How To WordPress Guide by WordPressZen.com

WordPress SEO by Yoast Plugin – How to Optimize a WordPress Post for Target Keywords

WordPress ZenMaster — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 13:53:49 +0000

Yoast (Joost de Valk) recently released a new SEO Plugin, called “WordPress SEO By Yoast”. Yoast is one of my favorite WordPress Plugin developers: I find him to be knowledgeable, thorough, logical, and best of all, he reliably supports the plugins he releases! His SEO Plugin has quickly trumped the former players in the SEO Plugin market (All in One SEO, Headspace, and Platinum SEO Pack to name a few). Yoast’s plugin combines a number of key SEO tasks and features into one plugin (better one plugin than 3 to achieve the same end!)

Steps to Optimize a WordPress Post for a Target Keyword Phrase with the help of Yoast’s WordPress SEO Plugin

This post outlines the step-by-step approach to keyword phrase targeting and optimization that I recommend to my clients who publish their own posts. It assumes that you have installed the WordPress SEO Plugin By Yoast on your site so that you have the general and advanced admin interfaces in your ‘Edit Post’ area of your WordPress Admin. Please note that this is NOT a how-to post for configuring Yoast’s SEO plugin settings, nor is it an exhaustive outline of everything you need to do to SEO an entire website, but it IS a good primer for site owners who self-publish and want to hit the high points of keyword phrase targeting for a specific page or post on their WordPress website.

***This procedure is for NEW POSTS that you are drafting and that have not yet been published. There are additional steps and considerations needed if you are RETROFITTING an already published post or article.

Step 1: Create a new post , give it a “working title”, and compose your article for your READER.
Compose your content at first for ONLY your audience, with attention to best conveying your message. Writing this way as a first step is my personal recommendation to my clients, to help them to avoid going overboard in their SEO efforts, which can get them penalized for keyword stuffing. Write fluently and clearly for your reader, and resist the urge to unnaturally insert keywords multiple times and in certain places in your article just to convince the search engines to rank you higher. [I promise you will get to go back to your article and "SEO Copy edit" (where it makes sense and in moderation!) after you have done your keyword research step.] Give your article a “working title” — it will likely change when we come back and edit the page URL, Page Title, and Article Title later after the keyword research step — and save your work as a DRAFT.

Step 2: Determine 1-3 target Keyword Phrases for your article by doing some basic Keyword Research via Google Adwords Keywords Tool

a) Go to http://adwords.google.com, click on “Get Keyword Ideas”
b) Enter one or two 2-5 word phrases that are relevant to the article you have just written. These are just “seed terms” at this point, because what YOU may think to search via could be quite difference from what your audience might actually be searching by. It’s possible that you might have pegged the highest volume keyword phrase with your initial gut feeling, but the whole point of doing keyword research is to know that you are targeting phrases that people are actually searching for, so let the numbers adwords provides help you to decide!
c) Select the Match Type=”Phrase” (this is important)
d) Click Search

Now review the Keyword Ideas that have returned. Use the LOCAL MONTHLY SEARCH volume numbers (by local, they mean “USA” vs. “Worldwide”) to gauge the potential amount of search traffic that you might see if your site ranks for a given keyword phrase. Select between 1 and 3 phrases (you would probably only target 3 if you had a long post) that you want to rank for, that are relevant / representative of your article topic, and that you feel you will be able to integrate into your content naturally. Determine which phrase will be your Top Target (the other phrases will be support/alternate target phrases).

NOTE: If you feel comfortable that doing your keyword research and selecting your target keyword phrases PRIOR to writing your article will not adversely affect the natural-ness of your writing, then feel free to reverse Steps 1 and 2, as it can save you a little time :0)

Step 3: Use the options on the WordPress SEO by Yoast General Admin Tab Interface to “frame” your content with appropriate keywords
The Page Title and Meta Description are the only two elements that are seen by a searcher prior to actually visiting your site, and are therefore “prime conversion real estate” from a marketing perspective. So you need to take care to balance both marketing and SEO objectives when assigning these two page elements.

a) Create an “SEO Title” (this is the PAGE title) that includes your Top Target Keyword Phrase, ideally as the first words in the title, and with as natural language as possible. If you are able to work in one or both of your alternate target phrases (not necessarily in exact word order), that is also fine, but keep the title under 70 characters in length (Yoast’s plugin counts your characters for you!)

b) Populate the “Meta Description” with a 155 character (or less) blurb designed to meet the following 2 objectives:
- naturally include all of your target keyword phrases (in word order, if possible); place your top target keyword phrase as close to the beginning of the blurb as you can.
- relay a message that will engage a searcher and entice them to click on YOUR site link out of all the other search engine results that rank for your targeted phrase

It’s totally fine to repurpose some text from your article to be your meta description (you won’t get penalized for duplicate content on this element) — just make sure that whatever text you are using meets the 2 criteria above. If you neglect to populate the Meta Description element, most search engines will auto-populate a blurb with either random or the first available text on your page. In general the default text chosen is not the most relevant or click-enticing, so just do your site an SEO favour and define your own Meta Description!

