Local SEO Best Practices for WordPress

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WordPress powers 43% of the web. That’s a huge market share.

If you are not optimizing your WordPress site for SEO, you will soon be left behind by your competitors actively using WordPress to gain SEO advantage. 

As a local business, SEO WordPress tips will help you gain an edge over your competitors. By making a few changes to your WordPress site, you can improve your visibility in local rankings in the long run.

This guide will explore the best WordPress SEO practices to help local business owners dominate the local rankings. 

Let’s get started. 

12 Effective Local SEO Best Practices for WordPress

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1. Craft Key Pages to Increase Your Credibility 

Will you buy from Amazon if their privacy policy, terms, and conditions are missing? Many wouldn't. 

That's why the first thing that every local business should do is to create key pages that boost credibility. 

Key Pages will form the base of the E-A-T concept mentioned in Google's Guidelines. In simple words, Google wants businesses to build websites with expertise, authority, and Trustworthiness in mind. 

Here are some key pages to add to your WordPress website.

• About page: This is the most important page where you will highlight how your brand formed, your vision and mission, etc. This will build audience trust by letting them know you are a legitimate business.
• Contact page: This page must include your physical address, phone number, name, and other relevant details to help customers contact you.
• Disclosure, privacy policy, and terms and conditions: Google makes it mandatory to add a privacy policy to let users know how their information would be used and not be sold online. Local businesses operating an e-commerce site must add a terms and conditions page.

Here’s an example of IBM.com using the key pages on their website:

2. Set Up User-Friendly Permalinks 

A permalink is a URL specific to the post or page of your website. It indicates to the searchers what they will find on the page concerned. 

WordPress does provide its permalink, but it's not SEO-friendly. It includes unnecessary information such as the date, as shown below. 

“https://example.com/2022/03/05/sample-post/ "

So, you must optimize the permalink to make it SEO friendly. Keep these points in mind. 

• Keep it short. 
• Highlight the topic. For example, if your blog talks about how to grow tomatoes, it should be made clear by URL structure.
• Must include the local keywords. 
• Prevent using numbers like date and time, especially if the content is evergreen.

Here's how you can change the permalink structure in your WordPress site:

1. Open WordPress dashboard. Go to Menu > Settings > Permalink> Post name. 
2. You will also see other options like plain, day and name, numeric, etc. But these are not SEO-friendly, so you will just choose the 'post name' for permalink. 
3. If you want to change the permalink after your post goes live, redirect the old link to the new one. For this, you can use Permalink-manager, or Ahrefs site-audit, etc

Here’s a screenshot of the screen in which you can change permalink settings:

3. Add Schema Markup 

Schema markup, also known as structured data, is a microcode added to a website to create a detailed web page description. Schema markup is known to help improve local search ranking. But how does it work? 

Imagine this: when people search for local businesses, they are not searching for blogs or white papers. They want information like address, phone number, and name. 

And that's what structured data or schema markup does. It helps you tell the search engine that this is our address, name, and phone number. This extra information helps search engines understand your content and rank your content to deliver the best content to users. 

There are a hundred types of schema markup, but the most popular ones for local businesses include:

• Opening hours
• Reviews
• Address
• Logo
• Ratings

Here's how to add schema markup to your local WordPress site:

1. Although you can use other methods, such as Google's schema markup tool or Schema.org, these are somewhat confusing to non-developers. Hence, the easiest way to add local business markup is to use the Schema WordPress plugin.

2. Simply install the Schema WordPress plugin and add the information you want to show. The plugin will add the structured data in JSON-LD automatically. 

Here’s a screenshot of the Schema WordPress plugin:

4. Improving Core Web Vitals 

Google has a set of standardized metrics to help website owners understand their user experience. These are called Core Web Vitals. Google puts user experience above anything else. As a result, your local website needs to provide the best user experience to improve its ranking in local searches. 

You can do this by maintaining your Core Web Vitals. There are three ways to measure it:

• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): It measures the time taken by the largest content element of the web page to load. The ideal is 2.5 seconds, and above 4 seconds need improvement.

• First Input Delay (FID): It estimates the time taken by your website to interact with its users. It is good if it is less than 100 milliseconds. Greater than this needs improvement.

• Cumulative Layout skill (CLS): It measures the instability of a webpage. The duration of the user experience is measured by assessing the number of layout shifts. The layout shift for over one second is unsatisfactory. 

Tips to improve Web Vitals are: 

• For LCP: Connect the user to the nearest CDN and remove any third-party interference.
• For FID: Remove unused CSS code, break the long task into smaller ones up to 50ms and use a web worker.
• For CLS: Leave space for ads and fix image dimensions.

