WordPress SEO Checklist: 23 Steps to Fix Your Site

Kwebby's WordPress SEO Checklist has 23 items in five groups, and 11 of them carry a High priority tag. Every item is specific to WordPress: the Reading and Permalinks settings, your SEO plugin, the built-in sitemap, image sizes, caching, updates and the content habits that keep a WordPress site clean. This guide shows where each item lives in the dashboard and how to check the result on the live site.

Key Takeaways

• The Kwebby WordPress SEO Checklist has 23 items in five groups: Core WordPress Settings (5), SEO Plugin & Sitemaps (6), Speed & Media (5), Security & Maintenance (4) and Content & Links (3).
• Eleven items are High priority, nine are Medium and three are Low.
• Check Settings > Reading first. The "Discourage search engines" box adds a noindex tag to every page.
• WordPress 5.5 and later create an XML sitemap at /wp-sitemap.xml, but most SEO plugins replace it with their own. Submit the one that is live.
• Run one SEO plugin only. Two plugins that both write titles and schema can output duplicate tags.
• Your ticks are saved in your browser, and the Reset button clears them when you start on another site.

What the Kwebby WordPress SEO Checklist Covers

The Kwebby WordPress SEO Checklist is a free, interactive list of 23 WordPress checks, each tagged High, Medium or Low. Many items link to the free Kwebby tool that verifies them on the live site. It sits in Kwebby's SEO Checklists hub and works with any theme and any of the main SEO plugins.

How to Use the Interactive Checklist

Check the Core WordPress Settings group first, then work from High to Low priority and tick an item only after you have verified it on the live site.

1. Open your WordPress dashboard in one tab and the checklist in another.
2. Read the counters at the top of the checklist: the Score, the "0 / 23 Complete" count and the High, Medium and Low totals.
3. Check your homepage and one post, one page and one archive, because the theme and SEO plugin build each type differently.
4. Open the linked Kwebby tool whenever an item has one.
5. Tick the box only when the live page passes. Your ticks are saved in this browser.
6. Repeat after you change a theme, add a plugin or update WordPress, and press Reset before you audit a different site.

The Checklist Sections Explained

Each group below keeps the checklist's wording and adds where the item lives in WordPress.

Core WordPress Settings (5 items)

This group covers the settings that decide whether search engines can index the site at all.

• Untick Discourage search engines in Settings > Reading (High). WordPress's Reading settings explain that this box asks search engines not to index the site. Since WordPress 5.3 it outputs a noindex, nofollow robots meta tag. Confirm the live robots tag with the Meta Tags Analyzer.
• Set a readable permalink structure (High). WordPress calls pretty permalinks SEO-friendly and plain permalinks not optimized for search engines. Choose Post name or another word-based structure before launch. If you change it later, redirect the old URLs with the .htaccess Redirect Generator.
• Use one HTTPS address in Settings > General (High). WordPress Address and Site Address should both use https and your chosen www or non-www host. Test the other versions with the Redirect Checker.
• Set the site title and tagline (Low). Many themes and SEO plugins use them in title tags. Replace the default tagline.
• Turn off attachment pages (Medium). WordPress 6.4 and later disable attachment pages on new installs. Older sites can redirect them to the file or parent post in the SEO plugin settings.

SEO Plugin & Sitemaps (6 items)

This group covers the plugin that writes your titles, canonicals, sitemaps and schema.

• Run one SEO plugin only (High). Yoast SEO, Rank Math, All in One SEO and The SEO Framework all write the same tags. Pick one.
• Submit the live sitemap to Search Console (High). WordPress 5.5 and later serve a sitemap index at /wp-sitemap.xml. Most SEO plugins turn it off and serve their own, so open the URL first and submit the one that loads. The core sitemap also switches off when indexing is discouraged. For a custom file, the XML Sitemap Generator builds one.
• Noindex thin archives (Medium). Decide whether tag, date and author archives should be indexed. Archives that only repeat post lists add little value.
• Write title and meta description templates (High). Set templates per post type and taxonomy, then write custom titles for key pages.
• Check canonical tags on posts and archives (Medium). Each post, page and paginated archive page should carry a self-referencing canonical. The Meta Tags Analyzer shows it.
• Output schema and breadcrumbs from one source (Medium). If your theme and plugin both add structured data, keep one. Test with Google's Rich Results Test, and build extra types with the Schema Markup Generator.

Speed & Media (5 items)

This group covers the settings that most affect Core Web Vitals on WordPress.

