Improving internal SEO: +30 tips to improve on-page SEO in WordPress

January 23, 2024

9 minutes read

Discover the internal factors that can either enhance or harm the performance of your WordPress site on search engines. These elements can significantly contribute to achieving high rankings and attracting visitors to your blog.

Many common mistakes are made in SEO optimization, so caution and adherence to best practices are crucial. From configuring Rank Math settings and linking your site to Google Search Console to searching for long-tail keywords and adding an HTML table of contents, these actions can help improve your site’s ranking.

Additionally, speed and image optimization, increasing click-through rates, and obtaining featured snippets in Google can further enhance your site. However, it’s essential to avoid relying solely on the green lights of Rank Math, as this may lead to penalties in the case of keyword stuffing.

WordPress provides powerful tools for SEO improvement, and even beginners can use them efficiently. These enhancements should be directed correctly, and it’s advisable to stay updated on Google’s updates and avoid behaviors that may negatively impact your site’s ranking. SEO is an ongoing effort, so continue monitoring and regularly improving your site’s performance.

We will learn about On-Page SEO and its importance first.

What is internal SEO? On-Page SEO?

“Internal SEO, also known as on-page SEO, is a crucial process for enhancing the performance of your website and influencing its ranking in search engine results. This process involves improving various aspects of the website that can be controlled, such as accessibility, page loading speed, optimized content, relevant keywords usage, title tags, and more.

These are elements that can be adjusted and enhanced on your website. They contribute to improving its position in search engine results. By paying attention to and optimizing these factors, you can boost the online visibility of your site and attract more visitors.”

Why is in-house SEO important?

Certainly, here’s the translation into English:

Improving internal SEO is crucial as it facilitates search engines’ understanding of your website and its content, enhancing its chances of appearing in relevant search results.

With the increasing complexity of search engine algorithms, there is a greater focus on relevance and semantics in Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). Google, with its sophisticated algorithms, is now adept at understanding user queries and delivering search results that better meet their needs.

Adapting to these developments is essential, and this can be achieved by ensuring that your website and its content perform optimally. Both user-visible content (text, images, video, audio) and elements visible to search engines (HTML tags and structured data) should be optimized according to the latest best practices.

We are here to help you unravel the potential of internal SEO and provide you with the best steps to improve SEO on your page. We have received numerous requests for this, and we hope it proves highly beneficial. Feel free to comment if you need any further assistance.

The best ways to improve internal SEO

Keyword research
Learn keyword competition
Set up the Rank Math SEO plugin
Write a strong introduction
Aim for more than 3,000 words
Write your SEO title + meta description
Write a keyword-rich title
Shorten the permalink
Add internal/external links
Add multimedia
Image design
Improve photos
End the article with an invitation
Add FAQ excerpts
Add a table of contents
Excerpt character limits
Featured excerpts
Assign a category and give it some tags
Optimize the article for social sharing
Add structured data to reviews
Basic content
Ignore Rank Math recommendations
Speed up your WordPress site
Test loading times in GTmetrix
Submit the URL to Google
Make sure that Google does not cut the SEO title
Send a newsletter
Share it on social media
Respond to comments
Monitor publication performance

1. Keyword research

The best keywords are specific phrases (long-tail keywords) that have poor content in Google search results. You need keywords that people search a lot on Google and at the same time there are no good articles/resources about them. If you search for your keyword on Google and see short content that doesn’t cover the topic extensively, it’s usually a winner. Below are the tools/strategies I use to find keywords.

3-1 Autocomplete results from Google

Go to google.com and start typing a keyword to get Google to complete the phrase (remember that you are looking for long-tail keywords that are usually more than 3 words because they are less competitive). You can also use the underscore character _ anywhere in the phrase and Google will fill in the blank. You’ll need to click on the underscore character for this method.

For competitive blog article topics, always select a very specific keyword (long tail keywords)…

3-2 Moz Keyword Explorer tool

To make sure you don’t miss any keywords from Google’s autocomplete, use Moz Keyword Explorer which is best similar to Google Keyword Planner (and free). Start with a general phrase, run the tool, then under Group Keywords, select “yes with low lexical similarity.” This prevents you from having to scroll through similar keyword variations over and over again.

3-3 Answer The Public tool

3-4 Search Console tool

It’s my favorite tool for doing keyword research related to a specific article. It is also considered one of the best ways to search for keywords. All you have to do is explore your site’s performance report on Google Search Console and filter the results based on the article you want to update!

Explore keyword ideas in the Search Queries tab that are relevant to your article type.

3-5 long tail keywords

Long-tail keywords are very specific (not generic) phrases that usually contain more than 3 individual words in the phrase. They usually have fewer searches but are less competitive.

If you’re not getting results with SEO, you’re probably targeting keywords too broadly or your content isn’t long/comprehensive enough. You can also target WordPress website design rather than website design (since it is more specific) which also reduces competition. Long-tail keywords also bring a more targeted visitor to your site (people who want a WordPress design).

3-6 Key words for history

Drive additional traffic to your site by targeting date keywords for time-sensitive posts…

The main thing is to include the date (year) in the article title, SEO title, and meta description. Of course, this requires you to update the articles every year, but this leads to an increase in the number of visitors to your site.

