Tag: aioseo

How to Add GTIN, ISBN & MPN Schema in WordPress
Are you looking for a way to add GTIN, ISBN, and MPN schema to your WooCommerce store or WordPress website?

Using GTIN, ISBN, and MPN schema on your WordPress site can help search engines better understand your products. This can boost your website’s SEO rankings.

In this article, we will show you how to easily add the GTIN, ISBN, and MPN schema in WooCommerce and WordPress.

Why Should You Add GTIN, ISBN, & MPN Schema in WooCommerce and WordPress?

GTIN (Global Trade Item Number) is used for identifying trade items such as products or services. By contrast, ISBN (International Standard Book Number) is used for tracking books, eBooks, and audiobooks.

On the other hand, MPN (Manufacturer Part Number) is for tracking specific electronic components and parts, such as integrated circuits and resistors.

GTIN, ISBN, and MPN schema properties are markup code that you can add to your WordPress website to provide detailed and accurate product information to search engines.

This markup can help improve your content visibility and improve the SEO of your website. When people search for a specific ISBN, GTIN, or MPN, then your products may show up in the search results.

For example, if your run an online store that sells books, then you can add the ISBN schema to increase your website visibility.

Using schema markup in WooCommerce or WordPress can be a great way to get more clicks to your website from organic search results, which can lead to more sales.

It can also improve the customer shopping experience by making it easier for users to find and purchase your products.

That being said, let’s see how to easily add GTIN, ISBN, and MPN schema in WordPress and WooCommerce. You can use the quick links below to jump to the method you want to use:
- Method 1: Add GTIN, ISBN, & MPN Schema to WordPress Website
- Method 2: Add GTIN, ISBN, & MPN Schema to Your WooCommerce Store
Method 1: Add GTIN, ISBN, & MPN Schema to WordPress Website

If you are looking to add GTIN, ISBN, or MPN schema to your WordPress website, then this method is for you.

You can easily add this schema using All in One SEO (AIOSEO), which is the best WordPress SEO plugin on the market used by over 3 million websites.

The plugin also allows you to add different types of schema to your website, including FAQs, recipes, articles, and product schema.

First, you need to install and activate the AIOSEO plugin. For detailed instructions, you may want to see our beginner’s guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Note: AIOSEO also has a free version. However, you will need the Pro version of the plugin to unlock the schema markup feature.

Upon activation, the plugin will launch the setup wizard on your screen, which will walk you through the setup process.

If you need any help with it, then you may want to see our step-by-step guide on how to set up All in One SEO in WordPress.

Next, you need to visit the AIOSEO Â» Search Appearance page from your WordPress admin sidebar and switch to the ‘Content Types’ tab.

From here, scroll down to the ‘Products’ section and switch to the ‘Schema Markup’ tab. After that, you need to select the ‘Product’ option from the ‘Schema Type’ dropdown menu.

Finally, click the ‘Save Changes’ button to store your changes.

Now, you will be able to add separate schema markup for all your products. To do this, head over to the page or post where you want to add the ISBN, GTIN, or MPN schema from the WordPress admin sidebar.

Once you are there, scroll down to the ‘AIOSEO Settings’ section in the block editor and switch to the ‘Schema’ tab.

Next, you need to click on the ‘Generate Schema’ button.

This will launch the ‘Schema Catalog’ popup on your screen, where you can select the schema template you want to add.

Go ahead and click the ‘+’ button next to the ‘Product’ option.

This will open up a modal where you can add the details for your product and tell search engines like Google all of its information.

You can start by providing a name, description, brand, and image for your product.

Once you have done that, scroll down to the ‘Identifiers’ section, where you can insert the GTIN, ISBN, or the MPN of the product.

After that, you can further scroll down to add the price, attributes, reviews, and shipping destination for the product in the schema markup.

Once you are done, just click the ‘Add Schema’ button to save your schema markup for the product. Now, you can repeat the process for the other products on the page.

If you sell books online, then you can also select the ‘Book’ schema from the ‘Schema Catalog’ popup. This will open up a new modal where you can add the title, author, description, and image of the book.

After that, scroll down to the ‘Editions’ section and add the ISBN for the book. Finally, click the ‘Add Schema’ button to generate the schema.

Once you have added the GTIN, MPN, or ISBN schema for all the products, don’t forget to click the ‘Update’ or ‘Publish’ button at the top to save your changes.

You and your visitors won’t be able to see a difference on the front end of your website, but search engine bots will now have the ISBN, GTIN, or MPN details for the products.

Method 2: Add GTIN, ISBN, & MPN Schema to Your WooCommerce Store

If you want to add GTIN, ISBN, or MPN schema markup in your WooCommerce store, then you can use this method.

You can easily add the schema markup for ISBN, GTIN, and MPN using the All in One SEO (AIOSEO) plugin, which is the best WordPress SEO plugin on the market.

First, you need to install and activate the AIOSEO plugin. For detailed instructions, you may want to see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Note: AIOSEO has a free version, but you will need the Pro version to unlock the schema markup feature.

Upon activation, the plugin will launch a setup wizard on your screen. If you need any help, then you may want to see our tutorial on how to set up All in One SEO in WordPress.

Next, head over to the Products Â» All Products page from the WordPress admin sidebar.

Once you are there, just click the ‘Edit’ link under the product where you want to add the GTIN, ISBN, or MPN schema.

This will open up the ‘Edit Product’ page, where you need to scroll down to the ‘AIOSEO Settings’ meta box.

From here, switch to the ‘Schema’ tab, where you will see the ‘Product’ schema is already in use by default. Now, simply click the ‘Edit’ button next to the schema.

This will open up an ‘Edit Product’ popup on the screen, where you will see that the ‘Autogenerate Field’ toggle has been switched to ‘Yes’.

This means that AIOSEO automatically fetches and fills the schema data for the product title, image, and description.

However, if you would like to fill these fields manually, then you can simply switch the ‘Autogenerate Fields’ toggle to ‘No’.

After that, scroll down to the ‘Identifiers’ section and add the GTIN, ISBN, or MPN for your product. You can also add other attributes, shipping destinations, and product reviews in the schema markup.

After you have made your changes, don’t forget to click the ‘Update Schema’ button.

If your online store only sells books, then you can click on the ‘Generate Schema’ button in the Schema tab and then select the ‘Book’ schema template from the catalog.

This will open the Schema Generator on the screen, where you can add the title, image, and description for the book you are selling.

After that, scroll down to the ‘Editions’ section and add the ISBN for your book.

After entering the details, simply click the ‘Add Schema’ button to generate your schema markup for books.

Finally, click the ‘Update’ button at the top to store your changes.

You have now successfully added a schema markup for your products, including the GTIN, ISBN, or MPN details.

Keep in mind that these changes will not be visible on your website’s front end but will help search engine bots rank your content.

We hope this article helped you learn how to easily add the GTIN, ISBN, and MPN schema in WooCommerce and WordPress. You may also want to see our tutorial on how to add FAQ schema in WordPress and our expert picks for the best WordPress schema markup plugins.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to ourÂ YouTube ChannelÂ for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us onÂ TwitterÂ and Facebook.

The post How to Add GTIN, ISBN & MPN Schema in WordPress first appeared on WPBeginner.
05.07.2023
Introducing Keyword Density Checker: Analyze Keyword Density to Boost Rankings
Do you want to steal keyword ideas from your competitors ethically?

Have you ever wished there was an easy way to fix over optimization on your site and boost search rankings WITHOUT hiring an SEO consultant?

If youâ€™re like me and most other smart website owners, then you have at least wished for this solution a couple of times in your WordPress journey.

Today, Iâ€™m excited to release a free WPBeginner tool, Keyword Density Checker, which enables you to check the most optimized keywords on any content or URL, either yours or competitors’ sites.

We built this tool to help you boost your SEO rankings by identifying the right keywords to rank for.

Why Use a Keyword Density Checker?

WPBeginnerâ€™s Keyword Density Checker is a powerful online tool that makes it easy to find the most optimized keywords from any content or URL.

The best part is that using this tool is totally freeâ€¦ no signup, installation, or registration is required!

One of the reasons most website owners fail to rank their site on search engines is that itâ€™s not easy to find the right keyword to rank for. Although there are several keyword research tools available on the market, most are either crazy expensive or come with a search limit.

This is why I decided to create an online tool without any search limits and make it free for all WPBeginner readers.

Our free tool reviews your content or website URL and shows you the most optimized keywords from the submitted content to boost your rankings.

It provides you with a list of one word, two word, and three word phrases, ranked by their frequencies and density.

Some of the benefits of our Keyword Density Checker areâ€¦
- Get 30 highly optimized keywords from every article you submit
- Unlimited search for free without any restrictions
- It warns you if it finds a keyword with a high-density percentage
How Our Keyword Density Checker Works

The first thing youâ€™ll need to do is head over to WPBeginnerâ€™s Keyword Density Checker.

Next, submit the URL or content to check the keyword density.

Our tool analyzes the entire content and gives you 30 highly optimized keywords in that content. That is, youâ€™ll get 10 keywords each for a one word phrase, two word phrases, and three word phrases.

Youâ€™ll also be shown the total time each of those keywords was used in the content and its density percentage.

It also gives you an overoptimization warning if the tool finds any of those keywords have a high density percentage.

Competitor Analysis with Keyword Density Tool

Ever wondered what keywords your competitors were trying to rank for?

Performing an SEO competitor analysis and extracting the most used keywords from your competitor’s website is one of the cool things you could do with our Keyword Density Tool.

Letâ€™s figure out how to do it.

First of all, list down the top pages from your competitorsâ€™ sites that you think are most popular.

Then enter those URLs into our density tool one by one.

With each search, youâ€™ll get a list of 30 keywords that your competitors were trying to rank for. This report tells you what keywords you can potentially focus on when creating new content or optimizing existing ones.

Fix Over Optimization and Boost Your SEO

Over optimization can hurt your search rankings.

