22 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}
22 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}

If I wanted to start a Wordpress blog from Scratch, and use StudioPress, is that all I need for SEO?

by MisterMister
21 replies
  • SEO
    • |
I have Genesis theme, or the Studiopress package I bought it years ago. I read it was SEO ready, I am trying to get back into blogging, I stopped 3 years ago when I wasn't earning any more money from it so I felt it was a waste of time. I had a website in google news and its still in there but the visitors were only 25 per day and I wasn't earning any money from it, before the drop in traffic I was getting thousands of visitors per day and earning some money.

I wanted to start a blog from scratch, or start over from an old site that I haven't updated in years should I delete all the old content and start from scratch?

But I was wondering if there are some settings and modifications you need to do on it?

Also what are some good wordpress plugins to add? Should I add a Twitter and Facebook plugin that automatically posts a snippet and tweet and posts on my facebook everytime I put a new post.

another thing is there anyway to change the background of the Genesis theme from white to black? I cant find it anywhere it seems you can only have a white background and cant change the background to black or dark.
#blog #scratch #seo #start #studiopress #wanted #wordpress
  • Profile picture of the author mathompson
    you need to set up Wordpres Yoast by SEO andy plus your social plugin tools
    Signature
    Superior Singing Method Review
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[10556161].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author nettiapina
    Originally Posted by MisterMister View Post

    If I wanted to start a Wordpress blog from Scratch, and use StudioPress, is that all I need for SEO?
    Definitely not. Is it all that you need to make your site reasonably search engine friendly? Yeah, probably. StudioPress' themes have some basic SEO features built-in. If you're happy with those there's no need to install something like Yoast SEO, even though I would still install it for the other features.

    Sitemap plugin is probably a good idea. If you're into that sharing stuff get a plugin for that too.

    I would not delete decent old content if you've got any backlinks to it.
    Signature
    Links in signature will not help your SEO. Not on this site, and not on any other forum.
    Who told me this? An ex Google web spam engineer.

    What's your excuse?
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[10556583].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author paladinseo
    The only thing u need for seo is knowledge, whithout that ur a blind man searching for the rainbow
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[10556635].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    If I wanted to start a Wordpress blog from Scratch, and use StudioPress, is that all I need for SEO?
    That wouldn't even be a start for SEO let alone an end all solution.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[10557748].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author faisalmaximus
    You need to add quality content and SEO plugin like Yoast SEO, then optimize each content using the Yoast guideline.

    For Genesis blog, go to customize and there you will get option to change the background.
    Signature
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[10557822].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author MisterMister
      Originally Posted by faisalmaximus View Post

      You need to add quality content and SEO plugin like Yoast SEO, then optimize each content using the Yoast guideline.

      For Genesis blog, go to customize and there you will get option to change the background.
      It wont let me change the background color to black or dark is there another way?
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[10557892].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author MisterMister
    Thanks for the replies, Im curious about the plug ins, won't these plug ins cause the site to slow down the loading speed?

    Another thing, should I still use the studiopress theme that I paid for? or should I just get another them off themeforest? is themeforest legit they have some SEO themes and adsense themes.

    Genesis/Studiopress doesn't let you add Adsense in the article.

    My website is still in Google news but its been inactive, I stopped posting on it when I no longer many any money from adsense after spending hours on content and no longer getting traffic or ranking well, I had a difficult time figuring out how to remove or change backlinks so I gave up.

    I read that you have to personally ask websites who linked a dead link to your site to remove those links, its crazy because I never asked anyone to link to my site and have no control what random person decides to link to me, thats weird that Google would punish you for things that other people do. Another thing if I do remove bad quality content do I have to add a redirect or just leave it 404?

    I noticed on my webmaster tools page I always have some not found errors, another thing is the Google sitemap im using always has an error if I do not put a new news article up after 2 days. I used the BWP google and news sitemaps plug in.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[10557902].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author nettiapina
      Originally Posted by MisterMister View Post

      Thanks for the replies, Im curious about the plug ins, won't these plug ins cause the site to slow down the loading speed?
      Technically speaking, yes. Usually you can have a few plugins without the site slowing down too much even if your hosting is not that great. Yoast SEO has been a bit problematic in the past, but the recent versions have performed well in my environments.