3-7 Target synonyms on the same page

The general rule is that if two keywords have the same search intent (people intend to find the same information if they search on either keyword), both keywords can be targeted on the same page.

3-8 Target multiple keywords

All you have to do is search for synonyms for your primary keyword, then incorporate both into your page title, SEO title, and meta description. This is the most important part but you can also sprinkle your secondary keyword 2-3 times in your content.

You don’t have to combine both as full keywords (exact match) otherwise your title will look spammy (Spammy). Crafting a title that sounds nice and includes partial matches is the way to go.

2 . Learn keyword competition

Search Google for the keyword and review the content at the top of the results.

A keyword is more competitive if:

It was widely used
The top search results have strong content
Top scores have high DA/PA in MozBar
It had high competition in Keywords Everywhere
You see a lot of ads from Google AdWords
Top results have strong engagement signals (links, comments, shares)
There are a lot of search results around this word
Tools I use:

Keywords Everywhere – Search Google for any keyword and see its monthly search volume, cost per click, and estimated competition. However, searching for the best results manually is best.

MozBar – Search Google for any keyword and see the DA (Domain Authority) and PA (Page Authority) results for each search result. Choose keywords with low PA, and compete within your DA range.

3 Set up the Rank Math SEO plugin

Most people have Rank Math but few people use it in the right way.

4 main steps to set up your Math SEO ranking:

Configure settings
Check Webmaster Tools
Search for long tail keywords (specific)
Content optimization (there’s more than green lights)
I also have a detailed video about Rank Math Pro that you can watch below if you like. Rankmath Pro offers structured data, keyword tracking features, advanced statistics, Content AI, and more:

Write a strong introduction
How to write a great introduction:

Use your keyword in the first 100 words
Add 1-2 variants and synonyms of the keyword
Add links (from the table of contents) to entice people to jump to a specific section
Tell them why they should read your message
Be realistic, or talk about current topics

5 Aim for more than 3,000 words

I’ve spent several weeks on this tutorial on internal SEO in WordPress, but it will probably get more than 100 views per day (most of my long-form articles do). The more competitive the keyword, the more content you should have.

You may be able to use 1,000 words if competition is low, but 3,000+ words are usually needed for competitive terms (keywords with more monthly searches and competition in MozBar). I’m not telling you to add a bunch of text…they should all be taken into account:

Add table of contents
Beautiful infographic design
Add media (photos and videos)
And many more…
You must adhere to the quality of the content, no matter how large it is. The topic may not handle this large number of words and you will end up with unwanted, random content. So not all topics apply to this matter.

6 Write your SEO title + meta description

This is the forefront of SEO and determines the CTR of an article. You should include your keyword (ideally in the introduction), target multiple keyword variations (variants and synonyms), and follow character limits. It’s also a good idea to include a number or modifier such as “2023” or “Guide.”

Tips for writing SEO titles + meta descriptions

SEO title length: 600 pixels (about 58 characters)
Meta description length: 920 pixels (about 158 characters)
Do not use Rank Math snippet variables or the “Insert Snippet Variable” (write your own!)
Primary keywords are on top, secondary keywords are sprinkled in (if possible!)
Stick to quality content and do not make the title stuffed with keywords or incomprehensible

7 Write a keyword-rich title
Characteristics of a good title:

It makes people want to read
Primary keywords are ideal in the introduction
Keyword variants are scattered throughout the title

8 Shorten the permalink
This confirms your keyword to search engines.

These should provide useful resources for specific topics that are not fully covered in the article, don’t just include them for the sake of improving on-page SEO or linking to Wikipedia. If your visitors click on it, it must be useful.

9 Add internal/external links

Internal Links – Natural ways to build links back to your site with article mentions where visitors can get more information on specific topics, while improving bounce rate and time on site.

External links – similar to citing sources to Google. I always use internal links if I have content on the same topic, otherwise I link to external sources where people can find more information.

10 Add multimedia

By multimedia we mean the following:

Pictures of all kinds
Videos
Infographics
Tables and graphs
The media encourages increased trust in the information they disseminate, and helps people understand the explanation. It is also one of the most important factors in internal SEO. I have a detailed article on the importance of multimedia in WordPress that is good to read.

Videos keep people in the article longer. Ideally, it’s yours because including videos in your blog gives them more views, likes, comments, and shares, which is a key factor for improving YouTube SEO.

That’s why I love creating YouTube videos along with my blog content

11 Image design

I use Photoshop.

Beautifully designed images help increase page views and keep visitors longer, and can bring a lot of traffic to your blog through Google Images. Make sure you crop/resize images to the correct dimensions (see next section).

12 Improve photos

Alt text – It is considered one of the most important image SEO factors that contributes greatly to bringing more traffic from Google Images. Use Rank Math or Auto Image Alt Attribute to add alternative text to images based on their file name. Just remember to write descriptive file names before uploading images.

Resize images to correct dimensions – My blog is 720 pixels wide, so I crop/resize full-width images to those dimensions. Otherwise, I will see serve scaled images errors in GTmetrix.

Lossless image compression – Imagify, Smush, ShortPixel, and Kraken all do the same thing (lossless compression + EXIF data removal). I use ShortPixel which shows an unnoticeable loss of quality.