WordPress SEO with Consultant Craig Fifield

WordPress SEO with Consultant Craig Fifield

Tell me about your Blog?

I don’t have a personal blog at the moment. I publish my own small blog network so my time is spent developing that and assisting my SEO and WordPress consulting clients. When I do have spare time I prefer to spend it on Twitter or in a community like Problogger.com where I can help people one on one.

I do have a placeholder up where people can find me on the web if they need help with SEO or Social Media. Tentative plans to get a real blog there soon are in action as well, but don’t hold your breath on that one!

What was your first blog?

I’ve been creating web sites since 1995 but my first blog was Google Tutorials by Google Tutor.

I acquired it in 2005 while working at Microsoft (which was a real risk to my career) but as an SEO I’ve always loved Google so I couldn’t pass it up. Plus, I was dying to get my hands into Social Media at the time so I saw it as a great way to learn.

What is the biggest tip you would give to a newbie blogger about WordPress SEO?

Use a plugin, hack your theme, do whatever it takes to optimize your Title Tags.

What do bloggers do that you wish they wouldn’t that effects their WordPress SEO?

There are many, but these would be my top two at the moment:

Blog structure – Many bloggers continue with the standard blog structure (lots of categories, archives and/or tags). This is not ideal for SEO because it allows your link juice to flow into areas that are not necessarily helpful to what you intend to rank for. Ideally, you should be funneling your users, search engines, and link juice into a few key areas of your blog.
Default category, archive, tag pages – Most blog platforms treat a category as nothing more than list of what is in the category (or archive or tag page) and unknowing bloggers leave them like that. In most cases it is those lists that help set the context or theme of your blog for your user and the search engines. The problem is, a list isn’t as useful as it could be. A better approach is to create custom categories that include static text (and any other content you like) in order to have complete control over what those pages say to your users and the engines.

Where do you see growth in the blogging field?

Small niches. It is wide open out there if you understand how to look at niches.

What do you do to improve the world?

Two things:

What are your contact details (email, company, blog, facebook, myspace, forums, etc)?

The best way to get me is on Twitter @CraigFifield or LinkedIn. If you prefer email you can get it on my contact page.

How do you prefer to communicate?

By finger.

Who would you recommend, and why?

WordPress SEO

Michael Gray

Joost DeValk