quick introduction of this plugins core functionality.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>Tour<\/h2>\n<p>The tour tells you about the functions this plugin will handle and how to set them up.\u00a0 Anything that is not hidden under the tour window can be configured and saved \u2013 don\u2019t forget to save, the button is at the bottom of each page \u00a0\u2013 anything hidden will need to be done later.\u00a0 Yoast\u2019s instructions are quite clear, and he does say that if you don\u2019t understand something, leave it blank.\u00a0 The plugin will configure the most important things automatically unless you over-ride them with your own input.<\/p>\n<p>If you have a Google account you can hook into the Webmaster Tools through this plugin, same for Bing Webmaster Tools and Alexa.<\/p>\n<p>Setting up templates is a bit tricky because you use variables (listed at the bottom of the page) to pull in variable data like the date, post category, the description from the post page, etc.\u00a0 If you\u2019re not sure how to set these up, the support forums are linked to from this page \u2013 or leave them blank.\u00a0 Yoast does say that the plug-in will automatically configure the most important stuff on the fly.\u00a0 Templates are used to over-ride the plug-in and force it to format the way you want it to.<\/p>\n<p>Be sure to tick the box to enable XML sitemaps so an XML sitemap will be generated each time you publish a new post, page or custom post and Google and Bing will be automatically notified. \u00a0This is a very good thing, trust me.\u00a0 The site map is spider candy.<\/p>\n<p>There are a couple of spots where he says \u00a0\u201cThis is for advanced users only\u201d if you don\u2019t know what you\u2019re doing, hands off.\u00a0 That\u2019s good advice, take it.<\/p>\n<p>Yoast SEO says it will import your meta data from your previous SEO plug-in, if you use one of the plug-ins he lists on the Import &amp; Export page.\u00a0 I didn&#8217;t, so I did not use this function.\u00a0 Renee Pawlish used All in One SEO and tried to import to Yoast and had troubles. Read her comments below for details.<\/p>\n<p>On the Settings\/RSS page you have the ability to add a static line of code above, below, or both for each entry posted to your RSS feed.\u00a0 Yoast recommends doing this to get back-links from dumb scrapers who swipe your content. By embedding \u201cSource: &lt;a href=&#8221;http:\/\/allandouglas.com\/blog\/&#8221;&gt;The Write Stuff&lt;\/a&gt;\u201d after each entry when someone steals my RSS content and posts it somewhere else (you think they don\u2019t?) their post will end with \u201cSource: The Write Stuff\u201d and the blog title is a link back to my blog.\u00a0 If you don\u2019t want to mess with HTML you can use \u201cSource:\u00a0 <strong>%%BLOGLINK%%\u201d <\/strong>which uses a variable (those are listed at the bottom of the page) to do the same thing.\u00a0 Other variables allow you to reference the post tile and URL, date posted, etc.\u00a0 Craft it to suit your needs.\u00a0 Mine ends up looking like this:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<h2><a href=\"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/boosting-blogs-seo-wordpress\/\">Boosting Your Blog\u2019s SEO in WordPress<\/a><\/h2>\n<p>Yesterday, January 30, 2012, 6:00:30 AM | Allan Douglas<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve never cared much for all the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) machinations that many of the top bloggers say everyone must do to become really popular. So I\u2019m not going to talk about those. There are some basic things that we should all do to grab a reasonable amount of search engine spider attention. And [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"..\/\">The Write Stuff<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/boosting-blogs-seo-wordpress\/\">Comments (17)<\/a><\/p>\n<h2><a href=\"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/the-mechanics-of-creativity\/\">The Mechanics of Creativity<\/a><\/h2>\n<p>Thursday, January 26, 2012, 4:00:57 AM | Allan Douglas<\/p>\n<p>Recently there has been a good deal of discussion going on about creativity: what it is, where it comes from, how it works, and how to get it to work better for you. Many articles have been written on how to encourage your imagination, how to feed your muse. As writers we depend on our [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"..\/\">The Write Stuff<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/the-mechanics-of-creativity\/\">Comments (2)<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h1>Or Not&#8230;<\/h1>\n<p>If your head is spinning and your palms sweating, fear not!\u00a0 Just remember that you can leave most of the stuff in this section blank and the plugin will automatically configure it.\u00a0 If you want to customize and tweak, use these Settings screens to override the automatic stuff and force it to serve up meta data the way you want it.\u00a0 Tour\u2019s over, time to put it to use.<\/p>\n<p>Go write a blog post.<\/p>\n<p>Under your blog post is the Yoast SEO area.\u00a0 There are three tabs: General, Page Analysis and Advanced.\u00a0 This is the part I really like!