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There are a few drawbacks with WordPress, but like most things SEO, it’s really about the cumulative effect of everything. Overall, we’d grade WordPress an A- on it’s suitability and power for SEO purposes. But it’s so good at so many things, that it presents a compelling story overall.

Now, we’ll dig into the nuts and bolts.

WordPress SEO Benefit: Google Just Likes It

I have seen it time and time again: WordPress sites rank very well in Google search results pages, even in competitive markets. I can only conclude that Google favors the platform over others. I never thought that WordPress was much use to hard-core spammers, so it’s possible that WordPress sites enjoy a “trust factor” in Google’s eyes.

WordPress SEO Benefit: Speed of Content Creation

WordPress is built to run: it is designed for the speedy and continual publishing of content. Since I have converted nearly all my sites and most of my client’s sites to WordPress, our speed to publishing has increased. On a static html site, the creation of content would generally involve either hard-coding the article, or using a WYSIWYG interface, then adjusting menus–sometimes on multiple pages. With WP, sites grow big and grow fast. All that content brings breadth to your keyword families quickly, and your large site can quickly become “bait” for inbound links from other websites.

WordPress SEO Benefit: Crawlability

Websites must be crawlable by search engines in order to be indexed properly and appear in search rankings. WordPress’ internal logic and link structure is simple and shared universally among millions of websites–so WP is familiar ground for search engines. This familiarity means that Google’s spiders can find what they are looking for, and index and rank the content with confidence.

SEO Benefit: Plug-Ins and Support

Because the WordPress community is so large (enormous, really), the variety and number of plug-ins for SEO support has grown tremendously (Plug-ins are small software modules that website owners can optionally install in addition to the default WP installation). The All in One SEO Plug-In, or the Platinum SEO Pack are both quick and easy “one stop” plug-ins that accomplishe a basic, but sound set of SEO goals such as manual Title Tags and Meta Descriptions.  These plug-ins extend WordPress’ functionality to rival the control and customization you would achieve under a static site.

SEO Benefit: New Content “Bump”

Another great feature of WordPress, which is also shared by other blogging platforms is the “new content bump”. A new post (generally not a “page” though–WP divides its content into two classes of webpages: “posts” and “pages”) will receive an initial lift in rankings during it’s first few days after publishing. This is logical: blog posts are intended to be topical and current, like a news item–Google treats this fresh content as noteworthy and rewards it with a bump in initial rankings. Ranking position will generally settle down after a few days.

SEO Benefit: Pings, Comments and Trackbacks

Pings, Comments and Trackbacks are interactive features built into WP–these supplemental tools let other blogs and individuals interact with a WordPress site: this brings inbound links and traffic (in the case of pings and trackbacks), and free content and visitors  (in the form of comments to blog posts).

SEO Drawback: Poorly Designed Themes

But it’s not all rosy: I see a lot of poorly designed themes that undercut WordPress’ SEO power. Here’s an example I often see: a theme/template will be designed with the blog’s title bearing a Heading 1 (h1) tag–that’s not the way to go. The h1 tag should speak to the subject/topic of each page or post–to repeat an h1 tag mindlessly throughout hundred of pages on a blog is a waste of a valuable SEO tool.

The fix? Code the Blog Title in a plain old CSS class–and utilize the powerful h1 tag for the on-page title for each post or page.

SEO Drawback: Rigidity in Menu Presentation

The biggest hang-up that WP forces upon us is perhaps the way menus are presented. The Page/Post methodology described above generally means that posts and pages are kept separate in menus. That’s not an insurmountable problem, but excluding individual pages from particular menu locations (like a top bar menu, where space is limited) can require coding the WP template’s core .php files, or inserting page ID’s in Widget boxes ad nauseum. Now, to get advanced: If you want to “nofollow” certain page links, say to a contact page or a privacy policy page (in a static site, this task is a breeze) you can either forget it, or go hunting for a plug-in.

When it comes to menu presentation in WordPress, I have learned “the wisdom to recognize that which I cannot change”. I have adapted, and I got over it. It’s a small price to pay for all this power.

