SEO Audit for WordPress Websites

WordPress is flexible, which is both its strength and the source of most WordPress SEO problems. Run the complete SEO audit, then add these WordPress-specific checks.

1. Core settings

• Settings → Reading: “Discourage search engines from indexing this site” is unchecked (often left on after development)
• Settings → Permalinks: “Post name” or a clean custom structure, not ?p=123
• Settings → General: WordPress Address and Site Address both use HTTPS and your preferred domain
• Search engine visibility confirmed with URL Inspection

2. SEO plugin

• Only one SEO plugin active (Yoast, Rank Math, AIOSEO or SEOPress); two plugins create duplicate meta tags and schema
• Titles and meta descriptions set for key pages
• XML sitemap enabled and submitted (sitemaps)
• Media attachment pages redirected to the file or parent post (avoid thin attachment URLs)
• Tag archives, author archives (on single-author sites) and date archives noindexed if they add no value
• Schema settings correct (Organization vs Person, logo, social profiles)
• No conflicting schema from the theme

3. Content structure

• Categories used logically; not dozens of near-empty categories
• Tags not used as a second category system creating thin archives
• One H1 per page (some themes wrap the logo or site title in an H1)
• Old “Hello world” and “Sample page” content removed

4. Speed

• Quality hosting with PHP 8.x and server-level caching
• One caching plugin, configured; no overlapping optimisation plugins
• Plugin audit: deactivate and delete anything unused; check what each plugin loads on the front end
• Page builder assets not loaded on every page; consider a lighter theme
• Images compressed and served as WebP
• Core Web Vitals passing on mobile (speed guide)

5. Technical

• No mixed content after HTTPS migration
• Redirects managed in one place (a redirect plugin or server), with no chains (redirect chains)
• ?replytocom and other parameters not creating duplicates
• Pagination works and isn’t canonicalised to page 1
• robots.txt not blocking /wp-content/ CSS and JS (robots.txt)

6. Security and maintenance

• WordPress core, theme and plugins up to date
• Abandoned plugins replaced
• Security plugin or host-level firewall, regular backups
• site:yourdomain.com search shows no spam pages (a sign of hacking)
• Admin users reviewed; strong passwords and two-factor authentication

7. WooCommerce (if used)

• Product category pages have unique intros
• Filter and sort parameters controlled
• Product schema output correctly (by WooCommerce or your SEO plugin, not both)
• Cart, checkout and account pages noindexed

See the ecommerce SEO audit.

8. Comments

If you don’t use comments, disable them. If you do, moderate spam, because spammy comment links reflect on your site.

Want an expert to review your WordPress site? Request an audit.