starting wordpress 2 – seo minded

ok, so now my blog looks like this:

As I wrote in my first post, some things don’t love be left and once you installed it – go and do it.

ok, so first thing is from SEO minded perspective. take out things that are nasty for google serp and do some sweet things instead.

I don’t think I’ll be using default wordpress theme, but leaving it for a while and taking attention to things that probably looks good, but required to be revised as soon as possible.

1. duplicate content – remove default wordpress post or just rewrite it to your unique text. If you edit it instead removing and creating new one – take attention to the URL as well.

Oh wait – I see the next issue! My first post url (permalink) is http://ejikas.com/?p=1 – no good

2. making search friendly URLs (permalinks).

ok, so going to Settings -> Permalink. I’m in “Customize Permalink Strucure” window.

a) Custom permalink structure for posts.

I took attention at option “Custom Structure”. That is really neat. It allows to set permalink pattern like [/%year%-%monthnum%/%postname%/],
[/blog/%postname%/],
[/%category%/%postname%/] or just
[/%postname%/].

You should really take attention to this option seriously. The last one [/%postname%/] is probably the most SEO weighted. I like structure [category/postname/] as well that probably could be even better. But I don’t want become category dependant for one simple reason – I’m still not sure what content and category names I will be using here. If I would change category names in future, so that would alter corresponding posts permalinks as well – not so good scenario. So if choosing [/%category%/%postname%/] be sure about your site category structure.

b) Category base permalink structure.

It’s how category directory should look like. The option is clearly explained in the window.

The default category base is category. I changed it to “theme” instead default. Just for fun. This option is really optional.

So my category links will be constrained like “ejikas.com/themes/news-category/” instead of “ejikas.com/category/news-category/”

after I saved the changes, my first post got url [http://ejikas.com/2008/06/hello-world/] – this is because I made it over the default wordpress post. To update it just cannot be easier. Going to edit the post and bellow field “Title” there is option to edit Permalink:

3. Setup blog categories. Every post in wordpress must have assigned category. By default it is “uncategorized” that I want to change as soon as possible. Especially as posts that I already posted should have be in category “wordpress”.

4. Update page “About” text that raises duplicate content issue as well.

5. Blog visibility to search engines. Seems I missed this settings option. By default wordpress don’t allow index your blog for search engines. Probably that is quite good thing until you change all the default texts and do all steps that I listed above, but instead of that I would just make password protected root directory.

this is my SEO tip nb1: make your site access password protected until you make it completed. The most hosting panels has this option for making it. Keep in mind to make it for root directory.

ok… so now I’m just changing the option

6. Sidebar widgets. This is the last thing. Then I may leave my fresh installed blog. I don’t want too many outgoing links to have from my site and would like to remove Blogroll box, Meta box and Archives box from sidebar as it is unnecessary at the start indeed.

so I’m going to Design -> Widgets and activating them only few ones. I won’t be using even search box. Now I just want to have clean, seo minded site. Later will look how nice it looks and will try select more attractive theme for that.

to be continued..

Tags: duplicate content, seo, wordpress

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 28th, 2008 at 4:43 am and is filed under wordpress. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.