In case youâ€™re wondering, over optimization is the practice of adding too many SEO improvements, which eventually leads to backfiring your SEO efforts.

Well-optimized content remains a top ranking factor, but sometimes Google might suspect your site for over optimization, like keyword stuffing. Once you identify the pages that have recently dropped in search rankings and traffic, youâ€™ll need to start de-optimizing those pages.

With Keyword Density Checker, you can identify keywords that are over optimized. We also recommend doing an SEO analysis to discover other SEO errors that could be hurting your SEO.

Perform an SEO Audit Right Within WordPress

If you want to perform an SEO audit right inside your WordPress dashboard, we recommend using the All in One SEO (AIOSEO) WordPress plugin.

Its free plugin comes with all the basic features that help you optimize your site for search engines, including the SEO Analysis tool.

There is also aÂ premium version of AIOSEOÂ that offers advanced features like a redirection manager, schema markup, powerful sitemap tools, and more.

Alternatively, if youâ€™re looking for an online tool that helps you do SEO analysis free of cost, you can take a look at our SEO Analyzer Tool.

Analyze Your Keyword Density Today!

Our Keyword Density Checker is a great tool to help you discover your competitors’ keyword research strategy and fix your content if itâ€™s over optimized.

This is just one of the tools weâ€™ve recently launched. We also launched several other free tools to help small businesses grow and compete with big guys. Here are some of them …
- Free Website SEO Analyzer: Audit your site, find critical SEO errors, and create a detailed SEO action plan on how to fix those errors.
- Free Keyword Generator Tool: Enter a seed keyword and generate 300+ keyword ideas in a click.
- Free Headline Analyzer Tool: Write captivating headlines that improve click-throughs on Google Search.
- Check Out Our Free Business Tools: Take a look at the full list of our free business tools here.
If you have ideas on how we can make WPBeginnerâ€™s Keyword Density Checker or other tools more helpful for you, then share your thoughts in the comments.

As always, I want to thank you for your continued support of WPBeginner, and we look forward to continue serving you for years to come.

Yours Truly,

Syed Balkhi
Founder of WPBeginner

The post Introducing Keyword Density Checker: Analyze Keyword Density to Boost Rankings first appeared on WPBeginner.
27.06.2023
How to Add SEO-Friendly Recipe Schema in WordPress (Easy Way)

Are you looking for a way to add recipe schema to your WordPress website?

If you have a food blog, then you can display your recipes as snippets in search engine results using schema markup. This can help you get more clicks and traffic to your site.

In this article, we will show you how to add SEO-friendly recipe schema in WordPress.

What Is Recipe Schema and Why Use It?

Recipe schema markup (structured data) is a special type of HTML code that’s added to your WordPress website. It offers more information about your content to search engines.

This information isn’t displayed on your website. Instead, it’s added to source code for search engine bots to read.

Google, Bing, and other search engines use the schema markup to display additional information as featured snippets. These are highlighted results with extra info that are shown at the top of the search results pages.

For example, Google may show ingredients, ratings, cooking time, nutritional value, and other information from your recipes in the featured snippets.

Google gets this extra info from the recipe schema markup on the page.

That’s why adding recipes with schema can help you capture these snippets and boost your WordPress search engine optimization (SEO).

Featured snippets are a great way to get more clicks to your website from organic search results and increase your traffic.

That being said, let’s look at how you can easily add recipe schema in WordPress.

Adding SEO-Friendly Recipes With Schema in WordPress

The easiest way to add recipe schema markup in WordPress is by using the All in One SEO (AIOSEO) plugin for WordPress.

It’s the best WordPress SEO plugin on the market that helps you optimize your website for search engines without needing to hire an SEO expert.

Note: You will need the AIOSEO Pro version as it includes the Schema Generator feature, which allows you to add any type of schema markup to your content. Plus, there are other powerful features like sitemaps, redirection manager, and more. There is also a free version of AIOSEO that you can try.

First, you will need to install and activate the AIOSEO plugin on your site. If you need help, then just follow our tutorial on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, the plugin will automatically launch its setup wizard. You can go ahead and click the ‘Let’s Get Started’ button to set up the plugin on your website.

For more details, you can read our guide on how to set up All in One SEO for WordPress.

After setting up AIOSEO on your site, you must now go to AIOSEO Â» Search Appearance from your WordPress admin area and then click on the ‘Content Types’ tab.

Under the Content Types section, you can edit the schema markup for posts, pages, products, groups, memberships, and all other types of content on your WordPress blog.

Go ahead and select the ‘Schema Markup’ tab for Posts. You can now click on the Schema Type dropdown menu and choose the ‘Recipe’ option.

You can do the same for pages, products, custom post types, and all other content types.

After selecting ‘Recipe’ as the schema type, don’t forget to save your changes. You can do this by clicking the blue ‘Save Changes’ button at the top right of the page.

Adding Schema Recipe Information to Posts & Pages

The next step is to add your recipe information to each WordPress post or page that you want to display in the featured snippets.

To start, go ahead and edit an existing post or add a new one. Once you are in the WordPress editor, simply scroll down to the ‘AIOSEO Settings’ meta box and select the ‘Schema’ tab. Then, click the ‘Generate Schema’ button.

The Schema Catalog will open. This is a popup where you can choose the type of schema you want to add.

Go ahead and click the ‘Add Schema’ button next to the ‘Recipe’ option.

Now, a modal will open up where you can enter details about your recipe and tell Google what it’s about.

You can start by adding the name of the dish, a description, and the author that you want to display in the search results.

You can also scroll down to add relevant keywords.

For example, you might include a season or specific holiday and the image that will display in search results.

Besides that, AIOSEO offers additional fields to add more details about your recipe. Filling out these extra fields is really useful because Google will show different information for different search terms.

You can enter details about the dish type, cuisine type, time required, number of servings, ingredients, calories, instructions, ratings, and much more.

Once you have filled out your recipe information, go ahead and click the ‘Add Schema’ button.

Then, you can publish your blog post. AIOSEO will add the recipe schema with the data you just provided.

You and your visitors won’t be able to see a difference on the front end of your website, but now search engine bots will have all the extra data they need for featured snippets.

Optimizing Your Recipes in WordPress

To optimize your recipes for even more traffic from search engines, you can use our blog post SEO checklist.

We also recommend using a plugin like WP Tasty Recipes alongside AIOSEO.

WP Tasty Recipes is one of the best recipe plugins for food bloggers. It lets you easily create customizable recipe cards to make your recipe posts look amazing.

It comes with six different recipe card themes, step-by-step video integrations, ingredient checkboxes, custom share and save buttons, ‘jump to recipe’ shortcuts, and more.

Additionally, with Nutrifox, you can create nutrition facts labels for your recipes. These will display the nutritional content of your dishes beneath your recipes so that readers can make more informed decisions.

For more information, you can see our guide on how to make nutrition facts labels in WordPress.

We hope that this article helped you learn how to add SEO-friendly recipes with schema in WordPress. You may also want to see our guide on how to get a free SSL certificate for your WordPress website and our expert picks for the best WordPress themes for recipe and food blogs.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to ourÂ YouTube ChannelÂ for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us onÂ TwitterÂ and Facebook.

The post How to Add SEO-Friendly Recipe Schema in WordPress (Easy Way) first appeared on WPBeginner.

20.06.2023
How to Add HTTP Security Headers in WordPress (Beginnerâ€™s Guide)
Do you want to add HTTP security headers in WordPress?

HTTP security headers allow you to add an extra layer of security to your WordPress website. They can help block common malicious activity from affecting your site’s performance.

In this beginner’s guide, we will show you how to add HTTP security headers in WordPress.

What Are HTTP Security Headers?

HTTP security headers are a security measure that allows your website’s server to prevent some common security threats before they can affect your website.

When a user visits your WordPress website, your web server sends an HTTP header response to their browser. This response tells browsers about error codes, cache control, and other statuses.

The normal header response issues a status called HTTP 200. After this, your website loads in the user’s browser. However, if your website is having difficulty, then your web server may send a different HTTP header.

For example, it may send a 500 internal server error or a not found 404 error code.

HTTP security headers are a subset of these headers. They are used to protect websites from common threats like click-jacking, cross-site scripting, brute force attacks, and more.

Let’s have a quick look at some HTTP security headers and how they protect your website:
- HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) tells web browsers that your website uses HTTPS and should not be loaded using an insecure protocol like HTTP.
- X-XSS Protection allows you to block cross-site scripting from loading.
- X-Frame-Options prevents cross-domain iframes or click-jacking.
- X-Content-Type-Options X-Content-Type-Options blocks content mime-type sniffing.
HTTP security headers work best when they are set at the web server level, which means your WordPress hosting account. This allows them to be triggered early on during a typical HTTP request and provide maximum benefit.

They work even better if you are using a DNS-level website application firewall like Sucuri or Cloudflare.

That being said, let’s take a look at how to easily add HTTP security headers in WordPress. Here are quick links to different methods so that you can jump to the one that suits you:
1. Adding HTTP Security Headers in WordPress Using Sucuri

Sucuri is one of the best WordPress security plugins on the market. If you are using their website firewall service, then you can set HTTP security headers without writing any code.

First, you will need to sign up for a Sucuri account. It is a paid service that comes with a server-level website firewall, security plugin, CDN, and malware removal guarantee.

During sign-up, you will need to answer simple questions, and Sucuri documentation will help you set up the website application firewall on your website.

After signing up, you must install and activate the free Sucuri plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you need to go to Sucuri Security Â» Firewall (WAF) and enter your Firewall API key. You can find this information under your account on the Sucuri website.

After that, you will need to click the green ‘Save’ button to store your changes.

Next, you must switch to your Sucuri account dashboard. From here, click on the ‘Settings’ menu on top and then switch to the ‘Security’ tab.

From here, you can choose three sets of rules. The default protection will work well for most websites.

