6 WordPress SEO Tips for Epic Rankings in 2023

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If you are familiar with WordPress, then you probably know that it’s one of the best CMS (content management systems) for a fully SEO-optimized website.

This is because of the thousands of plugins that you can easily install on your WordPress website, helping your rankings increase in Google.

Not only that but it’s open-source so it has evolved over the last 15 years to become one of the best CMS platforms for SEO.

But if you haven’t done any optimization then your site is probably not gonna get high rankings. Lucky for you, I am going to show you some of the best WordPress SEO tips in 2023.

Install Schema Tags

Schema tags are not exactly new, but they are becoming more and more important to increase your rankings in 2023 and beyond.

Schema tags are a piece of code added to a web page or pages that give search engines more information and data about your site.

Setting up schema tags on your website sounds difficult but its actually pretty simple.

There are hundreds of free tools that allow you to create schema snippets that you can easily install on your site.

Here are the best Schema Tag Plugins for WordPress:

If you are interested in learning even more about schema tags and how to implement the Schema Pro plugin, check out my last video on how I increased our traffic 300% with schema tags.

I will show you exactly how to implement schema tags and get more relevant traffic in Google.

Google My Business

Google My Business is a portal for business owners to add and verify their businesses in Google.

Simply head to Google My Business and add your Business using the simple form provided by Google. Once you add your business, Google will send the provided address a postcard with a secret code on it. Upon receiving this postcard (usually takes a week or so) you can enter the code in Google My Business to verify your business with Google.

Once you have verified your business make sure that you include the following in your listing for better results:

  • Upload as many photos as possible. Take pictures of your business (inside and out). The more photos the better
  • Choose the correct category for your business
  • Add a local phone number to your listing
  • Submit a business address that is consistent with your website
  • Add and verify an email address with your domain
  • Invite other local businesses into your circle
  • Create local events with locations near your business

You will see a lot more traffic to your WordPress site if you have an active Google My Business location.

EAT

When it comes to WordPress SEO tips, you may have heard more and more about EAT since the medic update in August 2018.

Eat stands for Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness. This acronym was created by Google in their SEO Starter Kit to give a blueprint of building quality content that ranks well in Google.

On the other side of EAT, Google came up with the acronym YMYL to remove or de-rank un-quality content in Google SERPs. YMYL stands for your money, your life and refers to content that can impact users’ happiness, health, or wealth.

eat vs ymyl

For example, if you are a high school student but are writing about how to cure cancer, your content will likely never rank?

Why?

Because you are not a doctor (well, some of you may be).

Google is only going to rank medical content from trustworthy, and authority sites like WebMD, Healthline, and other sites that have actual doctors writing the content.

So let’s break down each part of EAT and explain how it can impact your SEO.

Expertise

Expertise refers to the creator of the content.

In order for a piece of content to rank well, the writer must have expertise in the subject matter.  This can be everyday expertise as well.

For example, if you are a frequent restaurant go-er than you have everyday expertise in food and restaurants. 

You don’t have to be a master chef to have everyday expertise in restaurants.

Authority

Authority refers to the website as a whole, the content itself and the content creator.

This means you should be generally recognized as an authority in your field. 

But how do you become an authority in your field?

You can get mentions from other authority sites, get reviews, recommendations, or references from those sites as well.

Once you are seen as an authority, your website and content will rank a lot better.

Trustworthiness

Lastly, Trustworthiness is pretty self-explanatory.

You must be trusted that you can provide honest and reliable content that is accurate. This is not only your content but your website security, inbound link profile, reviews, and overall site quality.

So you could say that having a bad web design or a slow website is bad for trustworthiness.

Just be sure to follow the EAT guidelines and you will see great rankings in 2023.

Table of Contents

Adding a table of contents to your content can both help increase the user experience of your site as well as help you rank better in Google.

When you use a table of contents, it allows users to click to certain sections of your content and easily access specific topics in your content.

This also can create ‘Jump to’ links in the SERPs which increases CTR and search rankings. Jump-to links are special links on your SERP listing that allow the searcher to click right to a specific topic in your content.

table of contents serp

Implementing a table of contents doesn’t have to be difficult. If you are using WordPress, there are plenty of plugins you can use to easily generate tables of contents with jump-to links and everything.

You can also use simple HTML table tags,  a-tags, and hash links to create a table of contents.

User Experience

User Experience or UX refers to the experience your website provides to visitors.

A lot of things go into the UX like mobile-friendly design, search intent, quality content, and site speed.

When your website has a good experience people stay longer, decreasing dwell time, increasing CTR and skyrocketing your rankings.

To check your website’s CTR, you can connect Google Search Console and see the click-through rate in Google SERPs under the Performance tab.

search console performance

What is a good click-through rate?

It really depends on the keyword, if its branded, search intent, and a number of other factors but on average, you should shoot for 5% or higher.

Find pages on your site that aren’t performing well and optimize them better for that keyword.

If your CTR is low, that means that either your content is not what the searcher is looking for or your meta information doesn’t match the intent of the keyword being searched.

Try updating the page’s meta title and description to better match the keyword’s search intent and measure the results in 30 days.

Build Relevant Backlinks

Backlinks should still be the #1 priority in your SEO strategy for 2023.

The more quality and relevant backlinks you have pointing to your pages, the better results you will have overall.

This year, we saw a lot of updates on the Google algorithm. Backlinks profiles are being examined a lot closer by the algorithm and a lot of attention has been brought onto spammy links.

Backlinks should be relevant to your website or content and have higher domain authority.

What is a high Domain Authority?

Anything above a DA of 20-30 is plenty good.

Anchor tags should not be as optimized as they once were as this is not natural in Google’s eyes.

Instead, try using naked URLs or branded URLs. I would recommend using 20% optimized anchors, 40% naked URLs and the rest can be a mixture of click here URLs and branded anchors.

Here are examples of what each anchor/URL type means:

  • Optimized Anchors: Best WordPress SEO Service
  • Naked URLs: https://wpseoexperts.com
  • Branded Anchors: WordPress SEO
  • Natural Anchors: Click Here

Conclusion

In conclusion, there are many new ways to optimize your WordPress website in 2023 and beyond. Implement these strategies and you will see more traffic, sales and leads coming in 2023.

With the use of relevant backlinks and optimized technical SEO factors, your WordPress website will bring in new customers every day.

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