Wordpress SEO vs Regular Site SEO
-
Hey Mozzers
I'm building a Wordpress-powered site (self hosted on different domain).
I know there are different plug-ins and whatnot for Wordpress SEO, but what exactly am I getting myself into? Am I required to use these plug-ins even if I already know how to do regular SEO on-page coding, or are they mainly dumbed-down tools for mom-bloggers to use?
Am I still able to use Google Analytics as I am with a regular site?
What else is there to think about?Thanks!
-
Another Thumps Up vote for Yoast.
-
I understand your thinking, however this is one of those times where you don't have to do it the hard way. Meaning you take advantage of the ease of use that a plugin provides, while still maintaining your special touches (the art of seo). Like Mike said, plugins will make it easier even if you know what you are doing.
My recommendation is Yoast Wordpress SEO (free). The developer is totally devoted to this plugin and stays on top of all issues, as well as trends. If you are going to be using video on your site, you should buy the Video sitemap plugin from Yoast too. It integrates right in perfectly and adds the video sitemap. It also automatically codes your videos so that they show up in the SERPs with a link back to your site. After building hundreds of WordPress sites, I have tried all the major plugins, but this one is the most reliable.
Yoast also has an Analytics plugin that enhances your Google Analytics data automatically, giving you more details than the standard site. You sound experienced, so you may not need/ want it, but you should at least look at it.
-
Got to love to Yoast!
-
I use the All-In-One SEO plugin. Another popular plugin is Yoast.
Wordpress can create a lot of duplicate content issues because it generates things like tag pages, category pages, and archive pages automatically. No-indexing most of these is a good idea, unless you are going to spend time creating unique content for them.
There are also plugins that make regular on-page SEO optimization tasks easier, such as adding robots exclusions, Google+ butons, etc. without having to muck around with the code.
-
Wordpress has some plugins that help in automating many of the processes of on-page SEO. It just makes the process a bit easier. I personally like how wordpress deals with optimization and I am not a "non-SEO" person. I would just research the different SEO plugins and find which one you like the best. They all work pretty much the same with some doing a better job than others. I would give you a recommendation, but I haven't worked with wordpress for a while and have been out of the loop.
Google Analytics is definitely doable with wordpress. All you have to do is place the analytics tag at the footer of your wordpress page. Easy as pie.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Multiple GA codes, one site.
Hi all, Is anyone running two GA codes on one website successfully? My organisation own a number of websites so we used to have one global GA code on all our sites to track global stats, and then we would also have site unique GA on each property to just track that one property. This worked fine, but of late we seem to be getting no data from the globally based code. Obviously, with the site-specific codes we can enter the name for that domain in GA but for the overall code, it is called 'all.com' I'm wondering if Google has now tied the GA domain to the code or if we are doing something wrong. All the codes are the same as they always were but have stopped working. As a stop gap, we have swapped to using Piwik as the all.com code. However, we are then comparing the stats in two different analytics programs so will get a different result. Also, it would be nice to be able to add the all.com to tools such as this to generate weekly reports. Anyone else having GA woe like this? Thanks. Carl
Reporting & Analytics | | WonkyDog0 -
Queries vs. Organic Keywords in GA
Could someone explain how the following metrics in Google Analytics are being calculated: Search Engine Optimization (Acquisition): clicks on a certain query Campaigns (Acquisition): sessions on a certain keyword GA Help states that both 'queries' and 'organic keywords' refer to the actual string a user enters in Google Search. In that cases it seems that 'clicks' on a SERP result through a given query and 'sessions' through that very same query could not be miles apart. E.g.: Clicks through query X = 170 Sessions through organic keyword X = 8 Thank you for helping me out!
Reporting & Analytics | | WeAreDigital_BE0 -
Campaign Tracking URLs and the Impact on SEO
Hi Guys, I am setting up tracking for a couple of offline campaigns in Analytics and would just like to know if this will cause issues. The situation is below: Two URLs Ranking Well Organically: www.domain.co.uk/area-covered/area-a www.domain.co.uk/area-covered/area-b URLs Setup for the Purpose of Offline Campaigns www.domain.co.uk/campaign1 www.domain.co.uk/campaign2 Plan to Track this in Analytics www.domain.co.uk/campaign1 redirecting to www.domain.co.uk/area-covered/area-a_&utm_medium=qr&utm_source=test1&utm_campaign=test1_ www.domain.co.uk/campaign2 redirecting to www.domain.co.uk/area-covered/area-a&utm_medium=qr&utm_source=test2&utm_campaign=test1__ So the idea is that the user gets a nice simple URL to input from the off-line media (www.domain.co.uk/campaign1). This then redirects to one of the pages thats performing well organically (www.domain.co.uk/area-covered/area-a) but with the relevant tracking (www.domain.co.uk/campaign1 redirecting to www.domain.co.uk/area-covered/area-a&utm_medium=qr&utm_source=test1&utm_campaign=test1). The only way that the tracking URL can be accessed by the user is if the off-line media URL is entered. My main concern here is how Google will treat this. Obviously I don't want to cause issues with the two URLs that are ranking well organically. Would having a version of exactly the same URL, just with tracking do so? Any help is appreciated! Thanks in advance.
Reporting & Analytics | | CarlWint0 -
Implementing demographics for a nopCommerce site
Hi Guys, I have been trying to implement demographics in Analytics for a site built in nopCommerce and I have run out of things to try to correct the problem and get some data! The code I am using is below: Any help would be greatly appreciated - it's driving me mad! Thanks, Dan
Reporting & Analytics | | SEOBirmingham810 -
Can 500 errors hurt rankings for an entire site or just the pages with the errors?
I'm working with a site that had over 700 500 errors after a redesign in april. Most of them were fixed in June, but there are still about 200. Can 500 errors affect rankings sitewide, or just the pages with the errors? Thanks for reading!
Reporting & Analytics | | DA20130 -
Wordpress + Google Analytics = Pulling My Hair Out
Hey Mozzers, Quick question for you- I have analytics set-up for a personal site I run and I know, verifiably it's receiving traffic, however, whenever I access my Google Analytics dashboard, it says I've had zero visits. Interestingly, today I had a colleague check the site from a foreign country and I could see the page views (within 15 minutes), however, I could not get any information about the site viewer. I have verified that the Analytics profile is 'receiving data' (which it is) and my Google Webmaster Tools is not reporting any issues? Finally, I went ahead and updated my profile so that it is pulling from 'www.mydomain.com' instead of 'mydomain.com', I don't know if that'll make any difference, but likewise, I didn't want to go and create the 'little kid in the elevator' analogy, where I'm just pressing a bunch of buttons just because they're there. So the only changes I've made thus far were deactivating Yoast's SEO plug-in and manually placing the GA code in the header and updating the 'Website's URL' in the profile settings tab of GA from 'mydomain.com' to 'www.mydomain.com'. With that, I am stumped and praying another one of the esteemed Mozzers out there may be able to help me resolve this. Any thoughts?
Reporting & Analytics | | NiallSmith0 -
Free Online XMl Site Map Creators up sites over 1000 pages
Does anybody know of a XML site map creator that is free for websites over 1000 pages?
Reporting & Analytics | | AppleCapitalGroup0 -
New Google Analytics Site Speed tool and excel
Hello, I was wondering if there is a good tool or method to pull the new Google Analytics Site Speed data into excel and use this document to track site speeds on a weekly basis for multiple clients? Any good articles or how-to's would be awesome!
Reporting & Analytics | | Hakkasan0