In a digital world where good search engine optimization plays a crucial role in your website’s visibility, setting up a solid permalink structure is essential. And when we say permalink structure, we mean all the permalinks that can be found on your website, such as pages, posts, and even categories and tags.

Luckily, if you’re a WordPress user, this popular CMS platform comes with different solutions right out the box that allow you to make a permalink structure that is search engine and user-friendly. And in case you want more detailed customization, there are different plugins at your disposal capable of elevating your permalink strategy to a whole new level.

Before we begin sharing our tips and exploring different ways in which you can create and set up WordPress custom permalinks, let’s take a brief look at what a permalink is and why it’s so important for your website in the first place.

What is a Permalink and Why It Is Important

Derived from the words “permanent” and “link”, permalinks represent the URLs of the content on your WordPress site, including your pages, posts, categories, tags, and so on. People copy and paste these permalinks in order to access a certain page or post on your site, while search engines use them to link to your website. As for the custom permalink, it is a URL structure used for a particular WordPress page set in a way that doesn’t affect the settings of other permalinks or your WordPress URL structure as a whole.

Permalinks are important because, in a way, they represent your content and can let people know what they can expect if they click on a certain page or post, which can encourage more people to check them out. Likewise, permalinks indicate to search engines what the page or post is going to be about, which can have a positive impact on your page ranks and, by extension, the visibility of your content. That’s why it’s highly recommended that you assign appropriate permalink names to different types of content on your WordPress website.

Additionally, setting up a solid permalink structure can also help you prevent having any duplicate permalinks on your website. For example, if you have two posts with the same title, you can easily differentiate them by adding different date and time stamps to each permalink.

Now that you have a general idea of why taking care of your permalinks is important, let’s see what WordPress has in store when it comes to customizing permalinks in a way that will be most beneficial to your website.

Apart from allowing you to set the main permalink structure, WordPress also lets you customize URLs of your individual posts, pages, categories, tags, and other types of content. There are even different plugins you can use for creating completely custom permalinks when it comes to specific website areas.

Without further ado, here’s a detailed guide on how to create custom permalinks in WordPress:

Best Practices for WordPress Permalinks

Before we dive into the practicalities of changing the permalinks and creating custom ones, let’s quickly go through some of the best practices for your permalink structure. The general advice is basically the same as for URLs in general. When it comes to SEO, which is among the most pressing concerns, there are certain rules for creating an SEO-friendly URL structure, so make sure to check them out.

Your permalinks should be:

In some cases, you will want to use URL shorteners. These have nothing to do with how you structure your permalinks since they are going to be cloaked and displayed differently. URL shorteners are ideal for affiliate links and for linking on social media. However, don’t rely on them too much for shortening your permalinks. They should be short and descriptive from the start.

Finally – and we can’t stress this strongly enough – make sure your permalinks are indeed permanent. They should be created in a way that’s sustainable in the long run. If, however, you do have to change the permalink for your page or post, do not forget to set up 301 redirects. Otherwise, you will have broken links.

How to Change the Structure of Your Permalinks

By default, WordPress uses the plain format to display your permalinks. This means that if you don’t take care of the permalink structure of your WordPress site right away, your permalinks will look something like this:

https://example.com/?p=123

That doesn’t look really informative or search-engine friendly, does it?

Fortunately, as we already mentioned, WordPress lets you set the permalink structure in a way that is more readable and SEO-friendly in general.

All you have to do is go to Settings >> Permalinks in your admin dashboard.

Once there, among the Common Settings, you can change the way your permalinks will look. As you can see, we chose the option that allows your posts to be displayed by a post name, which allows for a more detailed and descriptive structure in general:

Don’t forget to save your settings when you’re done for the changes to take effect.

If you have a new website or blog, we advise you to apply the permalink structure that includes a post name in the URL. Also, it’s best to do this sooner than later, as changing permalinks can and does affect your SEO rankings.

How to Change the Default Category and Tag URL Prefix in WordPress

The default setting used in WordPress for categories is /category/, while /tag/ is used for all the tag pages. An example would look something like this:

https://example.com/category/business
https://example.com/tag/startup

If you want, you can easily change this default setting by heading to Settings >> Permalinks. In the Optional section, you have the option to insert custom names that will override the default WordPress settings. You can use any name that you see fit. For example, you can name your category base as “topics”, or your tag base as “hashtags”:

If you choose these names, your category and tag URLs will look something like this:

https://example.com/topics/business
https://example.com/hashtags/startup

How to Change the URLs of Individual WordPress Posts or Pages

As soon as you set the general permalink structure, WordPress will use it for all the links on your website. However, you can easily override these settings on individual pages or posts, if you want. This can be done by changing the URL slug inside the URL of a page, post, or custom post type (like WooCommerce products, for example). The slug is generated automatically, according to the page or post name itself.

To do this, simply head to the page/post you wish to change and customize your URL slug within the page/post editor itself. You will find the option to change it on the right side of your editor screen, in the Permalink dropdown.

Note that this applies to editing your permalink before publishing the article. The procedure is the same for changing the URL of your already published posts and pages, but with one major caveat: if you change the URL in any way, it will result in broken links. To fix this, you will need to set up redirects for the posts and pages you changed the URL for. We’ll explain how to do this at the end of this article. The same goes for changing the permalinks for your products, categories and tags.

How to Change Individual WordPress Category or Tag URLs

Aside from customizing your default category and tag prefixes (which we showed you in one of the steps above), you can change the slug of individual categories and tags as well.

Go to Posts >> Categories, find the category you wish to change the URL name of, and hit the Edit button.

An editing screen will appear, showing you some additional category settings. You will be able to change the slug of your category here.

Similarly, you can also edit the slug of a tag. You can do this by accessing Posts >> Tags and then clicking the Edit button of the tag whose URL you wish to change.

How to Change a WordPress Author Page URL

When it comes to WordPress author pages, there’s the /author/ base prefix that is automatically added to them. Like this:

https://example.com/author/maryanne

If you want to change this base prefix or the author slug itself, you’ll need the help of a plugin called Edit Author Slug.

After you install the plugin and activate it, access the Users >> All Users page and click the Edit button located under the username whose permalink structure you wish to change.

Once the Edit User admin screen opens, scroll down until you find the Edit Author Slug section. Here, you will be able to choose from different slug combinations, or you can simply add a custom one. Just make sure to hit the Update User button for the changes to take effect.

For changing the default author permalink prefix, go to Settings >> Edit Author Slug. Once there, you will be able to see the option to change the author base at the very top. Also, you will be able to set the author base according to the author’s role.

How to Create Custom Permalinks in WordPress

If you want to override the default settings of your permalink structure and change custom permalinks for only specific areas of your site, there is a plugin that can help you out with this.

First things first, you should install and activate the plugin called Custom Permalinks. This plugin gives you complete control over your website’s permalink structure and lets you assign custom permalinks for individual posts, pages, tags, and categories.

First, you need to access the editing screen of your page or post. You will be able to see the option to create your custom permalink right below the editor.

If you want, you can create custom permalinks for your tags and categories as well.

For categories, head to the Posts >> Categories page and click the Edit button under the category whose permalink structure you wish to change. The same rules apply for setting up the permalink structure for your tags – you just need to head to Posts >> Tags instead.

Scroll down a bit once you’re in the Edit Category page, and you will notice the option called Custom Permalink. Aside from letting you change the slug, this option also allows you to leave out the category base prefix entirely when creating the URL.

Moreover, by clicking on Custom Permalinks in your admin dashboard, you get to disable all custom permalinks using bulk actions. Just hit the Apply button once you select all the custom permalinks you wish to delete, and your default permalink structure will be activated instead.

How to Set Up Permalink Redirects

Taking care of your redirects is important because it will prevent your users from running into 404 errors. When it comes to post and page URLs, WordPress applies changes and sets up your redirects automatically. But, if you want to set the redirects of your fully customized or author permalinks, you need to use the help of a plugin.

We recommend using the Redirection plugin for this task.

After you’re done with installing and activating the Redirection plugin, go to Tools >> Redirection in your WordPress dashboard.

Setting up your redirects is quite easy. All you have to do is insert the old URL in the “Source URL” box, and add the new one in the box called “Target URL”.

Finally, hit the Add redirect button to store your changes and you’re all set.

Conclusion

An easily readable permalink structure can be a great boost for your website’s SEO since it can help define the way users and search engines see the URLs of your content. As you can see from all the instructions we presented above, setting up a solid permalink structure in WordPress is quite easy. Aside from the standard permalink system that comes with WordPress by default, there are also different types of plugins you can install and use for more in-depth customization of all your permalinks. This includes permalinks for your posts, pages, categories, tags, and even user roles.

And just a final note before we go – the sooner you take care of your website’s permalink structure, the better. After all, changing your permalinks when you already have tons of posts and pages can be a bit challenging. That’s why we advise you to use one permalink structure from the very beginning and stick to it. But, in case you still end up changing your mind at some point, you have the option to set up 301 redirects in WordPress to prevent your website from losing traffic.

Your content is most likely the main driver of traffic to your WordPress website, and quality content is paramount. However, you shouldn‘t neglect the other side of the coin: WordPress metrics. They are a useful tool, indispensable when measuring the effectiveness of your content. You may have already implemented Google Analytics or any of the other analytics tools, and you may already have a huge pile of visitor data to work from.

