WordPress has now become one of the most popular CMS in the world, although other content management syustems like Joomla, Drupal, etc. are also open source, and offer much more than WordPress, it is the ease of use and the simple management system that adds to the popularity of WordPress.
Anyways, to get on with the topic of the post - WordPress being so user friendly and customizable, it is not really search engine optimized perfectly. Although, WordPress does have SEF (search engine friendly) URLs, many of the other on-page SEO factors have been overlooked.
Generally when we build a perfectly SEOed page, the following things have to be kept in mind:
- Search engine friendly URLs.
- Optimized Title tag.
- Unique Meta descriptions. (meta keywords are useless!)
- Unique H1 tags – we just want one H1 tag per page.
- Clean code.
- Content should come first (for easy indexing and readability to search engines)
Now, apart from number 1, WordPress does not have any of the above mentioned customization options. The title tags cannot be customized for each page in an out-of-box WP installation. Meta descriptions are not generated automatically. H1 tags are often used in an improper manner by the themes. Clean code is seldom found in most themes, and content generally comes after the sidebar menu in most themes.
Now it is really easy to configure the title and meta tags by using a very popular free plugin: Platinum SEO.
Click here to download Platinum SEO pack for wordpress.
However, the other factors, H1 tags, clean code and content positioning depends not on the WordPress CMS but, the theme it uses. Most themes do not offer SEO benefits, although they claim to do so.
Here is what to look for in any Good SEO WP theme:
- The H1 tags on each page are unique, and should be used only once. Preferably the page/post title should be the H1 tag, and the blog title should be in a <div> tag.
- The code should be clean, without unneccessary loops and tags.
- The content should come before the sidebar menu.
Although, the above features might seem quite common, if you actually check most of the free themes available, even good looking ones lack the above mentioned features.
So, what I’ve done, is looked at probably more than 500 themes (in last 2 months or so), and have discovered some of the most SEOed WP themes available for free. I list them below. (no significance of the order)
Easy Web Tutorial WP themes: They don’t really look very modern, but from the SEO point of view, these themes are way ahead of the others.
Amazing Grace: A very lightweight and highly optimized 3 column wordpress theme. Clean code, and looks beautiful.
Semiologic Reloaded WP theme: One of the MOST advanced and customizable themes available on the internet. This is the MOST powerful theme I have come across, with a tonne of features, and customization options.
A dream to host theme: A very simple 2 column CSS based WP theme. Lightweight, very well optimized.
Themes I have not considered
While researching I cam across some themes which claimed to be Super SEOed, but for some reason I could not add them to the list above – so I mention theme here:
Thesis theme: Highly SEOed, one of the MOST popular theme among SEO professionals, marketers and webmasters. You cannot really go wrong with search egnine optimization when using the Thesis theme. Reason for rejection: High price (NOT Free).
VKLabs theme: Looks good and SEO friendly. Reason for rejection: Too much information on theme download page makes it seem complicated, they require you to give them your email address – and the site does not look very professional. The demo pages provided do not work. You can try out their theme, but for some reason, I did not feel like including theme in the list above.
Courtney Tuttle WP theme: Not updated regularly, many themes not widgetized and many lack the above mentioned SEO features.
New themes are being developed everyday, and I do not guarantee that I have looked at ALL themes available (that’s not really possible). So you might find some theme which is even better than the ones mentioned above. Go ahead, let me know through your comments.
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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
What are your thoughts on the Constructor Theme?
What about Thematic or CP Minimalist?
I’m not a coder, but I have a feeling that Constructor is out (a Ukranian product, very easy on the eyes and user friendly…but SEO? Not sure…) Great post. Thanks
Oh, one other theme that *used to be free* but is now impossible to download in whitehat lists: Flexibility theme. It is the brother to Flexsqueeze, a premium theme.
One last one that’s very interesting: Joel Comm has put out Socrates theme…have you seen it? Again: very user-friendly, but SEO’d? Not sure.
@JamestheJust on Elance:
James, I have seen the Thematic theme before, it is absolutely GREAT for SEO purposes, but the reason for which I did not include it on my list, because, I feel, that it is more of a “framework” rather than a theme, I feel, it is “too” minimal. However, this is a personal preference, if you like the look of Thematic, you can definitely use it – it is lightweight, and has clean code – nicely structured for SEO.
I also checked the CP minimal theme – It failed my first test for validating tags so I did not check other criteria – If you go on the post pages, check the source code, you’ll find, it is using header tags two times, once for the post title and again for Blog title, which is not desirable. The Blog title should ideally be in a tag and the post in – so search engines get all unique H1 tags on posts.
Now, of course, you can tweak the theme and make it more search engine friendly, but for the purpose of this post, I decided to list the ones which I found SEOed out of the box.
And for some reason I was not able to open the Contructor theme page, I’ll try later and post an update.
@JamestheJust on Elance:
Yeah, I really like the Flexbility theme, it matches all my requirements for using a theme (and is one which I have used for my sites before). The only reason I decided not to put it was that they require you to register, provide your email address, etc. But it is a good choice in my opinion.
I hadn’t seen the Socrates theme before, just checked it out…looks great! and seems to get a high score on the SEO scale too.. I’ll look deeper into this. But it seems to be a great choice if you are ready to shell out the $$.
For my mini sites, I have never used a paid theme, with so many free options available, I never really felt the need to purchase a paid one, but if you want a less common look, you can always spend.
@JamestheJust on Elance:
James, I have seen the Thematic theme before, it is absolutely GREAT for SEO purposes, but the reason for which I did not include it on my list, because, I feel, that it is more of a “framework” rather than a theme, I feel, it is “too” minimal. However, this is a personal preference, if you like the look of Thematic, you can definitely use it – it is lightweight, and has clean code – nicely structured for SEO.
I also checked the CP minimal theme – It failed my first test for validating tags so I did not check other criteria – If you go on the post pages, check the source code, you’ll find, it is using header tags two times, once for the post title and again for Blog title, which is not desirable. The Blog title should ideally be in a tag and the post in – so search engines get all unique H1 tags on posts.
Now, of course, you can tweak the theme and make it more search engine friendly, but for the purpose of this post, I decided to list the ones which I found SEOed out of the box.
And for some reason I was not able to open the Contructor theme page, I’ll try later and post an update.
Thanks for the advice. Will put it to work. Tom