Step 4: Perform an SEO Copy Edit of your Article
Go back through your article now looking for natural opportunities to insert your top target and support/alternate keyword phrases. Often I find that I replace some previously used verbiage with my phrases, and sometimes I will add a short sentence to the first or second paragraph that flows with my previously written work in order to leverage my top target keyword phrase at the copy level. Beware of “keyword stuffing”!! There is no specifically defined “keyword density” that is accepted or approved by search engines that you can go by — so you need to use good judgement and moderation. If you stick to keeping your writing so that it flows “naturally” when read aloud then you should be okay. Preventing high keyword density is one of the reasons why I recommend selecting 1-3 different, but related, keyword phrases as opposed to only attempting to target one phrase per post.

Try to work your phrases into the earlier paragraphs of your post -the closer to the beginning of the text on your page is said to be better. If your article is longer, and utilizes sub-headings, be sure to utilize the appropriate < h1 > / < h2> HTML heading tags and definitely try to include your keyword phrases in some of your heading text.

Step 5: Modify Page URL and Article Title to include Top Target Keyword Phrase
Your page URL (also known as the “page slug”) is an SEO element that is often overlooked from an optimization standpoint. This you can edit from within your WordPress Post Edit page (not part of Yoast’s plugin because it is already handled by WordPress). Basically, use your top level keyword phrase as your page slug, plus maybe add a word or two from your alternate phrases (but only if they make a little sense).

Try not to include any “stop words” unless you consider them to be important for an exact match to your keyword phrase. There are also WordPress plugins (see Better SEO Slugs plugin or Clean SEO Slugs Plugin, plus others) that strip stop words from your page slugs for you, but most only do it if the page slug is created by default from your post title, or if you assign a page slug prior to saving your post for the first time. If you are manually editing your page slug after-the-fact, the slug will usually retain your desired stop word.

If you have the right plugins installed, your ARTICLE TITLE (sometimes called Article Heading) is different than your PAGE TITLE (which you defined in Step 3). The default installation of WordPress just pulls the page title from whatever you type into the Post/Page Title field. It is one of the beautiful things about using Yoast’s SEO Plugin is the additional control you have over optimization of these two page elements separately.

Step 6: Use the Focus Keyword option in the WordPress SEO by Yoast General Admin Tab to check your SEO elements
Under the General Admin tab for the WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin is a field labeled: Focus Keyword. Once you have completed all of the above steps, enter your top target keyword phrase into the “Focus Keyword” field, then click anywhere else on your admin page. This feature gives you a quick way to double check your work and see how many instances of your target keyword phrase will be seen by the search engine crawlers. Using this check tool, you may find an unoptimized element that you overlooked. As of the time of writing, this check tool appears to find only exact phrase matches (i.e. if you are optimizing for “4th of July”, it will not recognize “4^th of July” due to the formatting tags; nor will it recognize “4 th of July” due to the additional space. I believe that Googles ability to match and see phrases may be a little more forgiving)

Check results will appear as follows:

Optimal results might be

Article Heading: 1-2 (the Article Title is considered a heading, but so are other sub-headings with < h1> and < h2> HTML tags)
Page Title: 1
Page URL: 1
Content: 2-4 (depending on length of article)
Meta Description: 1

Then rinse and repeat with your support/alternate target keyword phrases. Understand that certain page elements (like Page and Article Title) might only have room or sound natural if they contain only one of your target keyword phrases, and that’s okay! So some of your support/alternate keyword phrases might have “0″ for those elements.

There is some “page flow” optimization that can be done under the “Advanced” Tab, but it is unrelated to keyword phrase and page element optimization, so is the subject for a different lesson…:0)

WordPress 2.9 – A Slightly Technical but Enlightening Preview

WordPress ZenMaster — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 08:42:23 +0000

You may or may not have heard, but a new major release of WordPress is rumored to be around the corner: WordPress version 2.9 It is slated to contain some performance improvements, and image editing enhancements, among other things. For more info read this slightly technical but enlightening preview article of WordPress 2.9 new features. Happy WordPressing!

