One of the worlds worst kept secrets is that a continually updated website with new, unique content added on a regular basis will do well in Google and other major search engines. One of the best, and most effective methods of achieving this is via the use of a blog.

These days, there are literally hundreds of platforms to choose from for managing a blog, however we feel that none compare with the flexibility, and ease of use offered by WordPress, and given it’s free it’s pretty hard to pass by.

Google, as with all search engines, like fresh new and unique content, and by setting up a blog on your website, and of course keeping it updated will be best thing you can do to help your search engine rankings. What we love most about WordPress is that there is a plethora of free plug-ins that you can install, that will make your blog search engine friendly. For your reference, this blog is built on a WordPress platform.

The following are some basic tips for you when looking at a WordPress Blog:

The first step you need to take is to customise the design template to match the web design of your existing website.

Most changes will occur in the header.php, footer.php, index.php, and page.php files in the theme editor, however, the theme you install will dictate which files actually need to be updated. The CSS file will also require adjustments. All of these changes will require the help of a professional web design, or web development agency.

With WordPress, there is no need to worry about the www vs no www redirects. WordPress handles this for you.
You will need to customize your URL’s. Don’t use the default URLs as they are terrible, and not search friendly. Remember also, your default names should have some meaning to them.

The sheer amount of available plug-ins for WordPress is astounding. These range from  photo galleries, anti spam, social media integrators for Twitter, Facebook, and Digg along with many many others. Sure, many of these will assist your blog, its optimisation and search rankings, but remember the XML Sitemap, and SEO plug-ins are truly essential ones and should not be left out.

There is one plug in you cant live without – the SEO Plug-in. The first plug-in we recommend you install is one that will allow you to customise the title, meta description tags, and page URL’s. We recommend the All in One SEO Pack.

We also recommend Google XML Sitemaps Plug-in. This plug-in will automatically generate XML sitemaps and submit them to Google every time you add, remove, or update a page or post. This helps ensure that Google has the latest information at all times.

A well optimized website, populated with relevant, interesting and unique content can do very well in Google. The incredible power of WordPress can make this process amazingly easy so that you need only be concerned with producing that ever important content. WordPress is simply brilliant, and a fantastic platform for assisting in optimizing your website.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 23rd, 2009 at 6:32 am and is filed under SEO & Online Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.