What this book covers

Chapter 1, Getting Started: SEO Basics, will cover the basics of SEO from start to finish, introducing topics such as on-page ranking factors, how search engines work, and link building.

Chapter 2, Customizing WordPress Settings for SEO, will align your SEO strategy with the WordPress platform and help you solidify your plan. You'll need to set realistic goals and timelines for your business or website through educated investigation and analysis. Proper and thorough planning will ensure that you'll succeed even in competitive search markets.

Chapter 3, Researching and Working with Keywords, will begin by building a keyword list based on what you have to offer consumers. We'll examine whether it's wiser to focus on a few high-value terms, or to build out a broad keyword list and rank for a wide variety of phrases. We'll learn how to group keywords into manageable groups and how to leverage grouped keywords for maximum SEO benefit.

Chapter 4, Understanding Technical Optimization, will cover how to take what we've learned about keyword research and implement a ranking strategy. We'll build a "perfect web page" a web page where all the elements work together to achieve maximum ranking power. We will learn how to craft a domain name that is well-poised to rank for primary keywords. We will examine how to create an effective WordPress permalink structure.

Chapter 5, Creating Optimized and Engaging Content, will begin by learning how to better engage visitors with your content. We'll learn how to write effective titles and headlines how to grab readers' attention from the start.

Chapter 6, Link Building, will begin by covering some general topics in link building such as how and where to get links. We'll learn about PageRank, Google's trademarked and patented process for counting the inbound "votes" we receive as links from other websites.

Chapter 7, Using Social Media, will help us learn how to harness social media to promote your company or website and supplement your search strategy.

Chapter 8, Avoiding the Black Hat Techniques, will take a tour through the seedy side of SEO. We'll examine a wide range of black and gray hat techniques and why it is imperative that you avoid them.

Chapter 9, Avoiding SEO Mistakes, will examine errors in keyword research that can lead to ranking troubles well into the future. We will look at the complex challenges surrounding site architecture and look into some common mistakes that webmasters make

Chapter 10, Testing Your Site and Monitoring Your Progress, will cover a range of tools with which you will monitor the quality of your website, learn how search spiders interact with your site, measure your rankings in search engines for various keywords, and analyze how your visitors behave when they are on your site.

Appendix A, WordPress SEO Plugins, will cover some of the most helpful and powerful plugins that can help you take your WordPress site to the next level.

Appendix B, Other SEO Resources, will discover some resources that can help you stay on top of the search engine optimization for your website.