Yes. I believe WordPress is a great choice for SEO.

I see a lot of negative comments on the net about which CMS is the best, which is the worst, etc.. 9 times out of 10, it’s a proponent of one CMS over the other that shreds either Joomla, Drupal, WordPress, Mambo, etc.. Here’s my take… As an SEO expert I can tell you first hand that WordPress can get the SEO job done. I’m not here to tell you that other platforms can’t, but I think it’s important to know that WordPress can be a great SEO friendly platform.

Here are a few pointers to make your WordPress Site SEO Friendly:

Permalinks. You need to alter the default out of the box permalink structure to a clean SEO friendly URL structure, I personally prefer %postname% for full sites. Altering this setting gives you the ability to name your pages something very relevant keyword wise, etc. Here’s a link showing you how to adjust: http://codex.wordpress.org/Using_Permalinks

Plugins. You’ll need some nifty plugins to get the best SEO bang for your buck here: I recommend the All In One SEO Pack, Google Analytics + Google Analytics Dashboard, Google XML Sitemap Creator for starters.

Keywords & Content. True SEO is only as good as the content being produced for your target audience.  Be certain to generate relevant and unique content while sprinkling that content with keywords that your prospects are using in a search.

Load Time. This is an important consideration with any CMS site, but WordPress can start bogging down the larger it gets.  Google does factor in load time into it’s algorithm now, so be certain that your WordPress site is on a quick server and that you keep your site clean of spam comments, etc.. Here’s a great tool to test your load time: http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/016485.html

Ping Services. Out of the box, WordPress only lists one ping service, a ping service simply grabs your content once you publish it and helps spread it around.  Be sure to visit http://codex.wordpress.org/Update_Services and grab the full list there to install on your WordPress Site.

SEO Know How and Hard Work Not everyone is going to be an SEO rockstar.  Not everyone is going to produce an amazing web site with amazing content that Google is going to love and want more of.  Any web site, whether it’s built in WordPress, static, Joomla, etc., needs to be fed. As with anything in life, hard work and persistence can and will pay off.

The most important take away here is this: It’s easy enough to attack any platform if you don’t believe in it or use it, or know the ins and outs.  The true key to effective SEO is the content and how that content is crawled or followed by a search engine.  Make it easy for the search engine to digest and you should be in business. In my humble opinion, WordPress gives you the tools to deliver a solid web site that Google and the other Search Engines can easily digest if constructed properly.

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