      Originally Posted by MisterMister View Post

      Another thing, should I still use the studiopress theme that I paid for? or should I just get another them off themeforest? is themeforest legit they have some SEO themes and adsense themes.
      Just because you're not able to change backgrounds? That seems fairly drastic move to me. You could just learn a few lines of CSS, and change the theme from there.

      Themeforest is a marketplace. Some of the themes are very good, others are some of the biggest piles of garbage I've ever seen. This is the problem with a marketplace with no barrier of entry. I'd look for a theme that has a stellar reputation.

      Originally Posted by MisterMister View Post

      I read that you have to personally ask websites who linked a dead link to your site to remove those links, its crazy because I never asked anyone to link to my site
      See Google's disavow tool.
      Signature
      Links in signature will not help your SEO. Not on this site, and not on any other forum.
      Who told me this? An ex Google web spam engineer.

      What's your excuse?
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[10558504].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author MisterMister
        Originally Posted by nettiapina View Post

        Technically speaking, yes. Usually you can have a few plugins without the site slowing down too much even if your hosting is not that great. Yoast SEO has been a bit problematic in the past, but the recent versions have performed well in my environments.



        Just because you're not able to change backgrounds? That seems fairly drastic move to me. You could just learn a few lines of CSS, and change the theme from there.

        Themeforest is a marketplace. Some of the themes are very good, others are some of the biggest piles of garbage I've ever seen. This is the problem with a marketplace with no barrier of entry. I'd look for a theme that has a stellar reputation.



        See Google's disavow tool.
        Netti thank you so much for your reply!

        I used to blog at time when all you needed was a wordpress, sitemap, etc. just bare bones stuff, in 2012 is when my site lost its traffic, and I believe I got a penalty I used to make some good money, my site was in google news. I was no longer making anything form adsense, after a year of trying to find answers on the google webmaster forums but no help, I gave up. I am not tech savvy, I tried learning some technical stuff, the last time I tried to place an ad in the middle of an article it destroyed my site, i messed up, most other themes I used allows to change the background with ease not having to break into it by putting a code, I just wonder why Studiopress doesn't allow the background to go from white to dark.

        I used the disavow tool when it first was advised to use it, it didn't do any difference.

        I kinda gave up because no money was coming in, and the time and effort I was putting into the site wasn't worth it anymore, I do miss blogging though, I miss the social interaction with people who read my articles I used to get tons of comments, now, nothing. I have no clue how to get my ranking up, I was used to the content is king advise, just post a lot of good original content. Now I read if you have too many articles with the same keyword on your website you will lose rank, what if your website is a niche?

        Now google punishes you for technical issues, like if something is wrong with your script or other coding issues which I have no clue about, most people I suspect who blog don't have a clue either bout coding, I see them post on the webmaster forum and are in the same boat as me yet no help from the team.

        I wish they had a website that can help you with these issues so people with zero knowledge can find the solution, like a for dummies type deal.
        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[10563625].message }}
        • Profile picture of the author yukon
          Banned
          Originally Posted by MisterMister View Post

          Netti thank you so much for your reply!

          I used to blog at time when all you needed was a wordpress, sitemap, etc. just bare bones stuff, in 2012 is when my site lost its traffic, and I believe I got a penalty I used to make some good money, my site was in google news. I was no longer making anything form adsense, after a year of trying to find answers on the google webmaster forums but no help, I gave up. I am not tech savvy, I tried learning some technical stuff, the last time I tried to place an ad in the middle of an article it destroyed my site, i messed up, most other themes I used allows to change the background with ease not having to break into it by putting a code, I just wonder why Studiopress doesn't allow the background to go from white to dark.

          I used the disavow tool when it first was advised to use it, it didn't do any difference.

