WordPress SEO Plugins: Ratio 7′s Top 10

Ratio7 loves WordPress for clients, not just because it is user-friendly for designers, but because it is user-friendly for, well, users AND Google and other search engines love it. They also have handy little bits of code, called ‘plugins’ that are easy to install to customize your site. If you are a Ratio7 customer, we take care of these for you! For search engine optimisation, these plugins are the best:

Scribe. Scribe is not free. It is from the same developers who’ve created the very popular (premium) theme “Thesis” and is a handy keyword/SEO analysis tool for bloggers. It scores your post for SEO-friendliness, guides you in making improvements and, for heavy duty blogging, is invaluable.

All-In-One SEO Pack is a really popular free plug-in which creates “meta tags” (little snippets of code that the search engines use to crawl, i.e. read) for your content, title and keywords.

Platinum SEO Plugin helps you avoid duplicate content, offers permanent and temporary page redirects (301 and 302 respectively) and also generates meta tags.

SEO Friendly Images: Images make your blog more enjoyable but it also adds another avenue for search engines to find your page. This plugin helps you with adding title tags and keywords to your images.

SEO Tag Cloud plugin allows you to create a cloud that search engines will actually search.

Sitemap Generator is an important plugin. Search engine crawlers like to crawl a neat, organized site map and this plugin helps you with categories, pages and more.

SEO Smart Links is a plugin that takes care of an important part of blogging: interlinking (linking to other pages within your blog) which can be time consuming. This plugin does the heavy lifting for you.

HeadSpace2 is another meta data plugin that helps you create custom titles, tags, and descriptions to improve page ranking.

wpSEO does what many of the other SEO plugins do but also allows you to add an SEO monitor as a dashboard widget, renames files to make them more SE friendly upon upload and prevents indexing of RSS feeds by search engines.

W3 Total Cache improves the speed and overall performance of your WordPress site. Thus, impatient search engine crawlers are likely to spend more time finding content on your site which improves optimization and page rankings.

XML Sitemaps: Google Likes Them

Google XML Sitemap? Ugh. Running a small business involves managing thousands of details, many of which you don’t know much about. Ratio7 understands that (we’re a small business too!) and we have your back. Managing your WordPress site is a science in and of itself and its most important purpose is to attract new customers. There is a lot of data in a site and some of it is behind-the-scenes stuff that is important to search engines. Of course the king of search engines is Google and Google likes a sitemap.

What’s a sitemap? It’s exactly what it sounds like-a map of your site. Luckily, you don’t have to build or design one! There are plugins (tiny pieces of code that are available to add to your site) that will build this sitemap for you. When Ratio7 or any other reputable designer builds your site, it should be installed for you.

Why is it important? Without a sitemap, Google can overlook content, links, and entire pages of your site. A sitemap helps point Google (and other search engines like Yahoo) to the appropriate information on your site and, thus, improves your search engine results and traffic.

Ratio7 offers WordPress set up, theme design and customisation and will get your blog and site up and running quickly and affordably. We know which plugins are crucial to improve your traffic and your WordPress site’s functionality. Let us know if we can help!

Time for an SEO Site Review?

Do a quick search for SEO and you will drown in all of the articles and news about search engine optimization on the Web. Of course, you used a search engine to do your search!  Websites should be configured to make it easy for search engines like Yahoo and Google to find your company. Many are not! Websites that are even a year old can benefit from having a review of their code and content. Ratio7 specializes in SEO site audits by:

• reviewing meta tags
• reviewing keywords
• link building
• reviewing your URL structure
• auditing your overall design and user experience
• checking for HTML code compliance

What will this do for YOU and your business?

• increase your page rankings on Google, Yahoo and other search engines
• drive traffic to your Web site
• educate readers about what you do
• help you build community

Statistics show that most searchers do not make it past the first page and the 10th entry in search results. Moving your site up that ranking ladder can be crucial to drawing new customers. Ratio7 can also help you set up a blog and develop a custom WordPress theme which will also increase your page ranking. Have a look at some of our case studies and then give us a call!