The following were instructions for a client after his google blogger account was transferred to WordPress, regarding its new search engine optimization and transfer of SEO from his blogger as well.
Here are some initial notes on your new WP:
– what is the purpose of the blog? I’ve been learning a lot about increasing conversions and if you want these submitted articles to lead to some sales, this needs to be evident on every page.
Looking at your existing plugins:
Akismet
WordPress (Photo credit: Adriano Gasparri)
I activated yours with my code. This helps stop spammers (SEO trollers) from posting garbage comments on your site. Less to deal with. I assume you will be the only one posting articles and suggest I can set it so no one else can become an author (increased security) and that commenters do not need to register to leave a comment. The comments will come to you by email, and if you see one that’s useful you can press the weblink to approve it. Good comments are good, because they add useful info, shows interaction, and updates the page occasionally with new comment. Someone else working for you. Google likes fresh and frequently updated pages, so it boosts your rankings.
Blogger Importer and Categories to Tags Converter Importer
My guess is your guy used these to import and no longer needs them. Better to uninstall (I can do all this but just need your approval for each point – above and below) any plugins you no longer use, because they can slow down the server/your pages loading, which is not good for google.
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Configurable Tag Cloud
Maybe ask your guy what this is for. Seems unnecessary and I may have better options.
Hello Dolly
I always delete this. Comes as default with every installation and I see no point to it (slowing down server..).
Jetpack
Again, useful?
Registered Users
Seems unnecessary and can replace it with better plugins.
SEO Blogger
If it does what it says, perfect. Can you give me your blogger address so that I can check? Once its been switched no more need for the plugin, so would suggest uninstalling it.
Under Construction
Suggest uninstall.
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WP Google Maps.
Do you plan to have maps on your site? If not I’d recommend uninstalling this. Besides, you can put in maps using normal html techniques (I can show you how) and don’t need a plugin, especially if it will be a rare incident.
Attached you will find a Word file called “WP Text” which I wrote for some Africans I was making webpages for as part of my charity project. I set them up an Author account in the WP so that they could make new pages easily (on top of the main one I made for them). You should follow the same principles.
Continuing from that, the below explains the following plugins I installed:
All in One SEO Pack
Refer to attached file I mentioned whenever making a new post. You can go back to old posts and add these. Will help with SEO. Best to open up the output pages in another tab and use the SEO Quake I mentioned to find out the most common keywords, and preferably use those in some combination within your page’s Title, Description and Keywords. The Description should not be exactly like the title but a few more extra words added, different each time. For Keywords use the important words in the title, separated by a comma.
Before I activate the plugin I need to know what you want for Title, Description and Keywords for the main entry page.
AntiVirus
For this and other security plugins, refer to How to Set up and Properly Secure WordPress.
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Contextual Related Posts
Adds “related posts” links at the bottom of each post. Good to give readers an option to surf the rest of your site. If you don’t like any of these just tell me and I’ll uninstall them.
Custom Headers and Footers
Useful but also because I need to put a google analytics script (and possibly others) into the header (not seen by the viewer) so we can get these important stats.
Enhanced Linking
This is by Zemanta, which I have been informed of recently. Seems good. One of their tools (another explained below). Makes it easy to link to important third part sites (most of the time wiki pages – as I explained should be good and safe). Best to interlink most (explained below), but a few links outside of your site (per page) is good in the eyes of google. They want the traffic to flow and you not to be so selfish and closed pointing only to your own links.
Google XML Sitemaps
Very important, as now every time you add a new page or post this widget will inform google and other search engines of it.
SEO Smart Links
A great plugin and automates the interlinking of your pages automatically, just like wiki does and which really helps with rankings. Check out the plugin under Settings and make sure you understand. For example, lets say you had a post talking about names, and the post was focused on the keyword names. With this plugin you can set it so that, for example, every time “name” or “names” is mentioned in some post, it will automatically link from that word (or words) to that particular post. You can play with over time every time you write an important page like this that you would like linked to.
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WP-Polls
I have not activated this plugin but something you might consider to get your viewers interacting more. The more they interact the more they are likely for an eventual conversion/sell.
Zemanta
Easy tool to help you add pictures to posts, link out to third party pages (a few per page is good), and add tags that relate to your site.
Some Notes
Permalinks
If you go to Settings > Permalinks I would suggest choosing “Day and Name”, in case you accidentally choose the same title twice. But I see the guy changed it to Custom as the post title, which is good enough if you never use the same title. As
permalinks is good because it uses the Title for the web address, strengthening the keywords boost.
Use Headings, when you can, in your post
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In Word you can go to Tools > Customize > Keyboard button > Styles, then choose a shortcut key for each of Heading 1, 2 and 3. I like to use Alt 1, 2, 3. Make different heading levels when starting new sections, and focus on the usual keywords for that page. Proper use of keywords in headings helps with rankings. Much of the formatting in Word transfers well into WP, and often easier to write your posts offline in Word. The attached file < explains some points about formatting in Word and which formatting gets lost when transferring to WP.