But parsing all that data is not easy, especially if you are short on staff – or even a one-person show, as most personal blogs and websites are. There must be a way to sift through it all without becoming overwhelmed. It can’t be that all data are created equal. Surely you don‘t really need all the information you have access to all the time. If that‘s what you‘re thinking, you‘re right.

We are here to talk about WordPress metrics, and which ones are the most important for which purpose. Here‘s what we‘ll be discussing:

Number of Visits

The number of visits, or sessions, is the first quantitative measure of your website‘s presence online. A visit or session is the single instance of a unique visitor accessing your website, and it can include many page views, as a visitor can browse your website without leaving it.

You can infer a great deal from the number of visits alone: for instance, whether the number of visitors is rising or dropping. This will let you know whether your website is gaining popularity or not, and, consequently, whether you need to make adjustments to your content creation strategy.

Time and Duration of Visit

The time of day or day of the week when you get the most of your traffic is the WordPress metric which can reliably tell you when is the best time to publish on your website to reach the most visitors. This is especially helpful if your visitors are following your RSS feed or if you have automated Twitter or Facebook sharing.

Visit duration is a good indicator of your website‘s bounce rate: if it is too low, visitors are likely to leave your website convinced it doesn‘t have the content they want. A very short visit is called a bounce, and, while it is a persistent SEO myth that the bounce rate is a ranking factor, it does affect your website‘s authority indirectly.

Returning Visitors

When it comes to visits, you might also want to look into the number of return visits. Depending on the kind of website you‘re running, the ratio of single to returning visitors can mean that your visitors do not appreciate your content, or that your website does not contain the information they are looking for.

Exit Rate and Exit Pages

Exit rate is a metric that shows the average percentage of visitors exiting from the pages on a website. Since visitors always end up leaving at some point, every website will have a certain percentage, but it’s important that it’s not too high, as it may indicate serious performance issues. This is especially true for high exit rates on checkout pages, which usually indicate cart abandonment.

Exit rate is not to be confused with bounce rate. Bounce rate reveals the percentage of visitors leaving without navigating to any other page on a website. If this number is high, it may be a cause for concern. Fortunately, there are plenty of things you can do to reduce bounce rates on your website.

Exit rate, on the other hand, refers to exiting the entire session. More than the actual exit rate, you will want to focus on exit pages. This metric shows you which pages were the last in a session for your users. Some exit pages are “natural” points for leaving a website, for instance, checkout pages. However, if your content pages or landing pages are frequently measured as exit pages, you may want to look into the possible causes. These may include poor UX, broken links, thin content, structure errors, layout or design issues and content that does not meet user intent.

Countries of Origin

This WordPress metric is very important if you are catering to an international audience. Knowing where your visitors come from can be useful when determining your content creation strategy, but also your website language settings, your marketing campaigns, special offers, loyalty programs, and the like.

And not only that: some search engines have regional popularity. If a significant portion of your visitors comes from Russia, for instance, you should invest in optimising your website for Yandex as well as Google and other internationally popular search engines – provided your budget can support it.

Most Popular Posts and Pages

Another useful thing to know is which of your posts bring in the most traffic and which pages your visitors spend the most time on. Most popular posts and pages is the WordPress metric which can tell you just that.

Once you have a handle on the type of content your visitors prefer, you will be able to create more similar content and further drive the traffic numbers up. Just be sure to do your keyword research and avoid diluting your website‘s impact through keyword cannibalization.

You can use your most popular content as a special most popular posts widget, especially if it is not seasonal or time-sensitive. Your evergreen content has a lot of uses, and you should leverage it to the best of your ability.

And while you‘re enjoying the traffic to your most popular content, don‘t forget to use this metric to identify underperforming content as well, and fix it.

Conversion Rate

For most websites, conversions are what it’s all about. In the majority of cases, website owners want their visitors to perform a certain action, rather than just browse or read through passively. A conversion can be any event you want it to be – anything that matters to you. It can be a filled form, a digital goods download, newsletter or trial sign-up, and for eCommerce websites it will be a completed purchase.

Conversion rate or CVR is therefore the key metric that shows at which rate your visitors are doing what you want them to do. It is measured in your preferred analytics tool, where it’s usually very clearly marked as “Conversions.” Websites usually have multiple points of conversion – CTAs, landing pages, checkout pages and so on, so make sure to monitor them all. If these points are not performing well, you will have to work on them to improve them, and that’s precisely why CVR as a metric is so important. There are multiple plugins for improving conversion rate that you may want to check out, and for online shops, make sure to check out these tips for improving the WooCommerce conversions.

Top Google Search Terms

Related to keyword research, you probably want to know how your visitors got to your website in the first place. While, for many, it is through a link on social media or another website (more on that in the subsequent section), for many others the way to your website will be through a search engine. With Google being by far the most popular search engine globally, it stands to reason that you should concentrate on it when figuring out what brings visitors to you.

Referrals

Referrals are links to your website on other websites, typically linking to your articles. The traffic which comes your way through them is referred to as referral traffic. If you know which websites link to yours, you will be able to find more similar websites and offer them cooperation. Your guest posts on other websites might bring in even more traffic.

Your website gets more than just traffic from these links, though: it gets a vote of confidence in the form of a backlink. Backlinks are an important factor in SERP rankings, and you should not waste an opportunity to get one from a high-authority website.

Outbound Links

Outbound links are links on your website which take your visitors to other websites. There are many reasons why your website content may contain links to other websites: perhaps you are referring to somebody else‘s article, or are commenting on something somebody else has posted.

Identifying which of your outbound links are most clicked on can open up a lot of opportunities for cooperation and partnership. You could ask them to refer back to your website if appropriate, or arrange a guest post exchange, to name but two opportunities.

You may also use this metric to figure out what sort of content your visitors are interested in. If you can produce content similar to what you‘re linking to, you may keep them on your website.

Other Traffic Sources

Other ways people might reach your website are social media, e-mail, paid search results, and other reach-extending means. If you are running any kind of reach program, it stands to reason that you should have a handle on its effectiveness.

You may, for instance, find yourself investing a lot of time and effort – and possibly money – into generating content for an email newsletter. If it doesn‘t bring you any significant increase in traffic, you may want to think about making big changes or shutting it down altogether.

Demographics

In more abstract terms, knowing who your visitors are can be very helpful in determining your content creation, marketing, and sales strategies.

Demographics are a broad term, but if you find your visitors predominantly belonging to a certain age or gender segment, or predominantly using a certain type of device, you can make your original content and your ad content more relevant or interesting to them.

If you find your health website gets attention from an older audience, maybe give more attention to senior health issues when determining your content strategy. Is your recipe blog primarily visited by young people? They are likely beginner home cooks, so more basic recipes might be in order.

WordPress Metrics Summed Up

As you can see, there is data that matters more and data that matters less, and it all depends on the type of website it refers to. Don‘t look at this list as a definitive ranking of important vs. unimportant WordPress metrics: if the recent rise in big data has taught us anything, it is that no piece of data is completely worthless. Think of this list instead as a guide into what is what, and, if we can proffer some final advice, stick to what you can use best and expand when you can.

Links are good. Links are what makes the internet… interlinked. They help search engine bots map your website and make your content more accessible to search engine users. The more links, the easier it is for people to get to your website. But what about internal links? These are the links between different pages of your own website, and they serve a similar purpose: they make the important stuff easier to find for your visitors. And creating internal links on your WordPress website can be made easier using internal linking plugins.

Not only does more links pointing to a page make that page rank better on SERPs (search engine results pages), it also makes related pages easier to reach. Links are a core feature of WordPress from its beginnings, but adding multiple links manually can take a lot of time. Similarly to using 404 redirect plugins to automate redirecting processes, you may want to use specialized solutions to help you save time. This is why we have compiled this list of internal linking plugins: plugins which let you simply choose a focus keyword and do the linking automatically.

So,without further ado, here are our picks:

Rank Math

We have covered or mentioned Rank Math in several previous articles, going even so far to call Rank Math our preferred SEO solution. This free plugin has a functionality which enables you to flag any post as pillar content (usually important content or evergreen content which will stay relevant for a long time) and get suggestions for linking to it in any other post.

AIOSEO

AIOSEO, or All in One SEO, is a premium SEO plugin. Among its many functionalities is a link assistant feature, which lets you find opportunities for internal linking easily and quickly. It will crawl your website and present you with a detailed report. All you have to do then is select the links from the report which you want to create.

Pretty Links

Initially created as a link cloaking service, Pretty Links today offers a range of useful features and stands out as one of the best affiliate link management plugins on the market. Use it to create custom or branded links, cloak your long affiliate links but also to track your link clicks and learn who’s clicking on what, and when. Additionally, it helps you automatically link keywords, set up redirects and find broken links. The only downside is that most of the in-depth tracking data comes with the paid version.

Yoast SEO

Yoast SEO is another very popular plugin with a free and a premium version. The premium version is a comprehensive SEO solution, and you can bet that it also has an internal linking feature, unfortunately unavailable in the free version. It works very simply: scans your website content and offers internal linking suggestions.

Tasty Links

Tasty Links is another handy plugin to help you automate linking throughout your website by automatically adding links to the keywords you choose. You can also limit the links if you don’t want them to appear across your entire post content. Tasty Links also helps you easily add “sponsored” and “nofollow” attributes and therefore comply to search engines’ recommendations. On top of all that, you can choose to add disclosure text after your links if you feel it will help you establish a better relationship with your visitors – and you can even turn it on for some users, and off for the others.

