How to improve SEO on a WordPress site

In WordPress, go to Settings → Reading and make sure Discourage search engines from indexing this site is not selected. This setting adds a noindex directive, but it does not block visitors, so a site can look normal while being excluded from search.

Open a private browser window and check important pages as a logged-out visitor. Make sure they load over HTTPS and that CSS and JavaScript are not blocked. Use Search Console’s URL Inspection tool to check a few key URLs.

Go to Settings → Permalinks and use a readable structure, usually Post name for a straightforward site. Keep URLs short, descriptive, and stable. WordPress notes that changing the permalink structure can require rewrite rules, and a failed change can produce broken links or 404 errors.

Group related content with useful categories and link important pages from navigation, category pages, and relevant articles. Do not create several URLs for the same page unless you have a clear reason.

Give each important page a specific title that describes its content and a useful opening section that answers the visitor’s question. Write for the reader rather than repeating a keyword. Google may use the page content or the meta description for the search snippet, so the visible introduction matters even when you set metadata manually.

WordPress core does not provide a convenient per-page screen for custom SEO titles, descriptions, canonical URLs, or advanced schema. You can add these in theme code or custom fields, but that becomes difficult to maintain. Keep one main topic per page, use descriptive headings, and remove thin, duplicated, or outdated pages.

Link each article to related pages using descriptive anchor text such as WordPress image optimisation instead of vague text such as click here. Internal links help visitors move through the site and help search engines discover pages.

In the Media Library, add concise alt text when an image conveys information. Describe what the image shows in context, and leave decorative images with empty alt text. Do not stuff keywords into alt text. Use appropriately sized, sharp images and place them near relevant text.

Modern WordPress versions generate a core sitemap at /wp-sitemap.xml. Open it in a browser and check that it loads. The sitemap should contain the canonical pages you want in search, not private, duplicate, or deliberately excluded URLs. WordPress has generated XML sitemaps in core since version 5.5.

Verify the site in Google Search Console, open the Sitemaps report, and submit the sitemap address. Submission is only a hint, not a guarantee of crawling or indexing. Do not use robots.txt to hide duplicate pages or replace a proper canonical or noindex decision.

Review the Core Web Vitals report in Search Console and use PageSpeed Insights to find slow templates, oversized images, and scripts that delay interaction. Google’s current targets are LCP under 2.5 seconds, INP under 200 milliseconds, and CLS under 0.1. Fix the biggest problems first, especially on mobile.

For the fast route, install and configure SEOPress Pro. It provides one interface for page titles and descriptions, XML and HTML sitemaps, schema, redirects, social metadata, content analysis, and analytics. This does not replace useful content or good hosting, but it avoids maintaining SEO tags and redirect rules by hand. Keep only one SEO plugin active, then review its generated sitemap and metadata before submitting them.