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Headway has the most complete set of search engine optimization features compared to any other premium theme around, without any additional plugins needed.

In fact, even if you did nothing but switch to Headway, your search optimization would be improved from the default settings alone. I wouldn’t recommend you stop there, though. A little knowledge goes a long way. Having the best tools for improved WordPress SEO baked right into your theme is great, but it’s even better if you know what to do with them to really maximize your optimization so you rank higher.

Watch the video above for a run-down of the main SEO configuration page in Headway, in which you set your blog’s home page and global SEO options. But here’s a point-by-point list of Headway’s formidable SEO features and why they matter:

• Automatic URL Canonicalization – This eliminates the problem that Google sees http://www.domain.com and http://domain.com as two different web pages with the same exact content. Combined with the other SEO features of Headway, you can ensure Google and Bing know which URL really “belongs” to a page in your blog. That way, you concentrate your search strength to the right pages, instead of diluting it across multiple duplicate content pages.
• Separate Titles from Blog Post/Page Headlines – There’s an HTML tag in every web page called title, and what’s in it carries a lot of importance in search—it’s used as the big headline text you click on in search results. Google and Bing look at the words in the title to help decide how to rank a page. Normally in WordPress, the title is automatically generated from your blog post headline, but sometimes we want it to be a little different. WordPress alone won’t let you change that, but Headway does.

• Meta descriptions – The meta description tag is another HTML tag that search engines use to judge a page. It’s also used in search results as the description (go figure) below the title link of each search result (Note: not always, but often). This makes it kind of a big deal for SEO, but guess what? WordPress does not even have this built in!

  Unless you use a plugin or a theme like Headway, no descriptions for you. Previously, you had to hack your WordPress theme code. Headway makes this painless, you just write your description in a box. Often the description is what really convinces people they should click on your link in the search results, instead of some other guy’s.

• Total Nofollow Control – Adding “nofollow” to a link in HTML tells search engines to ignore the link and act like it doesn’t exist. This causes search engines to “see” a different picture of a web page than if all the links were “visible” to it.

  This matters for two reasons: One, because the words and destinations of links affect search rankings. And, two, because if you have any sort of paid or compensated links in your post, and they are not “nofollowed,” you are violating Google’s terms of service. Headway gives you complete control over nofollow in your blog. From links in a post to comment author links, to links to entire pages, Headway lets you decide what to let search engines see.

• Not Just Nofollow, but Noindex, Too – In addition to affecting the way search engines see and don’t see links, you can tell them to ignore entire pages. When you search the web, you’re not searching the actual web, you’re searching the search engines’ indexes of the web. Noindex tells them to not add a page to their index.

  There may be pages that are necessary to have on your site, but which don’t contain content that benefits your search rankings. For example, you may be writing a whole big new section of your site, and you don’t want search engines to find it, yet.

  Not only can you noindex individual pages on the fly, you can noindex entire classes of pages in order to avoid having five different URLs for a blog post as far as search engines see things. You can noindex all tag, category, and other archives, for example. The idea is that only URL search engines have for your post is the permalink one.

• Seamless Integration with All-In-One SEO Pack – Many bloggers concerned with SEO are already using a popular plugin called the All-In-One SEO Pack (AIOSEO for short). If you switch to Headway, all of your AISEO data is used by Headway, which means you don’t have to go back and redo the SEO on your previous posts.

  In fact, you can happily deactivate AIOSEO and have one less plugin to slow your blog down. Other blog themes with their own built-in SEO features allow AISEO to override their own features, but you have to keep the plugin and keep it updated. With Headway, you can throw it overboard and have one less thing to worry about.

• Breadcrumbs – Headway creates breadcrumb links at the top of the page that show a visitor’s location in the blog. Headway breadcrumbs use your blog’s categories, turning your categories into keyword link powerhouses on every single page of your blog. This works especially well if you’ve set your permalinks to being category-based, but more keyword-rich link text always helps, even if you’re using the normal date-based permalinks.

What about code frameworks and all that? To my thinking, any premium theme from now on is going to be built on a code framework that is better than your average theme’s code, or people aren’t even going to buy it. In other words, code frameworks are no longer a point of difference. Code frameworks are just par for the course, anymore. And without the features I’ve listed in this post, code frameworks really aren’t any help with SEO. Beyond valid XHTML/CSS and well-written PHP and JavaScript for speed and accurate parsing/rendering, code frameworks by themselves do nothing for SEO.

Note that none of these features will improve your writing, but they will help good writing be found more easily. You don’t want your good writing to be hampered by a bad WordPress theme, do you? That’s like putting a fifty pound weight in a backpack and then trying to run a marathon. Your theme should help you, not hinder you. Take the weight off. Make headway.

What you see in the video above is actually Headway 1.5 which will be released in a matter of weeks. Most of these features exist in the current version of Headway, and upgrades are free for life for all current Headway owners. The sooner you switch, the sooner you can start improving your blog’s search optimization.

Check out Headway and learn more.