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SEO Blogging Software made easy by customizing WordPress
June 4, 2008 11:25am by J.T. Kennedy
Looking for the best SEO blogging software? Your search is over and the best part is, it's completely free! WordPress is probably the most commonly used SEO blogging software on the internet. And the best part is that it's absolutely free! WordPress can also be customized to have the exact same look and feel as the rest of your website, so your website visitors can't even tell they're using other software.
WordPress is easy-to-use and extremely customizable, but it really doesn't come SEO (search engine optimization) optimized out of the box. This can be done relatively easy if you are an advanced computer user. WordPress can be downloaded at: http://wordpress.org/download/
The following instructions will change WordPress to be SEO blogging software in the following ways to help your SEO:
- Each page and post will have a description which is used when search engines display the content of your page.
- Each page and post will have keywords associated with the webpage which search engines (except for Google) use to help rank your page.
- WordPress page names will be changed with will rank your pages higher because it no longer looks like a dynamic page.
| ie: |
From: |
www.2wisemen.com/blog/index.php?p=6 |
|
To: |
www.2wisemen.com/blog/index.php/wordress-seo-blogging-software/ |
Requirements:
- WordPress requires (please visit WordPress' site for more information):
- PHP version 4.3 or greater
- MySQL version 4.0 or greater
- Access to your web server (via shell or FTP)
- FTP Client
- Text editor
- Web browser of choice
How to setup WordPress to be SEO blogging software (search engine optimization):
SEO Blogging Software: Editing WordPress theme files
- Install WordPress onto your website if you haven't already (please consult WordPress' documentation for more information)
- Find out which theme is currently in use
- Login to WordPress admin(ie: www.2wisemen.com/blog/wp-admin) using your login and password
- Go to "Design", "Themes"
- Look for the text "All of this theme's files are located in __________________"
- Write down the name of the folder.
- Connect to the ftp server for your website
- Navigate to the folder where your theme is installed (step 2d)
- Download the following files to a folder on your local computer:
- Backup header.php and index.php (just in case you make an error and have to make restore the original files)
- Edit Index.php using a text editor. This step changes your blogs default page to have a custom description and keywords.
- Replace "<?php get_header(); ?>" with contents of header.php
- Replace inside contents of "<title>" tag to be title you want displayed on
the root page of your blog (ie: "<title>Church Management Software | 2wisemen inc.</title>").
- Add Description meta tag (replace if already exists) within the head section. This is the description which Google will use when displaying your page in search results. The description should contain your main keywords and should be between 16-25 words in length. ie:
<meta name="Description" content="A blog about search engine optimization and how internet marketing is the cheapest and easiest way of advertising to help your business grow. " />
- Add Keywords meta tag. Include keywords separated by a comma in which you want your
site found when people search in search engines. These should be your "main" keywords for your site. Please note: this only affects Yahoo and MSN as Google ignores this tag. ie:
<meta name="Keywords" content="seo, search, engine, optimization, optimized, blogging, software, WordPress" />
- Save and close Index.php
- Edit header.php using a text editor. This step changes your pages by inserting "Description" and "Keyword" meta tags which are generated from custom fields in WordPress.
- Delete <title> line within the header section.
- Paste the following 3 lines in the header section:
<title><?php if ( is_single() ) { ?><?php } ?><?php the_title(); ?> | <?php bloginfo('name'); ?></title>
<meta name="Description" content="<?php echo(get_post_meta($post->ID, "Description", true)); ?>" />
<meta name="Keywords" content="<?php echo(get_post_meta($post->ID, "Keywords", true)); ?>" />
- Save and close header.php
- Upload index.php and header.php back to ftp site into your theme folder
from step 2d.
SEO Blogging Software: WordPress Admin Changes
- Login to WordPress Admin section (ie: www.2wisemen.com/blog/wp-admin) using your login and password
- Go to Options -> Permalinks
- Enter "/index.php/%postname%.html/" in the "Custom Structure" field. This is going to change the page names to keywords which you choose. ie:
- Repeat the following on every PAGE and POST on your site:
- Add custom field called "Description". This will be the description that Google will display when someone searches for your page. The description should be 16-25
words. ie:
- Add custom field "Keywords". These are the keywords that people will search to find this page. Please separate keywords by a comma. The Keywords should be 5-6 words.
- Edit "Permalink" and set to main keywords people will be finding this page. Once you have this set, don't ever change it because search engines will have your pages indexed. ie:
- Save post or page.
- That's it, time to verify your changes.
SEO Blogging Software: Verifying your changes are complete
- Verify blog default page
- Navigate to your root blog page (ie: www.2wisemen.com/blog)
- Edit source in browser to view html.
- Verify you see the title and description tag you entered in step 7b and 7c of "Editing WordPress theme files".
- Verify blog post or page
- Navigate to one of your blog posts or pages (ie: www.2wisemen.com/blog)
- Edit source in browser to view html.
- Verify you see the title and description tag you entered in step 4a of "WordPress Admin Changes".
- Verify that the name of the page is the one you entered in step 4c of "WordPress Admin Changes".
If you're looking for an example of SEO blogging software and what we can do, please visit Bath & Beyond's site. The website uses shopping cart software for the store and WordPress for the blog which has been SEO optimized. As you'll see, you can't see the difference between the store and the blog.
If you need help setting up WordPress, making the above changes or setting
up a custom website which is SEO (search engine optimized) optimized,
please contact us for a free quote at solutions@2wisemen.com.
J.T. Kennedy is a Senior Software Architect/Developer and President/CEO of 2wisemen inc.