The Good News
Contents
Here’s the really positive and fantastic news: Google (and all the other search engines) love WordPress.
Every website that I’ve optimized; either for local Hong Kong SEO or the European and/or US Market has, for the most part, always been built on WordPress.
I Used To Build My Own CMS!
Yes, I was indeed bonkers.
I built (using PHP, MySQL and Apache) at least four or five CMS’s using custom code that I scripted, and the reason I did that was twofold: I thought that WordPress (back in 2012 – 2014) was very hackable, but also because the platform just felt clunky. How times have changed. I think really happened to me was that I just got fed up with trying to fix and manage my own CMS which although loaded like a bullet, it was just a bit tricky to implement new features. Also, I just found myself spending too much time tweaking and fixing the code when I should have been engrossed with digital marketing.
WordPress Matured
The absolute beauty about WordPress SEO is that all you need are a bunch of plugins are you’re good to go.
Plugins like Yoast and SEO Framework are absolute time-savers and do all the basic 101 SEO that you need.
Clients love using WordPress from my experience (as long as you clearly explain how it works) and that’s another charm of using the CMS.
The key, however, is that your WordPress installation loads fast and that’s where you need to be a bit careful when published a site under the popular software. The
Why WordPress Is the Best Platform for SEO
#1 Pretty Links
WordPress (oddly) still has those really ugly URL’s turned on by default, by ugly links I mean these ones: .com=?id-32 which seems extremely outdated. Anyways, by visiting Settings > Permalinks you can easily “prettify” URL’s, or in the WordPress parlance, prettify the “slugs”. Why is that a good thing? That’s a good thing for SEO because the human and the bot both prefer keyword friendly URL’s/Slugs. Is it a game changer to have a keyword SEO’d URL? No, but it helps.
#2 Meta Data Added By Default
All important Meta Data is added automatically which is a total bonus. If you vide the source of this post and scroll to the header you’ll see what I mean. SEO plugins, as mentioned above, can really help with that.
#3 Images Resized To Help Loading Speed
SEO in 2019 and onwards is really about four main things: relevancy, trust, speed, and security. Nothing else really matters. OK, other Hong Kong digital marketers will likely pipe up and say that there are other SEO factors to consider, but we’d all agree on one thing: speed is a must. Images are a massive contributing factor to sluggish site loading speed and images are definitely a regular guilty asset, but using a plugin like Smush really helps. However, what WordPress also does, is that it resizes the images for you by the size of your client’s resolution which is an awesome addon.
#4 Mobile-First Approach
With WordPress 5.0 (and Gutenberg) the approach has been mobile-first, which is the right approach. It’s the right approach because – well – have you been on the MTR recently? You tell me if you see anyone who is not starting at their phone. The future has been mobile for years – and now it is absolutely the future.
In Summary
I love WordPress.
I speak at WordPress events and am helping out at the Hong Kong WordCamp 2019 event which I’m excited about.
WordPress and SEO go “hand-in-hand” and we’d always encourage you to use the CMS.
Here’s the bottom line and my parting thought for WordPress: there are a million different plugins that do the job for you; so why re-invent the wheel? Focus on marketing and sales and leave folk like me to manage your website for you.