WordPress technical SEO: a 10-point checklist

You can have the best copy in the world and still not show up on Google. It happens more than you would think: a box ticked by mistake, a sitemap that does not update, duplicate URLs, a redirect that went missing after a redesign. None of it is visible at a glance, and all of it costs you visits.

Technical SEO is exactly that: making sure Google can find, read and understand your site. It does not promise rankings; it sets the ground so good content has a chance. This is the list I go through when I review a WordPress site. Many of these points you can check yourself in an afternoon.

1. Make sure your site can be indexed

It sounds obvious, but it is the silliest and most expensive mistake. In WordPress, under Settings → Reading, there is an option called “Discourage search engines from indexing this site”. It is often turned on during development and sometimes nobody turns it off at launch.

Also check that your important pages do not carry a noindex tag. SEO plugins sometimes add it to categories, tags or individual pages without you noticing.

2. Have Search Console set up

Google Search Console is free and it is the source of truth: it tells you which pages are indexed, which are not and why, what errors Google finds and which searches bring up your site. If you do not have it, start there. Without it you are working blind.

The Pages report clears up the most: you see the excluded pages and the reason. Some exclusions are normal (redirected pages, duplicates handled properly). Others are not, and they tell you exactly what to fix.

3. A clean sitemap, submitted

The sitemap is the list of pages you want Google to know about. Your SEO plugin or WordPress itself usually generates it. Check three things:

• That it exists and opens (usually at /sitemap.xml or /sitemap_index.xml).
• That it only contains what you want indexed: no “thank you” pages, internal search results or content that should not be there.
• That it is submitted in Search Console.

4. A robots.txt that does not block what matters

The robots.txt file tells search engines where they may go. A badly placed block can hide your pages, or the CSS and JavaScript files Google needs to see the site the way a person does. Open it at yourdomain.com/robots.txt and make sure there is no Disallow: / you did not expect.

5. One version of each page

If your site opens with and without “www”, on http and https, with and without a trailing slash, Google may see several copies of the same thing. Pick one version and redirect the rest to it. Canonical tags help signal which one is the right one, and SEO plugins usually add them, but it is worth verifying on your key pages.

6. Clear, stable URLs

A good URL makes sense without opening it: /services/woocommerce-development/ says more than /?p=482. Under Settings → Permalinks, check that you use a readable structure.

And above all, do not change URLs that already work without a redirect. Every URL that changes or disappears without redirecting is a page Google considered fine that suddenly does not exist. It is the most common cause of traffic drops after a redesign or a migration.

7. Redirects without chains or 404 errors

When you change a URL, redirect the old one to the new one with a 301. Avoid chains (A goes to B, which goes to C): they slow things down and dilute the signal. In Search Console, look at the 404 errors and decide, page by page, whether to redirect or whether the page really is gone.

8. Titles, descriptions and headings that make sense

Every page should have:

• Its own title, describing what is on it and not repeated on other pages.
• Its own meta description, one that invites a click. It does not decide rankings, but it does decide whether someone visits.
• A single H1, and ordered H2 and H3 headings that reflect the structure of the content.

Duplicate or empty titles are very common on sites that grew without order.

9. Internal links and structured data

Internal links are how Google discovers your pages and understands which ones matter most. An important page nobody links to is nearly invisible. Link from articles to your services, and between related articles, using descriptive link text (“WordPress performance” is better than “click here”).

Structured data (Schema Markup) is code that tells Google what each page is: a business, a service, an article, a frequently asked question. It can help your results display better, though it guarantees nothing. If you add it, validate the result with Google’s Rich Results Test.

10. Speed and mobile experience

Google takes loading experience into account, and crawling is done with mobile in mind. If your site is slow or awkward on a phone, both are affected. Measure with PageSpeed Insights and look at the Core Web Vitals. I have a whole article on why a WordPress site is slow and how to fix it.

What to expect afterwards

When you fix something technical, the change on your site is immediate, but Google takes a while to notice: from a few days to several weeks to crawl and index again. Do not panic if you see no effect the next day, and do not change ten things at once without writing them down, or you will not know what worked.

It is also worth being realistic: technical SEO does not replace content or your site’s reputation. It is the foundation. Without it, everything else loses strength; with it alone, it is not enough.

When to ask for help

If, after going through the list, you find excluded pages you cannot interpret, visits that dropped after a redesign or structural problems on your site, a technical diagnosis usually saves a lot of time. I review Search Console, indexing, structure, links and structured data, and I tell you what to fix first.

You can see the service at WordPress technical SEO or write to me with your site’s URL and I will take a look.