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Google’s December 2009 announcement that it would be issuing Google Maps “Favorite Place” location markers has now come true. Google has begun shipping the stickers to US-based business. We were fortunate enough to see one of the first stickers shipped in the US (the program was tested in the UK late last year and led to a rash of Google Maps Sticker Thievery. We have also seen the Google correspondence accompanying the sticker.

The following is one of the first of 100,000 promised shipped to US-based businesses:

This sticker was received by a The Butler Law Firm in Austin, Texas on February 20th. The Butler Firm has an active Google Maps listing that has enjoyed a high number of visits and customer actions.  The sticker arrived accompanied by a letter that states  ”Congratulations, you’re a Favorite Place on Google. Between July 1 and September 30, Google users found your Austin Divorce Lawyer business listing 7306 times, and requested driving directions or other information about your business 346 times. Because you’re so popular, we’re enclosing a window decal that shows customer you’re a Favorite Place on Google. The sticker includes a special bar code that potential customers may scan with cameras on their phones…”

The Technology Behind Google Maps Stickers

It’s more than a sticker. The Official Google Statement on Map Stickers states that the stickers have a bar code (clearly pictured), known as a QR code, that will enable camera-enabled smart phones including iPhone, Android and Blackberry devices, to read the bar code and direct users to the information page for that business.

I want one!

To scan the codes, phones must be enabled with a QR code-reading app. iPhone users can pick up the QuickMark app for $1.99. Other apps include BeeTagg and NeoReader.

Slickly Produced Video Showing How Google Maps Stickers Work:

Social networking websites like Twitter, Myspace, Facebook  and  plenty of others are now being used as part of web promotion. It is a perfect place to entice people to visit a site because millions and millions go to these sites everyday. A description along with a link of the website being promoted placed on the marketing professional’s page is sufficient to start increasing traffic.

Another method that is becoming really popular right as a means of marketing is blogging. There are many free sites and also paid blog sites that can be useful for the purpose of promotion. To generate traffic through this method, it is essential that the contents of the blog are beneficial to a target market and it should be regularly updated as well.

Forum posting and commenting on blogs similar to the website being promoted can also be done but there are times when reference to external links are not allowed on these channels. In such cases, the signature field of the profile can be used to market the website being promoted.

SEO or Search Engine Optimization is a widely implemented strategy used to generate traffic in to a website. A targeted market can be directed to a web page through results on search engines if this is used properly. It is essential that a marketing professional knows about SEO but if not, there is an abundance of SEO specialists that can be employed for this purpose.

Another effective website promotion strategy is through editorial submission. There are plenty of article submission directories on the Internet where write ups on topics related to the website could be submitted. Of course, links to your web page could be placed as reference so anyone who is reading the article could go directly to the website being promoted. A really popular article submission website at the moment is Ezine Articles. There are also some site directories where anyone could send their websites so it could be a part of that directory.

Pay-per-click is also a popular method for generating more traffic to a website. This can potentially provide huge traffic in a very short time. The Google Adwords uses this particular concept that provides great traffic volume to a website. There are other programs similar to the Adwords that available for purchase on the web.

A guestbook can also be placed in your website. That is where visitors could type in their email addresses. A marketer should provide updates   and other promotional materials to anyone who signed up on the website’s mailing list. Using email addresses with the site’s domain name included in it might also be helpful in increasing popularity and the website’s name recall.

These methods are just a few things that anyone could follow to generate more visitors in a specific website. Besides these online means, a website can also be promoted in person through fliers, business cards, and other printed publication. All of these methods are done to ultimately increase the reputation and popularity of a specific website to its targeted audience. It is more effective if many of these methods are done at the same time.

List Your Keywords

You should carefully plan out what keywords to use in your content. There are tools online that could also help you choose keywords that are often used in search engines but most of the time, you have to pay to use these kinds of tools. List keywords you have thought of and if you can, consult with other SEO specialists to know which among your chosen words should be used.

Never Flood Your Article

Choose only one or two keywords to include in your article, maybe three the most. Putting so many key phrases on just one article does not give focus to any one of those keywords. Also make sure that the keywords come naturally in the content and are used in such a way that it makes sense. Flooding or putting too many of the keywords in the article also will not help.

