How To Make Your WordPre… (sample post)
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SEO Blog Tips, WordPress Themes, WordPress Titles January 23rd, 2008A very kind and dedicated reader of my blog, Laura, who publishes on her blog at, Million Dollars Journey, dropped me a comment on a recent post of mine the other day which allowed me to discover that she isn’t totally optimizing the power of her WordPress blog. Specifically, what I noticed was how her posts were getting indexed in Google. Laura, just like the rest of us, works very hard on her blog and any extra traffic she can get she’ll take!
First off, I want to recognize how wonderful of a job she has done with her blog. The current design and theme is something to be very proud of. It is obvious that she works hard towards the success of her blog. I absolutely love her skillful use of the Google Adsense Leaderboard positioned very carefully on the top of her page, directly below her main navigation menu and directly above her post content. Perfect job!
There is no doubt in my mind that a site like this can’t make money! The only thing needed is traffic.
Looking at a more recent post she wrote titled, Redskins Coach Joe Gibbs Resigns. A post like this should rank on the front SERP on google for an exact title phrase search. However, in her case it does not. Here is why:
The above screen shot shows how Google has indexed her post. Look at the post title, it reads:
Million Dollars Journey Dot Com >> Blog Archive >> Redskins Coach…
When I write a post using a WordPress blog, the post title I give the post is my chosen target keyword phrase for search engines. It is that simple. There is no mystery to my tactic. If you want to know what keyword phrase Garry Conn is targeting, just read my post titles. What you see is exactly what I want someone to type into the search bar to find my article.
Now, in Laura’s case, it would be ideal if her posted pulled up within the top ten listings in the SERPs for this phrase:
Redskins Coach Joe Gibbs Resigns
Unfortunately, at the time of writing this post, she doesn’t. Look at the screen shot above and you’ll see that I highlighted the portions of the titles that content the words of the search.
Now, take a look back at the other screen shot and you’ll see that Google has truncated most of all the important keywords from her listing.
Again, we’re looking at this:
Redskins Coach…
Google did not successfully record her title completely because she wasted character space which was filled with this:
Million Dollars Journey Dot Com >> Blog Archive >>
In fact, every post that Laura publishes will look the same way.
It doesn’t matter if she has 1 post indexed in Google or 10,000 pages indexed in Google. Her individual post pages are the best kept secret on the Internet because they will never be found when a user types in the keywords that match her post title. In the rare situations that a post does pull up as one of the top ten results, a user will not click on it because it doesn’t look appealing and attractive.
With this being explained, let me show you some examples of articles on a few of my websites:
Toys R Us Free Shipping Sale
Here is a screen shot of one of my websites that has a post titled, Toys R Us Free Shipping Sale.
Here is a screen shot of the page that is indexed in Google:
And here is a screen shot showing you that I rank #2 in within the top 10 results:
Barrel Rolling A Cessna
Here is a screen shot of one of my websites that has a posted titled, Barrel Rolling a Cessna.
Here is a screen shot of the page that is indexed in Google:
and lastly, here is a screen shot showing you that I rank #1 for that exact keyword phrase:
How Do I Make My WordPress Titles Search Engine Friendly?
The following information is the stuff that many SEO experts would want to shoot me for giving away for free. The process is so simple, it will blow your mind…
… and to be honest, I would rather blow your mind than having mine blown off! LOL!!!
Make a backup copy of your header.php file.
Open your header.php file and copy all the text from <title> to </title> and delete it.
Here is an example:
Simply replace it with this text:
<title><?php if (is_home()) { ?><?php bloginfo(’name’); ?><?php } ?><?php if (is_single()) { ?><?php wp_title(”); ?><?php } ?><?php if (is_archive()) { ?><?php wp_title(”); ?> - <?php bloginfo(’name’); ?><?php } ?><?php if (is_page()) { ?><?php wp_title(”); ?> - <?php bloginfo(’name’); ?><?php } ?><?php if (is_search()) { ?><?php the_search_query(); ?> - <?php bloginfo(’name’); ?><?php } ?></title>
Ideally, it would be better to download this file and copy all the text in it instead.
- Download Search Engine Friendly WordPress Titles
After you have replaced your old title information with the new search engine friendly WordPress title information, simply save your header.php file and upload it back to your server.
I hope that you (Laura) as well as the millions of other WordPress bloggers find this post to be helpful. If you enjoyed this tip and feel like your readers will also enjoy reading it to, take a moment to write a post about it on your blog. This is not mandatory but more of a suggestion that can allow you to help your own readers become more successful with their blogs.
If you should have any comments, questions or suggestions, please don’t hesitate to drop a comment or contact me by email at garryconn@gmail.com
