2. Introduction
Wholegrain Digital is a WordPress
design and development agency.
We design, build and SEO
optimise WordPress websites for
clients ranging from individual
bloggers to large corporations
like M&S and Reed Recruitment.

3. What is WordPress?
WordPress is a content management system
(CMS). In simple terms, it provides an easy way to
add/edit content on your website.
Started as a blogging system
Now the world’s most popular CMS

4. How popular is WP?
WordPress is used
by 17.4% of all
websites.
That is a CMS
market share of
54.6%.
Source: http://w3techs.com/technologies/overview/content_management/all

5. Why use WordPress?
•It is easy to use
•It is free
•It is infinitely flexible
•It has a huge community
•Google LOVES it
“WordPress is a fantastic piece of software… it
solves some 80-90% of the mechanics of SEO”
– Matt Cutts, Google

6. What is SEO?
The task of improving your website so that more
people can find it in search engines

8. Basics: Keywords
•Research popular search terms using Google
Keyword Tool (filter to ‘Exact Match’)
•Keywords are useful, but less critical for bloggers
than passion and personality
•Don’t stuff too many keywords into your posts or the
keywords will seem unnatural. Keywords should be
used sparingly, so don’t put keywords everywhere
unless the keywords sound right.
•Quality content first, keywords second

9. Basics: Clean URLs
•In WP under Settings > Permalinks choose Post name

10. Basics: Titles and meta

11. Basics: Headings
H1 heading

12. Basics: XML Sitemaps
•It automatically creates XML sitemaps and notifies
Google & Bing of the sitemaps existence
•It includes images from your pages/posts in the
sitemap

13. Basics: Analytics
Monitor which posts people are finding and
reading, and learn from it so that you can write
more posts that people find and love

14. Basics: Webmaster Tools
•Setup a Google Webmaster Tools account, submit
your sitemap and make sure that Google is not
reporting any problems crawling your website.
•If problems are found, you can deal with them

15. Basics: RSS Feeds
•Setup a Feedburner account and add RSS and email
subscription links on your blog
•Feed Stats for WordPress plugin

16. Basics: Linking
•Create amazing content
•Cross promote articles, recipes and reviews
•Give love to get love – don’t be scared to link out
•Guest blog for other people
•DO NOT buy links
Image: http://www.leostartsup.com

17. Food Blogger SEO
There are some specific things that food bloggers can
do to raise the profile of their blog
•Author profiles
•Photography
•Recipes
•Reviews
•Usability
•User Interaction
Image: http://www.lolfoodie.com

18. Author Profiles
Get yourself known as a food blogger, and attract
more traffic
•Create Google+ profile
•Add you blog to your profile
•Add your Google+ profile URL to your WordPress
author profile (use Yoast SEO plugin)

20. Recipe SEO
Recipe Schema and hRecipe
•Help Google, Yummly and SuperCook index your
recipes
•Get thumbnail images next to recipes in Google
search
•Cooking method, prep time, cooking time, cuisine,
ingredients, yield etc etc
•Plugins - Schema Creator by Raven, Recipe
Schema, hRecipe

22. Usability
•Keep it simple
•Break up text with lists and sub-headings
•Use photography
•Responsive design for mobile and tablets
•Mobile important for restaurant reviews
•Tablet important for recipes

23. User Interaction
•Include sharing buttons prominently
•Lots of plugins for WordPress
•Engage with commenters
•Engage with influencial bloggers/tweeters
•Find influencers using Followerwonk.com
•Ask to interview them
•Reference their site or work
•Review their venue (e.g. chefs)
•Look for trending topics such as hot / new venues or
recipes getting a boost due to trends or celebrity chefs
(e.g. recipes from Masterchef). Notify influencers via
social media and interact.