But with so many websites using WordPress, how can a single website stand out from the crowd? A good content marketing strategy is the most important thing which any business can think about, but there is more to attracting attention on WordPress than by churning out quality content. By optimizing your blog via techniques such as improving your links and improving your website’s hosting, you can get your website higher on the Google rankings. This can get more people to visit your website and ensure the success of your content marketing strategy. Some tricks to improve your search ranking are technologically advanced, but there are things which anyone can pull off. Here are a few simple tips towards ensuring that your content is seen and shown by Google’s algorithms.

Don’t try to trick Google

A lot of SEO optimization can sound like little tricks designed to fool Google, and to some degree it is. But understand that while Google allows tricks like the ones mentioned below, it frowns heavily on so-called “black hat tricks” that exist only to trick the search engine and provide no value to either the website or the readers. Google has a list of behaviors which it will not tolerate, and the company will blacklist you from its search engines if it suspects that you have been trying to trick them. Read over those behaviors and make sure that you try none of those ideas. Ignorance is no excuse for violating Google’s policies.

At a basic level, Google ranks websites by how many other websites link to them. So if you want other people to link to you, you can start by linking to other people. This is especially so if the two websites are in the same field. When your websites is linked to by another, it will get more views and those viewers will create new links, which will spur more views and so on. While you can obviously link to other websites whenever you wish, make sure that those websites know about it. On the Settings tab in WordPress, there are checkboxes to notify other websites you have linked to them and to let you know when you have been linked. Make sure those are checked.

Think about changing your Host

As the Internet has grown faster, customer are more impatient than ever. According to Kissmetrics, half of web users expect a web page to load in just 2 seconds and will “bounce” if it is not loaded within 3 seconds. When you consider that every web page basically has one chance to make a good impression on every visitor, to be held back by a poor page loading speed, absolutely cannot happen. There are things which every website can do to improve loading time like using a WordPress theme with a smaller loading footprint. But one of the biggest things you can do is look into your host. Using a fast WordPress hosting is essential in optimizing your entire site. Do not just go with the cheapest host out there. Slower hosts mean slower loading pages which means bouncing visitors.

Cache your Pages

Because decreasing your page’s loading time is so important, another means through which you can ensure visitors to quickly load your website,  is page caching. With page caching, Google stores a back-up version of sections of your website. This is so that when a visitor returns to your website, his browser can just use the caches to quickly load up certain sections without having to query your database. The catch is that the cache can be out of date, but that should not be a problem if your website is not constantly changing its picture or layout. Google recommends a cache time of preferably up to one year for those assets which change infrequently.

Don’t forget about Content

There are a whole lot of other ways to optimize your WordPress website beyond these few tips. Using good key phrases and key words to attract visitors typing in particular phrases and promoting your posts on social media will ensure that others will follow your work. But your WordPress blog is part of your content marketing strategy, and content is the most important thing of all. You need to regularly update content, make sure that it is high quality, and ensure that it is relatable to your targeted audience. Google is a critical tool towards ensuring that your website receives traffic, but it is not the only method. By promoting your website through social media as well as through your personal and professional contacts, you can ensure a growing audience. That in and of itself should be able to attract Google and further perpetuate your marketing strategy’s success. Featured photo credit: Venu Gopal via flickr.com