<\/p>\n<h1><strong>General <\/strong>Tab<\/h1>\n<figure style=\"width: 500px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/farm8.staticflickr.com\/7152\/6772467539_9544b65788_o_d.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"Yoast SEO General Tab\" src=\"http:\/\/farm8.staticflickr.com\/7152\/6772467539_7ea97ced7d_d.jpg\" alt=\"SEO, Yoast, General \" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Click to enlarge screenshot<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>On this screen you enter your title, description, and keywords.\u00a0 Most of this will be very familiar if you\u2019ve used any SEO enhancing plug in.\u00a0 Some of it can be automatically generated.\u00a0 Type in the information requested, save your post as a draft and check what Yoast has flagged.\u00a0 It will guide you to getting the most out of your content.\u00a0 Ready for the next step?\u00a0 Click the Page analysis tab.<\/p>\n<h1>SEO Analysis<\/h1>\n<figure style=\"width: 500px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/farm8.staticflickr.com\/7005\/6772467615_ed33a26457_o_d.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"Yoast SEO Analysis \" src=\"http:\/\/farm8.staticflickr.com\/7005\/6772467615_333364b8a3_d.jpg\" alt=\"Yoast, SEO, WordPress, blog, Analysis\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Click to enlarge screenshot<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>This gets deeper into the nitty-gritty of optimizing your page.\u00a0 It looks at how and where your keywords and meta data are used and suggests improvements \u2013 if any are needed.\u00a0 Make any changes you need to and save the file as a draft.\u00a0 When you get all green check marks you\u2019re an SEO Superstar!<\/p>\n<p>My only gripe here is that the plug-in does not recognize uppercase\/lowercase variants as the same keyword.\u00a0 I discovered this while writing the post about Bethany Lopez.\u00a0 The plug-in refuses to accept her name in proper case as an instance of the main keyword, and it quashes the use of capital letters in keywords.<\/p>\n<h1>Advanced SEO<\/h1>\n<figure style=\"width: 500px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/farm8.staticflickr.com\/7026\/6772467701_c4d298b22b_o_d.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"Yoast Advanced Tab\" src=\"http:\/\/farm8.staticflickr.com\/7026\/6772467701_b6060d47e6_d.jpg\" alt=\"Yoast, SEO, WordPress, Blog, \" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Click to enlarge screenshot<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Most of this, you will want to leave alone unless you have an advanced degree in Geekdom.\u00a0 The top section allows you to tell search spiders to go away for posts that you don\u2019t want spread around.\u00a0 Click the box to not index and Googlebot will not put this page into Google\u2019s database of articles.\u00a0 Click the box to not follow and Slurp will not follow links from this page to others.\u00a0 Of course these instructions apply to all obedient spiders, not just these two.\u00a0 Disobedient spiders\u2026 well\u2026 what are you going to do?\u00a0 Use these options for keeping folks out of members only or private pages.<\/p>\n<p>Remember to save the file as a draft each time you make changes so the plugin will rescan your work and update its report.<\/p>\n<h1>Cake anyone?<\/h1>\n<p>By following Yoast\u2019s suggestions for improving your work, you will be learning what you need to do as you write the posts and put them on your blog.\u00a0 The plug-in makes your work as irresistible to spiders as a chocolate cake is to a five year old, and it will continually update the site map and notify the search engines that you have new content to offer.\u00a0 And he does it all for free \u2013 though if you find it useful, please make a donation; that too is built right into the page for your convenience.<\/p>\n<p>For the record, I am not in any way affiliated with Yoast, he has not paid me to write this, and I do not expect to get a box of brownies for doing so.\u00a0 Although\u2026 I wouldn\u2019t turn them down if he did.\u00a0 I wrote this because I\u2019m impressed with his work and feel you too can benefit from his efforts.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\">\/\/\/\u00a0 Write long and prosper.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&rsquo;ve never cared much for all the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) machinations that many of the top bloggers say everyone must do to become really popular.&nbsp; So I&rsquo;m not going to talk about those.&nbsp; There are some basic things that we should all do to grab a reasonable amount of search engine spider attention.&nbsp; And &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/boosting-blogs-seo-wordpress\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Boosting Your Blog\u2019s SEO in WordPress&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[40,32,16],"class_list":["post-2958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tools","tag-blogging","tag-marketing","tag-promotion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2958"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2958\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20827,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2958\/revisions\/20827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}