WordPress is the most popular CMS platform in the world and is still growing in popularity. WordPress does not require complete expert knowledge of PHP like Drupal or Joomla, but programming knowledge is required to make customizations. There are many pre-developed templates and plug-ins that can be used and depending on your goals these may or may not be a good option.
There are many SEO plug-ins for WordPress and these plug-ins do help but do not do all of the work. One of the most popular plug-ins is Yoast SEO which makes optimizing your site easier and does offer additional baked-in SEO best practices. It is still important if you’re looking to rank for major keywords, to work with an expert SEO company that can guide your business through the search marketing process. WordPress is open source, meaning code can be modified and customized as needed. The most popular websites that use WordPress are basic websites and smaller content-based websites.
Typical WordPress SEO Challenges
With WordPress, as with many platforms, the front-end design and code of the website can make a huge impact on the success of the SEO campaign. Working with a WordPress SEO company that understands development will allow them to be sure your theme is as search engine friendly as possible. Over the years we’ve seen some pretty bad themes that really hurt SEO efforts.
Choosing the right plug-ins can be a challenge. Depending on how your website was designed and the number of pages and posts on your site, different plug-ins may make sense. Also, remember even the best WordPress SEO plug-ins need to be configured and it doesn’t do the work for you, it simply makes it easier. Often people install a plug-in and think it takes care of everything. The reality is the plug-ins often merely give you the capabilities to now do proper SEO, or help to make the website more SEO friendly, but someone still needs to perform SEO to boost organic traffic.
Breadcrumbs within WordPress can be difficult, especially if you’re looking to develop an eCommerce website using the WordPress platform. Be sure to discuss the breadcrumb issue with your SEO team and developers. Breadcrumbs can really help Google to understand your website and site architecture, so it is great to have them if you can. It’s very important your website is SEO friendly to begin with as it will make growing your organic traffic a quicker process.