If you’re on WordPress, you’re in luck when it comes to search engine visibility- it’s incredibly search-engine friendly! In this post, I’ll share WordPress SEO best practices to help you make the most of my favorite website-building platform.
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One of the biggest misconceptions about websites is that Search Engine Optimization (SEO) comes “built in.”
It’s easy to think that by simply choosing a particular platform, your site will automatically rank well in search engines.
But SEO doesn’t work that way.
No platform comes with SEO baked in. You have to put in the work to optimize your site and create content that meets Google’s standards.
Note: 90+ percent of search happens in Google but hopefully it goes without saying, there are other search engines out there. By following best practices in this post, you’ll be set up for success wherever people are searching the internet.
Why WordPress Has A Great Reputation For Search Engine Optimization
I’m a huge fan of WordPress (let me count the ways!):
I love the granular control it gives me over my website. I appreciate that I can tweak everything from the hosting and page speed to how my content is structured for search engines.
I love that because WordPress is open source, meaning, my website belongs to me. I can switch hosts, change themes, and customize my site’s design and functionality any way I want without being tied down by a platform’s restrictions.
And of course, I love that WordPress is so SEO-able.
However, using WordPress alone isn’t enough to guarantee success in search.
With any website, on any platform, you still need to put in the work to produce content that is helpful, relevant, and optimized for search engines.
WordPress provides the tools, but the real results come from how you use them.
In this guide, I’ll walk you through the specific SEO opportunities that WordPress offers and how you can take advantage of them.
I’ll briefly touch on general SEO best practices towards the end, but my goal in this article is to highlight the bits that are unique to WordPress.
How To Use This Guide
There are a million free resources out there to help you dial in your SEO, this one is different because it’s laser focused on WordPress.
To make the most of this, make sure you understand SEO basics. In this post, I’m not going to teach you how to do keyword research, how to acquire backlinks or how to optimize your images. I’ll refer you to other resources for that.
Here, we’re only addressing stuff that makes WordPress different and how to IMPLEMENT within the WordPress environment.
I don’t recommend that you tackle everything at once. Trying to do so will only lead to headaches, heart palpitations and a serious dent in your chocolate stash.
Here’s how to approach this guide in a way that actually works:
- Bookmark this page. Keep it handy for easy reference.
- Read the article in full. Don’t worry about taking action yet. Your goal is to get familiar with what’s involved.
- Make a simple list of the tasks you need to tackle. Write down what’s already done, what you feel comfortable doing, and what needs more of your time. This way, you’re working from a much more digestible list.
- Schedule time to work on it. Block off an hour every Friday (or whatever day works for you) for the next month. Treat this like an important meeting. You’re working on something critical for your business.
- Set a timer and focus on one thing at a time. When the timer goes off, stop. The goal is progress, not perfection. You won’t get everything done in one sitting, and that’s okay.
This process allows you to break things into manageable pieces. The key to success with SEO is consistency, not cramming everything into one session. By tackling one task at a time, you’ll make steady progress and (hopefully!) avoid overwhelm.
Your WordPress website is a tool that can work for you, so give it the time it deserves to perform at its best!
Key Elements of SEO for WordPress
1. Web Hosting Provider
When you build a WordPress website, you’ll have to make a number of decisions out of the gate.
Specifically, you’ll need to choose a hosting provider (where your website will be stored on a server), a theme, and a page builder.
Your hosting provider plays a huge role in your site’s speed, uptime (the amount of time your website is available and accessible online- think of it as your website’s “open” hours), and overall performance, all of which impact SEO.
A slow-loading site can hurt your search rankings and drive users away before they even see your content.
Key Hosting Considerations for WordPress:
When it comes to hosting, you essentially have 2 choices: “shared” hosting or “managed” hosting.
Shared Hosting: This budget-friendly option means you’ll share server resources with other websites, which can slow down your site during traffic spikes. It’s less ideal from an SEO perspective.
Managed Hosting: Managed WordPress hosts like Rocket.net offer faster load times, better security, and performance optimizations specific to WordPress. While more expensive, managed hosting helps you meet Google’s speed expectations and may be more ideal from an SEO perspective.
Choosing a fast, reliable hosting provider is the foundation for your WordPress site’s SEO.
2. WordPress Themes and Page Builders
But with so many options available, it’s important to understand the trade-offs, particularly between something called “bloat” and user-friendliness.
What is “Bloat” and Why Does It Matter for SEO?
“Bloat” refers to extra code and features that come with certain themes and page builders, which can slow down your website.
