Are you looking to increase your website traffic? Looking how to rank higher on Google with WordPress? Or attract customers to a new website?
What you’re looking for is this page… My best SEO checklist for WordPress websites !
Introduction to SEO: What It Is and Why It’s Important
SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is the practice of optimizing a website to improve its visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs), primarily on Google.
By optimizing all the various elements of a website, Search Engine Optimization will help businesses and website owners to attract organic (non-paid for) traffic, improve user experience, and increase your chances of ranking higher for relevant search queries.
A well-optimized website can drive more organic visitors, generate more leads, and ultimately lead to higher conversions and business growth.
And… Since search engines are constantly evolving… Staying updated with the latest SEO ‘best practices’ is pretty crucial for long-term success.
But if you’ve built your website in WordPress… Then SEO just got a whole lot easier for you!
In this article I’m going to explain the different types of SEO to focus on, I’ll give you a full WordPress SEO checklist for you to follow, and as well as recommend a top-rated WordPress SEO plugin… Rank Math. They offer an amazing Free version, and an advanced Pro version which really gives you powerful features!
The 4 Main Types of SEO: On-Page, Off-Page, Local & Technical Optimization
There are four main types of SEO, each one plays an important role in optimizing your website for search engines.
A well-rounded SEO strategy incorporates all four to maximize your website visibility and rankings.
Technical SEO: From a technical perspective, it is important to structure your website in a way that search engines can easily crawl and index. This includes optimizing your website speed to ensure fast loading times, as slow websites can negatively impact rankings and user experience. Additionally, your website must be fully mobile-friendly, as since October 2023 Google strictly uses mobile-first indexing – meaning it first evaluates the mobile version of your site for ranking. Your site must have secure HTTPS protocols, and a clean URL structure also contribute to better technical SEO.
On-page SEO: Optimizing SEO on your website pages is also very important, and this is where the Rank Math – WordPress SEO plugin makes it much easier. It basically puts a WordPress SEO checklist within each page and provides real-time suggestions for improving your content, meta titles, descriptions, headings, and keyword usage. With added features like schema markup, XML sitemaps, and internal link recommendations, Rank Math helps structure your website for better search visibility.
Off-page SEO: Another area to focus on when it comes to SEO is trying to increase your domain and website authority. Off-page SEO boosts your site’s authority through backlinks, social media, and other external signals. Off-page strategies like guest blogging and influencer collaborations help build trust and improve your rankings, driving more organic traffic.
Local SEO: The forth type is for location-based searches, for helping businesses appear in local search results and on Google Maps. Local SEO is essential for businesses that serve a specific geographic area. This SEO strategy involves optimizing your Google Business Profile, ensuring NAP (Name, Address, Phone Number) consistency across directories, and gathering positive customer reviews.
Technical SEO: Optimizing the Foundation of Your Website
Technical SEO ensures that search engines can easily crawl, index, and understand your website. It involves optimizing website speed, security, mobile-friendliness, and overall site structure. A technically sound website helps search engines find and display your content properly, which directly impacts rankings.
Page speed can be a tricky one…
Also a tricky one…
The next 3 are done by Rank Math
On-Page SEO: Optimizing Individual Pages for Search Engines
Your on-page SEO strategy must focus on optimizing the content you’re building and the HTML elements of each individual page as you build them, to improve your search rankings.
This includes crafting keyword-rich page titles, writing compelling meta descriptions, and using proper heading structures (H1, H2, H3).
On-page SEO also involves optimizing URLs and internal linking to enhance website navigation.
For on-page SEO in WordPress, I highly recommend you use the Rank Math SEO plugin… It will really make life easier letting Rank Math handle a lot of the SEO stuff for you, and all you need to do is simply follow the WordPress SEO best practices checklist provided by Rank Math.
If you really want to compete with your competitors online, then have a look at why we recommend Rank Math Pro, starting at only $6.99 per month!
Then to carry on with our WordPress SEO checklist, here are some of the main on-page SEO tips to help your website rank higher in Google and other search engines.
Heading elements within your content need to be in a proper structure from H1 all the way down to H6 (if you get to that many levels).
WordPress by default also display whether you are doing this correctly in the right-sidebar of the WP Editor. Simply click on the blue + icon on the top right of the editor and then select to view the document “Outline”.
An orange H element means that you’ve skipped a heading level and it’s incorrect.
So make sure you are structuring your headings correctly… Next,
You’ll specify up to 5 main keywords or keyword phrases for each page, these keywords are to be placed naturally in your title, headings and page content.
Ensure that all the images you upload include alt text… Add the alt text as you upload the image, it’s painful go to over all old images to add alt text at a later stage.
Also make sure they are optimized for the web, meaning they should be uploaded at the correct size and compressed to the smallest possible file size while maintaining the highest quality.
It’s recommended to link to at least 3 – 5 relevant internal website pages per post you write.
Link to high-authority sources (e.g., Wikipedia, industry leaders), and set these external links to open in a new tab to keep your users on your website.
Make sure your website uses what’s known as pretty urls, which are easy to read and better for Google and other search engines to index.