Prioritize Your Market

Always keep in mind that your website is for people and not for search engines alone. Write contents that would cater to the needs of your market; something that is beneficial for them and one that they could share with others. This would also add traffic to your website.

Include Keywords In The Header Tag

The title of your article is as important as the body of the article. Search engines that are crawling your site look at the text in the header tag first. So the exact keywords you have in your content should also be in your header.

Utilize Exact Keyword Phrases

The phrases you choose for your site should be consistent throughout the content. Remember that search engines are machines so it wouldn’t be able to distinguish the difference in the meaning of the words being used. For example, the word wash in the phrase “white wash” or “wash basin” would be all the same for search engines. So exact phrasing of keywords being used should always be implemented in the content.

Using Photos

Images also help a lot in content marketing. Adding pictures that are related to your content especially to the keywords you are using would be useful on images searches. Ultimately, this would direct more traffic to your website because of the relevant images present.

All these tips can be used for a successful Search Engine Optimization. Although the contents in your site play an important role in the marketing of the site, there are other things to consider as well. So learn more about SEO marketing for a successful traffic generation to your website.

One of the popular sites used by many is Copyscape. It is a free tool that allows you to post your text content on a box and in return, the tool would check for other websites with similar texts.

Another free tool that can be used is the Xenu Link Sleuth. This is a tool that can be downloaded to check for broken links. This tool often yields title tags, formats, sizes and URLs that can be exported to excel files and these can be sorted to check for duplicates. A similar tool works this way and it is called Yahoo Explorer. The only difference is Yahoo Explorer does not detect broken links.

Google also offers tools to check for duplicate content. The Google Webmaster Tools can be accessed through the main Google page (google.com/webmasters). One has to go to the Diagnostics page and choose HTML suggestions. Click on duplicate title tag to proceed to the download link for the table. Apart from these free tools, there are also a lot of reliable paid duplicate checking tools available online.

There are many types of duplicate contents that one needs to be aware of. Various elements of a website need to be considered as there are millions of websites in the World Wide Web.

Here are some of the elements that need to be checked for duplication:

1. Title Tags. Many websites out there tend to use the title tag over and over again throughout the entire website. This is a form of duplication and needs to be avoided. Plus, with the millions of websites published on the web, title tags often get duplicated.

2. Dynamic URLs. Since the content of dynamic pages changes depending on the data base driving the results of the site, the possibilities of duplicate contents are greater.

3. Meta descriptions. Subjects of the content of a website need meta descriptions, the summary of the content of the page. Oftentimes, because the topics discussed in a website have many similarities with other web pages, meta descriptions also tend to get duplicated.

4. Product descriptions. Websites of product resellers often get their product descriptions from the original manufacturer of the goods. Since there could be many resellers for the same products online, the descriptions are often duplicated.

For any SEO professionals, making sure that the websites they are marketing is unique and free from duplicates help a lot. The popularity and ranking of the site is often at stake. Of course, there are also the copyright infringement issues that are pretty common in the World Wide Web at the moment.  Make sure that you check your contents for any duplication.

One of the greatest resources that we use here is Google’s “Webmaster Central Channel” on Youtube.com.  If you could ask a Google employee a question like, “how can I remove old content from Google’s index?”, wouldn’t that be valuable? Well, that question and 100s of others are answered on Google’s Webmaster Central Channel on Youtube by none other than Google employee Matt Cutts.

The channel features video blogs by Google employees answering user-submitted questions. Check it out, we are sure you will find it valuable.

The Ranking Order Appears Largely Unaffected by 7-Pack

Naturally, we wondered if the fundamental ranking algorithm was altered along with this change; ultimately, it’s the ranking order which concerns online marketers. Along with the 7-pack change, we examined several key phrases for which we monitor local results.  It appears that the order of local Google listing results is largely unaffected from the rankings of a week or two ago, although read on for some other changes.

