A 3 Step How-To Guide for SEO Basics on WordPress Sites
I’m here to tell you that getting started on SEO basics for your website is really quite easy. This doesn’t require any coding, advanced research, or any expense other than a small amount of your time. The potential benefits are well worth the effort. Just to reiterate, this is a how-to guide for beginners – people with no SEO experience who want to start optimizing their website for search engines. Let’s not waste any time and dive right in.
We think you got this one, but if you have any questions:
Step 1 for SEO on your WordPress website:
Install a plugin for SEO. Duh… We like “The SEO Framework” for several reasons, which I will elaborate on here. This is a free plugin. You don’t need to pay for an upgrade to get a lot of features that will help you be very successful. It has many settings that you can adjust to suit your needs, but it also works great right out of the box. No, they are not paying us for this – we just think it’s a great tool that people should be aware of.
Step 2 for Optimizing your WordPress Website:
Take a few extra minutes to get even more out of this plugin. I highly recommend you go through these brief setup instructions from the makers of the plugin: https://theseoframework.com/docs/seo-plugin-setup/
Once you install and activate the plugin, it has already done some amazing things for your website in terms of SEO. First, it has created an optimized sitemap for your site. A sitemap is a file that lists all of the important pages and articles on a website. “Sitemap” is worth a Google if you want some more details. Just know that it helps search engines like Google quickly find and understand your website content.
Second, it has generated Meta Titles and Meta Descriptions for all of your webpages. This is where the real magic happens, and that leads us to Step 3.
Step 3: Edit Your Meta Titles and Meta Descriptions for Every Single Page
In your WordPress dashboard, click on “Pages” to view all your webpages. Hover over the first page in the list and click “Edit.” Now scroll down to the bottom of the page and you will see some new fields available to work on. The “SEO Settings” field is where you will find the Meta Title and Meta Description for that particular page.
What is a Meta Title?
The Meta Title is the main headline of a webpage. It’s the title that is displayed in a search engine results page, and it is also displayed in your browser tab when you open that page. Meta Titles are extremely important for a search engine to understand what the page is about and how it might be relevant to someone’s Google search (or Bing, Yahoo, etc).
What is a Meta Description?
A Meta Description gives you a bit more space to provide a brief description of the content on that particular page. This typically will appear below the Meta Title in the search engine results page – but not always. Sometimes Google (or an algorithm) decides that they want to display something else that they think is more relevant to the search query. If that happens, it could be a clue that you should reconsider the Meta Description you have written.
The Value of Meta Titles and Descriptions in SEO
You can see why these two elements are so important for SEO. They are the exact words that show up in a search engine results page, and they communicate to search engines what the purpose and content of the webpages are. Take some time and think about what you want to show up in Google results for each page. Update your Meta Titles and Descriptions accordingly.
Don’t Play Games with SEO
If it’s not obvious already, you can’t trick Google. Don’t make a page title say “Free puppies” if you are running a barber shop, thinking that you will get more clicks. It must remain relevant and useful, otherwise you will be worse off than when you started. Seriously, search engines can penalize you for this and even remove your site from search engine results.
Congratulations! 
If you made it this far, you have successfully done SEO. Your website and your business will benefit from your efforts.
A Foundation for Better SEO
What you just completed is a foundation for Search Engine Optimization. The steps described above are one aspect of what we at SigDig call the SEO Essentials. These are the basic building blocks for helping users find your website in search engines. If you need some help from an expert, contact us at any time. If you are excited about SEO and growing your business further, talk to us about the Growth Alliance or a Custom SEO Strategy for your business.