❌ yourdomain.com/?p=123
✅ yourdomain.com/best-wordpress-seo-guide/
In your WordPress Dashboard, go to Settings → Permalinks and set your permalink structure to “Post Name”.
Then, also,
Such as keeping your paragraphs short (2 sentences then space), and use bullet points, lists, images and bold important points where you can.
Do not duplicate you own or other website content on your site, make your content unique and make it yours.
Off-Page SEO: Building Authority and Trust with Backlinks
Off-page SEO refers to actions that are outside of your website to improve its credibility and site authority.
Try to gain backlinks from other websites to your pages… Google sees backlinks as a vote of confidence, indicating that your content is valuable for viewers. Strong off-page SEO helps improve your domain authority and can lead to your website ranking higher in search engines.
Getting other website to link back to you is not always easy… You can offer to write guest posts on authoritative blogs in your industry to possibly get back links.
Local SEO: Optimizing for Location-Based Searches
Local SEO is important for your business if you have a physical address or location.
It’ll helps your businesses appear in local search results and Google Maps when users search for services nearby.
Local SEO ensures that when someone searches for “best coffee shop near me” or “plumber in [city name]”, that your business has a higher chance of appearing in the results, and hopefully driving more local customers to your website.
In your on-page SEO, you can target keywords by including phrases like “near me” and also including the names of your city or suburb to enhance local search visibility.
Content & Blogging SEO: Creating High-Quality, Optimized Content
Your content is one of the most important ranking factors in your site SEO.
Well-researched, high-quality, and engaging content will help to attract visitors and keep them browsing on your website longer.
Blogging is a great way to target long-tail keywords and answer common questions that your audience may be searching for.
Rank Math will help you with a lot of these SEO elements and getting them right.
SEO Tracking & Monitoring: Measuring Success and Making Improvements
SEO is an ongoing process, and tracking performance is essential for site improvement.
By using analytics tools, you can monitor your traffic, keyword rankings, and even backlink profiles.
One of the Technical SEO tips is to submit your sitemap to Google Search Console, once you’ve done that, you will then be able to monitor your site performance.
Look at the content your competitor has writeen, and simply improve on it… Write longer content, target better keywords, etc, etc.
Using Rank Math SEO Plugin: Why It’s Recommended
Rank Math SEO is a powerful and very user-friendly WordPress plugin that helps optimize your website for search engines with ease.
Unlike other SEO plugins, Rank Math provides a clean interface, very detailed SEO scoring, and smart suggestions to improve your content.
They give you a neatly curated list of todo’s to go through and check off, with the aim of getting a score as close to 100 as possible.
Its lightweight nature ensures minimal impact on your website’s performance while delivering very powerful SEO capabilities. Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced webmaster, Rank Math simplifies on-page SEO.
I’ve been in the online world for over 15 years and I use it on EVERY website I build for myself and my clients.
Top Features of Rank Math SEO Plugin
Here’s a list of some of the top features you’ll get when using the Free version of Rank Math.
Free Version Features:
- Easy Setup Wizard – A step-by-step guide to configure SEO settings.
- SEO Analysis – Built-in 30+ SEO tests to improve site performance.
- Google Search Console Integration – View search analytics directly in WordPress.
- On-Page SEO Optimization – Optimize posts and pages with real-time SEO suggestions.
- XML Sitemaps – Auto-generates and submits sitemaps for better indexing.
- Breadcrumbs – Customizable breadcrumbs for better site navigation.
- Focus Keywords – Optimize content for up to 5 focus keywords per post.
- Image SEO – Auto-add ALT and title attributes to images.
- Redirections – Easily manage 301, 302, and 307 redirects.
Then… If you really want to enhance your search engine rankings and blow your competitors out of the water!
See Rank Math Pro, here are just some of the features included in the pro version.
Pro Version Features:
Rank Math Pro Plugin starts at only $6.99 per month (billed annually) and includes all the following advanced features.
- Advanced Keyword Rank Tracking – Monitor keyword positions and trends.
- AI-Powered Content Optimization – Smart suggestions to improve readability and SEO.
- Google Analytics & Keyword Integration – Track website traffic and performance from WordPress.
- WooCommerce SEO – Advanced eCommerce optimization, including product schema and rich snippets.
- Local SEO & Google My Business Integration – Optimize for local searches and display business details in search results.
- Video SEO – Helps rank videos with schema markup and video sitemaps.
- News Sitemap – Custom sitemaps for Google News indexing.
- Multi-Location Local SEO – Supports multiple business locations for better local rankings.
- Automatic Internal Linking – Suggests and adds internal links automatically.
- Client Management & Custom User Roles – Assign SEO-related tasks to team members.
Plus there’s lots more !
Last Thoughts: Keep Improving Your SEO
My main advice is to setup your SEO correctly from the start, but Search Engine Optimization is also more of a long-term strategy that requires on-going effort.
By following this WordPress SEO checklist, I hope you will significantly improve your WordPress website’s rankings, attract more organic website visitors, and build a strong, successful online presence.
Stay updated with SEO trends, be sure to continue testing and optimizing, and definitely monitor your results for ongoing success!
Good Luck!