If you have a Professional or Business plan, then you also have options for HSTS and HSTS Full. You can see which HTTP security headers will be applied for each set of rules.

You need to click the ‘Save Changes in the Additional Headers’ button to apply your changes.

Sucuri will now add your selected HTTP security headers in WordPress. Since it is a DNS-level WAF, your website traffic is protected from hackers even before they reach your website.

2. Adding HTTP Security Headers in WordPress Using Cloudflare

Cloudflare offers a basic free website firewall and CDN service. It lacks advanced security features in its free plan, so you will need to upgrade to its Pro plan, which is more expensive.

You can learn how to add Cloudflare to your website by following our tutorial on how to set up the Cloudflare free CDN in WordPress.

Once Cloudflare is active on your website, you must go to the SSL/TLS page in your Cloudflare account dashboard and then switch to the ‘Edge Certificates’ tab.

Now, scroll down to the ‘HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS)’ section.

Once you find it, you need to click on the ‘Enable HSTS’ button.

This will bring up a popup with instructions telling you that you must have HTTPS enabled on your website before using this feature.

If your WordPress blog already has a secure HTTPS connection, then you can click on the ‘Next’ button to continue. You will see the options to add HTTP security headers.

From here, you can enable HSTS, apply HSTS to subdomains (if the subdomains are using HTTPS), preload HSTS, and enable no-sniff header.

This method provides basic protection using HTTP security headers. However, it does not let you add X-Frame-Options, and Cloudflare doesn’t have a user interface to do that.

You can still do that by creating a script using the Cloudflare Workers feature. However, we don’t recommend this because creating an HTTPS security header script may cause unexpected issues for beginners.

3. Adding HTTP Security Headers in WordPress Using .htaccess

This method allows you to set the HTTP security headers in WordPress at the server level.

It requires editing the .htaccess file on your website. This server configuration file is used by the most commonly used Apache webserver software.

Note: Before making any changes to files on your website, we recommend making a backup.

Next, simply connect to your website using an FTP client or the file manager in your hosting control panel. In the root folder of your website, you need to find the .htaccess file and edit it.

This will open the file in a plain text editor. At the bottom of the file, you can add some code to add HTTPS security headers to your WordPress website.

You can use the following sample code as a starting point. It sets the most commonly used HTTP security headers with optimal settings:
```
<ifModule mod_headers.c>
Header set Strict-Transport-Security "max-age=31536000" env=HTTPS
Header set X-XSS-Protection "1; mode=block"
Header set X-Content-Type-Options nosniff
Header set X-Frame-Options DENY
Header set Referrer-Policy: no-referrer-when-downgrade
</ifModule>
```
Don’t forget to save your changes and visit your website to make sure that everything is working as expected.

Note: Take care when editing code on your website. Incorrect headers or conflicts in the .htaccess file may trigger the 500 Internal Server Error.

4. Adding HTTP Security Headers in WordPress Using AIOSEO

All in One SEO (AIOSEO) is the best SEO tool for WordPress and is trusted by over 3 million businesses. The premium plugin lets you easily add HTTP security headers to your website.

The first thing you will need to do is install and activate the AIOSEO plugin on your website. You can learn more in our step-by-step guide on how to set up All in One SEO for WordPress.

You then need to head over to the All in One SEO Â» Redirects page to add the HTTP security headers. First, you will need to click the ‘Activate Redirects’ button to enable the feature.

Once redirects are enabled, you need to click on the ‘Full Site Redirect’ tab and then scroll down to the ‘Canonical Settings’ section.

Simply enable the ‘Canonical Settings’ toggle and then click the ‘Add Security Presets’ button.

You will see a preset list of HTTP security headers appear in the table.

These headers are optimized for security. You can review and change them if needed.

Make sure to click the ‘Save Changes’ button at the top or bottom of the screen to store the security headers.

You can now visit your website to make sure that everything is working fine.

How to Check HTTP Security Headers for a Website

Now that you have added HTTP Security headers to your website, you can test your configuration using the free Security Headers tool.

Simply enter your website URL and click on the ‘Scan’ button.

It will then check HTTP security headers for your website and show you a report. The tool will also generate a so-called grade label, which you can ignore as most websites will get a B or C score without affecting user experience.

It will show you which HTTP security headers are sent by your website and which ones are not included. If the security headers that you wanted to set up are listed there, then you are done.

We hope this article helped you learn how to add HTTP security headers in WordPress. You may also want to see our complete WordPress security guide and our expert picks for the best WordPress plugins for business websites.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to ourÂ YouTube ChannelÂ for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us onÂ TwitterÂ and Facebook.

The post How to Add HTTP Security Headers in WordPress (Beginnerâ€™s Guide) first appeared on WPBeginner.
05.06.2023
How to Write a Great Blog Post (Structure + Examples)
Do you want to write a great blog post, but arenâ€™t sure how to structure it?

You can write a compelling and helpful blog post, but without the right structure, only a few people may read it. The people who do visit your blog might even get lost and give up without finishing the post.

In this article, we will show you how to write a great blog post, even if you’re a beginner.

Why is Structure So Important in Blog Posts?

According to our blogging statistics research, there are over 600 million blogs. With so much competition, youâ€™ll need to do everything in your power to make your blogs stand out, including using the right structure.

A well-structured blog leads the reader from one point to the next in a logical way thatâ€™s easy to follow and understand. Many people simply skim blogs, so the right structure also helps people find the parts theyâ€™re interested in reading.

A clear structure doesnâ€™t just help visitors understand your content. Search engine bots will also find it easier to crawl your blogs and then show them to the right people. This will improve your search engine rankings and get more visitors to your WordPress blog.

How to Write a Great Blog Post (Structure + Examples)

You might be a world-class writer, but without a clear structure your blog posts may still be difficult to read.

With that in mind, letâ€™s look at how you can write a well-structured blog post, even if you’re a complete beginner. Simply use the quick links below to jump straight to the topic you want to read about.
Create a Descriptive and Compelling Headline

Your postâ€™s headline is usually the first thing people see. No matter how good your blogâ€™s content is, youâ€™ll struggle to get readers with a boring title.

A compelling headline will catch a personâ€™s attention no matter whether they spot it on social media, an RSS feed, in their search engine results, or some other location.

That said, the headline should describe what the post is about, while also making people want to read it.

With countless blogs on the internet, itâ€™s hard to cut through the noise. While thereâ€™s no magic formula for creating the perfect headline, BuzzSumo analyzed over 100 million articles and concluded that the ideal headline length is between 11 words and 65 characters.

If you include numbers in your headlines, then research suggests people prefer to share headlines that have single-digit numbers.

BuzzSumo also found that more people engage with headlines that include the current year.

Even simply adding a year to the end of a title may be enough to increase your blog traffic.

People are also more likely to share headlines that suggest newness, so you may want to try including phrases like â€˜for the first time.â€™

Another trick is teasing must-have information by saying things like â€˜need to know,’ ‘you need to,’ or â€˜the best.â€™

If youâ€™re writing a â€˜how toâ€™ post, then think about the problem your blog solves. What might someone type into a search engine when theyâ€™re facing this problem? This is often a great starting point for a compelling â€˜how toâ€™ headline.

After drafting a title, you can enter it into a headline analyzer such as AIOSEO. This plugin will use real data to score your headline and suggest ways to improve it. In this way, even beginners can write a compelling blog headline.

If you don’t want to install a plugin, then you can use WPBeginner’s free Headline Analyzer.

For more information, please see our guide on how to use a headline analyzer in WordPress to improve SEO titles.

Write a Clear and Concise Introduction

Every great blog post needs a clear introduction that tells visitors what the post is about. This helps people decide whether theyâ€™re interested in the topic.

Just like the headline, itâ€™s not enough to simply state what the blog is about. You also need to make the visitor want to carry on reading.

People donâ€™t want to waste time on blogs theyâ€™re not interested in. Having said that, your introduction should be short and to the point. Ideally, you should aim for 1-3 paragraphs.

When it comes to creating a tight, focused introduction, a good trick is to try and include your blogâ€™s keyword as early as possible. By sticking to this goal, youâ€™ll be less likely to go off-topic.

Depending on the kind of blog youâ€™re writing, you may get good results by sharing interesting or surprising statistics in the introduction. This example from MonsterInsights is guaranteed to catch the attention of any online store owner who wants to get more sales.

Another option is to talk about a problem and promise a solution.

This RafflePress post discusses a problem the user may have: promoting your business on Instagram can be expensive and not everyone has a big budget.

It then promises a solution: get noticed on Instagram for free.

Many introductions also use FOMO, or fear of missing out. By adding time pressure, you can make people want to read the post now, rather than risk missing out on a giveaway, event, trip, or anything else the post is talking about.

This travel blog takes a pretty standard â€˜Top Places to Visitâ€™ listicle and turns it into a race against time.

Weâ€™ve also seen blogs draw the reader in by sharing a humorous personal story. If this anecdote resonates with the target audience, then it can be a powerful hook.

For example, this introduction makes it very clear that the author knows exactly what the reader is going through.

No matter what approach you take, if youâ€™re going to hook your audience, then you need to know all about them. The best way to learn about your audience is by using Google Analytics.

For step-by-step instructions, please see our guide on how to install Google Analytics. If you’re already a GA user, you may also want to see our ultimate guide to Google Analytics 4.

Break Up Content with Headings

A 2022 study by the Policy Institute and Centre for Attention Studies found that most people feel their attention span is shorter than it used to be.

No matter how good your writing is, all your hard work will go to waste if readers canâ€™t concentrate on more than a few paragraphs.

Thatâ€™s why we recommend using headings to break your post into bite-sized chunks.

Headings help readers skim the post and find the content theyâ€™re interested in reading. It also makes it easier for them to revisit sections they want to read again.

Before you start writing, itâ€™s a good idea to map out all the headings youâ€™ll use and the content youâ€™ll add to each section. This will keep you focused as you write the post.

