How to improve your WordPress website's SEO without relying on SEO plugins?

There is a common mistake that website owners make when they plan to randomly push their sites to the top of search results, which is to rely only and focus on a ready-made set of well-known tools that are used to improve the ranking of their sites in search results. Perhaps the most famous of these tools are: WordPress plugins ready for search engine optimization, such as: Yoast, RankMath, All in One... Linking the site to webmaster tools Google search console External tools for competitor analysis: ahrefs, semruch Keyword analysis tools: Ubersuggest, keyword Link analysis tools The defective...and other tools. All of these are professional and accurate tools for developing the site’s content and making it the top spot. This is something that is absolutely not disputed, and I personally rely on them a lot. So where is the problem with everyone relying on it?

In fact, this is actually the problem!

Everyone depends on them and focuses only and only on them... Let's be realistic, mastering the work on these tools has become easy and not a complicated matter, so simply everyone will be able, through these tools, to make their sites top the search results... and thousands of sites will achieve the SEO standards suggested by these tools... Imagine the scenario that will happen now and put yourself now in the place of Google and the search engines. How will you choose the top 10 sites out of thousands of sites that have all used SEO tools and almost all of which meet the basic criteria for SEO “thanks to SEO tools”?

how??

Review of the best WordPress SEO plugins based on experts’ experiences. The answer, in short, is the primary goal of inventing search algorithms and producing results, SEO, etc. The answer is…. Content. Yes, the value of the content you provide to readers, knowing exactly what the reader or customer is looking for, and providing real value that adds scientific or practical benefit to the reader.

I will tell you a short story that happened when I was creating one of my sites, which demonstrates in reality what we talked about. The goal of the site was to direct the targeted audience of the content to specific pages on that site through social media platforms or through email. I created the website using the WordPress platform and basic plugins, and linked it to the Google Analytics tool. The goal of which was to know the number of visits that come to me from the sources that I relied on only to bring visitors to the sites (which are social networking sites and e-mail), and thus I surpassed the simplest SEO axioms, such as linking the site to the search console, creating an XML map, or relying on a SEO add-on. I completely surpassed them, imagine!

Then I began the marketing plan for the site’s content, as I had prepared, by directing visitors through social media and email platforms to those pages, and the first surprise was that I got a good number of visits…. Quite a number! All events up to that moment were logical and did not cause great surprise, but what happened next was very surprising!

After I finished my marketing campaigns for the site for a good period of time and completely neglected the site, I found that one of the pages to which I was directing visitors was still bringing me monthly visits, even though I had completely cut off all content marketing activities through social media or email! Out of natural curiosity, I wanted to know the source of these visits, and with a quick search for the page’s statistics and SEO details, I found that the page had been automatically archived according to strong keywords related to the page’s topic, and that this page had begun to receive monthly visits through search engines!

What does this mean?

This means that the search engines discovered real value in the content of this page and that real useful visits from readers were coming to it, so they classified it with keywords targeted by those searching for the content of the page automatically and without any intervention from me! The reason for this is that this page was not only a sales page, but rather it added great value to the reader and provided great benefit compared to the other pages, which were targeting the same keyword as my page, and which the search engines automatically archived according to it, even though the competing pages did not abandon the SEO tool and used it with unparalleled skill! This short story clearly points out the difference between reliance on tools compared to reliance on value.

I am not saying here that SEO tools have passed their days, no, not at all. Rather, what I am trying to reach is the necessity of emphasizing the value of the content and working to add real benefit to the reader who arrives at your site and uses these tools to reach it. You explain the matter as if you are that skilled cook who is interested in providing a delicious meal that meets the aspirations of customers and the delicious taste they are looking for, and for that purpose he uses the restaurant, its equipment, its attractive interior design, and various advertisements to deliver his delicious meal to customers, rather than relying on the elegance of his restaurant, street advertisements, and social media platforms to attract customers only, and then what, the dish is not what the customers desire and it is not the meal they are looking for. A few days ago, we published an experience with the best SEO plugins for WordPress to improve the appearance of your site. We talked about the most famous plugins in this field and actually our recommendation for using the appropriate plugin and the features that it will provide to improve the appearance of your site in the search engine.

Therefore, once again, we do not reject SEO plugins altogether, but rather I recommend that you use them on your site and not limit yourself to them. A surprise I share with you from one of my sites! So that you do not think that this story is a figment of my imagination or just an exaggeration that has no basis in truth or that it is just a theory that I do not really believe in, so that you do not think that I will share a screenshot that will amaze you from one of my sites, in which the SEO result and the reading index appear, most of them in orange and in red!

For those who do not know the meaning of these colors, they are the colors that the Yoast SEO tool relies on to give you an indication of the readability of the content and the SEO analysis of your article, which many people think is…. The single and most important criterion for content to be at the top of search results. As the meaning of the colors: Green: The result of the analysis is good. Orange: The result of the analysis is acceptable. Red: The content needs improvements. The presence of these red indicators on many of my site’s articles and the fact that, thanks to God, they appear in the first results on search engines, means one thing, which is that relying on these indicators in evaluating your content is never correct.

SEO as you have never planned it before. In fact, what I want to direct to you through this message, and so as not to be long for you, is that what you need to take care of in the journey of improving your site’s appearance on search engines are 5 golden points, which are: Knowing the target segment that you are addressing with your content Knowing the interests of the target segment and the content they are waiting for from you Identifying the keywords that are most important to them (not the most searched) Providing content that meets the visitor’s search intent and is not adapted to search engine algorithms Put in the first place that you always provide the content to the visitor Not for the search engine I repeat out of necessity! This advice does not mean dispensing with the use of the tools that I listed and talked about at the beginning, but the ultimate goal is to reach content of real value and benefit to the visitor and then use SEO tools to reach that goal, not to consider these tools as goals in themselves. Take a step from now. From now on, you must rethink how you plan the content that you provide to users and that you target with search engines, whether this content is: articles, products, or services... Just start by defining the user’s needs and how you will provide him with content that meets those needs.

Then employ the principles, basics, and tools of improving SEO for your site that we all know to support and increase the chances of your site appearing on search results. Always keep in mind that until we reach the complete list of “secret and unknown” algorithms that Google relies on, we must apply all the principles and experiences that we know and that others share with us. I have shared with you today one of the most prominent of these keys, so do not ignore it. I also advise you to read the following articles, which will be a useful asset for you to learn more about how to improve your site’s SEO and make it top the search results: Adding a sitemap to your site to ensure it is indexed correctly in search results Explaining WordPress SEO and improving the appearance of your WordPress site in search results 21 of the most common SEO errors and best practices for preparing your site Improving WordPress SEO by adjusting and creating schema through SmartCrawl