Internal Link Juicer

A specialized linking plugin, Internal Link Juicer allows you to create internal links automatically. Simply configure the keywords and anchor texts and let the plugin do the job for you. Apart from this set it and forget it automated linking, you can blacklist and whitelist pages, depending on what you wish to link to or from, customize linking behaviour, and have it all done easily and quickly. And that‘s just the free version of the plugin.

YARPP

YARPP stands for Yet Another Related Posts Plugin. This free plugin uses an algorithm to analyze data such as post titles, tags, categories and content, and then finds related content on your website. It suggests related pages and posts, but also media files. It is easy to use and its powerful algorithm is fully configurable to include and exclude pages or posts from being suggested, tramlining the process for you.

Internal Links Manager

Another free plugin, Internal Links Manager lets you automate internal linking. Simply set a keyword and a target URL, and the plugin will create links whenever a keyword appears on your website. This no frills plugin lets you set the links to nofollow, choose how many times a link should appear on a single page, and set the links to open in a new tab.

Interlinks Manager

Interlinks Manager is a specialized plugin made for link optimization. It first scans your website for internal links, and then offers you analysis on internal and external links. In its pro version, it also offers internal link suggestions and automatic internal linking, these functionalities unfortunately absent from the free version.

Link Whisper

A premium solution, Link Whisper is an AI-powered internal linking plugin. It suggests internal links as you write and edit, finds pages with no internal links to, and can be set to automatically add links based on user input. All you need to do is set a keyword and a target link and click a single button. Link Whisper can also fix broken links, if any, and even suggest links to other websites you own.

It does have a free version, called Link Whisper Free, which offers some basic internal linking functionalities, as well as orphan content reporting and link count reporting.

In Conclusion

As you can see, there is no shortage of solutions for automatic internal link creation. Automation saves time and lets you focus your efforts on more important things. But which one is right for you? If you are looking for a comprehensive SEO solution, and why shouldn‘t you be, we cannot recommend Rank Math enough: it‘s free, it works, and it has the requisite functionality. If you are already using the premium version of Yoast SEO or AIOSEO, then you don‘t need to install anything else: you have all you need.

If you prefer a specialized internal link automation plugin, there is a broad selection of free and premium solutions at your disposal. AI-powered Link Whisper does all you could possibly want to help you automate and optimize internal links, but perhaps you cannot afford the premium version. In that case, why not try Internal Link Juicer for a complex solution, or Internal Links Manager for a more streamlined one? You alone can be the judge of what works best for you, but, whatever it is, it‘s going to be on this list.

SEO is a field that’s known for constant changes due to major search engines’ algorithm updates and the complex dynamics of online marketing trends. However, throughout all that, one thing has remained a staple of good content marketing and search optimization, and that’s keyword research.

Our business WordPress themes are calibrated with SEO demands in mind, and there are plenty of free SEO tools on the market that can help, but keyword research is one of those things that we still have to do by ourselves, for the most part, at least.

In this article, we’re going to talk about keywords and their importance, and we’ll cover some of the basic techniques of keyword research, so buckle up!

If you’d like to skip to any specific part of the article, just click on one of the links below:

• What Are Keywords?

• Do Keywords Still Matter?

• What Is Keyword Research?

• Keyword Research and SEO

• Asking the Right Questions

• How to Discover Keywords?

• What Are Some Common Types of Keywords?

• What is Keyword Difficulty?

• Why Are SERP Features Important?

• Know Your Niche

• Keyword Research Tools

• How to Properly Use Keywords?

What Are Keywords?

Keywords can be described as terms, phrases, ideas or concepts that explain what your content is about. In SEO, specifically, keywords or keyphrases are the search terms people use to find information.

Let’s say you have a website. Take a page from it and try to boil down all its content into a single term or phrase. That’s your keyword for the page in question, if you did your SEO right.

So, a keyword is, at the same time, the search query used in a search engine, and the concentrated description of your web page and its content. By all content, we do mean all: text, images, videos, everything.

It’s important to note that, ideally, a keyword should be both these things: a description or the topic of your content, and a search query term. It’s only when the two coincide that we can actually talk about the correct use of keywords and proper SEO in general.

In order for your pages to rank for specific keywords, you need to use those keywords appropriately. But before you use them in your content, you have to find out what your keywords for a specific page should be. And that’s where keyword research comes in.

Do Keywords Still Matter?

Absolutely, yes, no doubt about it. A lot has changed in terms of social engines’ algorithms over the years and, yes, proper keyword implementation is perhaps not the only thing that guarantees good ranking, but to think that it has lost some of its importance would be insane.

Google MUM (Multitask Unified Model), voice search, zero click search and other advancements have somewhat changed the way search works today, but keyword targeting still remains as relevant as ever. The whole point of keywords is that they represent user intent and help identify search objectives. Now, thanks to AI becoming better and better in understanding the nuances in search input, correlating it to intent, search engines focus more on what they understand as intent than what the actual word is.

By using keywords in meta data and in content, we signal to search engines as to what the content is about and the algorithm then matches it to the user/search intent. Consequently, it’s clear that it is still necessary to use target keywords, otherwise there’ll be no way of aligning the content with search intent it aims to fulfill.

In short, regardless of the ever-evolving search engine logic and behavior, keywords absolutely remain relevant and vital to any SEO strategy.

What Is Keyword Research?

Simply put, keyword research is a set of techniques that we use to discover words, terms or phrases that people use in search engines. It represents an effort to find out what people are searching for and to match those queries with your content.

Ideally, keyword research should produce results (keywords) that describe what you offer, but in a language that your target audience (searchers) would use.

The internet is chock-full of websites from every possible industry and niche. Whatever your specific line of business, chances are there are hundreds of businesses just like yours out there. And what’s worse – most of them probably rank better than your site (no offense).

If this is the case, then it means you’re not using your keywords right and that you need to focus on keyword research. You need to pinpoint exactly which keywords trigger your target audience and produce the desired results (which is: traffic and conversions).

Although it does bear a big, scary name, keyword research is actually not hard to do. However, it is a process with a few rather scientific traits. It is systematic and uses very precise data and data analysis, which we’ll talk about in a bit.

Keyword Research and SEO

Keyword research is one of the pillars of good SEO practice. In fact, it may even be considered the basis upon which all other SEO techniques are executed. It comes before content production, before on-site SEO and, of course, before promotion.

Think of keyword research as a form of traditional market research. It’s your starting point and the point of reference for everything that comes afterward. It helps you feel the pulse of your target audience and sets the direction for your SEO campaign.

Asking the Right Questions

A common ailment of many online businesses is that they don’t understand that what they offer and what they want to rank for can be completely different from what the target audience is searching for. Well, maybe not completely different, but definitely coming in a different form and phrasing. In order to provide the right answers, you need to anticipate the questions, which means – the keywords that are going to be used.

A big part of this anticipation process is figuring out who your audience is. For this, you will have to ask yourself some questions. Let’s say you’re in the bicycle repair business. Some of the useful questions you might want to ask include:

And so on.

As we said earlier, generic, blanket keywords simply won’t do. You need to understand the mindset of your searchers/potential customers. Once you’ve answered these questions, you’ll be one step closer to formulating your perfect keywords. Depending on the audience, those may include cheap bicycle repair, bike repair in Trenton, bike spring overhaul, fast and reliable bicycle repair, cheap kids bikes on sale, bicycle repair and exchange, and so on. You get the idea.

In this process, you have to be equal parts psychologist, anthropologist, sociologist, marketing expert, IT expert and just another average Joe looking things up online.

How to Discover Keywords?

Once you have a general idea as to what your search terms (keywords) should be, it’s time to narrow them down. The next step is to discover as many keywords as you can. Your initial keywords, the ones you want to rank for, should serve as your starting point.

In this phase, it would be a good idea to use a keyword research tool (we’ll talk about those later in this article) to find out similar search terms, ones that you yourself wouldn’t have thought of, but that rank well for your particular topic or niche.

Keyword discovery is important because it allows you to bypass your “blindspot,” and to find all the potentially powerful keywords you initially overlooked. In the case of our bicycle repair shop, you may find that keywords such as how to adjust bike brakes, bicycle parts diagram, mountain bikes maintenance, repairs, bike repair shop near me and similar phrases may help you rank better than the simple bicycle repair shop.

What Are Some Common Types of Keywords?

All keywords can roughly be divided into nine categories. You are probably going to use two or more of these and perhaps some of them won’t be useful for your specific needs, but nevertheless, it’s important to know what they are:

What is Keyword Difficulty?

In simple terms, keyword difficulty refers to how hard it is for your site to rank for a particular search term or keyword. It is a complex metric that many people confuse with keyword competition. Keyword difficulty does encompass competition, but it’s just one of the factors that are taken into consideration when establishing the difficulty for a particular keyword or term.

One of the most important factors that establish keyword difficulty is search volume. Search volume represents the number of searches performed for a particular keyword or term. Depending on the tool you’re using, it can be expressed per month or per a given period (e.g. since May).

(Ahrefs analysis for the keyword bicycle repair)

Once you start researching keywords for your content, you will notice that their search volume varies greatly from one keyword to another, even though they seem similar or almost the same. The devil is in the details and you definitely want to pay extra attention here in order to come up with the perfect keyword.

In this phase of keyword research, the question “What is good search volume?” comes right up but unfortunately, it remains without a universal answer. In many cases, it is definitely better to aim for a keyword that plenty of people search for, but those with a lower search volume tend to come with far less competition.

