We've closed out January and there's no time like the present to recap on a few WordPress SEO tips for the New Year. These tips will help you advance your SEO goals using All in One SEO Pack Pro. We've listed a few things you can do with All in One SEO Pack Pro and provided additional resources that might prove useful as you ramp up your SEO efforts in 2016.
1. Set your SEO Title and Description for your Home page
In the past, WordPress was mainly a blogging platform. Today, WordPress has advanced into a full fledged Content Management System. If you have a website, you may have set your home page as a static front page the WordPress admin under Settings > Reading (https://codex.wordpress.org/Settings_Reading_Screen).
It is important to set your home title and description, because this is what Google may use in search results. Remember, Google does not have to use the Title and Description you set. Search engines such as Google have the right to display whatever they wish.
If your home page is set as a static front page, you can decide whether you want to set the SEO Title and Description for your home page under All in One SEO > General Settings > Home Page Settings, as shown below.
Or, you can enable “Use Static Front Page instead. Clicking the radio button to enable “Use Static Front Page Instead” hides the Home Title, Home Description and Home Keywords fields. You can then set your SEO Title and Description on the page you assigned as your static front page instead.
Of course, when you enable “Use Static Front Page Instead,” remember to edit your Home page and use the All in One SEO Main panel to apply your SEO Title and Description.
2. Disable Keywords
It is widely known by professional SEOs that Google no longer uses meta keywords as part of their ranking algorithm. This is for the simple reason that black hat SEOs were abusing meta keywords by stuffing as many keywords as they could. Google's search intelligence evolved, and in 2009 the stopped using meta keywords as a ranking signal. Many search engines followed Google and no longer use meta keywords
We typically recommend disabling meta keywords so you don't have to worry about them. We've given you the option to enable or disable keywords under All in One SEO > General Settings > Keyword Settings.
There may be some edge cases where you may still want to use meta keywords, these could be where search crawlers from other search engines or web services companies may use keywords for various reasons. To keep Keywords Settings available, simply click “Enabled”.
3. Set your SEO Title and Description on all Pages and Posts
When creating content on our websites, we sometimes use long post titles that go beyond the maximum of 60 characters Google uses when displaying the title of a post in a search engine result. Or, we may have a page title that is short. For example, we might have a page simply titled: Music.
With All in One SEO Pack, we can set a title and a description that search engines may use in search results. We can use the Preview Snippet to show how this might look in search results. You control this on the Main Settings panel of the All in One SEO Pack section on the Edit Post/Edit Page screen shown below.
Remember to abide by the quality guidelines set forth by the search engines, such as making sure you stay within the character limit and that all titles and descriptions are unique, no duplicates are permitted. Also remember that search engines do not have to use the title and description you provide. You can read more about this here – http://ml.aioseo.com/faqs/why-doesnt-the-title-and-description-i-set-appear-in-search-results/
You may see grey text in the title and description fields, this is because All in One SEO Pack can auto generate them for you. We strongly recommend, however, that you write your own titles and descriptions and don't rely on the auto generated ones.
4. Create an XML Sitemap and submit it to Google and Bing
An XML sitemap is a special file that search engines check for. This file contains a list of all the URLs on your website. Having an XML sitemap enabled on your site and submitting it to both Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools is an essential step in good SEO.
All in One SEO Pack includes an XML Sitemap module. Simply active this module under All in One SEO > Feature Manager. The screenshot below shows the basic configuration in All in One SEO Pack.
Don't forget to submit your XML sitemap to Google and Bing by using Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.
5. Set your Social Meta for Social Sharing
With social sharing both driving traffic and indicating the popularity of a post, many SEOs believe social metrics are now included in Google's algorithm as a ranking signal. It would be difficult for Google to ignore content that goes viral and logical Google would see that post as authoritative content.
It's far easier for content to be shared now that most WordPress sites use social sharing bars like the ones from AddtoAny, AddThis, Sharethis, or the sharing tools now included in Jetpack. There are also cross-posting plugins which publish status updates to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest, Tumblr, and other social media sites.
Because of this, you should make sure your content is optimized for social media networks. There's no time like the present to review your content to ensure that you've optimized your content to display images, titles, and descriptions on social media feeds.
You can enable Social Meta in All in One SEO Pack by going to All in One SEO > Feature Manager. We've created a Beginners Guide to help you through the steps needed to configure the Social Meta module – Beginners Guide to Social Meta.
Special Offer
Thanks for taking a minute to view this post. For our readers, we've got a special offer. Take 30% OFF of All in One SEO Pack Pro with Coupon Code: 30FEB2016 here.
Want to Try AIOSEO for Free?
Enter the URL of your WordPress website to install AIOSEO Lite.
Disclosure: Our content is reader-supported. This means if you click on some of our links, then we may earn a commission. We only recommend products that we believe will add value to our readers.
Wow I once imagined how this All in one seo plugin will be available for blogger blog one day, here it is I’ve finally gotten it. I didn’t even waste time to apply it on my blog
It’s been some months now since I added it to my blog but am yet to get any positive results. Please what do you think might be wrong?
I remember some of those sites that crammed keywords into them just for ranking. They were some of the worse sites made. Every once and a while you will still find some of these websites on line.