WordPress is an amazing content management system (CMS) and is undoubtedly the most popularly used of its kind. With an interface that is easy to navigate and get started with, it’s no wonder why so many people sing its praises.

Originally designed for an easy blogging experience, it has been taken more seriously over time. The system has since been expanded with various functions and add-ons. This has allowed WordPress (WP) websites to become as intricate as traditionally developed sites, turning it into the powerful CMS it is today.

WP websites make up around 23% of all websites on the internet today, and that’s not a small number. The CMS is used by a large number of high profile businesses and publications, proving that it is robust enough for even the most demanding workflows.

An SEO consultant firm will be experts at developing and optimising WordPress websites so that they can get maximum exposure on popular search engines.

Plugins = Less Coding

WP websites can use tens of thousands of plugins both free and premium that allow different levels of functionality. Instead of having to write code from scratch the same effect can be achieved instantly with an easy to install plugin.

For anyone who does feel like coding, WP’s official language of PHP can be used to perform even more complex tasks with these plugins.

As great as plugins are, it should be noted that it is easy to download and install too many of them. A build-up of plugins that are unnecessary or don’t get used will slow down the speed of the website.

Keep Up To Date

Because it is an open source CMS, WP is constantly being updated with improvements and bug fixes. It’s important to keep all themes and plugins up to date so that the website is not falling behind in its visuals or functionality.

Keeping the updates of the WP client, themes and plugins uniform will help to minimise any conflicts that could occur.

Use Security Plugins

Like anything on the internet, WP websites are vulnerable to attack by hackers. There are a variety of methods they can use to attempt to break into the website.

As well as obvious measures such as making sure admins use strong passwords, there are several security specialised plugins that can help address common problems. They will analyse the website and identify any vulnerabilities that a hacker could exploit.

Optimise for SEO

WP websites can also be tailored to help them achieve better search engine result rankings. This is primarily done through optimising the permalink structure in a number of ways.

Permalinks should be changed to include keywords in the forms of content titles and categories. This involves removing stop words such as “a” or “and” which create unnecessarily chunky URLs.

As SEO Shark – Search Engine Optimisation company describes, keywords should always be placed towards the beginning of a title since search engines put more emphasis on the early words. This is also useful because readers will see the keywords they are looking for first and a more likely to click on that result.

In regards to the actual content of the pages, meta descriptions are incredibly important. A meta description is the snippet of text shown underneath the URL in search engine results and is usually used when it contains a keyword that was present in the original query.

Meta descriptions should not be left to be automatically generated as they will often use the first few lines of a page which may not be very relevant. A meta description will ideally be individually written so that it is not taken from anywhere on the page but is specifically tailored to entice the reader to click on the websites’ search result.

Optimising images is also important. This includes editing image tags and file names to include keywords so that they appear in search results. This means the website will not only appear in text search but in image search as well.

These are just a small portion of the many ways in which a WordPress site can be optimised for search results. SEO consultants are experts at using all of these methods together to help a website achieve its maximum search potential.