This is the first part of a multiple part series designed to provide tips on how to optimize your blog for SEO using WordPress.

Using a CMS like WordPress is a great solution for those who want to maintain a blog without dealing with the coding and other technical issues of web design.

However in order to optimize your blog for the search engines, there are some steps that you will need to take in order to properly set up WordPress.

To start here are 3 basic tips to help you get your WordPress blog on track:

1. Edit the permalink structure so that it is not set on the default option:

You can use the pre-made options that are given in the in the first red box or create your own custom structure.

Using the token /%postname%/ makes the actual title of the post (ex. /sample-post/) show up in the URL of the blog post page.

Basically you want to make sure that the /%postname%/ structure appears in the URL of your posts because this helps the search engines to more easily decipher what your page is about and can also help to increase the rank of your blog post’s page.

You can also have a look at the WordPress Codex page http://codex.wordpress.org/Using_Permalinks for more ways to do a custom modification of the permalink structure.

2. Create customized metadata for your pages by downloading All in One SEO Pack WordPress plugin.  This plugin has many features but some of the most important ones are that it allows you to create customized metadata for your blog post pages and home page of your blog.

This way you can easily insert a custom title, description and tags for your blog post pages in a way that is SEO friendly.

3. Download a plugin to apply a sitemap to your blog like Google (XML) Sitemaps Generator for WordPress.

This plugin will automatically generate a site map for your wordpress blog.  Search engines like Google crawl the site map of your blog to look for new pages and new content.

The site map can also aid in getting your site listed in the search engines faster if you have just created your blog.

These are just a few tips to help you get started and we will discuss additional tips in part two of this series on SEO for Blogging With WordPress.

What do you do to help optimize your WordPress blog for SEO?

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