Ideally, your headings should summarize each major point you want to make. In fact, readers should be able to understand the flow of your blog simply by scanning the headings.

Letâ€™s look at an example. Here, we have some tips on how to store coffee beans correctly. Although each paragraph provides useful extra information, you can get all the tips just by reading the headings.

After creating your headings, organize them so your content flows logically. For example, if youâ€™re writing a fitness blog then you shouldnâ€™t tell readers how many times to repeat an exercise before showing them how to do it.

When itâ€™s time to add these headings to your WordPress website, there are six built-in heading tags that you can use.

Similar to bullet points and numbered lists, you can use these headings to create a nested structure of headings and subheadings.

However, we recommend keeping the heading hierarchy as simple as possible, to avoid confusing your readers. This means using H2 headings for main sections, and then H3 for subsections, and so on.

Add a Table Of Contents

A table of contents lists the postâ€™s main points and provides links to specific sections. This gives visitors an overview of what the blog covers while allowing them to jump straight to the content theyâ€™re interested in.

This can keep visitors on your website for longer, even if theyâ€™re only interested in part of a blog post.

A table of contents can even improve your WordPress SEO, as Google often uses the table to automatically add â€˜jump to sectionâ€™ links in search results.

The easiest way to add a table of contents to your WordPress blog is by using AIOSEO.

AIOSEO is the best WordPress SEO plugin and comes with a built-in table of contents block.

This block saves you a ton of time by automatically generating a table of contents based on the postâ€™s headings, while also allowing you to customize the table.

For complete step-by-step instructions, please see our guide on how to create a table of contents in WordPress posts and pages.

Keep Paragraphs and Sentences Short

Imagine opening a blog post just to find a wall of text. Chances are, youâ€™d leave the page immediately. That said, itâ€™s important to break your blog into short paragraphs and sentences. These are easier to skim and look much less daunting, especially on mobile devices.

A good trick is to avoid long and complicated words, intricate metaphors, and flowery language. All of that to say: keep it simple. Youâ€™ll lose people if you try to be too clever.

Ideally, you should aim to make a single point per sentence, using as few words as possible.

Often, you can break grammatical rules if it gets your point across in fewer words. This may mean starting sentences with things like â€˜Or,â€™ â€˜And,â€™ or â€˜But,â€™ or using more casual language and fragments rather than full sentences.

You should also organize your sentences and paragraphs to give the reader the most important information first, and then go into finer detail from there. This makes it easier for the reader to skip sections theyâ€™re not interested in.

In this TrustPulse blog, the writer starts by explaining what eCommerce email marketing is. Then, they give Mailchimp and ActiveCampaign as examples of popular email providers.

The next paragraph talks about why email marketing is important, before exploring specific features. As you can see, the section starts with the most important point and then gets more and more detailed.

Add Images, Video, and Other Media

Visitors donâ€™t want to feel like theyâ€™re reading a novel when they visit your blog. With that in mind, itâ€™s a good idea to add visual content like photos, infographics, screenshots, graphs, and diagrams.

Immediately, this breaks up your text, but it also helps visitors see what each section is about, at a glance. Each piece of visual content is also another opportunity to grab the readerâ€™s attention as they scroll through your post.

It even seems like blogs with visual content are more popular. According to our blogging statistics research, posts with more than seven images get 116% more organic traffic compared to posts that have no images. Similarly, blogs with videos get 83% more traffic than those without video.

If youâ€™re writing â€˜how toâ€™ blogs, then images help visitors understand what they need to do. For example, this PushEngage blog uses screenshots to show readers what to click next in order to create a landing page in WordPress.

If youâ€™re promoting an affiliate product, then visuals like images and videos are a great way to show that product in action. This can often get you more affiliate revenue.

Letâ€™s look at an example. This post about soil-less indoor garden kits shows lots of photos of the different kits available to buy on Amazon, complete with Amazon affiliate links.

Just be aware that lots of high-resolution media can add to your siteâ€™s loading time, so itâ€™s important to optimize your images and other media. Readers will also need to scroll past any media theyâ€™re not interested in, which can be particularly frustrating for smartphone and tablet users.

With that being said, all visuals should add value for the reader.

Wrap Up Blog Posts With a Conclusion

A good conclusion summarizes all the points you’ve made throughout the blog, without introducing any new information.

Depending on the topic, you may sometimes want to suggest an actionable solution or share your top pick of all the products, WordPress plugins, travel destinations, and anything else youâ€™ve compared or reviewed throughout the blog.

However, as a general rule conclusions tend to be pretty short, so donâ€™t worry if your conclusion is one or two sentences.

End With a Compelling Call To Action (CTA)

When the reader reaches the end of the post, you need to tell them what to do next. This should be an action that keeps them engaged with your blog or gets them to convert, which is known as a call to action.

In the following Easy Digital Downloads post, you can see several calls to action on the page.

A good call to action is clear, asks for the user to take a precise action, and has a sense of urgency. For example, you might ask them to download a PDF or subscribe to your email newsletter.

Even if you use the same call to action, itâ€™s a good idea to customize it for the individual post. In the following image, interior design blog Decorilla is using its standard call to action, which encourages readers to schedule a free consultation using a booking form.

However, theyâ€™ve tweaked the messaging to suit the blogâ€™s topic, which is how to decorate a childâ€™s bedroom.

If youâ€™re not sure what call to action to use, then ask yourself why youâ€™re writing this blog. If you want to get more comments, then you might ask readers to share their opinion or answer a question by posting it in the comment section.

You might even offer a reward for commenting, such as entering the reader into a giveaway or contest. For example, the example below gives readers a list of books and asks them to comment on which one they want to win.

Another option is to suggest some posts the visitor might want to read next.

For the best results, include links that relate to the current blog in some way, which is exactly what AffiliateWP does on their affiliate marketing blog.

We hope this tutorial helped you learn how to write a great blog post. You may also want to learn how to make money online blogging, or check out our list of the best SEO plugins and tools you should use.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to ourÂ YouTube ChannelÂ for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us onÂ TwitterÂ and Facebook.

The post How to Write a Great Blog Post (Structure + Examples) first appeared on WPBeginner.
05.06.2023
Should You Accept Guest Posts on Your WordPress Blog? (Pros/Cons)

Are you trying to decide whether to accept guest posts on your WordPress blog?

Publishing guest posts can be a quick and easy way to get new content for your site. However, there are negatives and positives to consider, before deciding whether guest posts are right for your blog.

In this article, we’ll take a look at the pros and cons of accepting guest posts on your WordPress blog.

What Are Guest Posts?

Guests blogs are a type of user-generated content thatâ€™s created by people who arenâ€™t officially linked to your website.

Often, guest bloggers have their own products and services that they want to promote via guest blogging. With that in mind, they might feature their product or service in the guest blog, or add a backlink in their author bio.

Other guest bloggers may want to build their reputation as an industry leader by publishing on reputable websites just like yours.

Guest blogging is a very popular marketing and content-creation tactic. In fact, if you type â€˜write for usâ€™ into your favorite search engine, then youâ€™ll get a ton of results.

That said, deciding whether to accept guest posts on your WordPress blog is a big decision. To help you make the right choice, letâ€™s look at the pros and cons of accepting guest posts on your WordPress blog.

Pros: Should You Accept Guest Posts on Your WordPress Blog?

Some of the best WordPress blogs accept guest posts, so it’s no surprise there are many benefits. With that in mind, hereâ€™s why you may want to accept guest blogs on your WordPress website.

Get A Fresh Point of View

Every author has a unique point of view, and your audience will likely appreciate a change of pace and ideas. This is especially true if youâ€™re a solo blogger or feel that your content is getting stale.

To really catch the readerâ€™s attention, you can encourage guest bloggers to write about their own experiences or talk about a topic that typically generates lots of debate or even controversy. This can get more comments on your WordPress blogs.

In the best-case scenario, the guest post might even go viral and increase your blog traffic.

Although you want guest posts to stand out, they should still fit with the rest of your content. That said, itâ€™s smart to publish a detailed style guide that guest bloggers can follow.

If you have a â€˜wish listâ€™ of topics for guest bloggers, then you can add them to your guidelines.

In this way, you can bring fresh and interesting opinions to your blog, while keeping things consistent for your regular readers.

Connect With a New Audience

Typically, guest bloggers want to promote their own products and services, or grow their reputation as a respected industry figure. With that in mind, guest bloggers will work hard to drive traffic to their blog.

This may mean sharing the link on their social media accounts, adding it to their email newsletter, or even writing about the guest post on their own website.

This is all free promotion for your site and can get you lots of new visitors.

Even better, this is an entirely new audience who may be learning about your site for the first time. If these people like what they see, they may become regular readers or even customers.

That said, itâ€™s a good idea to tell the guest blogger when you publish their post so they can start promoting it right away.

You might even share your Google Analytics data with them, so they know what actions are driving the most traffic to their blog. The guest writer can then fine-tune their actions to get you even more visitors.

For more information, please see our guide on how to track user engagement in WordPress with Google Analytics.

Connect with Industry Professionals

Accepting guest posts on your WordPress blog could be the first step to building positive relationships with the wider community including industry leaders.

This networking can lead to all sorts of opportunities, such as a chance to speak at events and conferences. Even if you simply chat with industry figures on social media, this can create a buzz around your business and get you more visitors.

If potential customers see you engaging positively with respected people online, then this also adds to your reputation. This may eventually get you more sales and conversions.

Newer blogs or websites may struggle to get guest blogs from big names. However, thereâ€™s always a chance that a smaller guest blogger may go on to do big things. If this happens, then a guest blog you published months or even years ago may suddenly start to get more traffic.

If youâ€™re lucky, then the author will remember you gave them a chance when they were a new blogger. If this happens, then youâ€™ll have a powerful industry contact, which could mean big opportunities for your business.

