SEO is a dirty word, tarnished by years of bad practice and self-defined 'gurus'. But should it be ignored by developers? Keith argues the case for taking SEO seriously when building WordPress websites. He also gives his top 'hater-friendly' tips for SEO on WordPress. It's easier (and harder) than people might think.

1. WordPress SEO
for haters

2. SEO
"the practice of increasing the quantity
and quality of the traffic that you earn
through the organic results in search
engines"
– Rand Fishkin, founder and former CEO of Moz
{Search engine optimisation}

3. SEM
"the promotion of websites by
increasing their visibility in search
engine results pages (SERPs) primarily
through paid advertising."
– Wikipedia
{Search engine marketing}

4. How does SEO make you feel?

5. Angry

6. Confused

7. Bored

8. Snake oil salesmen

9. SEO “Gurus”

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12. Why is SEO important?

13. The web is powered by search

14. A business case for SEO

15. A business case for SEO

19. WordPress SEO
• URLs
• Titles
• Headings
• Images
• Sitemaps
• Breadcrumbs
• Site speed
The basics

20. URLs
yoursite.com/keyword-goes-here
yoursite.com/?p=123

21. URLs

22. URLs

23. Titles

24. Titles

25. Titles

26. Titles
• wp_title()
• use in theme
• filter for better results
• used by SEO plugins

27. Titles
• Unique
• Descriptive
• Brief (under 70 chars)

28. Headings
<h1>Page title</h1>
• used to prioritise and
structure content
• 1 x <h1> per page
• avoid excessive use
• use keywords sparingly

30. Image alt
<img src=“img/image.png” alt=“Description of image”>
• Descriptive
• Brief
• Don’t stuff with keywords!

31. Image alt
alt=“cheap affordable best bikes london”
alt=“Team Sky’s 2014 Pinarello Dogma 65.1”

33. XML sitemaps
Information for search engines about your
site’s structure, content, and update
frequency.
• Plugins to the rescue!
• Submit to search engines

35. Breadcrumbs
Home > Recipes > Desserts > Gingerbread
• Good for users and bots
• Helps determine structure
• Plugins can help
• Usually requires some
custom code

36. Site speed
Google loves fast websites
• Clean, efficient code
• Images
• Caching
• Hosting

37. Content is King

38. In summary
• SEO is important
• it isn’t about tricking search engines,
it’s about helping them
• it doesn’t have to have a negative
effect on your website

39. In summary
better websites
good SEO

40. Thank you
Head to
http://keithdevon.com/seo-for-wordpress/
for more
@keithdevon