How to add the BreadCrumb NavXT Plugin to WordPress for Search Engine Optimization

Last week in class, after reading about SEO tips for WordPress, I realized that I don’t have breadcrumbs and related posts at DrHo.ro.  I started feeling guilty about my lack of h2 and h3 tags in my posts and pages, so I got some motivation to automatically have breadcrumbs make post h2 tags and to start using h3 tags in my posts more often.  Thanks for the inspiration Stephan Spencer of Search Engine Land!

How to Add Related Posts to WordPress for SEO

Like the h3 tags?

Adding the related posts plugin is easy.  I just added and configured the Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.  This is my first post with it active, so I hope it works.

And it didn’t work.  It was a little trick to install.  Note: make sure NOT to check all the category boxes like so–it will save you the pain and suffering I endured.

How to Add Breadcrumbs to WordPress for SEO

Adding the BreadCrumb NavXT plugin was kind of a royal pain in the ass.  My goal was to get h2 tags around my post categories and pages and to make the breadcrumbs look nice.

Here is what I had to do:

1. Install and activate the the BreadCrumb NavXT plugin.
2. Added the 8 lines of code it gives you at the plugin page to my single.php (single post view) and page.php (single page view).
3. Styled the
   breadcrumb”> with a little .breadcrumb {padding: 0 4px 15px 2px;}.
4. Spend an hour messing around with the General, Current Item, Posts & Pages, and Categories settings.  Here are the settings that worked best for me.  Everything works and looks nice except for my inability to remove the h2 tags from the current page breadcrumb.  I’ll live.  You’ll want to adjust the “color:ToYourBackgroundColor”.  Is there anything that’s redundant in here?

Now I need to reconfigure my category titles so that the google juice starts automagically flowing to my h2 tags!

I also need to learn more about how to use all the tools out there to measure my SEO success, or lack thereof.