Ayup! Are you wondering how to build an SEO-friendly website? Search engine optimisation is one of the most important considerations when it comes to your online growth.
For this reason, it should always be taken into account before, during and after any website build. Using WordPress paired with the extraordinary Yoast plugin will significantly improve your online visibility.
This article covers nine initial areas to help you avoid owning one of those websites. According to ahrefs, 96.55% of content gets no traffic from Google 😬
Yikes! You don’t want a pointless website that nobody will ever see. I certainly don’t want this for any business, either. We’re aligned. Let’s do this!
Ayup! My name’s Mike Hindle. I’m the author of this article and a local SEO specialist based in Derby, UK.
Local SEO Campaigns
SEO-Friendly Websites
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How to Build an SEO-Friendly Website
Your website is your online hub for growth, visibility, sales and revenue. However, if you’re new to the world of web design, here’s what we’re using and building:
WordPress: A CMS (content management system) that essentially started life as a blogging platform. These days, you can build any website you can imagine with it. Although it’s far from being our only option, it’s notoriously outstanding when it comes to SEO.
Yoast: An incredible (free or paid version) SEO plugin that works in the background to provide valuable settings and information for search engines such as Google and Bing. Additionally, the handy traffic light system lets you see how well each page and post is optimised. Seeing red? Follow the live suggestions to work your way towards green.
Note: This article doesn’t cover installing and setting up WordPress. If you need any help with that, just give me a shout.
FAQ – What We’re Building
The term ‘SEO-friendly’ refers to content on your web pages or blog posts that’s optimised to be found on search engines.
The copy is tailored towards helping the visitor find what they’re looking for, as well as including relevant keywords and title/meta tags.
An SEO-friendly website implements optimisation across all aspects of the site. This, in turn, enables (or at least helps) your business to show up in front of folks who are searching for your product or service.
1. Goal Setting & Keyword Research
Before designing and building your website, you should have a clear, specific goal. What is the website’s focus? What’s on offer, and how can we make that as clear as possible?
Keyword research will then identify words and phrases you can aim to start ranking for. They’ll be tailored and highly specific to your service or product.
As a starting point, most businesses will have a service and an area. For example, if you’re an accountant based in Derby, then ‘accountant’ and ‘Derby’ are your first two primary keywords.
Go ahead and Google your service and area to start with. This will give you a good idea of what you’re up against.
Browse the top results in the map pack (the three Google Business Profile listings that usually show above the search results). It’s important to realise that this is where the magic happens for most businesses.
On the other hand, we also have the standard search results. We’ll observe and improve on these across the new website.
If you’re up for getting a little more technical, the Keyword Magic tool from Semrush will also provide plenty of related keywords to start targeting. You can search up to 10 keywords per day with a free account.
2. Choose an SEO-Optimised Theme
Secondly, choosing the right theme for your website is, without a doubt, one of the most important decisions you’ll make.
When it comes to WordPress, you have three options:
- Block Themes
- Hybrid Themes
- Classic Themes
Block themes are bare-bones WordPress. They’ve come a long way, but still lack many features you’d expect to be able to build a website with.
Hybrid themes take advantage of the above bare-bones approach but with added features. This usually makes a hybrid theme one of the best options.
Classic themes are old, notoriously slow and clunky. Again, they’ve improved in recent years. However, they’ve generally failed to innovate and keep up with the more modern way of building with WordPress.
My recommendation here is Kadence. A hybrid theme and set of additional blocks that you can use on top of WordPress.
Kadence is lightning-fast, easy to use, and has built-in performance settings. It’s available completely free, or you can upgrade to the pro version of both the theme and set of blocks.
3. Installing & Setting up Yoast
Yoast is a free plugin with an option to upgrade for extra features and benefits. To start with, most websites can get away with the free version, but you’ll probably want to consider the paid version as your traffic grows.
From your WordPress dashboard, navigate to Plugins, then Add New Plugin. Search for Yoast, download it, and activate it.
You now have a new Yoast tab in your left-hand menu. If it hasn’t already prompted you, head to General and then First-Time Configuration.
This will take you through a few essential steps to enhance your site for search engines.
Yoast will also be used as we’re adding copy to the website. This is covered under the ‘High-Quality Content’ section below.
4. Update Your Permalinks
Next up, let’s fix the mess that is WordPress permalinks. Permalinks are the page or post URL that appears after your domain name.
Under settings, then permalinks, select ‘Post name’ from the list. Your page or post title will then be included as the permalink. This is beneficial for search engines as it will often include important keywords.
Recommended: Simple, descriptive words in the URL.
5. High-Quality Content Using Target Keywords
High-quality content is particularly important when it comes to answering the question of how to build an SEO-friendly website.
It’s useful for your visitors as well as search engines. Based on your keyword research, add relevant pages to your website and fill them out with useful, informative content.
