Some people ask how to optimize Wordpress for search engines. First, rest assured that Wordpress is optimized out of the box for search engines. Some of the built-in SEO features include:

• permalinks
• blogrolling
• pinging

However, even with these and other features, you can do things that will help (or possibly hurt) the ability for search engines to crawl your Wordpress site.  Here are some things to consider.

Use a clean, solid template

If your code has errors, then search engines won’t be able to crawl your site effectively. Make certain that you validate your template’s HTML code using an online HTML validator, and your CSS file as well. You should re-validate your code whenever you enable a new plug-in, since most plug-ins add HTML code to your web site.

Cream rises to the top

Make certain your theme places page and post content close to the top of the unstyled page. Search engines don’t care about the style of your site, and many search engines scan the first third of your page before continuing to other pages. Verify your theme places your content close to the top of the page.

Content is king

Quality word content is what search engines need to index your web site. What search terms do you anticipate people using to find your site, your pages, and your posts? Keep these in mind when writing your content. Also, keep in mind that your content is what search engines are reading, not the template design.

Link and image content

When you add links and images, are you setting the Alt and Title tags? Search engines are not looking at your images, but they will see the alternate text settings. Make certain you are setting these fields on your links and images in your content.

Meta tags

Metadata is defined as “data about other data.” Meta tags are metadata about your web site. Settings your meta tags gives you a bit of control on how search engines describe your web site. Setting the Description meta tag is key for this. The Page Title is another bit of data that search engines will index. For an all-encompasing plug-in to control your meta tag information, check out my favorite — Headspace2.

Permalinks

Your web site can get an extra boost in search engine results by enabling Permalinks in Wordpress. Permalinks will make the URL to your pages and posts more descriptive to users, easier to crawl by search engines, and, with some creativity, can give you extra search terms to match in search results.

Conclusion

Wordpress has some great built-in tools for making your blog “friendly” to search engines. How you use your blog can help or hinder your blog site getting crawled. Make good decisions with the ideas mentioned in mind, and enjoy your blog site!

Note: If you are just getting started with Wordpress for your business, I recommend reading the following book: Blog Schmog: The Truth About What Blogs Can (and Can’t) Do for Your Business