Optimization of WordPress header is another important point of SEO. Most often optimizing the header of WordPress is ignored by the beginners.
Previously, we wrote an article on how to optimize the footer of wordpress blog for SEO purpose. You might be interested to read that post as well.
Introduction to WordPress Header optimization
We are not going to say you how your WordPress header will look graphically. It is your choice how you will decorate your WordPress header. We will guide you about optimization of WordPress header HTML output code.
You can view the HTML source of your webpage from any browser.
WordPress Header optimization : before starting of head declaration
Generally doctype and language attributes comes before the real HTML header starts.
Tips: You can find and control everything of WordPress header from the header.php file of your theme.
Generally it is :
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd”>
<html xmlns=”http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml” <?php language_attributes(); ?>>
Which gives the WordPress header output in HTML:
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd”>
<html xmlns=”http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml” dir=”ltr” lang=”en-US”>
Next the real WordPress header starts with head profile attribute and end with </head> markup.
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WordPress Header optimization within the HTML head declaration
Title starts with something like this in WordPress header file:
<title><?php your-theme_title(); ?></title>
If you use direct xHTML instead of php dependency; it will reduce the loading time. Do not touch this if you have no idea how to control the output.
Next you might find a tag in your WordPress header:
<meta content=”WordPress 3.1.1″ />
It is better to chop it out for security reason. However, direct chopping can not be done from the WordPress header. Use Ultimate security plugin or something like it and check “do not show WordPress version”.
WordPress Header optimization with meta
We have discussed ago about Platinum SEO and All in One SEO pack. These plugins will add nice Meta Tags like meta descriptions for each post in WordPress header.
WordPress Header optimization by avoiding loading java scripts in the WordPress header
Try to avoid loading javascripts within the WordPress header. It will decrease your page loading time.
WordPress Header optimization by flushing the buffer early
We previously wrote how you can flush the buffer early from WordPress header file (header.php). It is recommended by Yahoo and Google to speed up the loading time.