          I kinda gave up because no money was coming in, and the time and effort I was putting into the site wasn't worth it anymore, I do miss blogging though, I miss the social interaction with people who read my articles I used to get tons of comments, now, nothing. I have no clue how to get my ranking up, I was used to the content is king advise, just post a lot of good original content. Now I read if you have too many articles with the same keyword on your website you will lose rank, what if your website is a niche?

          Now google punishes you for technical issues, like if something is wrong with your script or other coding issues which I have no clue about, most people I suspect who blog don't have a clue either bout coding, I see them post on the webmaster forum and are in the same boat as me yet no help from the team.

          I wish they had a website that can help you with these issues so people with zero knowledge can find the solution, like a for dummies type deal.


          Just because someone can't build a site doesn't mean it's a Google penalty, in fact it's not even remotely a penalty. It's a failure on behalf of the webmaster. If something code related holds you back it's your job to fix it, not Googles job to decipher what you want.

          Plugins will not magically rank your pages.

          They do have a website, it's called Google Search. I'm not trying to be a smart ass but If you expect to rank in Google Search results you'll need to be able to first do a Google search. It's the whole cart before the horse thing...

          BTW, there's a million & one other traffic sources besides Google SERPs.
          {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[10563734].message }}
          • Profile picture of the author MisterMister
            Originally Posted by yukon View Post

            Just because someone can't build a site doesn't mean it's a Google penalty, in fact it's not even remotely a penalty. It's a failure on behalf of the webmaster. If something code related holds you back it's your job to fix it, not Googles job to decipher what you want.

            Plugins will not magically rank your pages.

            They do have a website, it's called Google Search. I'm not trying to be a smart ass but If you expect to rank in Google Search results you'll need to be able to first do a Google search. It's the whole cart before the horse thing...

            BTW, there's a million & one other traffic sources besides Google SERPs.

            thanks for the reply

            So I will have to learn HTML and coding no matter what now? I thought I could just buy a wordpress and apply a few settings and focus on content like the old days. Could I just learn basic html and css and get by on that?


            How do I find out if its code related, Is there a website you can enter your website to find any penalties or issues?

            I post asking help on other forums even the main google forum, yet the only reply I got was from one guy who messaged me and said nobody is going to help you, people here are just pushing their BS how to guides and want you to buy an ebook. Also one of the google team members told me he is not permitted or allowed to tell people asking for help what is wrong with their site or penalties. I don't get it.

            Google is the king of organic traffic no?
            {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[10564080].message }}
            • Profile picture of the author nettiapina
              Originally Posted by MisterMister View Post

              Could I just learn basic html and css and get by on that?
              HTML is a markup language. Learn the basics and you pretty likely know enough to see if your HTML makes any sense.

              CSS is a different animal. Might take considerably more time to learn even on the most basic level.

              WordPress and other CMSes usually do the HTML for you, but being able to read some HTML is crucial for seeing if there's an obvious problem with the site.

              Originally Posted by MisterMister View Post

              How do I find out if its code related, Is there a website you can enter your website to find any penalties or issues?
              Well, if you indeed have a penalty Google's Webmaster Tools is the location. There's a lot of validators and SEO tools that may or may not help you. I'd take any of these with a truckload of salt.

              Originally Posted by MisterMister View Post

              Google is the king of organic traffic no?
              In my opinion Google simply doesn't give a toss, or at least SEO (and getting out of a spam penalty) is not a priority for them. As long as their service provides search results that are relevant enough for the masses they can run advertisements on that service. SEO is kind of a parasitic thing that grew to the side of their business. They get a lot of free publicity out of it, but don't actually need it to run their service.

              If you're big enough and/or run enough AdWords ads I'm sure Google reps would suggest something. Most of us aren't in that position.
              Signature
              Links in signature will not help your SEO. Not on this site, and not on any other forum.
              Who told me this? An ex Google web spam engineer.

              What's your excuse?
              {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[10564250].message }}
              • Profile picture of the author MisterMister
                Thanks for the replies guys, Im going to read them and take in the advice.

                I just came home from a trip to my relatives, and started logging into my webmaster tools after years of being inactive from blogging.

