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With the advancement in technology, search engines operate like workhorses for users eager to obtain information quickly. I.e., rather than depending on word of mouth, consumers today rely on search engines to help them find the product/service they are looking for. This simply means that, regardless of what your business proffer, to promote your service/product, you must invest in building high-quality website and SEO techniques.

Developing WordPress sites is easy but, optimising them for SEO isn’t. In recent times, SEO is not limited to keyword stuffing or poor quality link building. Besides checking for website speed, the number of visitors to your page, they crawl your site looking for suitable links, content, etc. to determine how you rank in search engine results. 

With that said, if you are looking forward to obtaining a considerable amount of traffic to your site, then it's high time you to start working on the latest & effective SEO strategies. 

Proven ways to give your WordPress site a push towards the top of the rankings. 

1. Modify your ‘permalink’ structure - Permalinks, the permanent URLs points to your website’s individual pages, posts, and other content. Permalink and link structure are essential from the search engine perspective. While the individual viewpoint on the optimal structure of permalinks differs, Google states that permalinks must be as simple and intelligent as a human being. Clear and descriptive links are easier for search engines to recognise and yields good ranking. Do not over-stuff permalinks with irrelevant keywords and use hyphens to separate words. 

2. Optimise images - Not just texts, images too get ranked by Google. The image quality and size affects page loading speed, a ranking factor.  Also, the search engine looks at particular information attached to images including ‘alt text’ and file names while indexing your site. Addressing these two issues can make your SEO roar.  Firstly, optimise images & other media. Then provide each image with a descriptive filename and alt text instead of retaining the names generated by the camera. 

3. Optimise page title - A well-written title is a way to enhanced SEO. It explains what your page is about to Google, and gets people to click on your site. Begin with a working title. Ensure it is clear, accurate yet  intriguing and catching. Keep it short, include target keyword, use numbers, statistics, and clarifications such as infographics making it easier to provide explanations.

4. Employ shorter URLs - A long URL won’t improve your website ranking. Instead, it could make your link look spam and minimise the CTR. Hence, the shorter, the better URL. Do not present multiple categories or directories. Include only the target keyword and cut down the filler words. Match the title and the URL and eliminate the folders (whenever possible).   

5. Implement schema markup - This is used to enhance the site’s rich snippets, thereby making your website appear more prominently in SERPs. Incorporating schema, a type of microdata, makes it effortless for search engines to parse, interpret the details on your website more effectively and provide  relevant outputs to visitors based on search queries. This leads to improved CTR, more traffic and thus higher website ranking. Majority of the time, WordPress theme will have schema markup installed, if you don’t have one, you can utilise schema plugin. 

6. Monitor backlink profile - Backlinks are one of the crucial ranking factors. Monitoring backlink profile will enable you to view if your offsite SEO efforts are making any positive difference. Remember, in addition to the quality, the relevance of the backlinks matters for the ranking purpose. The more relevant and authoritative sites, the better. To effectively monitor backlinks, you can use tools such as Ahrefs to obtain a detailed breakdown of the number of websites linking to you, their quality, the number of referring domains, etc. 

7. Use responsive website designs - This is one of the latest updates of the search engine algorithm. Today, people using mobile devices to browse the internet has increased more than ever. With this, Google has declared that the mobile-friendly designs are eligible to obtain an additional ranking boost in the mobile search results. That is, if the website is responsive, the greater the chance of site appearing high on SERPs. For WordPress users, the best method to get started with the process is to choose a theme that supports it. 

8. Optimise web speed - Google has started considered website speed as a ranking factor. Hence having slow speed will negatively impact the user experience and thereby the search engine ranking. Hence optimised theme, interface, and other available resources such as add-ons or plugins or that improve the speed of your website. This will enable the users to navigate through a fast-loading website, skipping pages without problems or delays. To improve the speed, get baseline number, upgrade host, use CDN & caching plugin and optimise media. 

SEO is a long-term game. It encompasses a wide range of techniques, so it can be quite a bit intimidating. However, by building WordPress site, picking up the right host, choosing a relevant theme, and selecting one or more targeted plugins, you can accomplish greater visibility to your website. Remember, the more the effort, the better the results.