WordPress SEO – WordCamp Portland 2010 – Full-Length Video

Mark McLaren on 5 Tips for Better Search Engine Optimization (SEO) with WordPress – These Tips Apply to All Websites

Here is a video of my presentation at WordCamp Portland in September 2010 covering Search Engine Optimization using WordPress. Much of the presentation focuses on a basic working example of what constitutes good SEO, using titles from the WordPress.org support forum to show why some web content works and other content fails miserably.

The presentation also stresses the importance of link building for search engine optimization. The number and quality of links to your website from other websites is the number one factor used by Google and other search engines to rank your site. Finding ways to grow the number of these “inbound” links is essential to SEO success!

Choosing a good set of keywords – the words you use on your site to tell people about your business and what you do – is also critical to SEO success, so I spend a good bit of time on that.

SEO Presentation Outline:

1. Choose Good Keywords
2. Build Inbound Links
3. Use Detailed, Keyword-rich HTML Page Titles
4. Turn on Permalinks in WordPress Settings
5. Create Engaging, Well-structured On-page Content with Video, Slides and Keywords in Headings, Bullets, Links

Included at the end of the presentation slides are links to Search Engine Optimization Resources – for link building, tracking inbound links, tracking search ranking of pages on your site for various keywords, best tools for keyword research, using Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools for search engine optimization and so forth.

Here is a link to the slides:Search Engine Optimization for WordPress – WordCamp Portland 2010 (3 MB PDF)

Huge thanks to Joe Christensen and Peter Schmidt at Portland Video Broadcasting and Recording Company Blaze Streaming Media for the awesome live stream, video recording and production work they did for WordCamp Portland.

You can find the original video on WordPress.tv: Mark McLaren: Get Found Easier and Grow Your Business — 5 Tips for Better SEO

This video tutorial replaces my earlier “How to Insert an Image” tutorial for WordPress that was done using screen captures, text descriptions and WordPress version 2.1 or so, which is a bit outdated today.

Some people prefer text tutorials with screen captures. My “How to Make a Text Link” WordPress Tutorial is still a straight-forward explanation of the process, which hasn’t changed.