You can identify if your site requires the removal of unused CSS code using Google’s PageSpeed Insights:

Read: Tips to Increase Page Loading Speed

5. Optimize Title Tags 

A title tag is the face of your blog page in SERPs. Searchers click to your site only when the title tag coincides with their queries. Hence, the clickability of your site depends on the extent to which your title tag fits with the demand.

Therefore, optimize your title tag in the following ways:

• Limit it to 65 characters, as search engines do not show more than these.
• Ensure you include local keywords. 
• Prevent adding your website name as it will eat up your characters. 
• You can use the content title itself or, if it's too long, the key objectives first. E.g., If the post title is '12 Effective Local SEO Best Practices for WordPress', you can use 'WordPress Local SEO: 12 Effective Practices'.
• Perform A/B testing of the title tags too with tools like seoscout, or RankScience

Here’s a screenshot of the seoscout:

6. Develop An Internal Link Strategy 

Internal links are links to content within your WordPress site. Proper internal linking boosts site SEO and improves navigation within site. 

It helps navigate the readers to other similar website content, which improves dwell time. E.g., If your article is 'Local SEO Best practices for WordPress', you can interlink it with other articles on your site like 'What is SEO?', 'How to use the plugin?', 'Tools for SEO', etc.

Here are the best WordPress practices for internal linking: 

• Select the anchor text. Highlight the anchor text and click on the classic editor's insert/edit link button. It will show a small search bar.
• Now select any internal links you want to add to particular anchor text. We recommend adding at least five internal links to every post to increase users’ time on your site. 
• That’s it. Internal linking is as easy as that. Don’t forget to check for broken links. Links break for several reasons but change the broken links with working ones to improve user experience. Use Online Broken Link Checker to find broken links on your WP site. 

Here’s a screenshot of the Online Broken Link Checker:

7. Use a Responsive and Fast WordPress Theme

WordPress provides a wide variety of SEO-friendly themes. But picking them can create havoc on your WordPress site. 

Since Google prefers mobile-friendly sides to non-responsive ones, it's critical to have a responsible WordPress theme. A good WordPress theme will help your site load fast and thus help you improve local rankings. 

Here are some tips for choosing WordPress themes for your local SEO: 

• The theme must be responsive. This means it should run seamlessly on both desktop and mobile devices. 
• Many WordPress themes are bloated with unnecessary code. Adding them to your site can slow your site considerably and reduce your search ranking. Since Google considers site speed an important SEO ranking parameter, ensure that the theme is fast. A popular example of fast WordPress themes includes Generate Press, Astra, etc. 
• Choose themes that follow WordPress's coding standards. 

To understand how the theme will work on your WordPress site, you can use PageSpeed Insights, web.dev, SEO Site Checkup to check whether or not the theme is working properly. 

Here’s a screenshot of SEO Site Checkup:

8. Optimize Your Content For Google Discover

Google Discover is an AI-based recommendation tool designed by Google. It personalizes the content through the user's search history. This means recommendations will change based on user interest. 

However, as Google Discover works through the user's history and not keywords, it's not search-friendly. Thus, optimizing posts through keywords won't help you. 

Here's how to optimize your WordPress site for Google Discover: 

• Use high-quality images, but optimize them for speed. E.g., use plugins like Smush to reduce image size.
• Add social proof to boost trust by pulling reviews from social media, GMB listings, etc.
• Publish content about popular local topics. For example, 'How to start gardening?' exploded in your area. So, you can create local content that targets this topic and get a chance to get discovered through Google Discover. 
• Ensure that your theme is responsive. Top responsive WordPress themes include Astra, OceanWp, etc.

Here are some screenshots of website templates Astra provides:

9. SiteMaps are Critical

A sitemap is a file that contains information about all pages, videos, and other files on your website and their connection with each other.

Google sends your sitemap to their web crawler to crawl your site. A sitemap tells crawlers what pages are most important for your site and adds information about those pages or files. This helps Google understand if your content is relevant for showing to your audience. 

Although WordPress generates a sitemap by default, it's not search engine friendly. The default sitemap contains everything you might not want to submit to a search engine.

Here’s how to create a search engine-friendly sitemap for your WordPress site. 

• The easiest way of setting up an XML sitemap is through plugins like RankMath and All-in-One-SEO plugin. 
• You can install it by going to Dashboard > Plugin > New section. After successfully installing, just activate using the 'Activate' button.
• When you activate the plugin and click on the Create Sitemap button, it will create a general sitemap in the sitemap file.
• You can customize it by adding or removing URLs media files to the index.
• After customizing your sitemap, you will receive a link that you should submit to Google Search Central for crawling your website.