One thing to keep in mind here is that keywords with very high search volume are often a sign of unclear search intent. This means you may think your visitors came for one thing while in fact they came for something else.

It’s generally a good idea to go for very specific search terms with somewhat lower search volume (and competition), and that’s why so many SEO experts recommend focusing on long-tail keywords.

SERP features are also an important factor for keyword difficulty, although it’s not something you can easily predict. If a result page for a keyword includes a lot of SERP features, like featured snippets, local packs, shopping results and knowledge graphs, the difficulty for that particular keyword will, naturally, increase.

Also, going after the same exact keywords as big, well-established brands, often means fighting a losing battle, especially if you’re only just starting out.

Why Are SERP Features Important?

With SERP features becoming more and more present on result pages and with Google coming up with new features basically each month, it’s important to understand in which format users want to consume the information we deliver to them.

In general, we all want the answers to be quick, direct and super-clear. The format of the results will depend on the search intent. For instance, informational search queries (where the search intent is to get specific information) get direct answer boxes and the searcher gets instant, clear information without having to click on any of the links below this particular search item. If your content provides direct information, your keywords should include terms such as who is, where is, how to, how old, how big, and so on.

We talk about navigational search intent when we want to get to a specific web location. To rank high for this sort of search intent, the keyword should, clearly, involve the name of our web location, or in the case of our website, qode interactive.

Transactional queries are more complex since they involve not just the intent to get something done, to perform a transaction (commercial or otherwise), but they also involve local search.

Bear in mind that whether your pages will turn up in the form of a SERP feature does not depend merely on your keywords. Still, these formats are important because they can teach you a lot about search intent – what people are searching for, and how – which, in turn, can help you gauge your keywords to perfection.

Know Your Niche

Everything we mentioned so far in this article works as an excellent general recommendation for fine-tuning your keywords and getting the most out of content marketing. However, focusing merely on these techniques that apply to pretty much every website can sometimes prevent us from seeing what really matters in our particular case, or more precisely – in our niche.

Successful keyword research depends greatly on your understanding of your own niche.

In most cases, you probably won’t use the exact same phrasing, but you can use these questions as a starting point and formulate a great keyword that will work well with your content (e.g. how to remove location tag in WordPress theme).

Keyword Research Tools

If all this sounds like too much work – don’t worry. As we mentioned a couple of times earlier, there are some (free and paid) tools you can use to perform successful keyword research:

Ahrefs

This keyword research tool is equal parts efficent and easy to use. In addition to a keyword explorer with metrics that include keyword difficulty, search volume and clicks per region or country, it also features a site explorer, content explorer, rank checker, and other handy tools. It’s also great for backlink strategy analysis.

Google Keyword Planner

Although it may be more basic feature-wise compared to other tools, this keyword planner has one major advantage: its results come straight from the source, i.e. from Google. The downside is that it’s designed primarily for ads, so that’s where its main focus lies.

Moz Keyword Explorer

The online marketing giant has an excellent keyword research tool that we particularly like because, in addition to standard suggestions, it also helps you get some pretty smart ones for your related keywords. The pack of features includes search volume and difficulty metrics, predictive keyword metrics, search in question format, competitive analysis, and data export, among others. It also offers “priority” as a unique metric, basically telling you whether you should use a particular keyword or not.

SEMrush

SEMrush is more than just a keyword research tool – it’s a comprehensive solution for online visibility and marketing analytics that also happens to incorporate some great SEO tools. In addition to tons of excellent keyword ideas, it also displays keywords your competition is already ranking for. Finally, the unique Keyword Magic tool that comes in this pack pulls out amazing keyword suggestions from SEMrush’s own enormous keyword database.

KW Finder

KW Finder is a tool that excels with its intuitiveness. It is ideal for beginners, and also for those who’re in a bit of a rush, because it displays the difficulty score next to every keyword, so you don’t have to click on each of them to see it.

Answer the Public

We like this keyword research tool because of its unique, quirky interface and the fact it’s completely free. In addition to keyword suggestions, Answer the Public integrates with another free tool, called Keywords Everywhere, which ranks the suggested keywords by the search volume.

How to Properly Use Keywords?

After you have researched and confirmed your primary, secondary, related and other sorts of keywords, it’s time to put them to use via a carefully formulated content strategy.

Obviously, you can’t just slap a bunch of keywords onto your pages and call it a day. You need to incorporate them in your content in a natural, organic way that won’t seem suspicious to search engine bots or off-putting to real users.

In general, you should use unique keywords and keyphrases across your pages, both in the body of your content and in all the places search engine bots are known to look at. These include:

Above all, you should avoid clickbaiting. This is something that both the users and the crawlers equally despise, and that will definitely get you pushed to the bottom of the SERP barrel. Not to mention that, when you offer purposely vague content titles, URLs and descriptions, you’re not just being deceitful – you’re also taking away a lot of power from your keywords.

In addition, there’s something to be said about the number of keywords you want to use to achieve the best effect. You’d think that the “the more the better” rule applies, but it’s not that simple. “Less is more” is another rule that you definitely shouldn’t follow. Achieving the optimal keyword density can do wonders for your website’s positioning in SERPs and there’s a formula you can use.

Also, have you ever wondered what happens when someone misspells a keyword in their search query? Can you still rank for that? There are some pros and cons in ranking for misspelled keywords and typos so that’s definitely another thing you want to consider.

Next, you will also want to make sure you’re ranking for the right keywords. There are a couple of tools and techniques to use (see the linked article) which can help you determine whether your keyword research efforts are paying up.

Finally, after you’ve carefully researched and applied your keywords, you should consider creating keyword clusters. Keyword clustering is not the quickest of SEO methods but it’s one that can take you a long way when it comes to your SERP positions, so make sure to check it out.

Wrapping It Up

Keyword research is one of those things we get better at with time. If you’re only just starting out, it helps to have a strong strategy and follow its steps until you feel confident enough to start drawing outside the lines:

And that’s it! You will now have a well-researched keyword list that will help you reach your business goals. Just make sure to review the list occasionally and freshen it up with new, relevant keywords.

What does your local ma-and-pa store have in common with a high-end e-commerce website? Both can use search engines to drum up business. For the online store, the good-old search engine optimization is there to make sure it appears as close as possible to the top of the first page of search results. And the ma-and-pa store can use local SEO to increase sales.

For many, however, this thing called local SEO is still a bit of a mystery. Search engines have been working on localized query results for over fifteen years, but the local SEO field has only recently started to blow up. Now, it’s slowly becoming the norm for any type of business that offers services in a certain geographical area.

In this article, we’ll show you:

What Is Local SEO?

In the simplest terms, local search engine optimization is the process of optimizing your business’ online assets so that it ranks well in search results that answer a query with a local component. When someone is looking for a hairdresser in the area where you have a salon, you want your business name to be the first thing they see. Local SEO should help with that.

The thing that makes this kind of searching so important is the fact that it’s highly effective at bringing people through the door of brick-and-mortar businesses. One of the reasons is because people who search for things locally tend to present qualified traffic.

A lot of searches for local things happen from mobile devices, and they don’t always include a geographic term as much as the term “near me.” So, you have people who are probably on the go, looking for nearby shops that sell things that they want. It would be hard to find a stronger indicator of purchase intent than that.

The numbers might vary, but most would say that at least seven out of ten local searches end with an in-store visit. That’s the power of local search and the reason why, ever since Google’s 2014 Pigeon update, which focused on improving local search results, businesses have increasingly been relying on local optimization.

How Does It Work?

Local search results work a bit differently than regular search results. The way they are presented might vary slightly between different search engines, but there are certain similarities you can notice.

For example, the results are grouped in a pack that appears at the top of the results page. Google’s users will see three results underneath a map showing the business’ location. Bing’s users will see the same, but with five results.

Here’s how it looks on the respective search engines for the search terms “hairdresser near me” and “hairdresser nearby.”

These aren’t the only results the user can get. Businesses should work towards appearing in this “snack pack” of search results because it increases their visibility, but they can still appear in the results when the viewer presses “view all” or “see more results.”

This time, the map becomes bigger, and there are more results visible. Click on one of the results will show a plethora of information about the business in question. This information includes name, ratings, address, working hours, contact information, website address, images, and user reviews.

From your end, local search results work in a way that has you register your business with the search engine’s business directory of the equivalent and then provide as much information about it as possible.

That’s the short version, at least, because providing all that information includes getting users to review your business, have it listed on business directories, and do lots of other optimization stuff. For starters, however, let’s see how you can claim your business in the search engine’s business service.

Claiming Your Business Listing on Search Engines

This type of search engine optimization works without a website because it relies on the search engines’ business listing type of service. You can think about it almost like a social network for businesses where everything revolves around creating a good profile.

For Google, this service is called Google My Business. For Bing, it’s called Bing Places for Business. Either way, your local SEO journey starts with claiming your business there. Here’s how you can do it on Google.

Go to google.com/business, and click on the Manage Now button.

You’ll be asked to find and manage your business. If this is the first time you’re making the profile, you can go ahead and click on the blue hyperlink that says “Add your business to Google.”

The next couple of steps will guide you through providing the necessary information for creating a listing. First, you’ll be asked to provide the name of your business. Next, you’ll be able to choose the category your business belongs to, whether you want to add a physical location or not, the address, the location on the map, optional phone number, and website, and that’s it! You might be asked to verify your business. That should be enough to get your website online – but you shouldn’t do it just yet.

