WordPress is one of the most important tool that every internet marketer keeps using over and over again. Not just because its plain simple to install and use, but it has got all the SEO work ready so you don’t have to spend much time. In this article, I’m gonna teach you on How to build the Perfect WordPress Blog.
Please note that I won’t be covering on how to install the blog but instead, cover on what has to be done after the installation is done so you get all the basics completed and your blog looks professional both to the search engines as well as to please your visitors.
Check Every Setting Individually
Once your Installation is complete, the first thing you wanna do is get into the Admin Panel or Dashboard which is usually accessed via http://www.YourBlogDomain.com/wp-admin
Scroll down to the settings section in the left menu column. Go through each one of the setting there.
In the General setting section, make sure you fill in the Site Title and Taglines with keyword rich content as this has a high impact on SEO score. Everything else on that page shall be left out as it is.
Next on the Writing settings section, make sure you fill in a good list of Update/Ping services. This is ignored my almost 90% of bloggers. Find my list here and copy it. Then at the bottom, make sure you enable XML RPC publishing protocols if you plan to post using my auto blogging software.
On Discussion settings, set admin to approve comments and not to email for every comments else your mailbox will have full of junk comment notifications. Also don’t forget to disable pingbacks and trackbacks as well.
Then on the Privacy Setting page, make sure your site is visible to Search Engines. I found that many blog installations done via Fantastico have this setting as blocking search engines. If you ignore, all your efforts will be wasted.
Next on the Permalinks page, make sure you set a custom structure. I always use this: /%category%/%postname%/ and it makes the individual post links more SEO friendly and also organized.
Setup the Categories
Did you notice the permalink structure has the category name on it? Every post in WordPress can be assigned to a Category and having your primary keywords as Categories will boost your SEO score a lot.
First change the ‘Uncategorized’ or default category to something else. You may do a Google Wonder Wheel search and find all the related categories for your niche, then set them up.
You could also find other top keywords using Google Adwords tool and set the top ones as Categories.
Install Only the Absolutely Essential Plugins
There may be a hundred 1000 plugins free for download. Many of them will be fancy and make you wanna install. But before installing anything, make sure you answer 2 simple question. Does the plug-in do any good to my blog? If I don’t install the plug-in, does it impact on the growth of my blog?
The more plugins you install, more load you’re giving on your servers and it significantly slows down your blog for visitors. So install only the absolutely essential plugins. You can also checkout the list of top plugins I use.
Almost every plugin will have an individual setting page, make sure you check them out after installing.
Switch to a Good Theme
I have seen a lot of people still using the default theme. Never do it! People want to look at fresh blogs and not the same designs over and over again.
A simple Google search could get you a ton of free WordPress themes or if you’ve got my Auto Blogging Software, I’ve given you 100 good looking themes as a bonus. Use them!
Make sure you find a theme that fits your niche and the target market. I mean, don’t use a Pink theme for a Men’ site.
Remove Unnecessary Links
By default, a bunch of links are added to the Blogroll and other sections. You don’t need any of them.
Some themes may also include links at the footer and other places like Sidebar. Check for them and remove unless it doesn’t violate any terms of the theme author.
Get Regular Pages Ready
In addition to posts, WordPress has the ability to display individual static pages. Usually you get an About Us page, edit it with a few bit of information about you. Make sure to fill in some keyword rich content there.
In addition, you also want to have a Privacy Policy and Terms of Use page. You can find a ton of templates for this, or simply copy paste from random blogs. These pages will make your blog look professional and also in compliance with Google’ new Adsense Terms.
Setup Your Ads
What is a blog without any monetization done? Google Adsense is my priority as it helps you earn something even from a trickle of traffic you receive. Make sure you install the ad codes directly on the theme files so they get inserted on every post automatically. If that sounds a bit complicated, there are some free plugins to do this. Check them out.
Optimizing Adsense for High CTR takes a whole new chapter and I may cover it later in a different article. For now, the basics, make sure the ads are blending well with your content. Use the same background and link color as in your web page and place them in strategic positions where your visitor’ eye would first go.
In addition to adsense, you must also find some affiliate products and add their banners to the sidebar.
To be more aggressive, write some reviews recommending a buy on those products and add them as unique articles which will also double benefit as boosting SEO for your blog.
Actually there are a ton of other monetzation options like seting up an auto responder and so on. I will cover them all in separate articles the following week.
For now, that’s all comes to my mind on setting up the perfect WordPress blog. There are many things which I must have missed or don’t know about, if you care to share, please leave them as comments below and you will gain some good karma.