An Easy Way to Create Content

Creating blog posts takes time and effort. If youâ€™re a solo blogger or a new business, then you may struggle to publish new content regularly.

Guest bloggers can supply you with new and interesting content, and help keep your blog fresh. By regularly publishing guest posts on your website, you can improve your WordPress SEO and keep people coming back to your blog.

Even better, you can do this without having to hire extra writers or taking time out of your busy schedule to blog.

Finding quality guest bloggers and editing submissions can take time, but itâ€™s often much faster than writing the post yourself. There are also ways to effectively attract and manage guest bloggers, which can save you even more time.

To start, you can create a â€˜write for usâ€™ page so potential bloggers can read your guidelines, formatting rules, and the kind of content youâ€™re interested in publishing.

This should improve the quality of the guest posts you get, while also helping you avoid answering the same questions over and over again.

The easiest way to create a â€˜write for usâ€™ page is by using SeedProd. This WordPress page builder plugin comes with more than 180 professionally-designed templates and ready-made blocks that allow you to create an eye-catching â€˜write for usâ€™ page, fast.

After creating this page, you should add it to your siteâ€™s main navigation menu so visitors can find it easily.

We also recommend allowing users to submit posts using WPForms. WPForms is the best form plugin for WordPress and comes with a post submission addon that allows guest bloggers to upload content to your blog.

In this way, you can automate the submission process and save yourself a ton of time.

For more information, please see our guide on how to allow users to submit posts on your WordPress site.

Improve Your Reputation

When someone guest blogs for your website, people tend to see it as an endorsement. These guest bloggers are saying they like your brand and want to be associated with you.

In this way, accepting guest posts on your WordPress blog can build your reputation as a respected member of the community. With that in mind, we recommend trying to get guest blogs from industry experts and leaders in your field.

Also note that the endorsement goes both ways. You are also sort of endorsing the writer, too, by having them on your site. So it pays to be mindful of who you choose to write for you.

Plus, according to our blogging statistics report, there are over 600 million blogs online. A steady stream of recognizable guest bloggers can make your site feel more like a professional publication. This immediately makes your blog stand out from the millions of other blogs, which is great for driving more readers to your site.

Cons: Should You Accept Guest Posts on Your WordPress Blog?

It may seem like every WordPress website accepts guest posts, but guest blogging isnâ€™t right for every website.

With that being said, hereâ€™s why you might not want to accept guest blogs.

Guest Posts Often Mean More Spam

Spam is a big problem for all websites. If you accept guest posts using WPForms, then you get built-in spam protection tokens, reCAPTCHA and custom CAPTCHAs, and other powerful features that can protect your site from spambots.

However, you may still get unwanted submissions. Some authors submit their posts to every single â€˜write for usâ€™ page they find, in the hope of getting at least one positive reply. Sometimes, these people may not even read your â€˜write for usâ€™ guidelines.

Reading through submissions takes time and effort, so these spammy posts can slow down your editorial workflow.

Using a plugin with built-in spam protection like WPForms is a great start, and it can protect you from most automated spam and bots. However, you should still expect to get a few â€˜spammyâ€™ submissions that arenâ€™t appropriate for your business website or blog.

You May Get Blog Posts Created By AI Content Generators

Some bloggers may be more interested in publishing lots of guest posts, fast, rather than sending you quality content. With that in mind, you may get some guest posts created by AI content generators such as GPT3 (Generative Pre-trained Transformer 3).

Guest bloggers simply need to provide AI or CharGPT writing prompts and the artificial intelligence program will then go through lots of publicly available information to create a guest blog post for your website.

This can be a way to create lots of guest posts quickly, but there are some big problems for website owners. Firstly, there’s no guarantee that all the information these artificial intelligence plugins and tools use is accurate, so you may publish a guest post that includes completely false information.

Many AI-powered tools such as ChatGPT are also designed to be impartial and unbiased. This means the guest post may feel bland and uncreative, with very little passion or enthusiasm for the guest blog’s topic.

As AI generators get more sophisticated you may find it difficult to spot guest blogs that are written by autoblogging tools. However, researchers at Google have worked for years to detect content generated by artificial intelligence tools. In the past, they have penalized websites for publishing AI-generated content.

With that in mind, publishing guest blogs written by artificial intelligence may hurt your WordPress SEO, even if you didn’t realize the post was written by AI.

We feel that artificial intelligence tools like GPT3 can be great writing assistants for guest bloggers. They can be used to quickly create a blog outline, gather information, and suggest some key points for a guest blog. However, websites should be wary about accepting any guest blogs that are written using AI.

You May Get Duplicate Guest Post Content

Guest bloggers often try to promote their products, services, or brand by submitting to as many blogs as possible.

This means you may get a submission thatâ€™s already been published elsewhere. You may even publish a guest post, only for that content to appear on another website later.

This isnâ€™t your fault, but the duplicate content can impact your SEO. Search engines such as Google often remove duplicate guest blogs from their search results, so you may struggle to get traffic.

Even if the duplicate content appears in the search results, youâ€™re still sharing visitors with everyone else whoâ€™s published the same guest blog.

To avoid duplicate content, you should add an originality clause to your â€˜write for usâ€™ guidelines. This section should say you only accept submissions that haven’t been published elsewhere, including on the writerâ€™s own website.

You should also make it clear that once you accept a post, the writer must stop submitting it to other websites.

However, thereâ€™s no guarantee that guest bloggers will follow your guidelines. With that in mind, you may want to check whether a submission has already been published. You can simply paste some of the content into a search engine such as Google, and see whether you get any matching results.

After publishing a guest post, you can monitor whether it shows up on other sites. For more on this topic, please see our guide on how to easily find and remove stolen content.

Youâ€™ll Need to Edit Guest Blogs

By publishing detailed and helpful guest blogger guidelines, you can often improve the quality of the posts you receive. However, youâ€™ll still need to review and edit all incoming posts.

Depending on the quality of the guest posts, this can take a lot of time. Youâ€™ll also need to spend time on other tasks such as optimizing the postâ€™s images and optimizing the blog post for SEO.

Thankfully, there are tools that can help you edit guest posts, fast. When it comes to optimizing for search engines, we recommend AIOSEO.

AIOSEO is the best SEO plugin for WordPress and provides actionable suggestions for how to improve a blog postâ€™s SEO.

This includes optimizing images for search engines by automatically setting your alt text, image titles, captions, and more.

You can simply type in the keyword you want to rank for, and AIOSEO will analyze the guest post for that keyword. It will then show you a score, and give suggestions on how to improve your ranking for that specific keyword.

For more information, please see our guide on how to setup All in One SEO for WordPress.

Youâ€™ll Need to Promote Your Guest Blogging Program

After publishing your â€˜write for usâ€™ page and submission form, youâ€™ll need to drive people to those pages. This means promoting your guest blogging program.

There are lots of ways to attract guest bloggers, including posting on social media and writer forums and notifying everyone on your email list.

Once youâ€™ve built relationships with reliable, quality bloggers, you should have no problems getting a steady stream of guest posts for your website. However, finding these people can be a lot of work. Youâ€™ll often need to invest time and effort into promoting your guest blogging program before it starts delivering results.

Final Verdict: Should You Accept Guest Posts on Your WordPress Blog?

There are many benefits to accepting guest blogs on your WordPress website. It can be a great way to generate new and interesting content for your blog, without you having to spend time researching and writing yourself.

By publishing guest blogs, you can also connect with other people in your industry. This includes leading industry figures, plus up-and-coming bloggers who may become important contacts in the future.

However, there are some big drawbacks you need to be aware of. In particular, duplicate content and spammy posts can hurt your SEO and your reputation as a respected website.

If you don’t want to allow guest authors to register an account on your site, then consider creating a guest post submission form on your website. It lets guest authors submit their articles directly to your post editor without even creating a user account for them.

Of course, using the right tools can help you avoid many of the drawbacks, while still getting all of the benefits.

We hope this tutorial helped you decide whether to access guest posts on your WordPress blog. You may also want to learn how to make money online blogging with WordPress, or check out our expert pick of the must-have WordPress plugins for business websites.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to ourÂ YouTube ChannelÂ for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us onÂ TwitterÂ and Facebook.

The post Should You Accept Guest Posts on Your WordPress Blog? (Pros/Cons) first appeared on WPBeginner.

01.06.2023
How to Use Headline Analyzer in WordPress to Improve SEO Titles
Are you looking for ways to improve your SEO rankings? A higher click-through rate on your SEO titles can help.

Your title is the first thing that people will see in search engine results, and they will decide whether to click on your link based on that title. A headline analyzer helps you create engaging titles that will get more clicks.

In this article, we will show you how to use a headline analyzer in WordPress to improve your SEO titles.

What Is a Headline Analyzer Tool & Why Do You Need It?

Choosing the best titles for your blog posts and landing pages is extremely important for search engine optimization (SEO). Powerful titles can get people to click on your links in the search results and visit your WordPress website.

Of course, the more people who click on your titles, the more traffic you will get. But a higher click-through rate (CTR) can also improve your search engine rankings, getting you even more visitors.

It can be tricky for beginners to come up with a headline that instantly captures people’s attention and gets them to click a link. This is where a headline analyzer tool can help.

A headline analyzer is a tool that helps you evaluate and improve your headlines. It provides data-driven insights and suggestions for creating titles that are engaging and click-worthy.

With that being said, let’s take a look at how you can use a headline analyzer tool to improve your SEO titles in WordPress. Here are the topics we’ll cover in this article:
Video Tutorial

If you’d prefer written instructions, just keep reading.

Adding the Headline Analyzer Tool in WordPress

There are a few ways to add the Headline Analyzer tool in WordPress. When you install either the free All in One SEO or MonsterInsights plugin, it will be automatically added to WordPress.

You can also access the Headline Analyzer for free on the WPBeginner website. Read on to learn how.

