If you have a WordPress website and you want it to appear in Google search results it’s a simple process.
You’ll need to make sure you have a few things set up correctly on your WordPress website, and then submit your sitemap to Google Search Console, which is a free service.
I will cover the basics of SEO (search engine optimisation) and provide some tips that will help you improve your ranking on Google. Follow these simple steps and you will be on your way to increased traffic and better visibility for your business!
Install Rank Math SEO Plugin for WordPress
The first step is to install the Rank Math SEO Plugin for WordPress. This plugin will help you to optimise your website for Google search.
It is a free plugin that is available in the WordPress repository.
Open the Setup Wizard
Once you have installed the plugin, you will be taken to the Setup Wizard page where Rank Math will guide you through the process of setting up the plugin.
(You can manually open Setup Wizard by navigating to plugins, and under Rank Math SEO click on the link "Setup Wizard")
I recommend that you select 'Advanced' when prompted, as this will give you full control of the plugin's features and settings.
Your Site and Business Info
Choose the sector your business trades in, add your company name, and add logos.
This creates an organisation markup schema that helps Google understand your business, and can result in better visibility on SERPs.
Connect Your Rank Math Account to Google Search Console
This is a free service provided by Rank Math that allows you to submit your website and track its performance in Google Search results.
Google will then verify that you own the website and you will be able to access all of the features of Google Search Console.
One of the most important things you can do with Search Console is to submit your sitemap, which Rank Math does automatically. A sitemap is a file that contains all of the pages on your website and tells Google which pages are listed on your website.
You can view the sitemap on your site by typing in your URL with a slug "sitemap_index.xml" for example example.ie/sitemap_index.xml, this page is friendly for Googlebots, and it allows them to crawl all the pages that are listed on your website.
Configure Sitemap
Ensure that you have selected all the post types and taxonomies(categories) that you want to include in the sitemap, you may also see more public post types on a more developed WordPress website that uses custom post types that are hardcoded or added via CPT UI WordPress plugin.
Optimise SEO Tweaks
I would recommend activating all SEO Tweaks.
Noindex categories will ensure empty pages are not indexed, no one wants to see empty category pages.
Nofollow relation will not rank the site you are referring to, it can impact your SEO if you are sending people from your website to a low domain rating external website.
Open external links is a great way to keep users on your site, when you have an external link and they click on it, it will open a new tab, which will allow them to easily navigate back to your website once they have finished reading the content you have recommended on an external website.
After completing this state you can go into the advanced setup Schema Markups, where you can set the type of content, posts, pages and custom post types to be shown.
Bonus Tips:
Once you have completed the setup of Rank Math, go to any of the pages and you will see the Rank Math section at the bottom.
Add the keyword you want to rank for
It also gives your page a score out of 100, which is very useful as it allows you to track the progress of your pages. This is a great way to quickly identify and fix any issues that your website page has.
Improve Content
You can make content improvements by looking at the recommendations below to improve your score.
Add Meta Description
The description doesn't affect SEO, but it certainly improves the CTR (click-through rate) from Google search results, as you can add better descriptive text that will be shown in search results. Keep in mind that Google may decide to generate its own meta description, and we have no control over this.
I hope this blog post has helped you to understand how to get your WordPress website on Google Search. If you have any questions, please email artur@vmdigital.ie and I will be happy to help.