• Enable page caching (High). Host-level caching or a caching plugin stops PHP rebuilding each page on every visit. Measure before and after with the Page Speed Checker.
• Compress images and upload sensible sizes (High). WordPress creates several image sizes and a srcset for each upload, and scales very large uploads down. Compress files first with the Image Optimizer.
• Keep lazy loading off the main image (Medium). WordPress lazy-loads images by default. Since version 6.3 it also adds fetchpriority=high to the image most likely to be the Largest Contentful Paint element. Check that a page builder does not undo this.
• Remove unused plugins and theme features (Medium). Each plugin can add CSS and JavaScript. The Page Size Checker counts the CSS, JavaScript and image files a page loads.
• Check Core Web Vitals on mobile (High). Good scores are LCP up to 2.5 seconds, INP up to 200 milliseconds and CLS up to 0.1. The Mobile Friendly Test returns mobile Lighthouse scores.

Security & Maintenance (4 items)

This group keeps a WordPress site from losing rankings to hacks and leaks.

• Keep WordPress, themes and plugins updated (High). Outdated plugins are a common way attackers inject spam pages and links. Test major updates on staging first.
• Serve every page over HTTPS (High). The SSL Checker shows expiry date, issuer and protocol.
• Keep staging sites out of search (Medium). Password-protect staging, and do not copy a staging database with the noindex box ticked to the live site.
• Moderate comments and keep links qualified (Low). WordPress adds rel nofollow and ugc to links in comments. Delete spam and close comments on old posts if spam grows.

Content & Links (3 items)

This group covers habits that keep links and shares working as the site grows.

• Fix broken links after you delete or move content (Medium). WordPress redirects a changed post slug, but not a deleted post. The Broken Links Finder scans a page for dead links.
• Link related posts to each other (Medium). Add links in the body text with descriptive anchors. The Website Links Count Checker lists the internal links on a page.
• Set featured images and Open Graph tags (Low). Your SEO plugin usually turns the featured image into the share image. Preview it with the Open Graph Checker.

Mistakes to Avoid

The most expensive mistake is launching with the search visibility box still ticked. WordPress states that the option only asks search engines not to index the site, but a noindex tag keeps pages out of search results while it stays in place.

• Changing permalinks on a live site without redirects. Every old URL then returns 404.
• Trusting the settings screen. A box that says "title" does not prove the live tag is right. Check the page itself.
• Running overlapping plugins. Two SEO plugins, or a theme and a plugin, can both output titles and schema.
• Submitting the wrong sitemap. If your SEO plugin replaced /wp-sitemap.xml, submit the plugin's sitemap.
• Testing only the homepage. Test a post, a page and an archive.
• Skipping updates. Old plugins are a common route for spam injections.

Free Kwebby Tools for Each Stage

Kwebby has a free tool for most checks. The WordPress Theme Detector is useful before you start, because it identifies the theme and active plugins of any site, including a competitor's.

Browse every option in the Free SEO Tools hub.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What is a WordPress SEO checklist?

A WordPress SEO checklist is a list of checks that help a WordPress site get found in search. It covers the Reading, Permalinks and General settings, the SEO plugin, sitemaps, caching, images, updates and internal links. Kwebby's version has 23 items in five groups.

How many items are on the Kwebby WordPress SEO checklist?

The Kwebby WordPress SEO Checklist has 23 items: Core WordPress Settings (5), SEO Plugin & Sitemaps (6), Speed & Media (5), Security & Maintenance (4) and Content & Links (3). Eleven are High priority, nine are Medium and three are Low.

Does WordPress create an XML sitemap by default?

Yes. WordPress 5.5 and later generate a sitemap index at /wp-sitemap.xml that covers public post types, taxonomies and author archives. Most SEO plugins replace it with their own sitemap, and the core sitemap switches off when you discourage search engines from indexing the site.

What does Discourage search engines from indexing this site do?

It asks search engines not to index your site. Since WordPress 5.3 it adds a robots meta tag with noindex and nofollow. WordPress notes that it is only a request and does not block access, so search engines decide whether to honor it.

Which permalink structure is best for WordPress SEO?

WordPress calls pretty permalinks SEO-friendly and says plain permalinks are not optimized for search engines. Pick a structure that uses readable words, such as the post name, before launch. WordPress says permalinks are meant to be permanent.

Does the checklist save my progress?

Yes. Your ticks are saved in your browser's local storage for this checklist, so they are still there when you come back on the same device and browser. Nothing is sent to Kwebby. Press Reset to clear them.

Final Thoughts

Kwebby's WordPress SEO Checklist gives you 23 WordPress checks, from the Reading settings to image sizes and plugin updates. Untick the search visibility option, pick your permalinks before launch, run one SEO plugin and verify the live output with the free tools. When the score is high, open the SEO Checklist for a second pass on keywords and content, then the Technical SEO Checklist for crawling and speed.