The 2026 WordPress SEO Checklist

WordPress powers ~43% of the web, which means most of the same SEO issues show up across every WP site. This checklist is the one we run on every new client install. Work through it top-to-bottom and you'll be ahead of 90% of WordPress sites.

Technical foundation

• Set Settings → Reading → "Discourage search engines" to OFF (this is the #1 site-killer we find on relaunches)
• Use HTTPS everywhere; redirect HTTP to HTTPS at the server
• Pretty permalinks: Settings → Permalinks → Post name
• robots.txt allows Google + lists your sitemap URL
• Submit /sitemap.xml to Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools

On-page SEO

• Unique <title> per page, under 60 characters, keyword near the front
• Unique meta description, 50–160 characters, written for clicks not robots
• One H1 per page that matches search intent
• Image alt text on every content image
• Internal links between related posts (3–5 per article minimum)

Schema markup

Add Organization schema sitewide, Article schema on blog posts, Product schema on WooCommerce items, and FAQPage schema on any page with a Q&A block. FreeSEO can add all four automatically.

Core Web Vitals

• LCP < 2.5s — preload your hero image and font
• CLS < 0.1 — set explicit width/height on images
• INP < 200ms — defer non-critical JavaScript
• Use a caching plugin (WP Rocket, LiteSpeed, or W3 Total Cache)
• Serve images as WebP via your CDN or a plugin like ShortPixel

Plugins we recommend

• FreeSEO — audits + auto-fix (covers most of the list above)
• Rank Math or Yoast — on-page meta editor (pick one, not both)
• WP Rocket or LiteSpeed Cache — performance
• Redirection — manage 301s after URL changes

Maintenance

Run a full audit monthly. After every major content publish or theme change, run a targeted scan on the affected URLs. Catch regressions in days, not months.