What is WordPress SEO and why is it different to other types of SEO?

WordPress SEO is different from other types of SEO because it is done on a WordPress install, which works differently from other types of websites.

Not all websites are the same. While they all use combinations of code, Javascript, and CSS on the front end, they all work very differently on the back end.

WordPress is a collection of files that come together to form your website:

1. The WordPress install
2. Your WordPress theme
3. Plugins
4. The content that you add and upload

These four things come together to form most WP sites, and each needs to be optimised (to a greater or lesser degree) to make your site as fast as possible.

This is one of the first stages of SEO, which is WordPress technical SEO.

Other sites are built using other methods, which is why you will find experts in Drupal SEO, Joomla SEO and so on.

I specialise in improving the SEO of WordPress sites exclusively because I design, develop, and build WordPress sites—I know the platform inside out.

Sure, I could apply some of my knowledge to a WIX site, but one of the crucial bits, the technical SEO, would take me far longer than an experienced WIX user.

What things are unique to WordPress SEO?

As I have mentioned, technical SEO for WordPress can only be done by someone who understands the WP ecosystem.

It’s not just a case of adding a few plugins or themes, trying different configurations and hoping for the best: your SEO expert needs an in-depth understanding of how your site works and how it’s built to do the SEO effectively.

Here’s a breakdown of the list above and how these things affect your WordPress SEO:

Your WP Install.

These are pretty much all the same: You download it from WordPress.org, install it on your server, and update it when necessary.

However, the same WP install can run faster or slower depending on where it’s hosted.

If you host your WordPress site on a cheap-as-chips server that hosts thousands of other sites, it will be slower than a WordPress install on a faster or dedicated server.

Hosting is not all the same, so the general rule of thumb is that the cheaper your hosting, the slower it will be.

Cheap hosts pile 1000s of sites on each hosting server, and more expensive hosts have fewer sites per server.

More expensive hosting companies also have better networks, reduce latency, offer server location options, integrate with Cloudflare, and so on, all of which improve your site’s speed.

SEO tip: One thing to remember here is that sometimes a vanilla WP install runs just as quickly on a fast and slow host; however, the minute you add themes, plugins and content to the site, the slow server starts to struggle, and your page speed scores plummet.

Plugins.

Other CMS systems have plugins but none on the scale of WordPress.

There are 1000s of free, freemium and premium plugins for WP sites that add functionality to your site.

As you merrily add plugin after plugin to your site to gain additional functions, you are also slowing your site down, making the server work harder and potentially causing incompatibility issues.

This is why the person SEO-ing your WordPress install needs to know how plugins work, which ones cause issues and how best to deal with any problems caused.

SEO tip: Good developers will use plugins to save money but perform custom work to save you speed. Many plugins can do simple things (zero coding needed) but are heavy and slow down your site; these should be replaced with custom code to lighten the load.

Themes.

Just like plugins, there are 1000s of themes for WordPress.

Some of these are bare-bones, fast, and straight out of the box; others are slow and require additional optimisation work to get the Page Speed scores you need to rank well.

All themes are not created equal, so it’s important that you choose the right WP theme for your site before you go adding 1000 blogs to it; if you pick a donkey, your site will be slugging around until you swap out the theme (when doing this, more content equals more time/cost).

Pro tip: You need to remember that the theme you just bought of Theme Forest for 49 bucks is trying to be all things to all people, so it might do some of the stiff you need, but it’s going to do a shit-tonne of other stuff you don’t – and all that superfluous code is going to slow down your site.

Your content.

WordPress has its database system and stores content differently from other content management systems.

Everything you add to your site and how you add it potentially slows your site down.

Uploading large images or videos, creating pages that are too big, or not optimising your URL structure correctly can all shave time off your page load scores.

When adding content to your WordPress site, you must always consider SEO, not just the keyword density of your text content.

SEO Tip: There are also categories and tags to consider when creating WordPress content, as each new one adds a new URL. While this does not usually reduce your site’s speed, it can affect your SEO. You end up with many URLs that are indexed but of little value, dragging your whole site down in the SERPs as a result.

This is why you need an experienced WP SEO expert.

First, I am not saying that someone without 100% WP experience cannot optimise a WP site—of course, they can do on-page, internal linking, and so on, but one of the core aspects of setting the core foundations for great SEO is great technical optimisation.

If you skip the technical SEO, you could be paying someone to waste their time (and your money) optimising a site that will always underperform.

• The above is a good starting point if you have inherited a WordPress site and are used to using other CMS systems.
• If you have been using WordPress for some time and your SEO does not seem to be getting you anywhere, it could be that whoever is doing it does not know the unique things you need to optimise on a WordPress site.

Once you have the install, theme, plugins and content optimised, you can move on to the ‘more standard forms’ of SEO that apply to all websites, but you need to do these first.