While a visually complex theme or template might look ah-mazing, it often comes with excessive styling, unnecessary scripts, and non-optimized code that can slow things down. Since page speed is a significant factor in Google’s ranking algorithm, too much bloat can negatively impact your SEO.
User-Friendly Page Builders and SEO
That said, user-friendly themes and page builders like Divi and Elementor are considered more “bloated” than some, but I still prefer them for their user-friendliness and flexibility.
While some SEO experts shy away from them, I’ve had great success using these builders, especially when paired with SEO best practices and performance optimization plugins like WP Rocket.
Why I Choose Divi and Elementor
Both Divi and Elementor allow you to easily create custom layouts, add visual elements, and update your site without needing to touch any code.
They offer a drag-and-drop interface that makes web design accessible for business owners and service providers who aren’t developers.
And ultimately, the best website is the website that you can actually use and personally maintain.
Optimizing Themes and Page Builders for SEO
To mitigate the performance issues caused by bloat, you can:
- Choose a lightweight theme (such as Hello Elementor) to keep the base of your website as lean as possible.
- Use optimization plugins like WP Rocket to improve load times and minimize the effects of extra code from your page builder.
- Optimize images to further reduce the “weight” of your site, ensuring faster performance without sacrificing design.
By balancing a user-friendly builder like Elementor or Divi with smart optimizations, you can create a fast, beautiful site that performs great in search.
3. WordPress Plugins
Plugins are like little booster packs for WordPress, allowing you to customize your website and improve its SEO.
However, too many plugins can slow down your site and cause “conflicts”, so it’s important to choose wisely.
Two types of plugins you need to have are:
- A WordPress SEO plugin: Your SEO plugin makes it easy to optimize meta data, create sitemaps, and fine-tune your on-page SEO. My recommendation: Yoast SEO plugin
- A Caching plugin: Your caching plugin helps speed up your site by caching pages, compressing files, managing your lazy loading and minimizing bloat. My recommendation: WPRocket plugin
A few other specific plugins I highly recommend to make your website easier to manage are:
- Schema Pro: Makes it a little easier to add structured data to boost rich results in Google search. Note: You can also add your schema directly to your Head code and avoid the extra plug-in.
- Link Whisper: Simplifies internal linking, which is key for SEO.
- Imagify: Optimizes images to improve load times.
- AddFunc Head & Footer Code: Makes it super easy to add code to head and footer code.
What Your WordPress SEO Plugin Does and Doesn’t Do
There’s a common misconception that installing an SEO plugin like Yoast is all you need to optimize your site. In reality, the plugin itself won’t do much unless you actively use its features to optimize your content and settings.
Let’s talk about Yoast, which is one of the most popular SEO plugins, although most SEO plugins offer similar functionality.
What Yoast Will Do:
- Create schema markup for articles, posts, and pages, helping search engines better understand your content.
- Simplify the addition of SEO titles, meta descriptions, and custom URL slugs for each page or post.
- Allow easy de-indexing of pages, meaning you can hide pages from search engines (such as thank-you pages or private content).
- Generate an XML sitemap for your site, which helps search engines index your pages more effectively.
- Assist with basic on-page optimization, helping you optimize around a single focus keyword per post or page by giving suggestions like keyword usage in titles, descriptions, and throughout the content.
What Yoast Won’t Do:
- Yoast won’t automatically improve your rankings just because it’s installed. It won’t “magically” optimize your site without your input. You still need to:
- Manually add your titles, meta descriptions, and focus keywords for each post or page.
- Regularly monitor and improve your content based on Yoast’s suggestions.
- Ensure your technical SEO settings (like generating your XML sitemap or ensuring proper indexation) are configured correctly.
Fortunately, Yoast is designed to be user-friendly, and most of its core features are available directly within the WordPress editor (on the “Edit” page of any post or page).
You’ll see fields for adding your SEO title, meta description, and focus keyword, along with optimization suggestions as you work on your content.
4. Set Your Site Title
Your site title is one of the first things both users and search engines see, so it’s really important to make it clear and SEO-friendly.
The site title should describe your business and ideally include your primary keyword.
To set your site title and tagline:
- Go to Settings > General in your WordPress dashboard.
- Fill in the Site Title with something concise and relevant to your business.
- Add a Tagline that further explains your services or unique selling point.
5. Update SEO Title and Meta-Description for Every Page
Your SEO title and meta-description are essential for telling search engines and users what your page is about. These elements appear in search engine results and can influence whether someone clicks on your link. It’s important to optimize these fields for each page or post on your site.
