Comments on: What Makes a “SEO-Friendly” WordPress Theme?

By: Leland

Leland — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 22:05:32 +0000

I don’t code all the themes here into XHTML/CSS so no, you can’t assume they’re all structured like that.

By: Mitchell Causey

Mitchell Causey — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 21:27:51 +0000

I don’t mean to be disrespectful here, but does this mean we can assume that your themes are structured well according to your requirements above?

I’m really interested in your “SoundSpace” theme, but I want to make sure I’m not going to mess myself up over little details like this as I have definitely done in the past!

Thanks – great site/info!

By: Ben Parker

Ben Parker — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 16:41:48 +0000

I came here looking for a blog theme and read your post with great interest. There’s always something new to learn when it comes to SEO and then it changes some… I’ve heard a lot of talk about Site Maps lately. I will be eagerly watching for new posts on this subject and thank you for contributions on this subject.

By: Andy Gillette

Andy Gillette — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 20:10:39 +0000

At this point, doing anything, especially with wordpress, that isn’t ‘seo friendly’ is just lazy. All of those things that you’re supposed to do to help search engine robots understand your page also tend to help real people understand your page. All the talk about seo, I think, is because developers and designers know that’s the one buzz word that every client knows and asks about. But at the end of the day, Google works so hard on the metrics that determine ranking because they’re trying to be a good search engine. So, really, the only sure-fire way to be the top result on any given topic is to actually be the most relevant and accessible website on that topic.

By: Leland

Leland — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 12:55:28 +0000

Hey JR, thanks for the kind words. Out of curiosity, do you remember which themes dropped your rankings? Are you sure it was the themes’ fault or could it have been something else?

By: JR Farr

JR Farr — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 05:55:52 +0000

Very interested with what you’re posts entail in regards to SEO. I’ve been using WP since late ’05 and in that timeframe I’ve actually used a few themes that have dropped my rankings.

I do agree with you though that most themes tout that they are SEO optimized. I reached out to WOO themes to tell them some recommendations I had on how they were using semantic web markup with their themes. I had a nice response but they didn’t see the point. After downloading some of their newer themes it looks like they’ve implemented the change.

Anyway, I’ve been following ThemeLab forever and I love your work. So again, I’m very intrigued to hear your thoughts.

By: kirkoconnor

kirkoconnor — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 23:44:15 +0000

In a perfect world we all would have time to obsess over SEO in our WordPress sites but in the real world where many deadlines take most of our time then we rely on plugins such as All In One SEO and Headspace 2.

It will be great to read your articles to see if this reliance is a good idea or a false sense of security.

By: Len

Len — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 23:12:13 +0000

The topic of SEO is indeed “hot”. Despite that I’ve never really given it any thought. Looking forward to this series.

By: Leland

Leland — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 21:42:56 +0000

On an unrelated note, if you’re not a previously approved commenter, I won’t approve your comment if you have a name like “Seo agency” …try using your *gasp* real name instead. You know who you are.

By: Leland

Leland — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 21:41:27 +0000

Been planning on doing this post series for a while, but I guess now is as good a time as any.