Update Alert: WordPress 2.8.6

WordPress ZenMaster — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 17:17:40 +0000

Two security problems are fixed by the 2.8.6 patch/upgrade. The first problem is an XSS vulnerability. The second is an issue with sanitizing uploaded file names that can be exploited in certain Apache configurations. These can be exploited by registered, logged in users who have posting privileges, so if you have untrusted authors on your blog, upgrading to 2.8.6 is recommended.

Simple WordPress Security Tip: Never Use Default Account Username “Admin”

WordPress ZenMaster — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 20:08:09 +0000

A Simple to Implement WordPress Security Measure

Unless you specify otherwise, the default WordPress Administrator account username will be: admin. Do you currently log into your WP website or blog as “admin”? If so, you have a simple way to start implementing WordPress Security on your site today: specify a unique, and non-default Administrator account username!

The problem with using the default is that if a hacker wants to gain access to your blog or WordPress website, you have conceded them half the battle. All they (or their automated hacking scripts) need to do is keep using the “admin” user name with various password combinations. This is called brute force attack, and these attacks are successful far too often, sadly, due to lack of attention to this simple fix.

How To Specify a Unique Administrator Account Username for a New WordPress Installation

If you are installing WordPress from scratch, specify your custom administrator username by toggling the “advanced” installation settings (available in many installation scripts: Fantastico, SimpleScripts, Elefante, etc).

How to Fix your Administrator Username for an Already Existing WordPress Install – The Easy Way

If you already have WordPress installed, and “admin” is your login, the fix is quite simple. Just create a new administrative level user with a better choice for login name. Then log in with the new user credentials and delete the old “admin” user account. This method has the additional benefit of assigning a new actual ID number for your administrative superuser account (the default is always created as ID#1, and it is possible that this could be targeted in a hack attempt also). Don’t worry about any pages or posts written while you were logged in and operating as “admin”, because when you delete the account, WordPress will prompt you to re-assign them to a new user and this will preserve your previously written content.

How to Fix your Administrator Username for an Already Existing WordPress Install – The Hard Way

You can also rename the default admin username in the WordPress database on the back end.

To make changes manually in your WordPress database, you need a database admin tool. The most common one (often already installed on your hosting account control panel) is phpMyAdmin.

Step 1. Login in to phpMyAdmin

Step 2. Navigate to the table wp_prefix_users table, click on browse, and locate the “admin” username/ID

Step 3. Click on the edit button which will bring you to a screen that looks like this:

Step 4. Anywhere the column values say “admin”, replace with your new, carefully selected username, then click on go. Your default admin user ID will be changed.

How to Choose a More Secure Administrative Account Username

Don’t use the default: admin (I just wanted to make that really clear) :0)

It’s probably best not to use something with the word “admin” in it…just in case a determined hacker or virus program is inclined to run permutations of usernames “based” on the default to catch those of us who are not very creative.

Don’t use your site or domain name. I hope the reason for this one was obvious.

Use your own name cautiously. If you sign your posts as Mary Smith, for instance, naming the administrator user as “mary” or “marysmith” puts you at risk. If you feel compelled to use your name, make sure that your name is not utilized anywhere on your website (that includes the about and contact pages, and any signature or tagline you use when you write posts). You might not even want to do this in case a disgruntled reader or anti-fan had the smarts to do a whois lookup on your domain name, and find your name that way. If you do use some version of your first and/or last name as your account login, then it is a must to create a user “nickname” (a feature of WordPress) to create a publicly displayed author name that is different than your actual user account log in.

And, of course, all the regular username/password security best practices apply here too. Don’t use the same login info on lots of different sites. Don’t use the same login info you use for your banking. Don’t use simple and easy to guess character strings like “abcd1234″ or “0000″…

I know, I know…you can barely keep track of all the usernames and passwords we have to remember. But if you consider the amount of time you spend building and growing your WordPress site, it really is worth the 2 minutes it takes to come up with something original (and yet still memorable). And you’ll be able to breathe easier the next time a WordPress targeted brute force attack virus makes the rounds online.

Time to Upgrade WordPress to version 2.8.5

WordPress ZenMaster — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 09:36:40 +0000

Upgrade your WordPress based sites and blog to this new version of WordPress to ensure that you have the best available protection. Wise WordPress Website owners take the time to upgrade! The major changes in the 2.8.5 release are:

A fix for the Trackback Denial-of-Service attack that is currently being seen.
Removal of areas within the code where php code in variables was evaluated.
Switched the file upload functionality to be whitelisted for all users including Admins.
Retiring of the two importers of Tag data from old plugins.

