Because of the user-friendliness and benefits WordPress offers, you may’ve decided to build your website on this platform. It’s a great decision.
sBut you need to make sure that a few things have been fixed to improve the overall performance of your WordPress website. This WordPress SEO checklist will help you fix them and ensure your website is visible to search engines.
So, stay with me for a few minutes to know the things that need to be fixed.
WordPress SEO Checklist: Don’t Ignore Anything!
1. Ensure Site Visibility
If search engines can’t see your website, you can’t expect it to rank. So, first, you should make it visible.
WordPress offers you an option to determine whether your website will be visible to search engines or not. You must check that.
Go to your WordPress dashboard and click on Settings. Doing this will bring a button called Reading.
Clicking on it will take you to a new page. At the end of the page, you’ll find an option called Search Engine Visibility. Keep the box unchecked as it suggests discouraging search engines from indexing the site.
The site should be indexed.
2. Adding Sitemap
This is an important part of WordPress SEO checklist. Sitemaps help search engine crawlers crawl your website better. Thus, adding a sitemap is beneficial for your website.
It can be added in different ways. You can use a plugin to add a sitemap for search engine crawlers. Several plugins are available for this. Do your research and pick one. Then follow the process suggested by its developers.
3. Using SEO-friendly Themes
You’ll find a lot of themes for WordPress websites, but not all of them are SEO-friendly. SEO-friendly themes are light and optimized.
A thorough research will bring you the names of some SEO-friendly plugins out there. Try to use one of them. Doing this adds significant benefit to your SEO approach. If the theme is not SEO-friendly, the best strategy can fail.
4. Adding SEO Plugins
SEO plugins help you completely optimize your website pages through proper suggestions and checklists. They help you ensure keyword-rich, meta-information-optimized web pages that get indexed quickly. So, adding one will be beneficial for sure.
Ask search engines about SEO-friendly plugins and you’ll get some names. Check the reviews and pick the best one according to your research.
5. Install SSL Certificate
SSL is a security layer that protects the connection between a website and a browser. Thus, it stops third parties from accessing important information on a website. SSL-certified website address starts with https://.
Search engines prioritize SSL-certified websites as they are secured. So, installing an SSL certificate plays a great role in your SEO strategy.
6. Determine Specific Permalink Structure
Permalink is also a ranking factor as it helps search engines to know your website better. Also, it assists visitors to navigate the website without being lost.
Clear and consistent permalinks are favored over random ones by almost all search engines. So, you should design a permalink structure that makes sense.
Go to Dashboard, then Settings. You’ll find a tab called Permalink there. Click on that.
On the new page, you’ll find several permalink structures. Pick one that seems the most applicable in your case. News websites love the ones with dates. Blog websites love the option of using month and post names.
The best thing is you can customize it using different tags. Select the last option and build your own permalink structure.
7. Use WordPress Tags
Tags can be beneficial as they help you drive traffic towards what they’re looking for. So, utilize the option provided by WordPress to ensure people are getting what they want.
8. Use Breadcrumbs
Breadcrumb is a beneficial feature for all the parties. It helps traffic know exactly where they are on your website. Search engines get an idea of the relationship between the pages with the help of breadcrumbs. Thus, you can satisfy both to maximize the outcome.
So, why won’t you enable such an important thing? Also, remember one thing- Google and several other search engines show breadcrumbs on the search results.
9. Enable the Last Updated Option
If you update your website content regularly, turn on the ‘Last Update’ feature. It lets visitors and search engines know that you update your content regularly. Thus, they depend more on the information you provide.
It can be done if the theme supports it. Otherwise, you can use a plugin for this. Ask Google and you’ll get several recommendations. Use a light one that doesn’t impact SEO.
Final Verdict
Having a WordPress website is fun because things are easy here. However, until you check the things listed above, your SEO approaches may not bring the best output. So, follow this WordPress SEO checklist.
In case you need SEO support, don’t hesitate to contact us. DotMirror offers reliable SEO support at a reasonable price.