How to Add/Update SEO Title and Meta-Description in WordPress
- Go to the WordPress editor by opening the page or post you want to edit (navigate to Pages > All Pages or Posts > All Posts, choose a page or post and click “Edit”).
- Scroll down to the Yoast SEO box (or your chosen SEO plugin) at the bottom of the editor.
- In the SEO title field, enter a concise, keyword-optimized title for the page. This is the title that will appear in Google search results. Make sure it includes your main keyword and is around 50-60 characters long.
- In the Meta description field, write a clear, engaging description of the page. This should also include your main keyword and be between 120-160 characters long. The meta description won’t directly impact rankings but can improve click-through rates from search results.
- Save your changes by clicking Update or Publish at the top right of the editor.
Tip: If you’ve installed Yoast or another SEO plugin, this SEO box will always be located at the bottom of the “Edit” page for any post or page, making it easy to adjust SEO settings as you work on content.
6. Blog Categories
Organizing your content into well-defined categories is important for both SEO and user experience.
Blog categories help search engines understand the structure of your site and make it easier for visitors to find related content.
In WordPress, it’s simple to set up and manage categories.
How to Set Blog Categories in WordPress
- From your WordPress dashboard, navigate to Posts > Categories.
- Enter your Category Name.
- Optionally, fill in the Slug field (the URL-friendly version of your category) or leave it blank, and WordPress will create one automatically.
- Optionally, write a Description for the category, though it’s not required.
- Click Add New Category.
Once your categories are set up, you can assign posts to them when you’re writing or editing content.
Just go to the right sidebar in the post editor and check the relevant category boxes.
Pro Tip: Stick to 3-5 main categories. Too many categories can clutter your site and confuse readers and Google. Make sure each category is broad enough to encompass multiple posts but focused enough to help users find relevant content. Consider this: What are 3-5 areas where you want to be known as an expert? These are your categories.
7. Set Up SEO-Friendly Permalinks
Permalinks are your site’s URLs, and SEO-friendly permalinks make it easier for search engines and users to understand your content. WordPress’s default permalink isn’t super SEO-friendly, however it’s easy to customize your permalink structure for better optimization.
How to Set Up SEO-Friendly Permalinks
- Go to WordPress Settings: From your WordPress dashboard, navigate to Settings > Permalinks.
- Choose the Right Structure: WordPress offers several predefined permalink structures, but I recommend you select “Custom Structure” and paste /blog/%postname%/
8. Schema Markup
One of the more advanced but incredibly valuable aspects of WordPress SEO is the ability to add structured data, which include schema markup.
Schema markup are little bits of code that help search engines explicitly understand your content better. Rather than letting the search engines infer what your page is about, you’re spelling it out for them.
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "Service",
"name": "Pelvic Floor Physical Therapy",
"description": "Comprehensive pelvic floor physical therapy services tailored to support recovery and wellness.",
"provider": {
"@type": "Organization",
"name": "Bloom Physical Therapy"
},
"offers": {
"@type": "Offer",
"name": "Physical Therapy Session",
"priceCurrency": "USD",
"price": "100.00"
}
}
In some cases, schema can also qualify your website to appear in rich results.
Rich results are special search features highlighted at the top of search engine results pages that help your content stand out in search results.
While all-in-one platforms like Wix and Squarespace offer some structured data options, WordPress allows for far more flexibility and control in how you implement it. You can either manually add schema or use plugins to automate the process.
Adding Structured Data: Manual vs. Plugin Approach
There are two main ways to implement structured data on your WordPress site: manually or with plugins.
Here’s how each approach works:
Manual Implementation
If you’re comfortable with coding or have a developer on hand, you can manually add structured data by inserting schema markup directly into your site’s HTML.
This method gives you complete control over how schema is applied, allowing for highly customized structured data tailored to your exact needs.
However, this approach requires a little understanding of code and can be time-consuming.
Using a Plugin (e.g. Schema Pro)
For those who aren’t developers, using a plugin like Schema Pro is the easiest way to add structured data to your WordPress site.
Schema Pro automates the process, allowing you to add schema to your posts and pages without touching any code. The plugin supports a variety of schema types, including articles, products, and local business information.
Read More: How To Write Schema WIth ChatGPT
Schema Types to Consider
When adding schema markup, consider the types of content you have and how it could be presented in search engine results. Some common schema types a small service-based business might include are:
- Article: Helps search engines understand your blog posts or news articles.
- Person: Provides information about an individual, such as a business owner or team member.
- Service: Describes the services your business offers, improving relevance in service-related searches.
- Course: Displays information about courses or classes, including details like title, description, and dates.
