This article provides a strategy of getting ranked on the first page of the search engines.  Our strategy is based on using the capabilities inherent in a WordPress.org hosted blog. We reveal here the detailed setup needed in order to get your site ranked at or near the top.

Many good short videos are available on YouTube that describe setting up a basic WordPress Blog.  Once you have finished this basic setup and selected a theme that you like and fits your main purpose, the following plugins should be added for best results, often getting you quickly on page one of Google.

• Permalinks – Install Redirection plugin by John Godley and set your permalinks to: /%category%/%postname%/.  This change will optimize the titles of each blog post for better results.
• Category URLs – Install Remove Category URL plugin.  This shortens the “wordiness” of your blog post titles by changing the “default” /category/my-category to /my-category.
• Define Canonical URL in Tools>Redirection>Modules (e.g., strip www).  This setting will prevent search engine penalty from having duplicate paths to your blog, e.g., http://www.jimgreen.us and http://jimgreen.us.
• Optimize blog structure using Yoast SEO plugin.
• Create sitemaps with Dagon Design sitemap generator, and Karailiev’s XML sitemap generator.  These settings make it easier for search engine spiders to index your site.
• Increase blog speed with LiteSpeed Cache.
• Create backlinks using RSS submission feeds, video marketing, and social bookmarking sites using OnlyWire.com

These are just a few suggestions to optimizing your blog.   Having reasonably used the above plugins and settings, you’ll find your blog steadily, if not immediately moving up in the rankings, especially if you add material on a regular basis.