St Louis, MO (UltimateHost.Domains) This is a complicated topic that we will attempt to simplify because many people think it’s easy to create, host and rank a website. That is not the case!

Truth of the matter is that it takes an incredible amount of time to properly host, design and optimize a WordPress website.

The complexity is truly beyond the scope of a blog post. It is a book, maybe a class or a matter of years of experience.

We will scratch the surface in hopes that some minor points will help those that want to do it themselves have a successful experience.

Most important aspects of a website is; security, indexing and search engine rankings.

Lets discuss “security” first. You need to make measures to assure that your website is not hacked and used for spam or phishing campaigns. We suggest that you disable comments. If you needs available, make certain using proper configuration that you avoid bots from leaving useless comments that will affect your search engine rankings. Additionally, use a security plugin, like All in One Security that acts as a firewall, but give you additional control over your comments and bots constantly attempting to leave comments for back-links. If your website gets hacked and used for spam or phishing campaigns or is used excessively by bots for fake comments for back-links, the major search engines will remove your website from indexing and your site will not be found in search results.

Indexing. What does indexing mean to a website owner? If your website is not indexed with Google, they will not know to show your website in search results. Indexing a website is notifying the search engines that you have launched a website. They will crawl your website to determine who you are, where you are located and what your offer. Without this information; how can they know you exist. There are multiple methods to indexing a website. The best method is to use the search engines webmaster tools. It allows you to index your site and upload a “sitemap” to the search knows about all pages and blog post of your website. This is the most critical aspect of owning a website. Additionally, use services or other websites to create links to every page on your site to assure they are perceived to be relevant by the search engines.

Rankings. This is a hot topic because it can involve thousands, or hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars of revenue to a business.

Properly indexing your website is only the first step to rankings. Links, hundreds, thousands of links will help the search engines perceive your website as relevant making them to want to show your site. However, while links are important, the most important aspect of you website is content. Content that is unique, meaning, not copied by your competitor, and unique services offered by the business will help as well. A secure website will rank better. The search engines know if you have a site that is subject to risk of hackers. Keep-in-mind, that search engines do NOT see a website as we see it. They see code, thousands of pages of code. So security and indexing is critical for rankings to be beneficial.

With WordPress you must install an SEO plugin. SEO plugins will allow you to easily add page titles and meta descriptions which are necessary for search engines to properly rank your website. We recommend Yoast SEO.

In closing, these are critical points, but much more involved than this post. We will continue to provide tips and are always available to our customers to offer advice.

This post was prepared by M. Smith and he can be contacted at Marty@STLMedia.Agency.