Technical SEO can sometimes be very tricky. You publish strong content and still wonder why you don’t rank well in search results. And many times, the issue sits behind the scenes. Technical problems can stop search engines from finding, reading, and showing your WordPress site.
For this reason, we have compiled a step-by-step checklist that helps you spot common technical SEO issues.
1. Check Your Site’s Visibility
First, you need to make sure your site is visible to search engines. Go to Settings → Reading in your WordPress dashboard. Check that the “Discourage search engines from indexing this site” box is not selected.
You can also run a quick test in Google. Type site:yourdomain.com. If your pages show up, that means search engines can access your site.
2. Set Up HTTPS Security
Google prioritizes secure sites only. For this reason, you need to look for the padlock icon in your browser’s address bar when visiting your site. And if you don’t have a padlock, that means you need an SSL certificate.
Most good hosting companies offer free SSL certificates. You can contact your host to set this up. Then use a plugin like Really Simple SSL to handle the switch from HTTP to HTTPS.
3. Find and Fix Broken Links
Broken links very often hurt both user experience and SEO. They stop search engines from discovering all your content.
Install the free Broken Link Checker plugin from AIOSEO or another similar tool. It scans your site and lets you fix bad links right from your dashboard.
4. Check for Duplicate Site Versions
Your site might exist in multiple versions:
- https://example.com
- https://www.example.com
- http://example.com
- http://www.example.com
This confuses search engines. But there is an easy fix. Just pick one version and redirect the others to it. The All-in-One SEO plugin can help set canonical URLs, so Google knows which version to index.
5. Create SEO-Friendly URLs
Good URLs help search engines know what your content is about. They should be:
- Short and descriptive
- Include relevant keywords
- Use hyphens between words
- Avoid uppercase letters
- Skip unnecessary numbers
Bad URL: example.com/p=123
Good URL: example.com/wordpress-seo-checklist
6. Optimize for Mobile
Google now uses mobile-first indexing. In simple terms, Google reviews your mobile site before your desktop site.
This means your mobile design matters a lot. Just run the Google Mobile-Friendly Test tool to see if your site passes. And if your result has a problem, there is an easy fix. Just grab a responsive WordPress theme that fits all screen sizes. Some themes may look great on computers but break on phones.
7. Speed Up Your Site
Slow sites rank poorly. Test your speed with GTmetrix or PageSpeed Insights.
Easy ways to speed up your site:
- Use a caching plugin like WP Rocket
- Optimize your images
- Minify CSS and JavaScript files
- Choose a fast hosting company
8. Improve Internal Linking
Help search engines find all your content through proper internal linking. Link related posts and pages to each other using descriptive anchor text.
The AIOSEO Link Assistant feature can find link opportunities and automatically add links to your old content.
9. Create XML Sitemaps
Sitemaps tell search engines about all the pages on your site. They help with faster indexing.
All-in-One SEO creates sitemaps automatically. You can then submit them to Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools. And this will enable the search engines to find your content faster.
10. Add Schema Markup
Schema markup helps search engines better show your content in search results. It can give you those fancy rich snippets with stars, images, and extra info.
AIOSEO makes adding schema easy. You can set up markup for articles, products, recipes, and more without any coding skills.
11. Optimize Your Robots.txt File
This file tells search engines which parts of your site to crawl or ignore. It helps them focus on your important content.
You can edit robots.txt through AIOSEO. Block search engines from crawling admin areas and other unimportant sections to save your “crawl budget” for the pages that matter.