Before you decide to go online, you should go to Google My Business and check out the Info option in the dashboard. It will list all the information available about your business.

Among the information you can add, you’ll find highlights, accessibility options, amenities, business descriptions, and photos. Some of the options you can find here are the same ones you can choose from the dashboard. For example, you can choose Photos from the dashboard and there you’ll be able to add photos including a cover photo, logo, photos of the interior and exterior of your business, and even your team members.

The bottom line is that you should check out all of these options and fill them out with as much information as you can. Every bit of information you can add here matters a lot. Once you’ve finished, you’ll be able to get your listing online. That’s great news, but that won’t be nearly enough.

Claim Your Business Wherever It’s Possible

Your next step should be, of course, to go through the same process on Bing Places for Business. It doesn’t matter if you think that no one uses Bing – the whole idea is to have your business information appear in as many online directories as possible, and you can consider Bing Places for Business as one.

From there, you can head over to real online directories such as Foursquare and Apple Maps, and claim your business in those places, too. Next, you’ll want to head to Yelp and other review websites and claim your business there as well. Every place where your business name appears with your business’ information is a citation, and the more of these you have, the better. Plus, it will make it easier for people to find you.

Does your business use social media? No? Well, what are you waiting for? It’s possible to create a Facebook Business Page, just as it’s possible to create a listing on other networks such as Twitter or LinkedIn. Make the most out of these. If you don’t plan to use them, at least provide the relevant information and keep it up to date.

Handle Reviews

You want your website to have reviews. Google will use its reviews, but any review your business can have online will count. You should run a campaign for people who’ve used your business to leave reviews.

A campaign doesn’t have to be as complex as it sounds – you can simply print out a QR code linking to your website’s listing on a review website, put it somewhere near the cash register, and just ask people to leave a review if they have the time.

You might want to skip asking people who don’t look like they would give a decent review – this might be cheating a bit, but it’s really important to have as many good reviews as possible. Of course, consistently providing a good user experience might be the best way to ensure that the reviews you get are good. If you do get a bad review, you should reply to it. It’s review management 101, so make sure you follow all of the best practices.

Just so you know, your ideal review should be well-written and positive. It should also contain keywords and references to your business’ location.

Optimize Your Website

When you’re optimizing your website for local search – or building it from scratch to rank it for local search results – you don’t do things too differently from when you’re optimizing or building a regular website. You’ll still create a homepage, add metadata, and research keywords – you’ll just do it so that they include local terms or queries people in your area might have. Let’s see some examples where you should focus your attention.

The Homepage

When a visitor comes to your homepage, it shouldn’t take them more than a couple of seconds to figure out who you are, what you have to offer, and where you’re located. Google’s crawler isn’t exactly the regular website visitor, but you should still provide them the same information.

Your homepage has tags and meta descriptions that should be edited to include terms that can identify your business’ location. That can be, for example, the name of the city. In a big city, it can also be the name of the part of the city where the business is located. If it helps Google understand which area the business is located in, it could go in the homepage’s tags and descriptions.

Metadata

If you’re updating the title tags and metadata on your homepage, there’s no reason why you wouldn’t do it on every other page you have on your website. The data might differ from one page to another, but the general rule is the same for all of it.

Good SEO practices state that you should have keywords in the metadata. For local optimization, you should ensure that you also include terms that denote your business’ location – the name of the city, county, neighborhood, whatever you want to focus on.

Keywords

You will, of course, have to research relevant keywords for your website – whether you plan to optimize it for local search or not. However, if you’re researching locally-relevant keywords, you’ll have to research with a twist.

While you’re using Google AdWords, Ahrefs, Google autocomplete, and even Craigslist to find out what words people are using to search for stuff, make sure that you always focus on searches that happen on a local level. So, either narrow down the search to a specific geographic area, if your resource allows it, or include a toponym of your choice in the keywords you’re looking for.

Content

The content you create for your website should always include the keywords that are relevant to the area where your business is located or where you offer a service or sell a product. You can achieve this, for example, by including plenty of local geographical terms in the content.

However, if you want to create good local content, and catch the eye of someone who’d want to maybe link to it, you might want to adopt another strategy. Instead of creating content you optimize for local search by using local keywords, you should create locally relevant content. Find topics that matter to the people who live in the area and cover them in your content.

Website Structure

As a business owner, you don’t have to limit yourself to a single area. Sure, proximity is one of the key factors for appearing in the snack pack of search results, but that has nothing to do with how you do your business. If you’re a plumber in a big city, you don’t have to focus on providing a service in a two-mile radius around your location. You’ll venture to other parts of the town, too.

The trick is to have a separate page for every part of the city where you can go – whether it’s a borough, a neighborhood, or however the city is divided. Then optimize the page specifically with keywords and metadata for that specific sub-location.

Add the LocalBusiness Schema

Using LocalBusiness schema, you can make sure that a search engine has the right understanding of all the elements on your page and that it knows how to display them so that people can read them. This is what you get by using schema markup on your website, and it can be incredibly helpful to users.

The LocalBusiness schema contains the properties that are relevant to local businesses. Google will require you to add only a handful such as an URL, physical address, and name of the business. You can also include anything from geographic coordinates to menus, working hours, contact information, and reviews. If you’re not sure how to get started with it, Google has made a tool to help with that, as well as a tool to test your page after you’ve added the code you’ve created with the markup helper.

Consider Local SEO Tools

A lot of processes in setting up local search engine optimization can be streamlined with the right tools.

For instance, Yoast has a handy Local SEO plugin designed to help brands reach more local customers. The basic Yoast plugin doesn’t have these specific features out of the box, but if you combine it with a specialized plugin, it can help you grow your local customer base quickly. The plugin organizes the data that’s relevant for local visibility on Google, such as business name, address, opening hours etc, by using Schema markup. This sort of structured data sends direct information to Google and it does so for each of your pages – not just your contact page. The plugin also takes care of the technical SEO and helps you optimize Google listings for all your locations, in case you have more than one.

When it comes to local SEO, keywords are particularly important. Now, you can do keyword research by yourself and follow the keyword density guidelines, but you can also consider using SEO Keyword Hound, a tool designed for optimizing your keywords. You can use it for competitor analysis, create keyword lists and track their performance through crucial metrics like impressions, clicks, CTR, etc. The best thing about this plugin is that it suggests a range of keywords to target in order to maximize your reach and visibility. The plugin itself is not designed specifically for local SEO but if you use location as part of your keywords and instruct the plugin to include it, it will work just like any specialized local SEO solution.

If you’re on a budget, there’s a great free plugin that can help your local SEO. Five Star Business Profile & Schema creates a detailed business card with all your information and structures it in Schema. You can add the business card as a Gutenberg block or a shortcode anywhere you like, and the plugin will make sure Schema is applied so that Google can pick up the information.

Let’s Wrap It Up!

When you’re optimizing a website for local SEO, you should understand that some circumstances will be out of your hands. The proximity of the searcher, for example, is a strong ranking factor and you have no control over it whatsoever.

But the things you can do, you should do diligently. Fill out as many listings for your website as possible. Always be on the lookout for comments, and ready to reply. And make sure that you produce content the locals would find interesting.

With search results, like with everything else, the rule says the more value we provide, the better we’re going to rank. And when it comes to value, the featured snippets and rich results, like how-tos, reviews and recipes, are hard to surpass. Featured snippets outperform regular search results by 42%, according to a study. Another study found that users click on rich results 58% of the time, and that for some types of rich results the CTR can jump up to 87%.

Although Google has been reducing the visibility of certain rich results, including FAQ and how-to, adding how-to schema to your pages still has a significant SEO value. Plus, Google changes its mind all the time, and since rich results have been providing great value to users for years, it’s safe to assume that the visibility and importance of rich results will at some point be restored.

Adding the WordPress how-to schema to your content is extremely easy to do and it can bring significant benefits outside of the current SERP trends, so today we set out to show you how to do it the easy way.

What Is How-To Schema?

How-to schema (officially, the HowTo schema type) is a type of structured data markup used in the context of search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine result enhancements. Structured data is a standardized format that helps search engines understand the content and context of web pages more effectively. Unlike “plain” page data, structured data provides additional information to search engines so that they are crawled and indexed better.

Sometimes, if the page ranks for its target keyword properly, the content can be displayed as a rich result in SERPs. Similar to featured snippets, rich results are located at the top of the SERP and go beyond the usual title, URL and meta description. In the case of how-to, they contain the outline of the necessary steps to complete a task.

The how-to schema is specifically designed to mark up content that provides step-by-step instructions on how to perform a particular task or achieve a specific goal.

This includes all sorts of tutorials, guides, instructions, DIY projects, recipes (although there’s a separate schema type for recipes), etc. Thanks to structured data, search engines gain insight into specific information that makes up the instructions and then helps display them as a rich result in a step-by-step form that’s easy to read and understand.

What Can You Gain from How-To Schema in WordPress?

If your WordPress website has content that can be qualified as a tutorial, a guide or instructions, you can enrich it by adding structured data to boost your SEO.

As we said earlier, rich results seem to be pushed back by Google specifically. In order to make room for AI results, Google decided to sacrifice most of the rich results types, especially in mobile searches. Desktop results are more likely to display rich results but even that’s much less compared to before.

Still, rich results are definitely not dead nor banished from SERPs. Other search engines still might use them, plus rich results aren’t the only benefit of structured data, so it’s still wise to apply it.