Here’s a screenshot of RankMath:

10. Make Your Site Blazing Fast

Google or any other search engine will rank websites with faster loading times than websites with slow loading times. So, if you want to rank higher in the SERPs, your priorities must include improving speed.

According to a Google study, 47% of websites face a higher bounce rate because their site-loading speed is more than 2 seconds. As a result, you need to ensure your site loads within one second to retain users and reduce bounce rates. 

Tips to speed up your website.

• Use High-Quality WordPress Hosting: Premium Hosting providers guarantee 99.99% uptime and fast speed. WP Engine, Kinsta, SiteGround, and some high-quality WordPress hosting providers. 
• Use caching methods: Most hosting providers handle caching for you. If they don’t, you can use free caching plugins like W3 Total Cache to cache your site and make it fast. 
• Reduce media size: Use free WP plugins like Smush to reduce media sizes before uploading. 
• Remove unused or heavy plugins: WordPress plugins are one of the biggest performance killers. These plugins are generally multi-functional and thus have bloated code that can slow down your site. 

Here’s a screenshot of Smush reducing media file sizes:

11. Get A Right Domain Name 

Although domain name does not directly improve WordPress SEO, it plays a critical role. A domain name is a unique, easy-to-remember address used to access websites like ‘google.com’ and ‘facebook.com’. 

Your domain name should be memorable, brandable, and easy for people to type and reach. By following a few simple guidelines, you can pick out a name that helps drive more traffic your way. 

• Choose top-level domain extension like .com as people will click .com quickly as compared to .online, or .info extension. 
• Select a domain name that is easy to pronounce and spell. Avoid using misspelled words.
• Avoid using special characters in the domain name. E.g $. #. This will make your domain look spammy, and thus users will avoid clicking it. 
• Ensure your domain name matches your business name to avoid confusion.

You can use a tool like Domain Wheel to find domain names using a keyword:

12. Set Up Content Cluster

According to HubSpot, Google has changed its algorithm to favor topic-based content. That means online businesses and marketers have to explore new ways to create content clusters. 

So, what is a content cluster? 

It's a pillar page that acts as the main hub for content and links to several other pages under the same topic category. This linking action signals search engines that the pillar page is content authority, and thus, over time, it may rank higher in SERPs.

Here's how local businesses can set up content clusters to boost local SEO:

• Research the main topic. The topic should be broad enough to include sub-topics. For example, consider 'Top Gardening Business in Utah'.
• Create the pillar page. This page will be the parent page for all the sub-topics under the main topic. 
• Now, create sub-pages for all the topics under the primary topic. We can create an individual sub-page for each top business in Utah. 
• Now, interlink these sub-pages to the main page. Link these pages with hierarchical URLs to mention the most important page first.

There, you have successfully created a topic cluster. 

Here’s an illustration of a pillar page and its network of subtopics:

WordPress Local SEO - FAQs

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1. What Are Some Best Mobile Responsive WordPress Themes For Local Businesses?

Top responsive WordPress themes include OceanWP, Astra, Kadence, Hestia, etc. 

2. How To Change The Permalink Structure On WordPress?

WordPress, by default, has a messy link structure. But businesses can change this into a user-friendly structure. Here's how. 

• Go to WordPress Dashboard > Settings.
• Click on permalink. It will show different types of link structures. Choose the 'post name' from the list. 
• All your post links have a post name in the URL instead of messy default links. 

3. How To Create And Submit A Sitemap On WordPress?

The easiest way to create a sitemap is through SEO plugins like RankMath, All-in-one SEO, etc. 

• Install and activate the plugin. 
• From the menu, select the ‘Create a sitemap’ option.
• It will generate the sitemap. You will have to customize this sitemap by adding or removing the pages. 
• After customizing, you will receive the link. Submit this link on Google Search Central. 

4. What does Core Web Vitals mean? 

Core Web Vitals is a term designed by Google to describe the user experience on your websites. Three key Core Web Vitals include responsiveness, performance, and visual stability. Businesses can check their Core Web Vitals with the PageSpeed Insights tool. 

Key Takeaways

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• Change the default permalink structure to a user-friendly one—E.g., post name. 
• Ensure you have created all the key pages on your WordPress site. E.g., about pages, privacy policy, terms and conditions, etc.
• Keep your site blazing fast by using high-quality hosting and a light WordPress theme. 
• Generate a sitemap with SEO plugins like RankMath, All In One SEO and submit it to Google Search Central. 
• Optimize your titles tags by adding local keywords and limiting them to under 65 characters.