- FAQ: Marks up frequently asked questions to display them in a collapsible format in search engine results pages (SERPs).
- Local Business: Important for local SEO, this schema displays information about your business location, hours, and contact details.
Best Practices for Using Structured Data
- Don’t overuse schema: Only apply schema where it’s relevant to the content. Overloading your site with unnecessary structured data won’t help and could confuse search engines.
- Use a testing tool: Before publishing, use Google’s Schema Markup Validator to check if your structured data is correctly implemented and eligible for rich results.
- Stay updated: Structured data types and best practices change over time, so make sure your schema follows the latest guidelines from Google.
9. Make Your Website Indexable
Check and Manage Your Indexing Settings
WordPress makes it easy to control whether search engines can index your site. To ensure your site is indexable:
- Make Sure Search Engines Can Crawl Your Site
Go to your WordPress dashboard and navigate to Settings > Reading.
Here, you’ll see an option labeled “Discourage search engines from indexing this site”.
If this box is checked, it’s a clear sign your site won’t appear in search results.
Make sure this option is unchecked if you want your site to be indexed.
- Use an SEO Plugin to Manage Indexing
An SEO plugin like Yoast SEO or Rank Math can help you manage which pages should be indexed.
Not all pages on your site should necessarily be indexed.
Things like thank-you pages, category archives, or duplicate content may not add SEO value and could even harm your rankings if indexed.
Use your SEO plugin to set noindex tags for pages that shouldn’t appear in search engines.
Submit an XML Sitemap
An XML sitemap is essentially a roadmap for search engines, showing them all the important pages on your website.
Submitting a sitemap to Google helps ensure that all of your content is crawled and indexed.
Here’s how to create and submit your sitemap
- Create an Sitemap with a Plugin
Most SEO plugins, like Yoast SEO, generate XML sitemaps automatically.You can usually find it at a URL like yoursite.com/sitemap.xml.
This file lists all your important pages and posts, making it easier for search engines to find and index them.
- Submit Your Sitemap to Google
To submit your sitemap, go to Google Search Console (you’ll need to sign up if you haven’t already), and in the sidebar, navigate to Sitemaps. Enter the URL of your sitemap and click Submit.
Google will then crawl your site based on this map, which helps them index new content more quickly.
Fix Crawl Errors
Using Google Search Console, you can also track crawl errors, issues that prevent search engines from accessing specific pages on your site.
These errors can occur for a number of reasons, including broken links, server errors, or incorrect redirects.
Fixing these issues enables search engines to crawl and index all your important content.
Your crawl report is on the more technical side, so if you have a lot of errors, this is a task that would be well worth delegating to a WordPress expert.
Crawling vs. Indexing: What’s the Difference?
Crawling: Crawling is when search engines like Google send out bots (often called “spiders”) to find and scan the pages on your website.
This is the first step in the process of making your content available in search results, as it helps Google discover what’s on your site.
Indexing: After crawling, Google decides which pages to add to its database, a process called indexing.
If a page is indexed, it has a chance of showing up in search results. If it’s not indexed, it won’t appear in Google searches, even if the content is great.
In short, crawling and indexing work hand in hand to ensure Google can present your website in search results. Crawling finds your content, and indexing makes it searchable.
See also: How Google Works: Learn Search Basics For A Smarter SEO Strategy
10. Speed and Caching
ProTip: Check your page speed at Google Page Speed Insights. Pay attention to your Largest Contentful Paint. If this number is greater than 2.5-3 seconds, make it a priority to speed up your website. You can scroll down the page for specific suggestions for speeding up your site.
With WordPress, you have several tools to improve your site’s speed.
Use a Caching Plugin
One of the easiest ways to speed up your WordPress site is by using a caching plugin.
Caching stores a static version of your website, reducing the amount of work the server needs to do when loading a page.
This results in faster load times for visitors. I prefer WPRocket. Other popular caching plugins include W3 Total Cache or JetPack.
Here are some of the things your cacheing plugin should be able to do for you:
Minimize Code and Reduce HTTP Requests
Another way to speed up your WordPress site is to minify your code.
Minification removes unnecessary characters (such as spaces and comments) from your site’s CSS, JavaScript, and HTML files.
This reduces the file size, allowing your site to load faster. Tools like WP Rocket can automate this process for you.
In addition to minifying code, you can speed up your site by reducing HTTP requests.
Every time a page loads, the browser sends a request for each resource (e.g. images, scripts, and stylesheets).
The more requests your site makes, the longer it takes to load.