Social Share
Noticed you had this at the bottom of each post. Good but could not find the plugin for it. Would suggest changing to an AddThis widget as I have, for example, at
It includes the new G+ google social sharing button and I have a feeling that this will become increasingly important, as google has started heavy with this not long ago, after a long beta phase.
Update frequently
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For security measures good to update once in a while – both the WP itself and the individual plugins. I find that sometimes updating the security problems can cause problems, so best practice is to backup the database first. I installed a Backup widget to facilitate this but have not activated it yet, as I have not used it myself, but it has a good rating among other users. If something happens, you can always use the backup to go back to a previous state.
Copyright Content
And lastly, please do not post this text or the attached file, as I would like to post it myself eventually. If you have interesting email communication with anyone on the subject of your site, you can post that as well. All original content is a big plus in google’s eyes, which logs who posted the site first and credits them more. If a high traffic site nabs it quickly they can potentially take it from you, but hopefully the Sitemap plugin will resolve that. Otherwise disabling feeds is an option.
Okay, will add some google analytics script now and let it sit for a few days. I’ve given you plenty of homework and feel free to ask me questions. These points are all important for SEO or whenever adding new posts. Good that you left blogger and moved to WP, because you can really get down to custom nitty gritty and the blogger tool is quite limited. Used it for a while, but kept my pages there, as they do serve some purpose (was experimenting).
Happy playing!
Karel
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Followed the footsteps of someone who had converted a google blogger account to a WordPress blog – good idea, since blogger is quite limited for SEO purposes. He used the following plugins:
| Select Blogger Importer | Blogger ImporterActivate | Edit | Delete | Import posts, comments, tags, and attachments from a Blogger blog.Version 0.4 | By wordpressdotorg | Visit plugin site |
| There is a new version of Blogger Importer available. View version 0.5 details or update now. | ||
| Select Categories to Tags Converter Importer | Categories to Tags Converter ImporterActivate | Edit | Delete | Convert existing categories to tags or tags to categories, selectively.Version 0.5 | By wordpressdotorg | Visit plugin site |
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Further correspondence with the client and explaining certain points in greater detail.
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Oh yah, and forgot Post Ratings plugin where readers can vote on articles. Could be good for interaction. Want that?
*Akismet* — Yes, I will be only author. Fine on the non-registration of comments too.
Okay, made all these changes. People who want to post comments do not have to register but you have to approve their comment, which you receive by email or can see in the dashboard. All thse settings can be changed any time.
*Jetpack — *I used it for looking at visits, views, stats, etc. If there is a better option, fine with me!
Checked it out and would suggest removing it. Already got hooked up with google analytics [GA] and that shows much more powerful and knowledgeable stats. I can give you access to peruse it. I also set up google webmaster tools, for further stats, research and problem reporting.
For the site itself you might consider using the Views widget/plugin, available on all my blog pages (I use it to easily post new content), such as on
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Like the Recent Post, just another way people might click on an article (most read). The widgets/these menus would appear according to the style of the theme, and you can place such content anywhere.
*QUESTION:* * * *1) You asked about what words I want in the title, Description and keywords for main entry page. Not sure where this is or what exactly.*
With any page you right mouse click on and select View Page Source, you should see the title, description and keyword METAs at the top in the header. These appear in the search results on google, and are used for searching, so rather important. We should probably brainstorm over what keywords you are really after (although I think we already did do this, so I can dig up my previous notes). The strategy all grows from there. You need to know what keywords your customers are using to find you. Did I already mention to you this free service?
<oops, can’t reveal all my secrets for free!>
Good to study and play with to get an idea what keywords people are using to fnd your service.
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*2) Update frequently? update what?*
When you log in as administrator to WP you will see little statements or signs that things need to be updated. Such as the version of WordPress, which they update frequently, also for security reasons. But better practice to backup first, if possible. Then plugins should be updated too, and you will see little warnings in their places. Also next to the Plugin menu. You can update a bunch at once.
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*Finally:* * * *Love the idea of the WP Polls. I use them on FB a lot and folks like them! Cool.
Activated, so play away. You can put in posts or into the frontpage. The frontpage can be easily changed.
*Go with Social Share is fine with me. I am on Google+, but don’t use a lot yet.*
Okay, so keep this as is. Looking forward to watch it grow! Karel
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I reset permalinks to day and name.
Looks like you switched it yourself. Keep in mind that this loses all the previous pages and you are basically starting at the very beginning of everything. Which would be fine considering the small amount of your traffic, but WAIT! Now I fear the referral links from blogger will be pointing to nothing, so I guess you should reconsider this. The script he had in custom is now gone and would need to be replaced if you want to go to the previous system. It might be better to go back to the previous and just make sure never to duplicate. Or you can try to duplicate on purpose and I imagine it will inform you of the duplication and require you to use something else.
Which do you suggest? The plugin or XX?
Plugin is easier but with XX you can hit a lot more people, but will require you set up accounts at all those services and give XX your username and password for each of them. Not absolutely painful but for 40 services could take roughly 8 hours.
Please feel free to contact me concerning my search engine optimization services.
I can also help you set up WordPress, Web Design, programming, databases and so forth.
Tags: WordPress, Search engine optimization, Google, All-In-One SEO, Keyword, Searching