Installing All in One SEO

The easiest way to analyze your headlines in WordPress is by using the All in One SEO (AIOSEO) plugin. It’s the best SEO plugin for WordPress on the market and is used by over 3 million websites.

AIOSEO helps you optimize your website for search engines without any technical knowledge or the need to hire an SEO expert. The plugin offers a headline analyzer inside your WordPress editor so that you can create powerful titles.

Note: This tutorial will use the AIOSEO Lite version since it includes the headline analyzer tool. There is also a Pro version that we use on the WPBeginner site because it offers powerful features like smart schema, XML sitemaps, and more.

The first thing you’ll need to do is install and activate the free version of AIOSEO on your website. If you need help, then you can follow our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, the Headline Analyzer will be immediately added to WordPress.

The plugin will automatically launch its setup wizard. You can go ahead and click the ‘Let’s Get Started’ button to set up the other features of AIOSEO plugin on your website.

For more details, you can read our guide on how to set up All in One SEO for WordPress.

Installing MonsterInsights

The Headline Analyzer is also a feature of the MonsterInsights plugin. Like AIOSEO, once the plugin is installed, the Headline Analyzer will automatically become available in the post editor.

MonsterInsights is the most popular Google Analytics plugin for WordPress, used by over 3 million websites. It will help you discover the types of visitors you get on your website, and what they do once they are there. This can help you make your content more relevant.

You can use the MonsterInsights free version to analyze your headlines, but there is also a MonsterInsights Pro version. It includes additional features like advanced analytics, A/B testing, user journeys, and more.

You can get started by installing and activating MonsterInsights free on your website. If you need help, then you can follow our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

You can learn how to set up MonsterInsights’ other features by reading our guide on how to install Google Analytics in WordPress for beginners.

Finding the Headline Analyzer on the WPBeginner Website

If you prefer not to install a plugin, then you can access the Headline Analyzer for free on the WPBeginner website.

Simply navigate to our Headline Analyzer page. Once there, you can type in your headline and click the ‘Analyze’ button.

You can then use the tool to improve your heading right there on the page rather than in the WordPress editor.

In the image below, you can see an example with an overall score and an analysis of the different parts of the headline:

If you scroll down the page, you will also see some recommendations for how to improve your headline.

For example, the Headline Analyzer tool might recommend adding more uncommon or emotional words to your headline to get more clicks.

You can use these tips to try different headline options. Then, simply enter the new headline into the Headline Analyzer tool until you are happy with the results.

Finally, you just need to copy the headline and add it to your WordPress post.

Adding an SEO Title to Your Post

If you are using the All in One SEO or MonsterInsights plugin, then you will need to access the Headline Analyzer tool within the WordPress post editor.

Go ahead and edit or add a new post. Once you are in the WordPress editor, you can add your blog post title at the top.

It’s important to remember that there are differences between the post title and the SEO title.

The first difference is that, behind the scenes, these titles use completely different HTML tags. Your post title is enclosed in <h1> tags, while the SEO tag uses <title> tags.

The second difference is where the titles appear. The post title will normally be displayed at the top of the page, depending on your WordPress theme. On the other hand, the SEO title doesn’t appear in the post at all.

Instead, the SEO title suggests to search engines like Google how you would like your title displayed in search results. It also displays in the browser’s title bar when viewing the post.

By default, WordPress doesn’t let you enter an SEO title. But SEO plugins like AIOSEO allow you to easily add an SEO title to your articles.

If AIOSEO is installed on your website, then you can simply scroll down to the ‘AIOSEO Settings’ meta box in your WordPress editor and then enter a headline under ‘Post Title.’

The plugin also offers smart tags, so you can automatically add information to your titles, like the post title, current year, author name, categories, site tagline, and more.

Using Headline Analyzer to Improve Your SEO Title

After adding a headline for your article, you can analyze it using AIOSEO or MonsterInsights. All you have to do is click the green ‘SEO Headline Analyzer’ button in the top right.

AIOSEO or MonsterInsights will show you a score ranging from 1 to 100 for your headline. A score of 70 or more shows that you have written a powerful headline.

If your score is below 70, then don’t worry. The headline analyzer will show suggestions for improving the score and making your title more engaging to get more clicks and traffic.

Now you can scroll down and look at the word balance of your copy. The plugin will look for common, uncommon, emotional, and power words.

These are words that help trigger a psychological or emotional response from your audience. When creating headlines, you can use these words to improve your headline score and boost their click-through rate (CTR).

Next, you can check the sentiment of your headline. Titles with a positive feeling tend to get better engagement and more clicks than neutral or negative ones.

Besides that, the plugin will also show you the headline type. For example, you can see whether your headline type is a how-to post, list post, resource post, or more.

These types of titles tend to get more clicks than generic titles.

After that, you can scroll down and check the character count and word count for your title in the headline analyzer tool.

It’s recommended to write headlines that are under 55 characters so that search engines can fully show the text in the search results.

If your titles are more than 55 characters, then search engines might cut off the text at the end. This can make the meaning of your title unclear and lower your click-through rate.

Next, you can analyze the 3 beginning and ending words of your headline. Most readers usually glance at the first 3 and last 3 words in a post title before deciding to click.

Using this information, you can place your target keyword and most important information in the beginning to capture the reader’s attention.

The Headline Analyzer also shows a preview of how your headline will appear in the search engine page results.

If your headline doesn’t get a good score, then you can easily try new headlines and analyze them before deciding on the best SEO title.

All you have to do is switch to the ‘Try New Headline’ tab in the tool, enter your new headline, and click the ‘Analyze Headline’ button.

AIOSEO or MonsterInsights will show you a score of your new headline and compare it with the current SEO title.

You can try multiple headlines for your WordPress blog post and analyze their scores to see which one works the best.

Before you hit publish, check out our blog post optimization checklist to make sure the post is fully optimized to get the most traffic possible.

Pro Tips: Search Console + Headline Analyzer

You can take these tips even further like the Pros do and combine the headline analyzer with insights from Google Search Console.

If you look at our ultimate Google Search Console guide to grow traffic, you will see there is a section about finding low-hanging keywords where you can easily rank.

You can then try adding one of these low-hanging keywords to your SEO title and throughout your post. As your click-through rate increases, your SEO rankings will go up as well.

We hope this article helped you learn how to use a headline analyzer in WordPress to improve SEO titles. You may also want to see our guide on how to get a free SSL certificate for your WordPress site and our expert picks for the best WooCommerce plugins to grow your store.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to ourÂ YouTube ChannelÂ for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us onÂ TwitterÂ and Facebook.

The post How to Use Headline Analyzer in WordPress to Improve SEO Titles first appeared on WPBeginner.
30.05.2023
Introducing WPBeginner SEO Analyzer: Free SEO Audit Tool to Boost Rankings
Do you want to optimize your website for search engines?

Ever wished there was any easy way to perform an SEO (search engine optimization) audit to find critical errors on your site WITHOUT the high costs?

If youâ€™re like me and most other smart website owners, then you have at least wished for this solution a couple of times in your WordPress journey.

Today, Iâ€™m excited to release a new free tool, WPBeginner SEO Analyzer, which helps you make informed decisions on how to fix SEO errors and grow your organic traffic.

We built this tool because we believe everyone should be able to optimize their site for SEO regardless of their skill set.

What is an SEO Analyzer Tool?

WPBeginnerâ€™s SEO Analyzer is a powerful FREE online tool that makes it easy to run an SEO audit of your website, find critical errors, and generate a FREE SEO report with recommendations so you can fix the errors.

Itâ€™s completely FREE for all WPBeginner readers â€¦ no signup or registration is required.

Most websites fail in SEO because they donâ€™t know what keeps their website from getting high rankings and organic traffic. While there are several advanced SEO analysis tools available on the market, most of them cost a fortune.

And not every website has the budget or resources to hire an expert SEO consultant to detect and fix their SEO errors. At WPBeginner, we want to fix it once and for all.

This is why we decided to build the SEO Analyzer tool and make it free for all WPBeginner readers.

Some of the benefits of our SEO Analyzer areâ€¦
- Get an analysis of the good, bad, and the ugly part of your websiteâ€™s SEO
- Get instant recommendations and download the complete WordPress SEO analysis report
- No signup or installation is required for SEO analysis. Itâ€™s absolutely FREE!
How to Use WPBeginnerâ€™s SEO Analyzer

First of all, head over to WPBeginnerâ€™s SEO Analyzer tool. Next, type in your website URL to detect SEO errors and click Analyze.

Our SEO Analyzer grades your websiteâ€™s SEO on a scale of 1-100, where 1 is the least, and 100 is the perfect score.

For best results, itâ€™s recommended to aim for a score of 70 or above.

Aside from providing you with an SEO score, it creates a detailed SEO report on what works on your site and what doesnâ€™t. Youâ€™ll also get customized recommendations on how to make the right changes to boost your SEO score.

The SEO Analyzer gives you suggestions based on 4 primary SEO factors as follows:
1. Basic SEO: It analyzes if your website is following basic SEO practices, like using an SEO title, meta tag, if the site is optimized for any keywords, and so on.
2. Advanced SEO: Get custom-tailored advanced SEO recommendations for your site.
3. Site performance: It helps you monitor page loading time and provides suggestions to improve it.
4. Site security: It helps you ensure your website never gets blacklisted by Google and other search engines.
Improve Search Rankings and Organic Traffic

For your best interest, after doing an SEO audit, you’ll need to follow the recommendations provided by our SEO checkup tool.

Here are a few suggestions to fix your critical SEO errors:
- Make sure your website is visible to search engines
- Ensure that your site is using an SSL certificate
- Ensure your site is using a robots.txt file
- Find and fix broken links on your site
For more details on how to optimize your website for SEO, we highly recommend our detailed guide on WordPress SEO made easy.

Perform an SEO Audit Right Within WordPress

Do you want to perform an SEO audit right inside your WordPress dashboard? Then, we recommend using the All in One SEO (AIOSEO) WordPress plugin.