To reduce HTTP requests, combine CSS and JavaScript files into fewer files and remove unnecessary plugins and scripts that aren’t being used.
Tip: After enabling “Minify CSS”, be sure to check the functionality of your website.
Enable Lazy Loading
Lazy loading ensures that images and videos are only loaded when they come into view on the screen, rather than loading everything at once.
This dramatically improves initial page load times, especially for image-heavy pages.
WordPress 5.5 and later versions include native lazy loading functionality, but you can also enable this feature with plugins like WP Rocket .
Tip: After enabling “Lazy Loading”, be sure to check the functionality of your website.
Use a Content Delivery Network (CDN)
A content delivery network (CDN) stores copies of your website’s static files (such as images, CSS, and JavaScript) on servers located in various geographic locations. When a visitor accesses your site, the CDN delivers the files from the server closest to them, reducing the time it takes for the page to load.
ProTip: Each time you adjust a setting in your caching plugin, clear your cache and double check that nothing funky happened. Click through a few pages, make sure formatting and fonts still look good, click on a few buttons. Sometimes, enabling caching, introducing lazy coding, or minifying code can create a problem on your website. Check after adjusting each variable to minimize troubleshooting later.
Best Practices for Keeping Your Site Fast
- Use a caching plugin to reduce load times.
- Optimize images with a plugin like Imagify or ShortPixel.
- Minify code and reduce unnecessary HTTP requests.
- Enable lazy loading for images and videos.
- Use a CDN to deliver your content faster to global audiences.
- Keep plugins, themes, and WordPress updated to avoid slowdowns and security issues.
11. Measure Your SEO Efforts with Analytics
Google Analytics Integration: Tag Manager vs. Plugin
- Google Tag Manager
Pros: A more flexible solution that allows you to manage multiple tracking tags (Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, etc.) from one interface without needing to edit code directly on WordPress.
Cons: Requires a steeper learning curve and more technical setup. Tag Manager itself does not provide any analytics, it only facilitates the integration of tracking tags. - Using a Plugin (e.g., MonsterInsights)
Pros: Easier to set up and directly integrates with WordPress. Provides analytics data within the WordPress dashboard, which is more user-friendly for non-technical users.
Cons: Can slow down your website if not optimized, and may lack the advanced flexibility of Tag Manager for managing multiple tags.
Ultimately, choose Tag Manager if you want more control and scalability; choose a plugin if you need an easier, user-friendly solution.
Key SEO Metrics to Track:
Ultimately, your key metrics should be selected to track the conversions you care about.
- Organic traffic: See how many visitors are finding your site through search engines.
- Keyword rankings: Track how well your target keywords are performing.
- Domain Authority: Your domain authority should track higher over time as your website accumulates backlinks
- Conversions: Are you getting more contact from submissions? Email sign ups? Freebie downloads? Track the conversions that matter to you.
12. Follow All Other SEO Best Practices
While WordPress gives you great tools, the fundamentals of SEO still apply.
To truly get the most out of your WordPress site, focus on these core practices:
- Create quality content: Consistently publish helpful, original content that addresses your audience’s needs. Great content keeps your visitors engaged, builds trust with them, and is a non-negotiable for ranking well.
- Research your keywords: Choose keywords relevant to your audience by focusing on the words and phrases they’re actually searching for.
- Optimize for on-page SEO: Make sure each page has a unique SEO title, meta description, and alt text for images.
- Optimize for mobile: Select a responsive theme that looks good and works well on all devices. Google prioritizes mobile-friendly sites, so optimizing for mobile is critical.
- Consider user experience and engagment: Prioritize easy navigation, fast load times, and clear calls to action. These factors keep users on your site longer, signaling to search engines that real people value your content.
- Build backlinks and cultivate a multi-platform online presence: Earn quality backlinks through guest posts, partnerships, and social sharing. A broader online presence improves your authority and drives more visitors to your site.
- Leverage social proof: Display reviews, testimonials, and case studies to build trust with visitors. Social proof is your voice of customer language, serving as a natural source of SEO keywords.
If you’d like to brush up on your SEO fundamentals, check out the following resources:
WordPress = SEO Opportunity
WordPress offers powerful tools to optimize your site for SEO, but it’s up to you to use them effectively.
By focusing on hosting, themes, plugins, and structured data, you can take full control of your SEO strategy and see better search engine rankings.
If you read this far but you’re thinking, “Wow, this is all overwhelming!”, I’ve got you covered.
SEO is my jam, and I’m here to help simplify things.
Let’s talk about where YOU should start and how I can lighten your load. Book a free call, and let’s get your SEO on the right track together.
