Valued Reader,

I have been focusing my efforts and attention to WordPress Blogging and Google Search Engine Optimization. You will be stunned at the huge difference tiny setting changes can make, and even more so once you know how to use those little magic wands called Plugins.

Now Plugins may prove to be a little more challenging, but that’s another topic for another time. You can boost your Google Rating by simply applying a few tactics and adjusting a few settings. Now before you can do something about your Google Rating you first need to know your site’s rating right? Which is why I’m giving you These Free S.E.O Tools so you can do just that, but for now you just need to concentrate on Tool Nr7 “Website S.E.O Score Checker”. You will need to analyse your site with this tool by following the simple steps.

Once you have your site’s rating in front of you, it will point out to you what needs adjustment. You have to use the tool, in order to understand the optimization steps you’re about to execute. Now, some of the most common adjustments I have encountered are;

Page Title Too Long – Your Site Page Title must not exceed 60 – 65 Characters, but that will entirely depend on the parameters set by each individual search engine. Therefore it is advised to rather keep those at maximums of no more than 50 – 55.

To adjust your page title, go to “Settings” and click on “General” from the drop down menu. In the Site Title Section is where you concentrate the length as mentioned above. In some cases, depending on your hosting and/or builder you may find that the “Tagline” and “Site Title” may sometimes be combined as a Site Title Meta tag.

When you see your Page Title continuously exceeding 60 Characters, then remove whatever is in your tag line. That should then reduce your Page Title to the required specifications, but do try and keep it as close to 55 characters as possible.

Meta Description Too Long – Much like Page Title, only with your Meta Description a general maximum of 160 characters are accepted by most major search engines. Best to keep your Meta Description to no more than 155 characters.

To Adjust Your Meta Description, you need to be in your WordPress Site Info Settings Page, and click on “Settings” Bottom left. You will see the option to edit your Website Meta, remember not to exceed 155 characters.

Crucial Note – Remember never to include any Non S.E.O Friendly characters in both your Page title and Meta Description. To easily know the difference between Friendly and Non Friendly S.E.O characters, just keep this in mind.

Any Character you enter where you have to use your “Shift” key must be regarded as Non Friendly to your Search Engine Optimization. Here’s an example (@ # $ % & * ^ +!?), these kind of characters in your Page Title and Meta Description will destroy your Google Rating.

The Presence OF Meta Keywords – Meta Keywords used to be a requirement, but Search Engines no longer accept Meta Keywords. In fact, the presence of Meta Keywords will affect your site negatively, and may result in a less than average Google rating. In other words, your site ranking capability will also be delayed, a lot!

I have noticed that WordPress does exclude Meta Keywords automatically, so I doubt you’ll have trouble there.

Site Is Missing H1 Headers – What is an H1 Heading? That’s quite easy as WordPress automatically sets all Post and Page Titles as an H1 heading. In the event that you do not have any H1 Headers, you simply need to check if you have included titles to all your blog posts and pages where applicable.

If you’re inside the tool I offered earlier, then you will see the list of H1 headings below the description to the left indicating (

Headings Status).

You should see your post and page titles here.

Site Is Missing H2 Headers – In this case, you can go to any post or page on your blog and access whatever content you have published, or intend to publish. This too is done from your Site Settings page and not the site c-Panel.

Inside the post and/or page edit window you will see the tab to the top left indicating “Paragraph”. Simply highlight the area you wish to set as an H2 header and select H2 Heading from the drop down menu. Then just update your Post and/or Page.

The fifth most common mistake made is the absence of the Alt Attribute to all your image tags on your blog. This too will affect your blog Rating and ranking immensely, but it’s quite simple to rectify and this too will not cost you anything.

Adding The Alt Attribute To Images – For this you need to go to your site c-Panel access page and then click on “Media” right under “Posts”. Do NOT change the URL in the settings tab.

All you’re going to change is the Title, Alt Text, and Description. You can have these three Anchor Texts identical and make sure you fill the Alt Text area especially. You may want to leave the “Caption” area open, as any text you enter here will display at the bottom of each image you use. But the choice is yours, I just prefer leaving that area blank.

Domain And Page Authority Below 20 – These two combined attributes is a little more difficult to achieve. This is where a little more hard work is required. You can boost your Domain and Page Authority by obtaining legitimate comments, careful for spam comments which in most cases are faceless profiles. A spam comment is also in most cases a “Comment” with a generated email address and website URL normally opening as Page Error 404.

Domain and Page Authority is also boosted by increasing the word count of all your Blog Posts and Pages to over 1000 words. You can go as high as 2000 words, and boost your site’s authority.

When you have completed these few steps, and the S.E.O Score Checker recognize the changes? Yes, you’ve guessed it, your blog will have a Google rating of 80% or higher. 5 Simple steps to having a Grade A rated site on Google, which will soon prove to be a valuable adjustment to your site’s ranking and even Indexing Time.

All this amounts to Search Engines now knowing exactly what your site is about, and will find it easier to categorize your site for Indexing and/or ranking.

Wishing You Prosperity,

Deon Christie