WordPress by itself is already a very well search optimized blogging platform. Coupled with the endless plugins that improves it further, WordPress can be said to be the best blogging platform that one could find. Why then should anyone bother about whether the Theme they are using is Search Engine Optimized or not?
Imagine WordPress as an operating system like Windows. Windows by itself is already a very good operating system, though for some, they would argue to death that Macs are better. Whoever is right, an operating system is just an operating system. It might contain the best and most user friendly features, but to improve your usability, you still need to install many third party software.
Just like Windows, WordPress is just a blogging platform. The Themes we use runs on top of that platform. To make full use of what is available in WordPress, we still need to have what it takes. The default WordPress Theme lets you starts blogging immediately after your installation, but it runs in the barest of necessity. Thus we must have a Theme with codes written in such a way that it makes full use of what is available for WordPress.
A good example is the threaded comments feature. It has been made available as of WordPress 2.7, but if your Theme does not support this feature, you will not be able to use it. Like wise, if your Theme has not been coded well in terms of Search Eugine Optimization, you will not be able to realize the full potential of WordPress.
A well coded SEO Theme can be described in many ways. Some says that as long as the codes validates, then it can be considered as optimized. Some says that if your H tags are marked out clearly, then it is also optimized. Still some argues that a well optimized Theme is a Theme that has codes arranged in such a way that the most crucial part of your blogs are displayed first so search spiders sees the most important part before anything else.
My argument is, being the greedy me, a SEO Theme should be a Theme that encompasses everything that makes it Search Engine friendly. Be it the validation, the H tags or the way contents are displayed in the Theme. It is only then, that the Theme can claim to be Search Engine Optimized.
Some might not be bothered abut it, but such a Theme will and can definitely increase organic traffic, provided of course, you structure your blog and your posts accordingly. Some do not even bother to give a good title and description for their blog. Many prefers a cool title rather than one that has keywords in it.
Just in case you do not know, you do not have to show your blog titles and descriptions to your readers. All you have to do is to include a ‘display: none’ attribute to the H1 title selector in your stylesheet. You can them replace your header with an image of your choice with the coolest title that you want. This way, you blog title will still be visible to search spiders even though your readers sees something different.
Alternatively, there are plenty of SEO plugins available that will let you overwrite your blog titles. You can have a cool title for your readers while having a keyword rich one for the Search Engines.
A good SEO Theme should have all these elements included so the user do not have to rely on any plugins. Though plugins are very useful, using too many will bog down your Themes loading time, which is another big No when it comes to modern SEO. The latest search algorithms released by Google actually takes loading time as a factor in ranking your blogs.
Is this theme that I made optimized for search engine? To tell you the truth, other than keeping the codes as simple and as basic as possible to keep it lightweight and making sure the h tags are properly used , there is nothing else. I do use the SEO in One plugin though, to overwrite my post titles. That is the limt of my knowledge.
For sites with Adsense that I depend extensively on organic traffic, l use the Thesis Theme. It has most of the SEO elements included by default and you are advised to de-activate all SEO plugins that you might have before using. You might not believe it but I have a site which I replaced with the Thesis and traffic actually doubled within 2 weeks.
I have to agree with you on this one. In fact one of the guys making 5 digits from their blog, mentioned that nowdays it’s all about techniques and technology, his name was Steve Pavlina. He also says that usually 95% of the people will fail, but hey 95% of the people fail in every area of business and life.
So my point was that someone who’s just good at writing, but has absolutely no idea about SEO and themes, will get much less traffic vs. someone with enough knowledge about those two.
So your article will open the eyes to a lot of people and hopefully help them in increasing their traffic. See we talked about these 99% non helping guys and that 1% of helping ones. U definitely fall into that 1 percentile.
Hi Mitco,
I think you meant, ‘his name IS Steve Pavlina’ LOL. He is still around, if I’m not mistaken.
Yea.. he is a very inspiring writer.
Ha,ha, yeah at first I wasn’t able to think about his name, so I went online to check it out, and i guess I used the past tense
judging on my action of not remembering.