Most importantly, structured data provides additional info, context and meaning about your content to search engines. This means that they can index it better, increasing your chances of ranking for your target keywords higher and faster.

Furthermore, major search engines, like Google, use structured data to populate their knowledge graphs. A knowledge graph is a database of interconnected entities and facts that provides users with more detailed and informative search results. By incorporating structured data, your content might have a better chance of being included in these knowledge graphs.

Structured data, like how-to schema, adds a layer of semantics to your content, making it more machine-readable and understandable. This can facilitate data sharing and integration between different applications and platforms.

Finally, structured data is very useful for ensuring accurate and relevant responses for voice search and virtual assistants. It helps these systems understand the context and content of your web page and deliver concise, relevant answers to users’ queries.

In WordPress, how-to schema can be added quite easily and doesn’t pose any particular burden to your website or slow it down. Because it can provide significant SEO value, there’s really no reason not to implement it, and we’re about to see how.

How to Add How-To Schema in WordPress?

If you know your way around website backend and its code, you probably already know how to add structured data using Schema.org or other methods, so you don’t really need this tutorial – that’s why we’ll focus on more beginner-friendly methods.

Even if you can’t code, Schema markup can be added via Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper, but the problem is this tool doesn’t support the how-to format.

As usual, the easiest way to do something in WordPress is to use a plugin. And that’s what we’re going to do today.

There are a lot of plugins out there that you can use to add different kinds of structured data. Most of them are premium plugins, designed to do the one single purpose, or SEO plugins, like AIOSEO or Yoast. We discussed using some of them to add schema markup in WordPress, but not for how-to markup specifically.

However, if you opt for Qi Addons for Elementor, you will get not just the easy way to add how-to schema, but also 100+ widgets (free and paid) that will skyrocket your website performance, from showcase, typography and creative ones (animations, text effects, advanced sliders and galleries) to business, eCommerce and SEO ones.

This collection of Elementor addons contains the How-to Schema widget, which automatically generates structured data for the tutorials and instructions you publish using the widget. This widget is part of the free version of the plugin, so once you download and install the Qi Addons from the WordPress plugin repository, it will automatically be added to your backend.

Note: This tutorial uses the Qi Addons for Elementor, but Gutenberg users should know that there’s an almost identical solution for their needs, too: Qi Blocks for Gutenberg, containing the How-to Schema block. The usage is almost identical, so we won’t be covering them both.

After installing the plugin, start a new post or page that you want to add markup to. In the left-hand side menu, start typing “How-to Schema” to get to the widget. Now simply drag and drop it on the page to the right.

Thanks to the widget’s preset options, the JSON markup, which is the type of structured data the widget uses, will be automatically enabled. So there’s nothing you actually need to do in that regard – the markup will practically “write itself” based on the content you provide in the editor.

Now you can simply replace the dummy content with your own. You can also delete the parts you don’t need – for instance, we’re going to delete the subtitle, the title, as well as the images.

The titles of the steps are actually the “Items,” so to edit those, you need to click on each item in the widget menu, under Steps. You can add as many items or steps as you like by clicking on +Add Item.

You can include step images (which is recommended, for SEO purposes, and those will be displayed in the results, too) but we skipped this step and deleted the dummy images to speed things up.

If you change your mind about a step, you can edit it or delete it by clicking on the X for that item.

The style of your post will depend on your global settings. To change it, you will need to exit the widget and go to appropriate settings.

Once you’re done writing and editing your content, simply click on Publish and that’s it. Your post will not have How-to structured data automatically added to it.

If you want, you can test the markup using Google’s Rich Results Test. It’s a free tool that you can use to see if your pages and posts support rich results. Just make sure that, once published, your post can be properly indexed (for instance, that it doesn’t have a noindex tag on it).

Wrapping It Up

The main takeaway here is that adding how-to markup in WordPress is really as easy as it gets, and it can be done following several methods. We made sure to include the easiest one, and one that brings you additional value. Qi Addons and Qi Blocks pack a remarkable selection of useful elements for your website, and the How-to Schema one comes with the free version, so the whole thing is that more convenient.

When it comes to the actual usefulness of trying to qualify for the how-to snippet, we firmly believe that these rich results are still relevant and visible, although they’re competing with AI and other things Google at this point thinks are more important. Optimizing your content with structured data can only be beneficial and need not cost a thing.

Featured snippets are among the most effective SEO tactics you can use to drive more organic traffic to your site. And it is precisely for this reason that almost every marketer aware of the importance of featured snippets wants to implement this strategy into their content.

Representing brief excerpts that contain direct but informative answers to specific user search queries, featured snippets are a great way to let users know that your content is valuable and help your website appear more credible in your field.

And while all this sounds great, the real question is – how do you successfully optimize your WordPress site for featured snippets? Actually, there are different strategies you can use to implement featured snippets on your WordPress site, and this time around, we will share some of the most effective ones. We will also go into more detail about what featured snippets are and list some of the most common types of featured snippets out there, so make sure to stick around:

What Are Featured Snippets and How Are They Beneficial?

In a nutshell, featured snippets are page excerpts that usually appear at the top of SERPs and are displayed in a format that makes them stand out from other search results. The main goal of featured snippets is to quickly and directly answer the question in the search query and give the users exactly what they need in Google search results. Then, if they want to learn more about the topic, they can simply click on the URL located below the snippet which will lead them to the page or post in question.

Here is an example of what a Google featured snippet can look like:

Looking at this picture alone, you will probably realize that you’ve known what featured snippets are all along – you just didn’t know that that’s what they’re called. The thing is, every time you search for a particular thing on Google, it will try to provide you with a snippet that will answer your question in the best possible way. As we’ve already mentioned above, this answer will also be formatted differently compared to all other results to make it stand out better. Thus, it’s easy to see why having your content appear in the form of a featured snippet can be beneficial for your site. Not only will users be more inclined to click on your link and read more info about the subject directly on your site, but this direct exposure to Google has the potential to do wonders for your reputation and overall credibility. After all, if your content appears in the results as a featured snippet, users will regard your content as a credible source and see you as an expert in your field.

Therefore, by optimizing your content for featured snippets and having your pages displayed as either a featured snippet or a rich result, you can gain:

Some of the Most Common Types of Featured Snippets

While it’s true that all featured snippets represent a brief but informative extract from a relevant piece of content, they can still be displayed in different types of formats. Here are some of the most commonly seen featured snippet types:

Featured Snippets vs Rich Results

Another type of result that can significantly boost the organic traffic to a website and is sometimes used interchangeably with featured snippets are rich results. Rich results or rich snippets contain more data than the featured snippet, for instance more text and images too. These results appear as part of the organic search on top of the SERP, and are pulled from the page’s structured data.

Rich results are incredibly useful for traffic and SEO. To qualify for a rich snippet, the page needs to contain structured data, such as Schema.org.

Here are a couple of examples of rich results:

FAQ – If your website features a Frequently Asked Questions page, or you have an FAQ section in one of your pages or posts, you can apply the FAQ schema to it so it can qualify for a FAQ snippet. It is a snippet that lists several questions along with the answers and as such provides immediate value to the user who made a specific query.

Recipe – This is one of the most common (and most appreciated!) types of snippets. It displays a selection of top ranking recipes along with essential info like cooking time, ingredients, rating and an image.

Other popular types of snippets include:

and about a dozen more.

How to Optimize Your WordPress Site for Featured Snippets

Getting your content to appear in the form of a rich snippet may appear to be tricky at first. Still, there are many effective ways in which you can optimize your WordPress site and its content and convince Google that your content is good, relevant, and credible enough to earn a featured snippet.

Analyze Your Competition

To beat your competition and have your featured snippets appear in SERPs instead of theirs, you should always strive to analyze your competition and look into the strategies they may be using to have their content rank as a featured snippet. One way in which you can do this is to use an SEO tool (like Semrush, for example), enter the competitor’s URL, and analyze keywords (and keyword groups) that helped them get featured snippets in the first place. Then, what you want to do is create a list of all these keywords and sort them according to their search volume.

What you should pay special attention to are the keywords with low search volume. These types of keywords have low search traffic on Google, which means you will have less competition for these keywords and higher chances to score a featured snippet for these keywords.

We also advise you to look into the types of snippets your competition is scoring for when it comes to specific keywords. This way, you will know exactly what type (or types) of snippet(s) you should focus on so that you can optimize your content for it in the swiftest manner possible.

Optimize Your Content for Specific Featured Snippets

Once you learn what types of snippets you should aim to rank for, it’s time to optimize your content in a way that will make Google recognize your content as relevant and reliable enough to display it as a featured snippet in the first place. For example, if you want to optimize your content so that it appears as a Paragraph snippet, you need to make sure to create a brief piece of text with a definition that provides a concrete and straightforward answer on a particular topic. This snippet should ideally be between 40-60 words long, though your answer can be longer depending on the topic at hand and how demanding it is to provide the answer in general.

Another way in which you can make it easier to rank for the paragraph featured snippet is to add a heading before your paragraph that begins with (and contains) question keywords that appear in the user’s search query (such as “What”, “How”, etc.). Of course, the paragraph itself should contain keywords from the search query as well.

Similarly, if you want to rank for a numbered or bulleted list snippet, make sure to include these types of lists in your page or post as well. You can easily do this by separating different sections of your page using header tags. These tags have the purpose of further informing search engines about the main topics of your content, which makes it easier to understand what your content is about. By incorporating different headings into your text, you can easily signal to Google that you’ve created your own numbered and bulleted lists and have it display them as a featured snippet in SERPs.