Welcome Change: Multiple Listings Reduced to One

We also wondered about several businesses in markets that we monitor that had submitted, successfully, multiple listings in the Google maps section.  These multiple listings have consistently been a frequent complaint about Google local.  In at least one keyword family in our local market of Austin, Texas, we have monitored one of these unscrupulous advertisers that obtained three listings on the front page results of Google maps, and through the use of obviously fake reviews, was able to maintain those listings consistently. The recent change appears to have filtered out these multiple results.

Technorati wants: 6XUBGTNSNM4Y.

How to Get the Coveted “Show Map of” Tag

I learned this device from a power blogger in the search engine optimization business, and through some research reading Google’s Webmaster documentation. What the trick does is it enables a show map tag to appear within a Google result. The following photo will illustrate:

So what’s different about this Google result? if you look closely, you’ll see a cross with an invitation to show the map of the businesses location. This extra line in the search result can distinguish the result from other results on the page. And, as always, distinguishing factors in search results yield higher click rates.

Also, when a user clicks on the cross a map of the location is expanded to reveal a map of the location, the full address, and phone number. Again, this will yield a high increase in visitor conversions.

So How to Get the Tag?

The way to get the shell map tag is easy, but it’s a bit technical. First of all, the show map tag will obviously be of more value to a local business. In fact, a company has to have a Google local listing (a listing in the map section) as a prerequisite to displaying the show map tag.

Step One: Geo Sitemap

But a Google local listing alone will not activate the show map tag. Once the Google local listing is set up, one must also install what’s called a KML geo site map. A geo site map is a very small file, only a few lines long, which contains specially formatted information about the location of the business.

Here’s some sample data, a generic KML file:

<kml xmlns="http://www.opengis.net/kml/2.2"

xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom">

<Document>

<name>Company Name</name>

<atom:author>

<atom:name>Author Name (may be company name)</atom:name>

</atom:author>

<atom:link href="http://www.domain.com/" />

<Placemark>

<name>Name Of Location</name>

<description>

<![CDATA[

<address>

<a href="http://www.domain.com/">Company Name</a><br />

Address: [street city, state zip]<br />

Phone: [phone]

</address>

<p>A small company description.</p>

]]>

</description>

<Point>

<coordinates>latitude,longitude</coordinates>

</Point>

</Placemark>

</Document>

</kml>

Now, you’ll notice from the sample code above that the coordinates tag requires you to know the latitude and longitude of your business address as it appears in your Google local listing. You can obtain the latitude and longitude values, as well as generate a very simple but technically acceptable KML site map by going to one of my favorite new sites, http://mygeoposition.com/. You simply type in your address and click the KML tab to get the latitude and longitude numbers. Place those numbers in the coordinates tag, modify the file to include your name information, and you’re done.

Step Two: Register KML File in Google Webmasters Account

Next, the file must be registered in a verified Google Webmaster account. If you don’t have a Google Webmaster account already, it’s an absolute must for any website owner and offers tremendous search engine optimization benefits. Registering your Geo site map in your Google Webmaster account will activate the show map tag anywhere your result shows in a Google search.

Additional benefits

In addition, the show map tag will also display on Google adwords advertisements, which can be a further boost to that program’s effectiveness.

Your KML site map will also generate a location marker in the Google Earth program. In fact, KML technology has its origins with Google Earth.

There has also been some mention, although not a universal consensus, but a Geo site map can improve the rankings within the map display in Google local results.

Good luck from TastyPlacement

The CSS display:none Tag

The Senator’s website (as of July 30, 2009)  displayed nearly 2300 phrases–all hidden by the CSS tag, “display: none.” Among these phrases are “rick perry biography,” “governor perry texas”, and the now-infamous “perry gay.” A snippet of the 2300-line code appears below.

<div id="Layer1" style="display:none;">rick perry yell leader
www celebratingtexas
celebratingtexas
texans protecting our water environment and resources
cooper tire texarkana
texans for life coalition
bruchard nodes

The offending phrase was promptly removed after the Statesman broke the story.

Google strictly forbids hidden text and links, as set forth in their webmaster guidelines. Specifically, Google advises against “Using CSS to hide text”.

Michael of TastyPlacement was quoted in the article; you can read here.