                I noticed I got this warning there from July 2015
                “Googlebot Cannot Access Your JavaScript and CSS Files”

                What is that and how can I fix this? I saw this plug in would it help?

                https://wordpress.org/plugins/unbloc...for-googlebot/
                {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[10572987].message }}
            • Profile picture of the author yukon
              Banned
              Originally Posted by MisterMister View Post

              thanks for the reply

              So I will have to learn HTML and coding no matter what now? I thought I could just buy a wordpress and apply a few settings and focus on content like the old days. Could I just learn basic html and css and get by on that?

              You don't have to do anything but I guarantee the folks that know HTML have a heck of an easier time learning SEO than the folks that don't know HTML. SEO is all about researching competition & your own pages, impossible to do that without knowing what's going on with the webpages involved. Something as simple as knowing or not knowing nofollow markup in an HTML link code can make or break your link profile.

              What you see on a live webpage is usually different than what you see on a text version of the same webpage, that happens via HTML (source code).

              Wordpress won't rank your pages just because it's Wordpress. The finished code on Wordpress that Google is looking at is HTML.






              Originally Posted by MisterMister View Post

              How do I find out if its code related, Is there a website you can enter your website to find any penalties or issues?

              Webmaster Tools will tell you If you have a penalty. Searching site:domain.com on Google SERPs will tell you If you've been deindexed (penalty).






              Originally Posted by MisterMister View Post

              I post asking help on other forums even the main google forum, yet the only reply I got was from one guy who messaged me and said nobody is going to help you, people here are just pushing their BS how to guides and want you to buy an ebook. Also one of the google team members told me he is not permitted or allowed to tell people asking for help what is wrong with their site or penalties. I don't get it.

              That's why you need to learn how webpages work when it comes to SEO. Once you understand what you're looking at (ex: HTML, text versions of webpages, link profiles, etc...) then you'll never have to depend on other people, you'll know what works, how it works & why it's working for ranking pages. The basics of SEO are simple, plain text & followed backlinks rank pages but each of those things has it's own checklist of things that can help you or work against you. Then you have a lot of of specialty things related to SEO that depend on what you want to accomplish (ex: local keywords, video, images, schema markup (HTML), etc...).






              Originally Posted by MisterMister View Post

              Google is the king of organic traffic no?

              Google is a traffic source, they're not even close to being the king of organic traffic especially when you niche it down.

              Example, If I had a Photoshop product to sell I would be targeting a sub-niche of Photoshop forums, the places where Photoshop users hang out. Direct targeted traffic blows Google SERPs away because it's already qualified & usually less competition. If someone takes the time to sign up for a niche forum, they're dedicated to that niche. My point is don't get hung up on a single traffic source.
              {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[10564503].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author jaintechnosoft
    There is no need for any settings and modifications,just what and all you need is,
    1.First Create your blog with good quality contents,
    2.install,update with SEO Wordpress plugins ( Yoast or All in one SEO Pack)
    3.install social media plugins,
    4.Using best SEO techniques and Methods its enough.
    Signature
    SEO Agency in Bangalore | SEO Experts in Hyderabad | Digital Marketing Consultant
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[10564623].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author itsruthanitha
    Banned
    [DELETED]
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[10565044].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author Jill Carpenter
      Originally Posted by MisterMister View Post

      thanks for the reply

      So I will have to learn HTML and coding no matter what now? I thought I could just buy a wordpress and apply a few settings and focus on content like the old days. Could I just learn basic html and css and get by on that?


      How do I find out if its code related, Is there a website you can enter your website to find any penalties or issues?

      I post asking help on other forums even the main google forum, yet the only reply I got was from one guy who messaged me and said nobody is going to help you, people here are just pushing their BS how to guides and want you to buy an ebook. Also one of the google team members told me he is not permitted or allowed to tell people asking for help what is wrong with their site or penalties. I don't get it.

      Google is the king of organic traffic no?
      Ha. There was a time when you could easily get traffic and Wordpress did seem to be favored - but no more.

      Plugins can help but are not the answer.

