Doing WordPress SEO is not difficult, even Google says that WordPress is one of the best blogging platforms for search engines optimization. There is so much competition though so it is important to optimize your blog SEO to attract organic traffic from search engines.
WordPress SEO
I got an email about the new Scribe blog SEO software because I am user of the Thesis Theme. Scribe SEO was created by the same team as Thesis and I just had to check it out.
Scribe is basically a WordPress SEO plugin that helps work with the blog on-page search engine optimisation. Scribe sits in your blog post writing screen and allows you to analyse the blog SEO of the post by clicking the “Analyze” button.
Clicking Analyze brings up a pop-up screen which looks something like the screenshot above (analysis above is for the “What diet is your blog on” post):
I got a low grade of 51% for that post. Scribe looked at following things to decide the grade. The first tab is SEO Score:
Title
- how many characters
- how many words
- does it contain primary keyword
- does it contain primary key word at the beginning
Description
- how many characters
- does it contain primary keyword
- does it contain primary key word towards the beginning
Body
- how many words does the body contains
- what is the keyword density of the primary keyword
- how many hyperlinks are there in the post
- how many hyperlinks at the beginning
- what is the flesch reading score and level
Out of all these, it tells me which ones I am doing fine and which ones I have to fix. In this post the title doesn’t contain the keyword at the beginning, neither does the description, the keyword “blog” exceeds the maximum of keyword density, and there are no links at the beginning of the post. That is why I only got score 51%.
SEO Keyword Analysis
Second tab is Keyword Analysis which basically analyses primary and secondary keywords and phrases in your copy. It also lets you know what is the keyword density of each of the keywords.
Third tab is Change Keywords which tells you to use more of the keyword throughout the text if you want to make that keyword a primary one or use less of it if you want to make it a secondary keyword.
The Tag tab tells me the list of semantically relevant key phrases that I should use in the article.
SERP tab shows me how my listing will look in Google or in another search engine result page.
Blog SEO Best Practices
Last Tab is called SEO Best Practices. This is a text that gives me FAQ and a definition of terms used in the other tabs. It tells what the optimal length of the title, optimal length of the description and the body is, best practices around how many links per how many words, why the Flesch reading ease is important and so on. It tells how the score is calculated.
I analysed some of my best ranking articles and how to install WordPress post has a score of 65% and my best WordPress plugins post has a score of 87%! There is no “analyse all” button so I do not know which of my posts has the best score.
Scribe WordPress SEO plugin has been updated several times since I’ve been using it so it is good to know that it will be kept as current as the Thesis theme is.
All in all an interesting product that can help you take care of the generic on-page WordPress SEO and in the long run hopefully increase your search engine traffic.
It is important to note that on-page factors are only a small factor of the whole blog SEO so getting a lot of social media mentions, getting great links and having a keyword rich domain name are still the factors that will give you the most search engine success.
This post has been optimized to 100% for WordPress SEO and blog SEO according to Scribe so will be interesting to see how Google takes it.
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{ 38 comments }
Scribe SEO looks very robust! I’m also using Thesis on my Wordpress. Was wondering what you used prior to this plugin for your blog? Thanks
I used nothing for SEO. First time I try something like this.
I am not using Thesis, but hope to soon enough. This tool does look really interesting, but I’d have to do a bit more research be I considered buying it.
Thanks Marko, I also am using Scribe and it has been a very helpful tool.
I’ve been having fun playing around with Scribe and plan on using it when writing for clients.
For fun, I went back to one of my older posts that is one of the top 5 results for the variations on the main keyword and found that it scored 99. Which is not to say that Scribe is useless – far from it, it’s great to have a tool that helps you streamline the tweaking for SEO process – but I think that nothing will take the place of high quality content and a good reputation.
Definitely. Quality content first. For me this is an experiment to see if it helps or not. I will write my results which I hope can help everyone make the best decision.
Seems pretty cool. First time I’ve seen something like this. I’ll check it out.
It’s true on page is only a small factor but it’s still worth paying attention to. Sometimes you can rank for certain long tail phrases with out any additional link building etc.
Yeah, I’d have to try some more long tail phrases with Scribe. Wil hopefully have enough stats to show if it works or not soon.
I am using scribe, I got the same email and I was surprised after using it, another surprise is to see your post and the other one on Blogussion
but no surprise it’s a good plugin and I am sure that tons of people will love it and write about it to spread it out!
