WordPress.org

1. devildog
   Member
   Posted 6 months ago #

   Hi,

   I'm looking for advice. Feel free to shunt this post into a better category if need be.

   I'm a rails developer who is happy with it. I've been told by an "SEO expert" that for my product (an eBook) I'm going to sell online that I should really be building the site with WordPress, instead, because there are so many SEO features that are built in and others that are easily installable via plug-ins.

   Now, there are a million issues when it comes to comparing development environments and I don't want to get into them. Nor do I want a religious war about development environments or programming languages. I am *only* concerned with SEO right now, and I'm happy to develop in WP if the SEO advantages are that great.

   So, the basic question: Is he right?

   Sub-questions:
   -- What *exactly* are the SEO features that WP has (or can have via plug-ins) that makes it so good at SEO?
   -- How hard would these be to replicate (if you can judge that issue)?

   What I'm trying to figure out is if it'll be relatively easy for me to replicate the SEO functionality in Rails (with which I'm already competent) or whether the SEO advantages are so great as to warrant spending the time getting up to competency level with WP (and giving up some low-level flexibility potentially.

   Thanks for the help! I really appreciate it. Getting an answer to this issue has been non-trivial so far.

   Cheers!

2. Ipstenu
   Half-Elf Support Rogue & Mod
   Posted 6 months ago #

   http://codex.wordpress.org/Search_Engine_Optimization_for_Wordpress

   (And for a laugh, http://jane.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/screen-shot-2011-08-03-at-12-36-47-pm.png )

3. Rev. Voodoo
   Volunteer Moderator
   Posted 6 months ago #

   http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-seo/
   You can read over one of the more popular SEO plugins as well, to see what it do

4. devildog
   Member
   Posted 6 months ago #

   Thanks for the links! Those were helpful (and an excellent cartoon).

   I'm left in a bit of a quandry. On the one hand I thought there would be more. Readable URL's, pinging, and site map optimization aren't super exciting, highly advanced features. On the other hand those features, plus a collection of a dozen or so other more minor features are already built-in (or easily added with plug-ins), would save a lot of work. And the environment is built with a sensitivity to SEO in various parts of the system. Hmmm...

   Anyone out there with WP and Rails experience who considers himself (herself) an SEO master who wants to chime in?

   Thanks!

5. Ipstenu
   Half-Elf Support Rogue & Mod
   Posted 6 months ago #

   Honestly at this point the difference between WordPress, Drupal and Joomla, in terms of SEO, are minimal. At the time, WordPress was way ahead of the curve. Now everyone's caught up, and most of what I'd call WP's SEO benefit is that it's something you don't have to think about. Readable URLs, canonical URLs, well formed links both internal and external, meta data. Everything you need to make a basic SEO friendly site are there from the start and included in almost every good theme.

   And the plugin Rev linked to is one of my favorite's too for when you need that extra step to make your SEO go through the roof.

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