The difference between a great website that ranks on the first few Google search results and one that almost does not exist is good SEO. Sites with search engine optimization can easily convince the leading search engines to crawl their content and index them regularly. This helps in increasing organic traffic and multiplying the ROI. Website optimization for Google is not tough; it is a continuous process that needs the dedicated attention of SEO experts or teams of experts. Almost all commercial websites have a definite budget for their optimization efforts.
Why is PHP so popular among WordPress users?
WordPress has made it so much easier than before to optimize websites for search engines. WordPress users can easily outdo their rivals’ SEO efforts with the help of simple SEO tools and plug-ins. These plug-ins are add-on PHP codes that come in ready-to-use formats. You just need to download them, install them and activate them to become visible to your target audience. Even with just free-ranging simplicity, WordPress requires basic knowhow of search engine optimization. Thankfully, there are several SEO blogs like the San Jose SEO Expert blog that help the developers and users to explore the new possibilities of optimization.
One of the newest WordPress optimization trends includes the removal of the plug-ins and using basic PHP codes to optimize the site. PHP is a server-side scripting language that web developers can embed directly into HTML. This increases efficiency and functionality. When a developer knows how to leverage this scripting language properly, they can easily power their search engine optimization strategies with the help of simple strings of code instead of bulky plug-ins for their websites. PHP is a useful language that can take the look of HTML files for each page of your site. Since this scripting language is very agile, you can meet your search engine optimization requirements with considerable ease without investing in plug-ins.
How to stay up to speed with PHP?
Speed is one of the leading factors that contribute to the visibility of websites. While choosing PHP codes, you must always remember that the search engine spider should not have to wait too long or search too long for processing the PHP code behind that page. There has been more than one instance when the search engine spider has moved on to another domain simply because it had to wait too long for the access. Database and loop codes drastically slow a PHP script down.
Always avoid SELECT* calls on a table with ten fields when you want to use only 2 or 3. That is a sheer waste of resources that can turn your website into a sloth. An easy alternative to loops is the use of the duplicated code. They do not repeat as many times, and they use several static values.
How to prevent session number ID generation with PHP?
To prevent your PHP code from slowing your WordPress site down, you need to deal with its tendency to add session number IDs to the links. This happens when you turn the “enable trans sid” option on for your CMS. A bigger problem arises since this option gives different URLs for the same content to the spiders. This prompts the search engine crawlers to avoid “duplicate” content, and they might even end up not indexing them at all. The easiest way to prevent this from happening is by setting the “session.use_trans_sid” to false. You might as well add the following line to your .htaccess file to make the sessions IDs vanish from the URL altogether.
How to use PHP to create search engine friendly URLs?
Not all versions of WordPress engines have the best plugins for creating static-looking dynamic pages. To create URLs that look like static pages, you need to put in a little bit of extra effort with your PHP codes. For larger websites, Apache works marvelously for creating such URLs. For a smaller website, you can always keep your GET variable to a utilitarian amount to make the URLs look as static as possible. Dynamic pages often pose a serious challenge to the website managers with their complex mix of alphanumerical. To get past the search engine spiders, always keep the GET variables limited to 3!
Rewrite all your URLs with regex
The first way you can make that happen is by planning it thoroughly. Just like any other task, you need to plan your URL rewriting process. Begin with modifying a test script to see if everything goes as planned. Then move on to modifying the other existing links on your domain. You can set up wildcards for your current “unfriendly” URLs in your .htaccess files. This will help you rewrite the URLs successfully without necessitating several revisions of the process.
Use Apache ForceType
The second way you can create static-looking URLs from dynamic ones is by combining the PHP scripting methods with Apache Force Type. This can interpret your existing URLs irrespective of their complexity. It requires a little more work than the first process, but it is more thorough in its effort to rewrite URLs into search engine friendly formats.
Why should you take the effort to create dynamic pages?
The biggest advantage of a dynamic page is the creation and updating of page content in real-time. Almost all the WebPages on banking websites, ticket booking websites, and payment websites are dynamic. The moment you input data, the information on the page changes dynamically without the need to reload the entire page. Dynamic pages save time, bandwidth and they are much faster than identical static pages. PHP has always helped webmasters in executing small and big changes on dynamic pages with perfection. Incidentally, webmasters find it easier to manipulate SEO by using PHP to modify the existing scripts to create page titles.
PHP is still a powerful scripting language that reserves the power to uplift and perfects an SEO strategy for almost all kinds of WordPress sites. Whether you choose to include plug-ins or omit them completely, PHP can make your website more accessible to the leading search engines and their spiders.
