In this video, we turn our attention to two very important plugins that should be added for effective onsite Search Engine Optimization (SEO) practice: Custom Headers and Footers and Google XML Sitemap.  As WordPress sets the standard for SEO, Google sets the standard for search.  As of about six months ago, Google controlled about 71 percent of the U.S. search market, and 80 percent of the worldwide search market.

One of Google’s very basic requirements is for webmasters to create a sitemap.  That’s not a huge request and certainly not unreasonable!  In order to index a website, Google would simply like to see a sitemap.  A sitemap is simply a “blueprint” of a website.  It allows for easy and efficient indexing.  Google is not going to send customers to a website if it cannot understand or index the site.

The Google XML Sitemap plugin virtually makes this transparent to the webmaster.  It’s a done deal!  You simply install it, and the plugin does all the work.  So, you effectively don’t need to pay a webmaster big bucks.  Anyone can do this!  This is one of the beautiful things about WordPress and it’s vast array of plugins.  This one is a must!  Did I mention that all these plugins are free?

Custom Headers and Footers allows you to do a number of things.  But, for now… just look at it as the place you need to put Google’s meta tag so that Google can confirm that you actually own your website.  It’s really easy to do and all explained in this video… step by step!