WordPress SEO is not difficult provided a simple process is followed. When considering WordPress SEO a few common questions are:

Do the search engines prefer WordPress sites?

I have heard it said that "Google loves WordPress" which can suggest that WordPress SEO has an inherent advantage. I do not see any reason to believe this as the search engines aim to give the most relevant possible results for their users. There is no reason that they would rank a site higher simply because of the platform it uses.

Does WordPress have Advantages for SEO?

WordPress SEO (and blogs in general) has advantages over static sites:

No technical knowledge needed - Through the use of plugins WordPress can be made to do more or less what you want. Content can be created/amended and site wide policies implemented/changed very easily.

Frequent Updating - The search engines like to see active sites and blogs are likely to be updated more frequently than static sites. This is because of the nature of blogs but also because it is so easy to create a post or page compared to the work involved in creating a new page on a static site.

How should WordPress be configured for SEO Purposes?

A new installation of WordPress can be improved considerably for SEO purposes.

The first point to consider is the theme to use. Many themes are designed to look good rather than to enhance WordPress SEO. Use a theme designed for SEO even if this means looking at premium themes.

The Permalinks should be set to "postname" so the title appears in the URL rather than a number.

Install the WordPress SEO plugin "All In One SEO Pack" which is the most popular plugin of its type. You need to enter a title, description and keywords for the home page (this is what will appear in the search engine results) but other than that can start with the default settings. This plugin has a number of functions including no indexing duplicate content. When you have time it is worth understanding what it does so, you can tweak it to your requirements.

As your site gets busier you may want to address (using plugins) issues such as how you deal with comments (follow/nofollow, paging, spam) and caching the site to speed up loading time.

How Do I Optimise Pages and Posts for SEO Purposes?

For WordPress SEO, as with all sites, having good optimised content is of prime importance. This on page SEO covers many factors including ensuring that each page/post is organised around a keyword. This should be used in the title, in the headings and throughout at a reasonable frequency without making the content seem unnatural for the visitor.

Use of graphics and links is also important. There should be internal links to other relevant pages on your site and external links to authority sites in your niche.

Ideally you would run through a WordPress SEO checklist every time you create a page or post to make sure all this is correct. This would be a very boring task but you can install a plugin to do it for you.