More about the latest upgrade (including a nifty new plugin called WordPress Exploit Scanner) at http://wordpress.org/development/2009/10/wordpress-2-8-5-hardening-release/

About WordPress Plugins

WordPress ZenMaster — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 07:12:44 +0000

What are WP Plugins?

WP Plugins are add-on code modules that you can install to extend and customize the functionality of your WordPress website. Plugins enable you to tailor your site to your specific needs.

Why aren’t WP Plugins part of the core WordPress Installation?

The wonderful people who give us WordPress (Automattic, Inc.) intentionally work to keep the core WordPress code lean and somewhat generic, to maximize flexibility and performance. A “plugin” system allows for open source community development and customization.

“Open source” means that the code that makes WordPress work is available for anyone to view or edit for their own use. But it doesn’t make sense for one person, or a even a group of people, to customize the core WordPress code because WordPress is so widely used, and the core is actively supported and developed by Automattic. Editing the core code would create an unsupported ”software fork” and render the installation incompatible with future upgrades of the core code. To prevent this, the developers of WordPress factored in the need for customization, and have provided a handy system of code “hooks”, which allow open source community members to write independent function/feature code modules, and then easily tie those into the core code without altering it.

Who makes WordPress Plugins?

Anyone can make a WordPress Plugin! If you have an interest in building your own plugin, there are plenty of plugin development resources available to help you. You will need a little knowledge of programming using WordPress “hooks”, HTML, and PHP (those are coding languages).

But wait! Before going to the length of building a feature or function for yourself, it makes sense to look first to see if someone else has already built it. So many people have already created WordPress Plugins that there is a wide variety and selection of Plugins to choose from.

Where can I find WordPress Plugins?

The Official WordPress Plugins Repository is located and maintained at WordPress.org. To be listed in this official plugin directory, a plugin must meet certain requirements. Since not all plugin developers adhere to the requirements, there are quite a few plugins available that are not listed — to find unlisted plugins, do a Google search for:

“wordpress plugins” , “wp plugins“, or ”wp plugin [insert keyword to describe the function you seek]”

The Google search results will include a variety of links to WP plugin reviews, forum threads that discuss plugin troubleshooting, plugin developer homepages, and unofficial plugin lists. Or, you can always “Ask WordPressZen.com” for a plugin recommendation!

How to Display Your WordPress Posts in Alphabetical Order

WordPress ZenMaster — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 19:32:45 +0000

By default, WordPress displays all posts chronologically by date published. That’s great for journal writing, news blogging, and general blog chatter, but when you want to re purpose your WordPress posts for use in a WordPress website, it often comes in handy to be able to display your WordPress Posts in alphabetical order. Enter the WP-SNAP! plugin by Nathan Olsen.

WP-SNAP is an acronym for: WordPress System for Navigating Alphabetized Posts…and it does a bang up job of it! The WP-SNAP! plugin is a great solution for sites that want to have an alphabetical Glossary, Directory, Index, or Reviews repository. [If alphabetical post order isn't what you are after, check out a great plugin for creating a custom order for your WordPress posts.]

WP-SNAP! integrates with both custom permalinks and the WordPress loop. Plugin options can be managed site-wide or on the template itself, with results either restricted to one category or broadened to include child categories as well. Options have also been added to allow the customization of css class names and the appearance of html mark-up. You will need to do some code level integration to make this plugin do exactly what you want it to, but it’s not overly complex and there are good directions on the plugin developer’s website (as well as a tutorial coming soon here at WordPressZen).

Have you used WP-SNAP! to order your posts alphabetically on your site? If so, tell us about your experience in the comments below!

Below is a screenshot of a WordPress powered Alphabetical Glossary of Terms created with the help of the WP-SNAP! plugin:

As always, if this plugin is just the right solution for you, don’t forget to make a donation to the WP-SNAP! plugin developer!

How to Change the Post Order of WordPress Posts: AStickyPostOrderER Plugin

WordPress ZenMaster — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 18:31:15 +0000

A common request by webmasters when using WordPress as a CMS is to be able to change the post order on their category and/or tag pages. Without the help of a plugin, you can do this manually by changing the post dates of each post to reflect a custom display order instead of the order they were actually created. But editing post dates is inefficient, and would have to be updated and adjusted every time you add a new post. No thanks!

Once again, a member of the WordPress open source community delivers a solution with the AStickyPostOrderER Plugin by AndreSC. This plugin provides a nifty interface that allows you to change post order for your WordPress posts within each category and tag to an assigned custom order. And if you don’t feel like applying an order number to every post, you can just assign “sticky” posts, which always display at the top of the page and/or “droppy” posts, which always display at the end of a batch of posts on a page.

