Seriously: Wordpress is a horrible CMS for SEO - why use it?

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xha44a

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Jan 11, 2013
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Hi,

So part of this is obvious - I understand people use wordpress because it has a million plugins. Just like Apple built their popularity partially by having a million apps. But seriously, wordpress just sucks for SEO.

Point in case. Internal linking. What would be some relevant things we need to know to make good internal linking decisions.

1) What a page is ranking for/ what you're targeting
2) The position you are right now for those keywords
3) What links do you currently have incoming to that page (internal links), and anchor text
4) Easy search of database for text and quick replacing of links

It seems a CMS designed/working for SEO of any type would at least try to give you the information you desire. Here's an example of how a CMS *could* work.

Login. Your pages/posts rankings are being tracked automatically. Posts/pages that rank 2-10 would be shown under the "almost there" category. 10-20 would be the "nudge to first page", 20-50 (needs some love), 50+ (back to the drawing board). You would be able to see how many are in each category at a glance. You could go to the 10-20 category, and see what pages are there. See what keywords are bringing traffic. And you could assign internal links (related blog posts plugin) to be automatically built for that page with specified (spun?) anchors. Percentages even of which anchor if you wished. Giving your post that nudge needed to make page 1. If you cleared a couple of page caches, those related posts would be rebuilt with the anchors you wanted in the percentages you wanted. Bam. Internal links ahoy.

You could even easily search (standard queries) for certain text for you to link to that page and easily click and insert link - all from within one single post page.

Seriously - would that not be a dream?

If you want to add internal links right now, what do you do. Go visit Google and search those terms. Find the pages on your site relevant. Then go to that page in your CMS and find some relevant text and anchor it? How primitive is that?! Seriously?

This is 2014... this stuff shouldn't be *automatic* but providing you the information you need to act and make decisions SHOULD be automatic.

I hate wordpress. I only use it because I'm not advanced enough to code my own members area plugin. But once I learn...

[/rant]

Cheers

XH
 


wordpress just sucks for SEO.
Click to expand...

While wordpress might not be the most unique solution, it's the least barrier to entry in getting your site indexed and ranking as fast as possible.
 
skohh said:
While wordpress might not be the most unique solution, it's the least barrier to entry in getting your site indexed and ranking as fast as possible.
Click to expand...

Look I might have been a little frustrated when I posted this trying to work with WP to get it to do some stuff, but that is a touch harsh.

I totally agree it has the least barrier to entry, which seems to be why I use it. However when it comes to doing anything advanced, it seems pretty darn difficult to get to do stuff.

Want to pull traffic stats into each post to see what you should be targeting more carefully with that post? Good luck.

Want to have it automatically adjust pages or at least send you alerts for how you should be tweaking them. Good luck.

Anyway - didn't mean to upset you skohh. I guess what I was trying to say is that as a CMS it seems pretty darn hard to adapt to any kind of serious tweaking.

Cheers

XH
 
For most users ease of access is the key. Wordpress is easy, install, pick a theme then your good to go to put content on your site.

Marketers in IM Industry will always take the easy route, whenever possible, to get to their main goal of selling their thing and avoid bumps that will complicate their goal, well most of......
 
Well...

If you have the time and experience, custom designed systems pack a punch.

If you are lacking either..

Wordpress fits a LOT of use cases.

::emp::
 
WP has a lot of users and is easy enough for me to set up. If I have a problem or SEO question, there's a good chance that Googling around will have the answer. I've been tempted to try out other CMSes dozens of times, but all it takes is a few hours of Googling about a feature for me to go straight back to Wordpress.

One of these days I'll start a site on another CMS and do one with a static site generator. But for right now, I know my time is best spent making money instead of learning new stuff.

The situation kind of reminds me why I use Ubuntu. If I need to Google for osmething or ask about a setting, chances are there's a direct answer on the Ubuntu forms or a tutorial using Ubuntu for the answer.
 
Lots of Wordpress if you use it right:
- It has a visual builder plugin
- Easy to connect it to third part tools
- Lead form plugins that funnel into your email capturing platform
- Stats -- you are not stuck with Google analytics and can use something like SlimStats to get realtime data and adjust -- you also decrease page load times since everything is contained
- Call to Action stuff -- lots of shortcodes that you can drag and drop to make a nice landing page in minutes and leave it alone.
- Clone and Backup - lots of plugins do this, You can repeat this process
Make >> Adjust >> Clone >> Repeat

I have tried other CMS's before including flatfiles. They are a pain to adjust and customize.
 
