Prevent these SEO Mistakes to Happen on Your WordPress Website (Part 1)

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In 2019, 34.3% of websites are powered by WordPress. That’s more than 1/3 of the total number of websites. To put it simply, 1 in 3 websites are using WordPress.

Obviously, WordPress is the people’s choice when it comes to search engine optimization. If you want to create a website, WordPress and SEO go hand in hand. However, just because everyone is choosing WordPress, it doesn’t mean things will be easier.

Wordpress dashboard reflected on a Macbook Air

There are still SEO mistakes that you need to know and you need to avoid at all costs.

1. No Time Zone Was Set.

  • This is one common mistake. Since signing up will require a lot of information from the user, many newbies tend to forget this crucial part. It’s important to select and set your own time zone. To do this, you need to go to setting and choose general section.
  • If you don’t, you will be surprised why a “scheduled post” was not published on time. Know your preferred time zone and set it at that. So, your future blog posts will follow that same time zone.
  • Be sure to check and set the proper time zone so that you can guarantee to produce timely blog posts and article. AND NOT POST SOMETHING A DAY BEHIND!

2. No Specific Goals Were Set.

  • In Google Analytics, you will have an idea on what your stats are. Yes, measuring the website metrics is important in analyzing if your SEO efforts were successful or not. However, you need to know WHAT YOU WANT.
    • Are you after the visits? Do you want to achieve 2 million views per month? Do you want more people to read your article?
    • Are you after the sales? Do you need more sales than page views?
  • See, you need to have specific goals before you start measuring the stats. If you want views, then, focus on views. If you want sales, focus on the product transactions. You can’t measure all at once. First, you need to take it slow. You can’t just implement multiple strategies at once. In the end, you will never know what works and what does not if you decide to monitor everything you see.

3. You Did Not Enable the Social Media Sharing.

  • Social media shares do not affect your website ranking, but it does help in advertising your website on other digital platforms.
  • The more people will see the social media post, the more clicks you will reciev for your website.
  • No doubt, social media shares can give you a boost. Hence, you would want as many clicks as possible, right?

Related: How to Use Social Media in Boosting Brand Awareness

  • So, have the open graph data activated for Facebook. To enable social sharing on Facebook, simply toggle the button in the Yoast SEO settings.
  • Then, the WordPress article will be automatically be posted the linked Facebook account.

4. No XML Sitemap Was Submitted.

  • You may ask, “What is an XML sitemap?” Well, it is a list of every post, page, and piece of media on your website. For Google to know what’s on your website, this list SHOULD be uploaded to your Google Search Console.
  • For you to get your sitemap, just go to the SEO section of your Yoast SEO plugin and choose XML Sitemaps. Make sure you have enabled the option and you can view it. Lastly, don’t forget to upload this XML sitemap to Google Search Console.