[This plugin allows you to specify a custom order for your WordPress posts. If you are wanting to display WordPress posts alphabetically, there are different plugin solutions that.]

Users of this plugin, please feel free to post on your experiences with the AStickyPostOrderER plugin in the comments below!

Screen shot of the AStickyPostOrderER Plugin Admin Interface:

MindMap to Riches Free eBook

WordPress ZenMaster — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 15:36:35 +0000

Ask 100 truly successful people, and odds are that a large percent (if not all) will tell you that one of the most important things an entrepreneur needs to have is the right mindset. But how, exactly, do you go from where you are now, to getting the right mindset?

The recently released MindMap to Riches eBook series by Jeremy Gislason is a powerful, easily digestible, and results-driven blueprint you can follow to tap your potential and achieve your goals. And you can get the first book in the series for free right now when you select their “tweet it” option.

The Mindmap to Riches eBook series explores the insights of the entrepreneur mindset, but it also goes further. It provides you a clear how-to roadmap you can follow to create a successful entrepreneur mindset that works for you.

Here is the outline for the Free eBook: How to Create Lasting and Sustainable Wealth Online:

Introduction – It All Begins With You

Creating More Than Just A Website

Taking Action Versus Sitting Still

Defining Your Role In Your Business

Why Passion And Marketing Are So Intricately Linked – And How You Can Profit

Do You Have A Roadmap?

Finding And Keeping Loyal Customers

Who’s Running This Business Anyway?

Setting And Reaching Your Business Goals

Tools And Resources To Run A Tight Ship

Includes the Business Overview Mindmap as a Bonus!

How successful could you be if you had the answers to the following questions?

Why do so many people fail to make money online even though they do all the right things?
Why do two people in the same business niche with the same business and marketing tools go on to have one fail while the other succeeds?
Why does someone who has been building their business for years suddenly get surpassed by a ‘newcomer’ from out of nowhere?
Why are some people who seem very successful on the outside not satisfied or happy on the inside?
Are some people just ‘lucky’ while others aren’t?
What does success really mean?

Thesis Premium WordPress Theme: Affordable Customization, SEO, and Support

WordPress ZenMaster — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 01:24:59 +0000

Top WordPress Themes

The Thesis Theme for WordPress is a high-quality theme template system that you can use to improve the design and SEO of your WordPress website easily and affordably.

Use Thesis Theme for Worry Free WordPress SEO

Thesis boasts the strongest SEO of any theme on the market today thanks to an expertly-coded HTML + CSS + PHP framework. The Thesis approach to WordPress customization solves many of the fundamental problems of Website development and design that interfere with search engine efforts to crawl and index your site.

Thesis Theme Streamlines WordPress Customization & Design

Thesis contains an integrated options panel that enables you to fine-tune and customize each and every page of your site. The Thesis WordPress theme gives you code-free control over your WordPress website like you’ve never experienced before.

With the Thesis WordPress theme, you can easily produce unique designs and make sitewide changes, thanks to efficient isolation of design code in just two key files. Thesis inserts squeaky clean code in the background when you make your specifications in its user friendly options panel. You’ll also love how easy it is to change and experiment with layout and font variations with Thesis’ revolutionary layout generator (1, 2, and 3-column layout combinations) and pinpoint font controls. If you’ve read any of my other theme reviews, you’ll know that control over layout within a theme, is a rare and wonderful thing indeed!

Thesis WordPress Theme Provides Support that is Second to None!

When you buy Thesis WordPress theme you get practically unmatched in-house support, video tutorials, and a killer online User Manual. In addition to the developer’s support, there are also tons of amazingly talented users who help newbies and veterans alike in the Thesis forums.

A quote from Chris Pearson – Thesis Theme Developer

As a former freelance designer, I understand how valuable it is to have a template system that is easy to modify. I built Thesis with an emphasis on key details that allow for simple, powerful customization, so even if you only have a limited knowledge of CSS and HTML, you can tweak Thesis and create an awesome, unique design.

Is Thesis worth the money?

There are times to be frugal, and then there are times to invest in the best. You only pay once, and all future upgrades/releases of the theme are free. Thesis has an affordable price tag which is, in my opinion, under-priced when you consider the SEO benefits, the incredible support, and all the time saving customization features built in.

Thesis is an excellent investment for the online entrepreneur who builds custom sites with WordPress, values their time, and wants a reliable foundation for their WordPress SEO.

Visit the Thesis WordPress Theme site for Thesis demo, forums, and a User Manual that will blow your socks off!