Seems like everything you described could be part of a new SEO plugin.

You might also consider the opportunity presented by this functionality not being automatically baked into the most popular CMS: if you build your own system/software or outsource the legwork, you could gain an enormous edge.
 
Know what. You guys are right. I was pulling my hair out trying to get this stuff to work on Wordpress and kinda flew off my rocker because of that.

So. I take it back. Wordpress is an OK CMS :) It has a ton of out of the box options though that make it super easy to do most anything with. Beyond that though I'm screwed.

emp said:
Well...

If you have the time and experience, custom designed systems pack a punch.

If you are lacking either..
Click to expand...


This pretty much sums up the problem.... I'm lacking both. Otherwise I guess it would be childs play to get it to do what I want it to do. I sure wish I was better at programming/php.


Lucidity said:
Seems like everything you described could be part of a new SEO plugin.

You might also consider the opportunity presented by this functionality not being automatically baked into the most popular CMS: if you build your own system/software or outsource the legwork, you could gain an enormous edge.
Click to expand...

I think I'm going to try that. Create a sweet plugin that imports all the relevant data into each post. I mean Google analytics into the home page area is great... but I want post by post traffic and keywords if I can pull them in as well as. This may well be beyond my abilities though. I think it probably is. Again. I need to be a better programmer.
 
The keywords "not provided" problem is a problem of data not being shared with you by Google.

No CMS or custom development is going to change that.

::emp::
 
emp said:
The keywords "not provided" problem is a problem of data not being shared with you by Google.

No CMS or custom development is going to change that.

::emp::
Click to expand...

I know that keywords "not provided" is Google being stingy related (paid advertisers have no problem getting that afaik) and I can't fix that. I was thinking if I can pull keywords in from other SE's I could use that. Assuming (huge possibly assinine assumption) that keyword rankings might be similar.

Alternatively...

Question for you since you obviously know what you're talking about... do you think something like this would be possible to *somewhat* work around that keyword not provided issue

1) Google analytics > Search Engine Optimization > Queries - pull down the list of queries along with # of visitors

2) Load those queries into a SERP tracker. Pull down the URL and rank # for those queries

3) Match the URL to the WP post, and tag it with # of visitors for that query

Would that work around this to some degree?

Example:

1) Google analytics > SEO > Queries for last week shows I have 10 visits for keyword "random topic", 5 for "crappy programmer"

2) I pull those queries, load them up into Serpbook, and see what URL gets returned. Example: I rank #1 for crappy programmer with URL Page Not Found - 404 Error Page. Page Not Found - 404 Error Page also ranks #4 for random topic

3) I essentially have *some* degree of keyword data. Maybe not like it used to be, but *some*.

Am I totally late to the party and you guys have already tried this or is this something that might work? Help me out emp :)

XH
 
CMSs seem to be huge now. SquareSpace is the one of the most simple to use (less plugins), but WordPress is great because of the ease of customization/the amount of plug-ins you can use.

I used to code using HTML but that was back when SEO wasn't even an issue. Plugins like All In One SEO help and just general knowledge of the field (keywords in headers, Google Keyword Planner, etc.) can help, but I'd be interested to see a side by side comparison of what you can do in something like straight HTML programming vs. WordPress.

My buddy who does web design and SEO says that WordPress creates a lot of duplicate pages and unnecessary pages. He says HTML is better to work with in regards to SEO. I think he has some valid points, but unless you're a programming wiz, I think WordPress is an awesome CMS to get started with.
 
If you don't like Wordpress you can use...

- Ghost
- Movable Type
- Droplets
- Medium
- Tumblr

Just to name five options.

Anyway, I would not just say Wordpress sucks for SEO. Well configured and optimised, Wordpress can work great. The problems are two:

1. As so many people use Wordpress, then the advantage gets diluted.
2. Not everybody knows or cares about optimising their template. They just buy a template and (naïvely think) they are done.
 
Yoast Plugin has some of the things you mentioned to help you make sure to hit the highpoints to have a page completely focused.

You should at least look at that.

And I think there is several ways to get a page to rank. It is hard to write a formula to look at the front page of google and give you a guaranteed and the easiest way to get there. A person is better at that and it depends on the industry and likelihood of a topic to get links
 
You could roll your own solution into wordpress, if you were so inclined. I keep a spreadsheet for that kind of stuff (article titles, urls, outbound links, inbound internal links, target kw, etc etc). It takes 5 minutes to update my spreadsheet when a new article gets posted, which I usually do in bulk. It's not automatic, but it keeps me from guessing or trying to remember everything.
 
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