Its free plugin comes with all the basic features that help you optimize your site for search engines, including the SEO Analysis tool.

There is also a premium version of AIOSEO that offers advanced features like a redirection manager, schema markup, powerful sitemap tools, and more.

Whatâ€™s Coming Next?

Our SEO Analyzer is a great tool to help step up your websiteâ€™s SEO strategy.

Our goal at WPBeginner is to build more powerful tools for small businesses, so they can grow and compete with the big guys.

SEO Analyzer is just one of the tools weâ€™ve recently launched.

We have an exciting roadmap ahead of us, and in the coming weeks, hopefully, weâ€™ll deliver more free tools at your disposal.

Here are a few more business tools that you can use RIGHT NOW.
Our goal is to continue to build best-in-class tools to help you level the playing field.

If you have ideas on how we can make WPBeginnerâ€™s SEO Analyzer or other tools more helpful for you, then share your thoughts in the comments.

As always, I want to thank you for your continued support of WPBeginner, and we look forward to continue serving you for years to come.

Yours Truly,

Syed Balkhi
Founder of WPBeginner

The post Introducing WPBeginner SEO Analyzer: Free SEO Audit Tool to Boost Rankings first appeared on WPBeginner.
30.05.2023
10 Best Long Tail Keyword Generators (Compared)

Are you looking for the best long-tail keyword generators?

Long tail keywords are more specific search terms that users may try to narrow down their search results. Using them in your content can help you bring more traffic to your website.

In this article, we’ll show you the best long-tail keyword generators to find content ideas for driving traffic and conversions to your website.

What Are Long Tail Keyword Generators?

Long tail keyword generators are online tools that help you find specific search terms or keywords related to a topic or phrase.

If you are starting a blog or making a website, then creating content around long-tail keywords can help you bring traffic to your site.

Long-tail keywords often show the user’s intent to make a purchasing decision and can help bring more targeted traffic and sales.

The easiest way to understand long-tail keywords is by using Google search itself. The search box will start suggesting long tail keywords as soon as you start typing.

You’ll also find more long-tail keyword ideas in the search results.

For instance, you’ll see the ‘People also ask’ section. This shows questions people are asking that are relevant to the search term you entered.

At the bottom of search results, you may also see a Related Searches section.

This will show further topics and related keywords which may not necessarily be long-term keywords but could further expand a search.

Google Search will give you a general idea of commonly used long-tail keywords related to a given search.

However, there are other third-party tools that can help you dig deeper and find more useful keyword ideas.

That being said, let’s take a look at some of the best long tail keyword generators on the market.

1. All in One SEO for WordPress

All in One SEO for WordPress is the best WordPress SEO plugin on the market. It allows you to easily optimize your WordPress website to get more search traffic.

You’ll need All in One SEO to optimize your content for focus keywords as well as any long tail keywords you find.

The best part about using it is that you can generate long-tail keywords right inside the WordPress admin area.

First, you need to install and activate the All in One SEO for WordPress plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Note: You can also use the free version of All in one SEO. It does allow you to generate keyword ideas but you’ll need pro version to add and analyze your content.

Simply edit the post or page you want to optimize and scroll down to AIOSEO Settings.

From here, look for the Focus Keyphrase section and enter your main keyword as the Focus keyphrase. After that, you need to click on the Get Additional Keyphrases button.

All in One SEO will then bring up a popup and ask you to connect with your Semrush account.

Don’t worry, you can sign up for a free Semrush account and use that as well.

Once you are connected, All in One SEO will fetch and display long tail keyword ideas that you can use.

Simply click on Add Keyphrase button to include one.

You can now start optimizing your content to cover new long-tail keywords you added.

All in One SEO is the most comprehensive SEO toolkit for WordPress. It has powerful custom sitemaps, advanced redirects, SEO titles and descriptions, multiple keyphrases, and full Schema support.

Pricing: Free version. The premium plans start at $49.60 per year.

2. Semrush

Semrush is the most powerful search marketing platform on the market. It comes with powerful keyword research tools that allow you to easily find long-tail keywords.

When looking for long-tail keywords, you can sort them by search volume, keyword difficulty, cost per click, and other matrices.

Semrush helps you easily track SERPs and your site’s performance for different keywords. You can also see do the SEO competitor analysis and find which keywords are generating the most traffic for your rivals.

Semrush also has a free plan which is good for finding long-tail keywords. However, the paid plans give you access to incredibly powerful tools and are totally worth the premium price tag.

Pricing: Limited free plan. Paid plans start at $119.95 per month.

3. Ahrefs

Ahrefs is another popular search marketing platform with a powerful set of tools to help you grow search traffic.

It comes with a powerful Keywords Explorer tool that helps you find long-tail keyword ideas. It shows keyword difficulty, search volume, estimated clicks, and more.

You can also see top-ranking pages for a keyword and see what other keywords that particular page rank for. This gives you a more in-depth list of long-tail keywords to target.

Apart from keyword explorer, Ahrefs comes with keyword monitoring, site audit, technical SEO analysis, and detailed competitor analysis.

They also have a free Ahrefs Search Console tool, which is similar to Google Search Console with a few extra features.

Pricing: Starting from $99 per month.

4. Answer The Public

Answer The Public is a search insights tool popular among SEO professionals and marketers. It allows you to enter a keyword and see the questions users are looking for on search engines.

This gives you long-tail keyword suggestions with practical ideas on how to make your content more comprehensive for a wider audience.

Simply enter your main keyword or topic in the search field and it will generate a chart of questions. You can mouse over a question to highlight it.

Less popular questions have a lighter background color and more popular questions will be highlighted with a slightly darker color.

Charts are organized in questions, prepositions, and comparison queries. Below the charts, you will also see the questions in list format.

Answering some of these questions in proper FAQ schema can help your content appear in Google rich snippet results.

Pricing: Free for over 500K searches per month. Paid plans start at $99

5. Google Keyword Planner

Google Keyword Planner is a keyword research tool provided by Google for advertisers to find keywords. It is an immense resource for marketers even if you don’t want to run paid advertisements.

Simply click on ‘Discover new keyword ideas’ and enter your main keyword. Keyword Planner will then fetch a list of keyword ideas related to your main keyphrase.

You can see average monthly searches, changes in search volume over recent months, advertiser competition, and more.

The keyword planner data does not provide keyword difficulty range like Semrush or Ahrefs.

However, you can assume that keywords with higher search volume and advertisement costs would have tougher competition.

Pricing: Free

6. Question DB

Question DB is another free and simple search insights tool. Similar to Answer The Public, it allows you to see the questions users are asking for a keyword.

You can view the results in questions or keywords format. The results are not formatted in any specific order and there are no other metrics to compare them with.

For instance, you wouldn’t know how many people are looking for a long tail keyword or question. You’ll have to use other tools to find this information.

Pricing: Free

7. KWFinder

KWFinder is another excellent tool for generating long-tail keyword ideas. Unlike Semrush and Ahrefs, KWFinder focuses on keyword research.

It offers comprehensive keyword analysis with search volume, historical data, keyword difficulty, and visits.

You can search for specific geographic locations and languages. You can also track keywords and monitor your SERPs.

Pricing: $29.90 per month

8. Keyword Tool

Keyword Tool is another useful tool for keyword research and finding long-tail keyword ideas for your business.

It sources keyword data from autocomplete feature in Google, YouTube, Bing, and more. You can narrow your search with location and language filters.

The basic keyword tool is free but only provides a keyword list. You will need to subscribe to the pro plan to see search volume, competition, and CPC cost.

Pricing: Free. Paid plans start from $69 per month.

9. Google Trends

Google Trends helps you compare search trends over time. It is not exactly a long-tail keyword generator but can help you see user interest in search terms over time.

You can also compare multiple keywords to see which one has more searches. It can also be used to compare brands, products, people, and more.

Below that you can also get a list of related queries and clickable maps to see interest in different regions.

Pricing: Free

10. LSIGraph

LSIGraph is another highly useful content planning and keyword research tool on the market.

It helps you easily find low-hanging long-tail keywords with opportunity scores. This helps new websites quickly find keywords that are easy to rank for.

Each keyword also shows user intent, this allows you to sort your keywords by user intent when planning your content strategy.

Pricing: Starting from $29 per month.

We hope this article helped you find the best long tail keyword generators. You may also want to see our article on how to improve your organic click through rate or check out these Google Search Console tips to drive more search traffic.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to ourÂ YouTube ChannelÂ for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us onÂ TwitterÂ and Facebook.

The post 10 Best Long Tail Keyword Generators (Compared) first appeared on WPBeginner.

24.05.2023
How to Recover a WordPress Site from a Google Search Penalty
Are you looking to recover your WordPress site from a Google search penalty?

Google penalties are a dreaded nightmare for any website owner. Your web pages can be removed from search results or dropped down in search rankings, causing the organic traffic to fall significantly.

In this article, we will show you how to recover a WordPress site from a Google Search Penalty.

What is Google Search Penalty?

A search penalty is a punishment that Google delivers to websites that violate its guidelines.

Google’s goal is to present the best search results to its users. However, sites that try to manipulate or cheat the system to achieve higher search rankings through unethical means are usually given search penalties.

As a result, penalized WordPress sites might see a drop in search rankings or be de-listed from the search results in extreme cases.

Google imposes 2 types of penalties:
- Manual penalties – These are imposed by Google’s internal team, and you are notified of any offense. It can be for things like spam content, cloaked images, hidden text, unnatural internal and external links, and other violations against the Google Search Essentials guidelines.
- Algorithm penalties – An algorithm penalty is when Google rolls out an update to the search algorithm to provide better search results. This type of penalty is hard to diagnose because you don’t get any notification from Google.
Since this is a comprehensive guide, we’ve added a table of contents. You can click the links below to easily navigate to any section you’re interested in:
How to Check for a Google Search Penalty

If your WordPress site is hit with a Google search penalty and you’re not sure how to check it, then there are different ways you can try.

