What makes WordPress best for SEO?

Brief Introduction about my background

I have over a decade of experience working as a web developer. During this time, I have gained experience in various sectors such as WordPress web design, headless CMS development, email marketing etc. Lately my focus has been around SEO Services.

I had used several CMS including headless CMS and found out WordPress beats every other competitor when it comes to SEO Optimization. I had the opportunity to talk to various agency owners and developers, and found out that SEO as a service lacks a way behind, and can be really costly to business owners. This is where I am trying to break the barrier between a good SEO and WordPress Developer.

Breaking down various aspects of SEO

Every SEO has their own way of breaking down their overall SEO process.

As WordPress Developer turned SEO, a lot of my strategy is built around solid HTML markup, speed optimization, content hierarchy and content strategy. And this has worked wonders for me.

I have left backlink building here as I think it is not part of WordPress, it's part of outreach and PR campaigns. And a fair bit goes on building backlinks.

If I have to sum of SEO i would say something like this:

Stick with the basics of SEO, and do it better.

I personally like to break down SEO in 4 main sections as:

1. UI/UX
2. Technical SEO
3. On-Page SEO

UI/UX

Let’s consider UI/UX. UI stands for User Interface and UX stands for User Experience.

With WordPress, UI/UX are both in control of designer and developer. As WordPress is template based, it is fairly easy to take control of WordPress web design, and based on the skill set of your designer and developer, you don’t have to compromise much on design for the sake of development. But remember, a good UI/UX depends upon the experience of your team.

Technical SEO

Let’s talk about Technical SEO.

I personally like to break down Technical SEO into website speed, quality of coding, website architecture, good SEO Plugins and hosting features.

Website Speed

Website Speed is paramount of any Technical SEO. Various factors that contribute to good websites includes:

Good quality code
Web hosting

WordPress web hosting

For me personally, WordPress web hosting is number 1 priority. This along with a good WordPress theme and plugins covers almost 90% of Technical SEO.

Good WordPress web hosting will help cover various aspect of Technical SEO such as:

1. Website speed
2. PageSpeed Insights score
3. Website security

So how can a WordPress web host help in speed? I will just summarize the main factors, as I want to focus more on SEO on this blog. Web host helps in following:

1. Quick connection and data transfer
2. Reliability handling traffic
3. Solid security features
4. Bandwidth, download speed
5. Optimal caching features

Website Architecture

Website architecture can make or break your website’s seo.

Website architecture is the process of organizing the whole content of the website in structure and hierarchy commonly known as website silo. Website silo or website architecture helps Search Engines help rank pages based on the most relevant content.

Technical SEO is integrated

People miss one of the main parts of Technical SEO. Various factors that contribute to solid Technical SEO are integrated.

Here are some examples:

1. Good quality code helps in optimizing website speed
2. Solid host helps in website speed, and also helps in crawlability
3. Both code, speed and host helps in good User Experience (UX)
4. All factors above helps in reducing bounce rate, time on page etc which in turns help in ranking website

So, Technical SEO in general had to be planned in advance.

On-Page SEO

On-Page SEO is another critical factor in ranking when it comes to SEO.

Basically as the name goes On-Page SEO refers to all the optimization of web pages and their content for SEO within the web page or in a wide range overall website.

Let me highlight some of the main feature that WordPress help in On-Page SEO if done right:

1. Page Speed - good code and web host helps it too
2. Good HTML and Schema markup if implemented - html density can be reduced significantly if written by well versed WordPress Developer
3. Content hierarchy or website architecture
4. Permalinks or permanent link structures
5. Easy to manage internal links

Summing Up

WordPress by far is the most versatile platform when it comes to SEO Optimization.

If I have to point out stand out features, I will sum it up as:

1. Solid on page SEO feature including page title, description, schema markups etc (done with/without plugins)
2. Incomparable website architecture implemented via SILO
3. Other on site features including easy to implement internal links, image seo
4. Loads of plugins to support SEO, go with good one or premium plugins
5. Stand out web hosting options within several budget range