24 Dec The Beginner Guide To Marketing Your WordPress Website

WordPress makes it extremely easy for anyone to build a website. The next step is to market it to a wider audience, which can be the more difficult part.

In this article, we’ll explain how becoming a problem-solver can help you find more customers, why your domain name is key to establishing credibility, offer guidance on optimizing your pages for search engines, and reveal a tactic for gaining links.

Ready to get started? Let’s go!

Become a problem solver

When people type something into Google they are usually looking for answers. One of the most effective ways to market your WordPress website is to identify your potential customers’ problems and create solutions. Discover the questions and queries that people are typing into Google with free tools like AnswerThePublic or Ubersuggest.

By utilizing keyword research tools you will be able to pinpoint the most asked questions related to your product, service or industry. Identify a pressing problem that you can solve with high-quality, informative and engaging content significantly improves your chances of success. 

Encourage shareability by adding social buttons

After solving your audience’s problems with high-quality content, adding social buttons to your website is an excellent tactic for growing your audience and improving traffic even further. AddToAny Share Buttons, as the name suggests, will allow you to add share buttons to any page on your WordPress website.

This free plug-in will allow your audience to share content with their followers on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and more, without leaving your site. To make the most of social buttons, placement is key. So, remember:

People online skim and don’t read – On average, users only read 20% of your content. Making them scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page to share your content is a bad idea. Instead, place your sharing buttons at the top of the page or within the sidebar.

Make your buttons stand out – Social buttons usually have to compete with a lot of other information on any given page. For this reason, you need to ensure they are clickable, clearly signposted, and free from ‘content clutter’.

Choose a catchy domain name

A strong domain name can have a significant effect on the success of your website. Getting it right will help add credibility to your business, increase your visibility in search engine rankings, and increase the ‘stickabilty’ of your brand in peoples’ minds. Getting it wrong, on the other hand, will harm your integrity and could doom your website to failure before it even gets going. Four key things to remember when creating a memorable domain name include:

Keep it short and simple – Long, overly complex domain names are harder to remember and easier to mistype. Avoid using obscure spellings, hyphens, numbers, and symbols.

The power of keywords – Keywords in domain names are a search engine ranking factor. They are also highlighted in SERPs for related searches, which means incorporating keywords into your domain name can draw attention and encourage more click-throughs.

Use an appropriate extension – The .com extension is the most popular and a sensible choice for most websites. If you’re a small business though, using a geographic extension such as .nyc or .seattle could help send trust signals to locals searchers.

Making sure it’s not already taken – First, do a Google search to find out if another company is already using your favored domain name. Then double check that another business hasn’t already trademarked or copyrighted it, so you avoid getting involved in a legal dispute.

Optimize every piece of content for SEO

SEO stands for search engine optimization, which is the name given to efforts designed to place your website nearer the top of search engine results pages (SERPs). Although it can get very technical at the highest level, downloading the best SEO plugins will make optimizing the following straightforward:

Title tags – Used to specify the title of your webpage, title tags are displayed as a clickable title on SERPs. Title tags boost SEO rankings and encourage click-throughs by describing to users what your page is about before they click it.

Meta descriptions – A snippet that contains about 155 characters, meta descriptions also show up in SERPs, summarizing the page’s content. To optimize for SEO, your meta description should include keywords relevant to your audience at the same time as giving searchers a compelling reason to click through.

Keyword phrases – In SEO, these are words and phrases that people use to search for information. As a result, using specialized phrases will help search engines match users to your content and send more traffic to your pages.

To take the next step, you will need to optimize your blogs and product descriptions with longtail keywords. Unlike short-tail keywords which are usually one or two words long, a longtail keyword usually consists of three to six words. Generally speaking, short-tail keywords target a wider audience because they have more search volume. However, because longtail keywords are more descriptive, they tend to generate more targeted search results, attract less competition and can, therefore, be more profitable.  

Build links by writing guest blog posts

As the name suggests, guest blogging involves writing for other blogs. In addition to getting your name out there, guest posts build links directed to your website. One of the most important ranking factors, these backlinks help define the popularity of your site by telling search engines that your website is trusted and deserving of a higher spot in SERPs.

For guest posting to have the best possible effect, you will want to write for noteworthy sites in your niche. This will ensure that people who are interested in your topic will read your content and use the link to click through to your site to find out more. To increase your chances of successfully pitching, writing and getting a guest post published, you will need to:  

• Create a list of well-known blogs in your niche
• Dedicate time to researching the topics your target blog write about
• Pitch an idea that will help you and your host’s audience
• Send the blog you want to guest post for a personalized pitch
• Follow the style, tone of voice and format of the blog you’re guest posting for
• Only include links to your own content if it’s relevant.

Marketing WordPress websites effectively is key to attracting visitors. The tips outlined above will help optimize your content, build links, and establish yourself as an authority in your niche. Follow them and start attracting more views today.

—

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kayleigh Toyra: Content Strategist

Half-Finnish, half-British entrepreneur based in Bristol. I love to write and explore themes like storytelling and customer experience. I manage a small team of writers at a boutique agency.