Check for Manual Actions in Google Search Console

First, you can log in to your Google Search Console account and look for manual penalties imposed by the search engine.

Simply head to Security & Manual Actions Â» Manual actions from the Search Console menu on the left. Here, you’ll see any manual penalty given by Google.

If you see the ‘No issues detected’ message, then you’re in the clear.

That said, here’s a list of manual actions that Google can apply to your site:
- Site abused by third-party spam
- User-generated spam
- Spammy free host
- Structured data issue
- Unnatural links to and from your site
- Thin content with little or no added value
- Pure Spam
- Cloaking or sneaky redirects
- Cloaked images
- AMP content mismatch
- Sneaky mobile redirects
- Hidden text or keyword stuffing
- News and Discover policy violations
Check Google Analytics for a Drop in Organic Traffic

Next, you can check your site’s organic traffic in Google Analytics. If there is a considerable drop, then it could be a result of a search penalty.

This method is useful to check for algorithm penalties, especially after Google releases a new update.

In Google Analytics 4, you can go to Reports Â» Acquisition Â» Traffic acquisition and look at the Organic Search figures.

You can edit the date range at the top and compare it to a previous period to look for a decline in traffic.

To drill down further, you can use a keyword tracker tool and see search term rankings for your website. If you notice a drop in different keyword rankings, then it could mean you’ve been hit with a search penalty.

Search Your Website and Content on Google

Lastly, if you’re not seeing your web pages appear in Google search results, then there is a way to check if it’s been banned or delisted.

Simply enter ‘site: example.com’ in Google and see if your site appears. Just replace example.com with your own site URL.

If you don’t see your website appearing in the search results, then it could be delisted due to a search penalty.

You can also search for some of the text from your most important pages on Google. This will also help check for delisting or decline in search rankings for core pages.

Having that said, let’s look at different ways you can recover a WordPress website from a Google search penalty.

1. Perform an SEO Audit to Find Critical Issues

An SEO audit is a process of finding out whether your WordPress website is correctly optimized for search engines.

Running an SEO audit can help uncover critical SEO issues and errors on your site. This way, you can quickly fix them and recover your site from a search penalty.

A simple way to conduct an SEO audit in WordPress is by using the All in One SEO (AIOSEO) plugin. It is the best SEO WordPress plugin that helps set up your site for search engines without technical knowledge.

With AIOSEO, you can use its SEO Analysis tool inside the WordPress dashboard to run an audit. It checks your site on different parameters and highlights any critical issues. Plus, you get recommendations for fixing errors, which will help recover your site from a penalty.

You get started by following our guide on how to set up All in One SEO in WordPress.

2. Clean Your Backlink Profile

One of the most common reasons why Google issues a search penalty is because of unnatural links to and from your WordPress website.

Sites that have bought spammy links or participate in different link schemes to boost their search engine rankings are mainly penalized by Google. This could be either through a manual action or an algorithm update.

A quick way to recover your site from such penalties is by identifying and removing spammy backlinks. However, this can be a time-consuming task, especially if you have to visit every page on your site to remove the backlink.

An easier way to go about this is by using AIOSEO. It offers a powerful Link Assistant feature that helps you see all the internal and external links on your site.

First, you’d need to go to All in One SEO Â» Link Assistant from your WordPress admin panel. After that, you can click on the ‘Domains Report’ tab at the top.

Next, you can view all the domains linking to your website.

On this page, domains that look unnatural or spammy are highlighted. Next, you can select the domain, click the Bulk Actions dropdown menu, and choose the ‘Delete’ option.

After that, you can click the ‘Apply’ button to remove links from a particular domain.

You can also click on any of the websites to view which pages they’re linking to on your site. Next, you can click the trash can icon to remove a backlink from a particular page or post.

If you are unable to remove an unnatural, spammy, or artificial link, then you can disavow them using Google’s disavow links tool.

Do note that this method is for users with technical knowledge and is unsuitable for beginners. For more details, you read Google’s instructions on how to disavow links to your site.

3. Perform a Content Audit

Another way to recover your website from Google search penalties is by auditing your content.

Here are a few things you can look into and fix on your website.

Fix Thin and Duplicate Content

Google will penalize sites with thin content with little or no value for users. This includes low-quality content that’s auto-generated or spun through software. Or affiliate pages with a few paragraphs and a link to promote the product.

Similarly, if you have duplicate content or articles scraped from other websites, then Google can also hand you a search penalty.

A simple way to fix this is by identifying pages that have relevant or thin content and then rewriting them. You can use Google Analytics to uncover pages with very low or no traffic.

Simply head to the Reports Â» Engagement Â» Landing page in Google Analytics.

After uncovering content with thin content, you can then add more value by covering the topic in depth, making the content engaging using images and videos, and ensuring you have unique content.

On the other hand, you can find pages that have duplicate or auto-generated content and simply remove them from your website. Simply copy some of the text and enter it on Google. The search will show all the pages and posts on your site with the same content.

If other websites have scrapped your content, then you can use tools like Copyscape to find plagiarised content. To learn more, you may also want to see our guide on how to easily find and remove stolen content in WordPress.

Remove Keyword Stuffing and Hidden Text

If your site’s text doesn’t make sense and is filled with search terms to rank higher, then you can also get a search penalty for keyword stuffing. Similarly, websites with hidden text and keywords in your site’s CSS styling can also be penalized by Google.

You can easily fix this issue by removing or editing content that has keyword stuffing. Try using variations and avoid repeating the same search terms. You can also use keyword research tools like Semrush to find different keywords to use on your content.

Semrush also offers an SEO writing assistant tool that helps you discover LSI and related keywords, readability score, language tone, and more to help you create optimized content.

Remove User Generated Spam

Next, you need to check your website for spam comments. These are comments that have advertising links, spammy user names, auto-generated or off-topic comments, and other irrelevant links.

In WordPress, you can simply go to Comments from your WordPress dashboard and then mark the comment as Spam. You can also select the Trash option and remove the comment.

To learn more, please see our guide on tips and tools to combat comment spam in WordPress.

Review Internal Linking on Your Site

Google’s search crawlers use links on your website to find new content and build a contextual relationship between your new and old content.

Auditing the internal links helps recover your WordPress site from an algorithm penalty. For instance, if there are no or few internal links on a page, then you can add internal links to other relevant pages and boost their rankings.

Using the AIOSEO link assistant, you can improve internal linking on your website. It will show you existing links and also provide new linking opportunities. Besides that, you can also highlight orphaned pages that have no internal links.

For more details, please see our guide on internal linking for SEO.

Audit Page Load Speed

When conducting an audit, you should also check your website load time. While a slow-loading site would not lead to a Google search penalty, it will impact your search engine rankings.

That’s because Google now uses page load speed as a ranking factor. Sites that load fast will have an advantage over slow-loading websites.

You can use IsItWP’s free website speed test tool for auditing page load speed. The tool will show an overall score and provide suggestions for improving page speed.

You can find more details by following our guides on how to run a website speed test and the ultimate guide to boosting WordPress performance.

4. Ensure Your Site is Not Hacked

If your WordPress website is hacked and injected with malicious code that can be deceptive to Google’s guidelines, then you can get a penalty.

Usually, hackers would add scripts or pieces of code that would create sneaky redirects on your website. Since this goes against the guidelines, your websites might be deindexed from the search results.

You can check for security issues in Google Search Console by heading to the Security & Manual Actions Â» Security issues section.

Besides that, you can run a WordPress security audit to uncover any issues that might result in a penalty. For example, you can scan your site for malware and other security vulnerabilities.

We recommend using a WordPress security plugin like Sucuri to prevent an attack on your website. It also checks your site’s files for suspicious code and helps clean up your website.

You may want to see our ultimate WordPress Security guide to make your site secure and safe.

5. Research Recent Google Algorithm Updates

Lastly, if you see a drop in traffic or search rankings after a Google update, then you might be hit with an algorithm penalty.

Unlike a manual penalty, it is very hard to diagnose the impact of an algorithm change. Google won’t tell you the reason for the drop in rankings or traffic for your site.

However, you can research the latest Google algorithm update and see what has changed. After that, you can audit your site’s SEO, content, and security to fix any issues.

The best way to stay updated with the latest algorithm changes and adjustments is by following WordPress blogs. There are many popular marketing and SEO blogs that share the latest news, case studies, and other information about Google’s algorithm changes.

Aside from that, you can also follow our ultimate WordPress SEO guide for beginners and make sure your site is properly optimized for Google.

Submit a Reconsideration Request to Lift Penalties

After you’ve fixed an issue that led to Google search penalties, the next step is to submit a reconsideration request and lift the penalties.

This step is fairly simple if you receive a manual penalty. You can head to your Google Search Console account, view the Security and Manual actions section, and request a review for the particle issue.

When submitting the reconsideration request, we recommend that you cover the following things:
- Explain that you understand Google’s guidelines and best practices in detail. You can share links to answers in Google forums, YouTube videos, and other documentation offered by Google regarding the manual action.
- Show that you’ve done everything that you can to fix the issue, like removing unnatural links. You can include screenshots, a list of links removed, and provide other evidence to present your case.
- Reassure that your site is made for users and not search engines, and you won’t make the same mistake again. You can also ensure that all other activities on your website are within Google’s guidelines.
Once you’ve submitted a consideration request, Google will review it. The response time usually depends on the severity of the penalty. It can take days, weeks, and even months to hear back from Google and find out whether your penalty has been lifted or not.

We hope this article helped you learn how to recover a WordPress site from a Google search penalty. You may also want to see our guide on how to increase your blog traffic and the best SEO checker and website analyzer tools.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to ourÂ YouTube ChannelÂ for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us onÂ TwitterÂ and Facebook.

The post How to Recover a WordPress Site from a Google Search Penalty first appeared on WPBeginner.
10.05.2023