WordPress CMS is accessible to most people because it's open-source, cheap, easy to set up, has a massive community for support, and features thousands of plugins for almost any business application. However, businesses must go beyond off-the-shelf WordPress solutions to harness their full potential.
In this article, we will demonstrate how Custom WordPress Web Development and a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy can unlock the full potential of your WordPress website.
Why You Need A Custom WordPress Theme
When it comes to WordPress development, there are three paths you can take:
● selecting a free or paid off-the-shelf template (theme)
● customizing the chosen template
● building a completely custom WordPress website
A WordPress theme is like a ready-made platform for your content. There are thousands you can choose from, free and paid. Admittedly, they can look excellent and feel right for many users.
And we understand not all pages need to rank high on search engines and attract a large amount of organic traffic. Not all websites are supposed to convert visitors and become profitable marketing machines.
Best Solution for a Commercial Website
However, if you need your website to achieve these goals, there may be better options than free and pre-built solutions. Instead, professionals suggest opting for Custom WordPress Development. Here are some reasons why custom WordPress is favored over off-the-shelf solutions.
● It fits your business goals and vision perfectly
● It makes you stand out in your niche
● It ensures better security and top-notch performance
● Enables direct support from the developer
● Custom WordPress Developers can provide an SEO-friendly WordPress theme.
Combining Custom WP Development with SEO
You're probably aware of the benefits an SEO strategy can bring to businesses looking to succeed online, at least to some extent. That's why many pre-made WordPress themes, especially the premium ones, come with built-in SEO features. Nevertheless, you'll find that there's still considerable work to be done in tailoring them to meet top-notch SEO standards.
Think of it this way: Keywords are crucial for SEO, but the structure of your website really amps up your visibility in search engine results. Opting for custom WordPress development means building its structure from scratch.
This is a golden opportunity to design it to make it easier for search engine crawlers to index your content, ensuring your site gets the attention it deserves. Let's investigate why SEO is crucial in distinguishing your custom WordPress website.
10 Ways Custom WordPress Development Benefits SEO
It Allows For a Tailored SEO Strategy
Custom WordPress development allows you to tailor your website's SEO strategy to fit your specific needs and goals rather than relying on generic settings of pre-built themes, which may be limited to businesses with greater ambitions.
Optimized Website Speed
Custom-developed WordPress sites are stripped of code that doesn't serve your purpose, meaning they load faster. Pre-built ones are often "bloated" and require many different plugins to extend their functionality, adding to the bloat. Website speed is a crucial factor in SEO, as faster sites are ranked higher by Google and other search engines.
Enhanced Mobile Responsiveness
Google favors the mobile version of your site over the desktop version, known as mobile-first indexing. Your pre-built theme may not offer the best user experience for a specific content layout or eCommerce functionalities. Custom themes can be meticulously crafted to ensure optimal display and performance on mobile devices, a crucial SEO factor since mobile-friendliness primarily affects how search engines rank your site.
Cleaner Code
The more easily Google can read and understand the content on your website, the higher the value it can assign to it. Clean code makes Google bots' job easier. That means better SEO performance for your website as it is easier for search engine crawlers to read and index your content.
Customizable URL Structures
With Custom WordPress Development, you can create more SEO-friendly URL structures. It means your web addresses can include keywords and have a structure that makes users and search engines understand your website easily.
Improved User Experience (UX)
WordPress designers can design custom themes with user experience in mind, which is a significant factor in SEO. A better UX leads to more extended site visits and lower bounce rates, both of which have a direct positive impact on your SEO. Better conversion rates and brand perception affecting the bottom line are a bonus mention.
Effective Use of Headers and Meta Tags
Custom development allows for better control over your pages' headers (titles) and meta tags (brief descriptions), which are vital for SEO. You can ensure they are correctly used and include relevant keywords.
Advanced Schema Markup
Custom themes allow for the integration of schema markup, aka structured data, a code that helps search engines understand the content and context of your pages. This markup is the reason behind different rich snippets on the results page, which can improve your visibility in search results. Examples are review stars, price, product snippets, videos, recipes, etc.
Custom Content Optimization
With a custom theme, you can optimize every aspect of your content for SEO, from site architecture and the placement of keywords to the structuring of articles, ensuring your site meets specific SEO guidelines.
Reduced Plugin Dependency
Pre-built themes often require multiple plugins for full functionality, regularly slowing down WordPress websites. Custom WordPress development can reduce the need for these plugins, improving site speed and SEO performance.
Final Thoughts
We realize there is one serious objection to our proposal: custom development and SEO cost more than their alternatives. Although cheaper options certainly exist, for businesses wanting to gain serious online traction, there is no wiser choice but to go with a fully custom WordPress site.
Custom development tailors your website's SEO strategy, optimizing website speed, enhancing mobile responsiveness, and ensuring cleaner code. This approach allows for customizable URL structures, improved user experience (UX), effective use of headers and meta tags, and advanced schema markup. Additionally, it reduces plugin dependency, which is crucial for maintaining website speed and SEO efficiency.
Companies may employ various marketing methods. As the reason behind the online success of most serious enterprises, Search Engine Optimization brings too many gifts to overlook.