In short, it all comes down to formatting your content in a way that looks as close as the type of featured snippet you want to rank for. Basically, the more you make sure that your content resembles a featured snippet, the better chances you have of Google recognizing your efforts.

Make Sure to Target Long-Tail Keywords

Long-tail keywords represent longer and more specific keyword phrases that people type into their search. These types of keywords are more conversational in nature, which is why they are widely used in voice search optimization as well.

Here’s an example of a basic, shorter keyword:

‘Optimize website for search engines’

And here’s an example of a long-tail keyword:

‘What are the best ways to optimize my website for search engines?’

Aside from optimizing your content for shorter featured snippet keywords that are more likely to be used by users, you should go out of your way to do so for long-tail keywords (and their variations) as well. It’s needless to say that by doing so, you will increase the chances of your content ranking for featured snippets.

To learn which long-tail keywords you should incorporate into your content, we recommend checking out the “People Also Ask” box in search results. This box is displayed right below a featured snippet in SERPs. You can type in a basic keyword or key phrase you want to rank for, and then look into some of the additional questions that appear in the “People Also Ask” box. These questions usually contain some long-tail keyword variations that people also use in their search queries. Therefore, if it makes sense, you can try using some of these variations to improve your chances of scoring a featured snippet for these keywords as well.

Always Aim to Create High-Quality Content

This sort of goes without saying, but to improve your chances of Google recognizing your content as valuable, you have to do more than proper formatting for it to end up in Google featured snippets. Aside from making sure that you cover the most relevant information in your content, you should also use sentences that are concise and easy to read and to also create content that is scannable in general.

Moreover, you shouldn’t forget to provide more value than your competition. You can do so by adding some unique examples on a topic, including some statistics, adding relevant images and appropriate links, and the list goes on.

Set Up Schema Markup on Your Site

Last but not least, to truly increase your chances of getting a featured snippet position in SERPs, you should see that you properly implement Schema markup on your WordPress site. Schema markup is a type of metadata that provides more information about your content to search engines. It does this by adding a layer of data to different pieces of content, and this data is what usually gets displayed as a rich snippet in SERPs. In other words, adding Schema to your site’s content will help Google figure out what type of featured snippet it should display, as well as help display it properly.

Schema will also help you qualify for a rich result. There are different schema types for different types of rich results – recipe, event, review, etc.

Structured data is basically code that provides additional information about your content. It is highly organized and standardized, and it helps search engines understand the content better. When it can be neatly classified by engines, the content has a much higher chance of ranking higher, or being displayed as a rich result.

To add Schema markup to your site, we recommend using a rich snippet plugin called All In One Schema Rich Snippets. This plugin comes with the support for the most commonly used rich snippet types out there, such as review, product, service, event, recipe, people, and even video. Once you install the plugin and configure its settings (the process itself is pretty intuitive), you should access the edit of your page/post and find the Configure Rich Snippet meta box located at the bottom of the editor. Then, you simply need to select the appropriate Schema type for your page or post.

We recommend checking out our article on how to add Schema markup in WordPress to learn more about the subject.

Once you have applied structured data to your content, you can check to see if it works and if Google recognizes it, you can have it checked and validated by Google itself or using the Schema Validator.

In Conclusion

Getting a featured snippet on Google can give you a significant advantage over your competitors and can also do wonders when it comes to boosting your website’s credibility as a whole. That being said, it may take some extra effort and patience on your part to be able to optimize your WordPress site for featured snippets. Just remember to keep up with your competition, aim to create readable, high-quality content that is well optimized both for people and search engines, and don’t forget to add schema markup to your site to ensure that your featured snippets can be properly displayed in SERPs. Just stay persistent, and all your hard work will eventually pay off.

Optimizing your website for search engines is mandatory if you want it to get noticed online. This means that you not only have to learn about some of the most important SEO basics, but should also consider installing one of the WordPress plugins that will help you take care of your website’s SEO (like Yoast SEO, or Rank math, for example). Simultaneously, this includes implementing common SEO strategies like link building, keyword research, and traffic and backlink monitoring.

While there are many useful SEO tools that will help you out with all these practices, this time we will focus solely on backlink checker ones. The tools in this category will allow you to see where your backlinks are coming from, as well as monitor the backlinks of your competitors. And today, we are going to share a list of the best ones.

What Are Backlinks and Why They Matter

In a nutshell, a backlink is a link that is created when another website links to your website. In the SEO world, backlinks play a huge role when it comes to your online credibility and overall search engine ranking. The reason for this is because the more backlinks your website has, the higher are the chances that it will rank well in the search results. Think of it as your website getting a point for each backlink – every one of them is important and can ultimately help bring more traffic to your website. However, some backlinks are considered bad, like those that come from dubious websites, for example.

The best backlinks are those that come from high-traffic, authority websites. So, to start getting quality backlinks from more reputable online sources, you need to do two things: check the backlinks you already have and monitor your competition’s backlinks. This way, you can obtain a list of authority websites from your niche that you can target when it comes to your own link building strategy. And you can perform all of these strategies – identifying malicious backlinks, purging your own backlinks and monitoring the competitors’ backlinks – using some of the following backlink checker tools:

SEMRush

SEMRush is the ideal pick when it comes to analyzing backlinks. With over 6 million users, it is also among the best keyword research tools that can be found online. It comes with a full set of backlink analysis tools that will allow you to monitor the quality of your backlinks in full detail. Thanks to its Backlink Audit feature, you will get to check whether malicious websites have linked to your site and remove them. You will also be able to keep an eye on your competition and analyze their new and lost links, which will allow you to track their link-building progress and see how you can improve your own.

Moreover, SEMRush lets you enter up to 200 URLs in the box to find the strongest competitors in your niche and compare their efforts with your own. With the Link Building Tool, you will be able to build the backlink profile of your website from scratch. You will get to discover and manage new backlink opportunities, reach out to new prospects, and follow the progress of your campaign.

The pricing of SEMRush starts at $119.95 a month for the Pro plan

Ahrefs

Another great and comprehensive keywords research tool, Ahrefs allows you to have an in-depth look at the organic search traffic and backlinks of any website or URL. Aside from seeing which keywords your competitors are ranking for, you will get to check which sites link to the sites of your competitors, and get a snapshot of a website’s backlink profile.

Simply by entering a URL into Site Explorer and navigating to the Backlink profile section, you will have a complete overview of its backlinks and will be able to group them by new, lost, and even by links that are broken. This can help you improve your own backlink game to a great extent. Also, you can filter your competitors’ backlinks by link type and easily find domains you want to target.

As for the pricing, the cheapest plan costs $99 per month.

LinkMiner

Created by Mangools, LinkMiner is a backlink checker-only tool that you can use if you have a Mangools account. You get features such as Link Strength that will allow you to evaluate the overall power of your backlinks, while the feature for finding powerful backlinks lets you enter the domain of your competitors in order to start the full backlink analysis. Moreover, advanced backlink analysis options that are also included will help you find any new or deleted backlinks for new backlink opportunities.

What’s also useful about LinkMiner is that it lets you save backlinks to the favorites list, so you can keep a better track of backlinks you plan to replicate, or if you simply want to keep your backlink analysis results. This feature can also be useful if you want to “recover” any of your backlinks. The only thing you have to do is make a list of all lost backlinks by adding them to your favorite list so that you can focus on fixing them.

LinkMiner is a great option if you’re on a limited budget, with the pricing starting at $29 a month and a 10-day free trial.

Ubersuggest

Here is another great keyword research tool that can help you boost the ranking of your website by analyzing its SEO and giving you a full report, including a list of errors you can fix to get a better position on Google. Ubersuggest also analyzes your backlinks, allowing you to see who links to your backlinks and what you can improve on.

Additionally, you can enter a competitor’s URL and see who links to them. You will be able to see their total number of backlinks pointing to any domain or URL so that you can get all the available insights and contact these websites to ask them to also link to you. Plus, thanks to the advanced filtering option, you will be able to filter links by categories such as anchor text, region, domain and page scores, etc. If you want, you can even choose whether you want to view nofollow or dofollow links and also limit the results to one backlink per domain. Finally, you can export your results to CSV.

The pricing for Ubersuggest starts at $12 a month for the Individual plan (ideal for entrepreneurs and small businesses).

BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo is a tool that allows you to use content insights to generate ideas and create best-performing content for your business. You will be able to learn what type of content works for your niche and what doesn’t, which networks perform best, as well as who shares their content and how your own compares to them.

Apart from exploring the best type of content out there, you will get to analyze the most popular keywords and phrases, and keep up with the latest industry trends to capture opportunities and be one step ahead of your competitors. BuzzSumo will allow you to monitor websites that link to key domains and competitor sites, sort backlinks by social engagement, get notified as soon as new links are created, and send all the reports to Excel.

When it comes to pricing for BuzzSumo, it starts at $119/mo for the Basic plan, and there’s a 30-day free trial period for all plans.

SEO Backlink Monitor

If you’re looking for a very simple, very straightforward and free plugin that does one job (but does it well) – check out SEO Backlink Monitor. It’s a plugin that is designed to help you track your link-building campaigns and see how each link is performing. You can examine each link to see if it’s live or not, if it’s a do follow or a no follow link, and so on. Using wp-cron, the plugin automatically checks all your links and sends a report to your email address whenever there’s a change.