I have used it specially to do SEO for my guest blogging contest that I am running this month, I wanted everything to be perfect for the contest posts!
I am writing my post about scribe right right now
Cool, glad to see it works fine for you.
It looks like a great tool but it’s a little hard to understand why there would be a monthly fee to use it rather than a purchase price. Maybe I’m missing something but it’s priced like a top shelf membership site yet it’s a WP plugin. I’ll have to give it some thought.
I’ve been thinking the exact same thing, Brian. Then again, if people are willing to pay, I guess there’s no reason not to charge a monthly fee over a flat price. I’m still pondering this one myself . . .
I don’t understand this part as well, but trust me you don’t need more than one month to get the whole idea! I am a member and happy one
Yeah, charging monthly is pushing it. They should charge per pack of 300 posts, but someone needs to make money I guess.
I would hope the monthly subscription will mean that Scribe will be continually updated to reflect changes in Google’s ranking and search-term requirements.
That I see as reasonable for paying monthly if the plugin actually remains relevant and current as Google moves the goalposts around.
I am paying the special, early signup rate though, so I may have felt differently if I was paying more.
I have started to implement Scribe on my blog and so far, assuming the suggestions it makes work, it offers more than at first meets the eye.
After analyzing just a few posts and modifying as per Scribes suggestions the only thing I was concerned about was the time it was taking me to pubilsh a post, but very quickly I have found that most new posts I write are very highly scored from the beginning because I am naturally optimizing my posts better in the first place and it is not unusual for me to get 100% rating on the first analysis.
Of course it’s too early to tell if this will help me bring more traffic to my site by itself, but the added value I find is that it is helping to improve my writing and optimizing naturally.
Sounds good! Glad to hear it helps you.
YESSSSS! I’ve been waiting for this. Thanks to your post I’m the first on my block to get it!
I can’t wait to see what a difference it makes!! Thanks Marko!! You’re the best!
Karen
Glad I could help.
Thanks for this detailed review. I also think that, especially for people like me who are new to blogging, it’s important to learn first the concept of SEO and the techniques involved in it, before actually using applications like this.
Just start writing great posts and connect with your audience. Do not focus on SEO too much. For me this is an experiment only.
I totally agree that we must have keyword analysis..and those other tips are well written..
Wow, that looks like a useful bit of software. I’m sure it could definitely help you to avoid basic errors that we sometimes miss when writing our blog posts. I’m going to take a look at it.
That it will definitely help out with – avoiding basic SEO errors.
very good tips… thanks from istanbul
Awesome post! although i am not bad in seo, it just refreshed my mind
thanks for the share Marko
This is a super-duper plug in! Thanks for all the great information about it. I just added it and can’t wait to get started using it. G-U-L-P on finding out how some of my current stuff rates.
Takes endless humility to work in this biz, eh?
Great information but i am still sticking to All ion on SEO pack as it has more option and better optimization.
I always use my own WordPress theme for blogging. What ever technique or theme you use if your content is not quality then there is no use. I have listened about thesis. I am going to use and I will notice how far it will be benefit.
Hey Marko,
I’ve read a lot about Scribe. And I’m no SEO fan at all.
If you’re too obsessed about keyword density etc., you’ll fall into the trap of writing a generic blog post. I rather focus on creating posts that will attract readers like flies. I’d rather have people link/ tweet my stuff.
Makes sense Mars, that should be everyone’s priority.
I bought Scribe on the last day their introductory offer was up, and it’s been the only SEO service I ever thought was worth paying for. Scribe has taught me a lot about smartening up my SEO strategies, and really just makes me feel like a genius when I score 90%+ on the first analysis haha.
Glad you use Scribe too Marko.
hehehe yeah I found myself like playing a game trying to get the best score out of least possible tries.
This sounds like a really useful piece of software. Do you have to have a Thesis theme installed to run it or can it work with anything?
You need “All In One SEO” plugin to run Scribe in case that you don’t have Thesis Theme.
The only thing which I can say about this article is awesome, I had to work on Keywords and by looking at this blog, you have made my work easier. thanks for this.
I am wondering how google react on your seo fool proof article ?
This sound pretty good tips to learn before starting blogging in WordPress. It’s necessary to follow all SEO step like we follow for website. Apart form that update unique content is most important in blogging platform