WordPress® All-in-One For Dummies®

Understanding How Search Engines See Your Content

Search engines don't care what your site looks like because they can't see what your site looks like; their crawlers care only about the content. The crawls care about the material in your blog, the way it's titled, the words you use, and the way you structure them.

You need to keep this focus in mind when you create the content of your blog. Your URL structure and the keywords, post titles, and images you use in posts all have an impact on how your blog ranks. Having a basic understanding about how search engines view your content can help you write content more attractive to search engines. Here are a few key areas to think about when you craft your content:

• Keywords in content: Search engines take an intense look at the keywords or combination of keywords you use. Keywords are often compared to the words found within links guiding people back to the post and in the title of the post itself to see if they match. The better these keywords align, the better ranking you get from the search engine.
• Post title: Search engines analyze the title of your blog post for keyword content. If you're targeting a specific keyword in your post and that keyword is mentioned throughout the post, mention it in the post title, as well. Also, both people and search engines place a lot of value on the early words of a title.
• URL structure: One of the coolest things about WordPress is the way it allows you to edit permalinks from within a post page. ...