      Best to keep plugins to a minimum.

      There are tons of videos on youtube where google tells you what they want. And just read their free information and you can get a good idea. But they are not going to analyze your sites for free and tell you what to do. This is why SEO companies make big bucks. It's work to figure out and pay attention to what is going on on your site.

      10 WordPress SEO Questions That Took Me 10 Years To Answer!
      Signature

      "May I have ten thousand marbles, please?"

      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[10565058].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author nettiapina
        Originally Posted by Jill Carpenter View Post

        Ha. There was a time when you could easily get traffic and Wordpress did seem to be favored - but no more.
        I don't think WordPress has ever been favored by Google in any way. It's just a common CMS for blogs which is the reason why major blogs have been using it over the years. There's nothing special about the tech, but perhaps there was less competition for many niches. It's certainly not as easy to rank a site as it was five years ago.
        Signature
        Links in signature will not help your SEO. Not on this site, and not on any other forum.
        Who told me this? An ex Google web spam engineer.

        What's your excuse?
        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[10565100].message }}
        • Profile picture of the author Jill Carpenter
          Originally Posted by nettiapina View Post

          I don't think WordPress has ever been favored by Google in any way. It's just a common CMS for blogs which is the reason why major blogs have been using it over the years. There's nothing special about the tech, but perhaps there was less competition for many niches. It's certainly not as easy to rank a site as it was five years ago.
          Free wordpress.com blogs - I used to do one post and rank them immediately.

          And there was a time after that where I could put up my own sites and those too would rank instantly for some things.

          Just my own personal experience. Maybe I was just lucky. But it did seem to work for a couple of years.
          Signature

          "May I have ten thousand marbles, please?"

          {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[10565130].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author jezza101
    WordPress / StudioPress provides an OK out of the box experience from an "on page" point of view. It's enough to get started.

    Worry about building the site first, Google has actually got good at working out what a "good site" is and as long as you follow the basics you'll be an off to a good start.

    Of course you can always do more, if you are a one man band then you need to decide what is of most value. Do you spend your precious time on optimising every last drop of html? Are their bigger wins to be had? Once you've got the basics right I'd rather create a new page, or build a new back link, or add a product.

    My StudioPress theme does a good job of the basics, title, headings, micro data, etc. All there. Sitemap is sensible, but Google does say this doesn't contribute to higher rankings. I run Yoast on a couple of my blogs but mostly I don't find it is worth the effort. Other people love it of course, so see if you can slot it in.

    Id be interested, of course, to hear of specific on page weaknesses in Genesis?
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[10565197].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author nettiapina
      Originally Posted by Jill Carpenter View Post

      Free wordpress.com blogs - I used to do one post and rank them immediately.
      WordPress.com has no magical ranking powers, and the new sites have been on a new weak sub domain for as long as I can remember. So you know, it's probably because of the competition. Nowadays everyone and their grandma is a publisher and an affiliate marketer.

      Sure, WordPress.com runs on the same basic tech as your WordPress install.

      Originally Posted by jezza101 View Post

      I run Yoast on a couple of my blogs but mostly I don't find it is worth the effort. Other people love it of course, so see if you can slot it in.
      It's safe to say that the fanboys don't actually understand what Yoast SEO or one of the other plugins do. Which is to say, not much on the actual on-page side of things. The title and meta description templates are the strongest feature of the plugin, and I find the API very useful.

      Originally Posted by jezza101 View Post

      Id be interested, of course, to hear of specific on page weaknesses in Genesis?
      Genesis is just a "framework" template so it's possible that a child theme based on Genesis would get everything wrong. Probably not the ones that StudioPress sells, but there's a lot of Genesis themes around. In my opinion Genesis itself is about as well built as they get.
      Signature
      Links in signature will not help your SEO. Not on this site, and not on any other forum.
      Who told me this? An ex Google web spam engineer.

      What's your excuse?
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[10566605].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author rte369x
    As a beginner on this field, yes you are right to start first on studiopress and then from it you will learn more which help you more in the future.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[10573044].message }}

Trending Topics