If you have previously used and loved the Backlink Monitor Manager plugin, you’ll be happy to learn that SEO Backlink Monitor is its optimized version, with regular updates and a solid score on WP plugin repository.

Moz Pro

Moz Pro is a powerful tool we wrote about many times – when we explored the best keyword tracking tools, for example, or discussed tactics for finding expired domains with quality backlinks. Moz Pro is an all-in-one suite of SEO tools, which include a keyword explorer, a rank tracking tool, site crawl tool for SEO audits, on-page optimization features and a link explorer.

With the Link Explorer tool, Moz Pro helps users make the best use of the links they already have, and helps them build new ones. The proprietary metrics like Page Authority, Domain Authority and Spam Score help understand the value of the links, and the insights about the competitors’ links and their sources help gain an upper hand over them.

Moz Pro is not the cheapest tool around – the plans start at $99/mo (for beginners and small websites) and go up to $599/mo (for agencies and in-house marketing teams).

Wrapping Up

Having a solid backlink strategy can not only boost your page rankings, but it can also largely contribute to your online authority. Using one of the backlink checker tools from this list will help you monitor yours, as well as your competitors’ backlinks. In this way, you will be able to target some of the reputable names in the industry that have linked to the content of your competitors and reach out to them for backlinks to your own website as well.

In any case, you won’t go wrong if you opt for any of the above-mentioned tools. However, if you’re on the budget, LinkMiner can be a solid option for you, while SEMRush is easily our top pick. That being said, which one of these tools will fit you the most depends entirely on your website’s needs, so examine each option carefully before making your final choice.

So you’ve added both an HTML and an XML sitemap to your website and now you’re thinking – well, that’s all there is to it, right? Wrong. While these types of sitemaps are extremely important for the SEO of your website, as they let both the users and Google know of all your pages and posts, the set can actually be completed by adding an RSS sitemap or feed, too. In this article, we’re discussing why, and showing you how to add a WordPress RSS sitemap.

Why Your Website Needs an RSS Sitemap

A sitemap usually means two things. A user-visible HTML sitemap is a hierarchical list of all the pages under a domain. It serves as a roadmap for visitors to help them navigate the website and find what they need easily. As such, a sitemap is an important UX component.

The other type of sitemap is the one that’s “under the hood” and it’s not visible nor intended for visitors. Instead, it’s created for the sake of Google (and other search engines) to inform it of all the pages and content you have on there, so it can crawl and index them. This is what we call an XML sitemap and it should be an integral part of your SEO strategy.

The XML sitemap is usually quite large as it contains information about all of your pages. The RSS sitemap, on the other hand, is smaller and lighter because it contains the most recent information about changes and updates to your pages. In simple terms, it lets Google know about your freshest content, so it can index it sooner.

It is therefore clear that for best results you should use a combination of both XML and RSS sitemaps.

Now, let’s see how to set a WordPress RSS sitemap for your website.

Creating a WordPress RSS Sitemap

To easily add an RSS sitemap to WordPress, your best bet is to use a plugin. The one we recommend for this purpose is AIOSEO (All in One SEO), a multipurpose SEO plugin that packs a great set of SEO features and has a staggering 3+ million active installs. The features are too many to list, so we’ll just say that it helps you with on-page optimization, it has a local business module, Rich Snippets Schema, robots.txt editor, easy integration with Google Search Console, various analysis tools and much more. Of course, it also has tools that help you add a WordPress RSS sitemap, which is a free feature (the plugin has a premium version, too).

After installing and activating the plugin, you will need to go through a guided setup wizard. Don’t worry, it’s not long and it’s very easy to complete.

After you’ve completed the setup, you will find a brand new menu item in your dashboard header menu, called SEO. Any time you need to work on something using AIOSEO, you will click on this item, which will take you to a designated page with various tools and analytics.

Scroll down the page until you reach a section that says Sitemaps. Click on the link that says Manage.

Click on the RSS Sitemap option in the horizontal menu. This will take you to the RSS setup section.

First, click on the toggle to enable RSS sitemap. You should also specify the number of posts to include in the sitemap. The recommended setting is 50 or less, because the RSS sitemap is supposed to be small and light.

If you click on the Open RSS Sitemap button, the current map will open in a new tab so you can see which pages are included. It will look something like this, but with your URLs, of course:

The last option allows you to choose which post types you want to include in your WordPress RSS sitemap. The Include All Post Types is the default option, but you can uncheck it if you only want to include certain post types – just posts, just products, just pages, landing pages, portfolio, or a combination of those.

Lastly, click on Save Changes and that’s it – the plugin will automatically create and add an RSS sitemap to your website.

Note that you will have to submit your map to Google Search Console, of course. We have a detailed tutorial on adding your website to Google Search Console that also covers adding sitemaps, so if you’re not sure how to do it, we recommend you check it out.

Wrapping It Up

Adding a WordPress RSS sitemap is actually a piece of cake, as we saw. AIOSEO is an excellent plugin that can help you with many of your SEO tasks, so by installing even the free version you will enjoy other benefits too, not just the RSS sitemap feature.

Combining XML and RSS sitemaps is an excellent way of letting Google know what you got going on your website, and also of keeping it updated with your freshest content. You basically have no excuse for not having one!

It’s been a while since Google introduced Google Analytics 4, its latest iteration of website measurement and analytics product. People had more than two years to get used to it before the company announced, in March 2022, that the previous version of the product, Universal Analytics, would stop processing new hits on July 1, 2023, or October 1, 2023, in the case of Universal Analytics 360 properties.

If you’re just starting with Google Analytics, you have nothing to worry about – the account creation process is geared towards Google Analytics 4. You need to take a few extra steps to get Universal Analytics. It might not be available at all when you’re reading the article.

But if you’ve been using Universal Analytics, you don’t have much time before the tracking stops. So the sooner you set up Google Analytics 4 for your website, the better. So let’s see if we can help you out. In this article, we’ll show you about:

Getting Familiar with Google Analytics 4

In the Universal Analytics termination date announcement, Google described UA’s core proposition as something attuned to the demands of an era characterized by sessions, cookies, and desktop-first experience. As that era changed, Google created a new tool to better suit users’ needs.

The new benefits of Google Analytics 4 as compared to Universal Analytics include:

While you have little choice in switching to GA4 if you want to continue using Google’s analytics tools, the change comes with plenty of benefits many in its user base will welcome.

The best way to get familiar with Google Analytics 4 before connecting it to your website is by examining the GA4 demo account. You can choose between a property with web data only and one that combines app and web data. Between the two, you’re bound to learn a lot about Google Analytics 4.

How to Set Up Google Analytics 4

If you already have Google Analytics set up for your website and you’re wondering how to switch from the soon-to-be-deprecated Universal Analytics to Google Analytics 4, the good news is that you don’t actually have to switch. Before the tracking for Universal Analytics stops, you can run both in parallel and access them for data. Because GA4 only uses the data it collects from when you start using it, you’ll also need to go back to your UA property for past data.

Luckily for everyone, Google has included a very useful tool called the GA4 Setup Assistant that will guide you through the process of creating a GA4 property for your app or your website. First, you must navigate to Google Analytics and find the appropriate account and UA property that links to your website. After accessing them, click on the Admin options in the lower left-hand side corner, and click on GA4 Setup Assistant.

In the next step, you’ll be asked to choose between connecting an existing Google Analytics 4 property and creating a new one. Because you’re making a new one, that’s the option you need to choose. Press the Get Started button, and the setup assistant will inform you of the next steps in the process.

As you can see, the assistant will copy the settings from your UA tag and do some other things for you. It will, however, refer back to you for setting up a website tag.

If you already have a tag installed on your website and the assistant recognizes it, you can use the tag found on your site. You won’t have to change the code to your site, and the users on the GA4 property will be added to the users on the tag. That’s the road Google recommends you take.

You can also reuse a Google tag you have access to or create and install a new tag.

How to Install a Google Tag for your GA4 Property

The setup assistant will give you access to your Google tag during the setup process. Depending on your chosen installation method, you might not need it at all. Just know that if you create the property without setting up the tag correctly, you’ll be able to find it later.

You’ll have two options for installing the tag to your website – manual installation and using a plugin. Installing a tag manually involves copying and including the code in your theme’s header.php file. That method is only recommended if you know exactly what you’re doing, however, and should include the use of a child theme.

A more novice-friendly option involves using a plugin. As part of the GA4 setup process, the assistant will provide instructions on connecting your site with GA4 using the Site Kit or MonsterInsights plugins. For instructions on how to do it using another plugin, or if you want to learn to do it manually, you can check out our guide on adding code to the WordPress header and footer.

If you’re unsure where to find the tag, navigate to your new GA4 property, and bring up the Admin panel. There, you’ll find the Data Streams option.

Choosing that option will list your data streams, including the newly made GA4 property. Once you click on the property, you’ll see its web stream details – name, URL, stream ID, and events. Next, you’ll see the Google tag options near the bottom of the page. Finally, at the very bottom is the View tag instructions – click on that option.

This will bring up installation instructions that will show you how to install the tag for specific site builders and CMSs and manually. Choose the latter to see your Google tag.

Let’s Wrap It Up!

Google Analytics is one of the most valuable tools for tracking your website’s performance. With Google Analytics 4, it only became better, and it’s tough to see it heading in any other direction in the future. So make sure you have the latest version of Analytics monitoring your website, and ensure you add it before the previous version ceases operation.