This is the 2nd of the WordPress SEO Tutorials series.

If you don’t know it yet, your web page’s TITLE is one of the MOST important SEO factor in ranking high in the search engine results pages (SERPs).

Check it out: go to a major search engine and type in search engine optimization (with/without quotations). What do you see in the 1st page of the SERPs? Most of the top results have search engine optimization near the very beginning of their titles, and these titles have the keyword phrase search engine optimization BOLD-TYPED!

*Notice the bold-types of the descriptions too? I’ll talk about this later but for now let’s get back to how to configure your WordPress blog’s title tag.

By default, most WordPress themes have your blog’s name BEFORE your post/categories/etc. title:

Your Blog Name » Blog Archives » Blog-Post-Title

This, of course, is NOT favorable if you want to have the extra edge over your competition in the SEO war. Anyway, here’s a step-by-step tutorial on how you can configure the title of your post/category/etc. to this (without any plugin):

Blog-Post-Title » Your Blog Name

*Note: The phrase “Blog Archives” has been deleted.

How to Move Your “Blog-Post-Title” before the “Blog Name”

In order to do this, you need to open up the “header.php” file in your WordPress theme folder. You need a ‘php’ file editor to do this; if not, DON’T WORRY–just do the following:

-First, change the “header.php” file extension to “header.txt“.
-Next, open the “header.txt” file and ‘find’ for the following code that begins with the < title> tag:

< title>< ?php bloginfo('name'); ?>< ?php wp_title(); ?>< /title>

*Note: < ?php bloginfo('name'); ?> is your Blog Name, and < ?php wp_title(); ?> is your Blog-Post-Title. Also, you only need these two “< ?php>” codes: just delete the rest of the other codes or texts (e.g. “Blog Archives”).

Now, all you have to do is moved the < ?php wp_title(); ?> before the < ?php bloginfo('name'); ?>:

BEFORE:
< title>< ?php bloginfo('name'); ?>< ?php wp_title(); ?>< /title>

AFTER:
< title>< ?php wp_title(); ?>< ?php bloginfo('name'); ?>< /title>

That’s it you’re DONE! The last step is to save the file as a “php” extension, “header.php” (without the quotations), and upload it to your site’s theme folder and watch the transformation of your Wordpress Blog-Post-Title goes before your Blog Name:

Blog-Post-Title » Your Blog Name

O.K. That’s it for my tutorial on the configuring your blog name and title WITHOUT using any plugin. My next post will list a SERIES of SEO-related WordPress plugins, plus some optional ‘tweak’ for the best SEO results for the title tag .

O.K. Then, until the next WordPress SEO tutorial…

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Wait!–Hold your horses . Let me first explain ‘what is search engine optimization‘?

To simply put, the ultimate aim of legitimate search engine optimization (SEO) is to get more visitors to a search engine optimized website. This simply means that search engine optimization’s goal is to make a website appear on the first page of the search engine results pages (SERPs), so the ‘chance’ of people click-through to your search engine optimized website is HIGHER than those on the 2nd or 3rd page of the SERPs.

Thus, one reason why you should choose search engine optimization is because with more visitors from the free organic search, you have more means and ways to monetize your website .

There are other ways to get on the first page of the search engine results page too, but–you’ve guessed it–it’s NOT free (e.g. pay-per-click program like Google Adwords .

In case you didn’t know, search engines evaluate websites by using what they call “spiders” or “bots,” and these bots and spiders have NAMES too =P. (Check your website’s raw log and you can see them all over the place–well, if your site is nested with quality content that is .

Anyway, these spider bots visit and scan your website and collect information about it. The information then gets collated and passed on to the search engine index–the library of your website’s web pages. So, when a search engine users input the keyword/keyword-phrase into the search box, another program in the search engine serves up the pages in its index library according to the relevance of the search query–and, yes, with the most relevant ones listed on the first page of the SERPs.

You may have seen it, you know, when you search for the keyword phrase ’search engine optimization’: there are “…about 42,600,000 for search engine optimization” (this info is on the upper-right corner of Google SERP). What that means is that, there are 42,600,000 pages in the index that is relevant to the keyword phrase ’search engine optimization’.

Anyway, to answer the question, below are a couple of reasons why ‘legitimate’ search engine optimization is important:

Reason1. Legitimate Search Engine Optimization Produces ‘Long-Term’ FREE Organic Traffic

The main purpose of search engine optimization is to increase the traffic generated by a search engine optimized website. Search engines have become the building blocks of the foundation of the Internet and its users. A survey showed that 90% of all Internet users employ search engines to aid them in their Internet-related activities. Google, the dominant player in the search engine industry, generates 70% of all search-related Internet activity compared to other search engines.

Reason 2. Legitimate Search Engine Optimization ‘Continues’ to Answer People Queries with Quality Content

Search engines exist and continue to exist because they help people find what they’re looking for. Search engine and people are alike. They both like site’s with pack-full of content that have the potential to answer their question thoroughly–basically any website that contains substantive information about a certain topic.

The best content-quality search engine optimized websites ‘usually’ appear first in the search engines, because search engines want to provide relevant helpful content to their users/customers. The benefits are mutual for both search engines and a search engine optimized website. As search engines want to make their users happy with helpful content-filled sites, they will continue to serve up those content-filled websites in the 1st page of SERPs (to answer their users’ queries).

Reason 3. Legitimate Search Engine Optimization Helps Getting Target Audience/Visitors/Customers

The use of the search engine to be able to target one’s target audience is one of the most effective online marketing strategies. It is not like other online marketing techniques (such as email marketing) which can lead to a lot of leakages in terms of targeting the right audience.

Since search engines segment the market and connect the right people together, search engine optimization helps increase your exposure to targeted niche market.

Reason 4. Legitimate Search Engine Optimization is Cost-Effective and Cost-Efficient for Your Effort

One can do search engine optimization under the assumption that he knows what he is doing. Search engine optimization is a full-time job and has a very long learning curve. This is why most people would resort to out-sourcing the job to experts who are good at what they do. One should be cautious, however, in hiring a search engine optimization company or consultant. Factors such as pricing and service should carefully be assessed before signing a deal. If done properly, search engine optimization is a very cost effective way of getting more people to know about one’s products or to know about a certain issue or event that a website is disseminating.

*You can read more about this in my post on “Do-It-Yourself SEO Techniques vs. Third Party SEO Services.”

Anyway, to summary, legitimate search engine optimization is important for your websites, because it expands your reach to more targeted customers/search engine users. Also, ‘legitimate’ search engine optimization does not only generate traffic from the targeted audience, but it is also a cost-effective way of optimizing your website for ‘long-term’ success.

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