SEO Basics: To Grow Your Site’s Traffic, Make It More Visible

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At its core, SEO, or search engine optimization, is the practice of helping search engines know exactly what your website is about. If you have a WordPress.com Business site, be sure to access the SEO tools in your Traffic settings. They will help you share your site’s information directly with search engines. Ready to get a solid start on your SEO strategy? Dive in with these steps.

What is SEO?

Some of the tools mentioned are available only to WordPress.com Business plan subscribers, but we’ve also included a few tips for everyone.

SEO is the practice of translating content that’s written and formatted for human eyes to something search engines can clearly understand. Doing this helps search engines know exactly how to surface your site in search results — and can lead to your site ranking higher and attracting more visitors. You can achieve this with metadata: the extra descriptions, categories, and tags you add to content and images that spell out the nuances of each page and post on your site.

Before you get started, know first and foremost that you need to have clear, quality content on your site. You should add the following polishes only after you’ve created great content for your audience. These tips will work best if you apply them regularly; for SEO success, you need good habits before moving on to more advanced practices.

Tip #1: Add your site’s SEO description

Be sure to add a site-wide SEO description, which summarizes the content of your site as a whole. In your description, you can use around 160 characters — it’s okay to go over, though, as this number is an estimate — and write in complete sentences to capture the essence of your site’s purpose. Add or update this description at My Sites → Settings → Traffic, under Front Page Meta Description.

Tip #2: Set SEO descriptions for pages and posts

Note: The SEO items you add shouldn’t be a bunch of keywords that you paste onto every page or post’s metadata — only use keywords if they’re reflected in the content you’re optimizing.

When you’re ready to publish a page or post, click on the SEO Description module under Post Settings at the right. Use complete sentences and up to 300 characters to summarize this particular piece of content.

What you write here will appear in search engine results, so it’s also for human eyes. Never repeat this content from one page or post to another — search engines frown on duplicate content! When this summary is done well, it serves as an introduction to search engines on what you’re writing about. For example, it’s ideal to use specific terms, cities, or places reflected in your content.

A note on tags: Treat tags like keywords or keyword phrases, but only add ones that are specifically reflected in a particular blog post.

Tip for everyone: For posts, use the Categories & Tags module to organize content and add extra metadata. Use up to a combined 15 categories and tags, and always use at least one custom category (even if every post is assigned to the same one). Otherwise, they’re automatically assigned to “Uncategorized,” which doesn’t do much for your SEO.

Tip #3: Make your images more search-friendly and accessible

Tip for all: Consistently add image alt text to enhance SEO on any WordPress.com site, regardless of your plan.

You might upload lots of images to your site, but do you add metadata to them? When you add an image to a post or page, it’s good practice to edit it first and add an Alt Text description. Be as specific as possible: describe what’s in the image itself, including places and people.

This is key for a few reasons. First, this extra metadata enhances the SEO of every page or post the image is displayed on. Second, adding alt text makes an image eligible to appear in search results — which then directs people back to your site. Finally, some of your visitors may rely on screen readers to read digital content aloud to them. If you don’t have alt text or any description for the image, the screen reader can’t tell what the image is supposed to represent. By adding this piece of information, your images become more accessible.

Edit an image in your Media Library by going to My Sites → Media, selecting the image, and clicking Edit.

Tip #4: Maintain a blog

All WordPress.com sites, regardless of plan, can have a blog.

Adding a blog to your site enhances its SEO. Every time you publish a new post, search engines know to take a look at your fresh content (and re-scan your archives). Publishing just once a week has a cumulative impact, so if you don’t have a blog for your business website or professional portfolio, consider sharing news, insights, or even introducing resources you’ve found elsewhere that can help your audience. Here are a few ideas to get started.

By incorporating these tips, you provide more information to search engines on what topics your site addresses and the value it offers. The more you add content and polish the metadata of your site — and the more consistent you are — the better the results.

Already mastered the basics? Check out our comprehensive guide.

Want to access all of these SEO tools — and much more? Upgrade to the WordPress.com Business plan.

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59 Comments

  4. This is good word. I already use “some” SEO tactics. Meta descriptions in images and posts. Alt text… keywords, etc. I’m still having trouble getting “realistic” traffic… however, I don’t post every other day because my content is very rich and takes time. So I post once per week on a scheduled day. My blog is also pretty new (1 year + a few months) so there’s that part.

    Liked by 17 people

  8. Thank you for this! Currently studying up on SEO and other digital marketing stuff, for both professional and personal use. This is helpful

    Liked by 17 people

  12. Thank you, this is really helpful. I never knew there was so much to it. I am six months into blogging, and happy with how my site is growing, but will check out these extra features.

    Liked by 17 people

  19. Hi Gracie, thank you for this information. I practice all of these SEO measures, but I have a question about writing ALT texts for photos. I usually write the same thing for alt texts – for example, when I post about DTLA, I put that in the alt text. But do you recommend that they are more unique? Sometimes the photos are simply of DTLA and I don’t know how else to elaborate on that. Thank you!

    Liked by 8 people

    1. That’s a really good question, Jess. Generally speaking, some variance is encouraged, since search engines frown on what they refer to as “duplicate content” (where the same description is used in more than one place).

      If your site is image-heavy, that can become a challenge. Some ways to work around it are to vary terms like DT / Downtown and include a notation of the specific locale or variance of the image itself. Examples: “Downtown LA skyline”, “DT Los Angeles at dusk”, “[insert street name here] in Downtown LA” etc.

      Liked by 7 people

  21. Hey, Thanks for the useful content.

    I need some info about creating backlinks for my website to rank high in search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing.

    Liked by 11 people

  26. I’m fairly new to the blogging community and I have to say, y’all are the most loving, helpful and genuine people I know. Daily you all encourage me to write, read, post, comment and like. I’m a richer human being because of y’all. Thank you for posting this piece and all the comments. 😍

    Liked by 12 people

  41. Thank you for this helpful and informative article. WordPress can be daunting at times. Do you have any information on configuring the seo tools on WordPress?

    Liked by 10 people

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