Again, the Yoast plugin will be on hand here to assist. Keep an eye on your traffic light colour and aim for green on both SEO and Readability wherever possible.
Top tip: Each page and post should have a focus keyphrase. You can enter this in the Yoast settings at the bottom of the page or from the right-hand menu when Yoast option is selected at the top of the page.
Furthermore, your SEO-friendly content should extend out to blog articles. Write helpful content that your customers or clients will find useful. Free tools like Semrush can also help you identify keywords and phrases that will be easy to rank for.
All of the content on your website helps define your E-E-A-T results. This is how Google views your site in terms of:
- Experience
- Expertise
- Authoritativeness
- Trustworthiness
Related: DIY SEO For Small Business Owners
6. Site Architecture & Internal Links
Next up, we’ll look at how your site is laid out and linked together. The main priority here is your internal linking.
This helps search engines figure out how your site’s connected and which pages are related to other pages.
For example, service pages may (and probably should) link back to your home page. Similarly, your homepage would then also link to your service pages.
Consider internal linking as building a bigger picture for both search engines and your visitors. Does a blog post relate to something you’re writing about in a different article? Link to it.
Additionally, if you have a service with several sub-services, they could, technically, be nested under a primary service page.
For example, if you’re an accountant with several different areas of expertise, you could set out your site architecture as:
- /domainname.co.uk/accountant/service-1
- /domainname.co.uk/accountant/service-2
- /domainname.co.uk/accountant/service-3
7. Improve On-Page SEO
On-page SEO takes a broader set of best practices into account. Content aside, there are two areas to focus on initially.
- Page Structure – Always keep your heading structure in order. For example, H1 first, H2 second, H3’s then H4’s etc. Another key point: only ever use one H1 and H2 title, then feel free to use as many H3 headings as required.
- Image title and alt tags – Make sure your images are titled properly to include your relevant keywords. Additionally, always include the Alt text to describe the image. This helps both screen readers and search engines understand your image.
On-page SEO factors are aspects of your website that you can optimize for better search rankings. It’s about improving things like your technical set-up, your content, and how user-friendly your site is.
8. Optimise Loading Speed & Performance
Spending some time and attention on your loading speed is an essential step in building an SEO-friendly website. You can check he speed of your website with Google’s Page Speed Insights.
If you’ve chosen the Kadence theme for WordPress, you’re already off to a flying start. However, the site still needs to be built mindfully to keep page sizes to a minimum.
Furthermore, your web hosting plays a crucial role here. If you’re serious about your website, then you need a premium-level host. This doesn’t have to cost the earth, either.
rocket.net would be my personal recommendation, with plans starting at $30 per month. This is, ultimately, your first step to a faster website, but what else should you consider?
Images – Keep your image sizes as small as possible. Optimise them before uploading to WordPress with a site like TinyPNG. Use WebP rather than JPG or PNG to further reduce file sizes.
Efficient code – If you’ve opted for either a block or hybrid theme, your website’s code will usually be good to go. Anything that includes a page builder (other than using WordPress itself) will be adding unwanted code, and therefore slowing your site down.
Fonts – Upload your own fonts instead of loading them from Google. This can help to speed up your site, especially when your files are optomised and converted to WOFF2.
Settings – If you’re using the Kadence theme, under Customise, General and Performance, you’ll see some handy settings.
9. Monitor, Tweaks & Updates
Lastly, now that we’ve covered how to build an SEO-friendly website, we’ll monitor its progress. For this, I’d suggest both Google Search Console and the Semrush Position Tracker.
Over time, these tools will give you a good idea of what’s performing well and what needs further work.
A point often overlooked, is the ongoing work that a website requires to start performing well on search engines. Rarely can you build it, publish it, sit back and relax.
Keep a close eye on your analytics and data. This will provide valuable information on your next round of website updates. As a general rule, I’d recommend updating your site and adding new content on a weekly (if not daily) basis.
How to Build an SEO-Friendly Website – Conclusion
By combining the above strategies, you can create a robust, SEO-friendly website with WordPress and Yoast that performs well in search engines.
Paired with a strategic local SEO campaign, you’ll start driving increased traffic from sources such as Google and Bing.
SEO is the lifeblood of any website and, therefore, any business. If you’re looking to build a WordPress site with true purpose that starts to rank well, your areas to initially focus on are:
- Goal Setting & Keyword Research
- Choose an SEO-Optimised Theme
- Installing & Setting up Yoast
- Update Your Permalinks
- High-Quality Content Using Target Keywords
- Site Architecture & Internal Links
- Improve On-Page SEO
- Optimise Loading Speed & Performance
- Monitor, Tweaks & Updates
Thanks for stopping by…
My name’s Mike Hindle. I’m a local SEO specialist and the founder of Clearcut Derby and Leaflet Lion. I love building websites, hiking, exploring, photography and butter beans.