WordPress SEO: a step-by-step guide

Last updated 12 October 2026 · By the XKey team

Is WordPress good for SEO?

You control everything: page addresses, code, hosting and any SEO plugin you like. The flip side is that speed and security are your job. A cheap host, a heavy page builder or twenty plugins can make a WordPress site slow, and Google measures that.

You need exactly one SEO plugin. Yoast SEO and Rank Math are both free and both do the job; pick one. Two SEO plugins at once print two sets of tags and confuse search engines.

Which fixes matter most, and where are they?

Work down this list in order. Each step says exactly where the setting is in WordPress. Run the free SEO check on your home page first: the report spots that your site runs on WordPress and shows these steps under anything that needs fixing.

1. Make sure Google is allowed to index your pages. Settings → Reading: untick “Discourage search engines from indexing this site”. In Yoast or Rank Math, check this page isn't set to noindex.
2. Use the secure https:// address. Ask your host to turn on a free SSL certificate, then in Settings → General change both addresses to start with https://.
3. Write a title for every page. Edit the page and scroll to the Yoast SEO or Rank Math box (install one of these free plugins if you have neither), then fill in the SEO title.
4. Write a description for every page. Edit the page and scroll to the Yoast SEO or Rank Math box (install one of these free plugins if you have neither), then fill in the meta description.
5. Give each page one main heading. Most themes show the page title as the H1. In the editor, make sure no other block uses Heading 1 – use Heading 2 for sections.
6. Describe your images. Media → Library: click each image and fill in Alternative Text. For images already on a page, select the image block and fill in Alternative text in the sidebar.
7. Shrink your images. Install a free image optimiser plugin (such as EWWW Image Optimizer or Smush) to shrink images and serve WebP.
8. Send Google your sitemap. WordPress makes one at /wp-sitemap.xml, and Yoast or Rank Math make /sitemap_index.xml. Submit it in Google Search Console.
9. Tell Google your business details. Make the code with our free schema generator, then paste it into your site header with a free plugin such as WPCode.
10. Set how your pages look when shared. Yoast SEO and Rank Math add these tags for you. Set a sharing image in the plugin's Social tab on each page.
11. Let AI search read your site. Edit robots.txt in Yoast (Yoast SEO → Tools → File editor) or Rank Math (General Settings → Edit robots.txt) and remove the lines blocking AI crawlers.
12. Add a site icon. Appearance → Customize → Site Identity → Site Icon (Settings → General in newer versions).

What are the most common WordPress mistakes?

• Leaving “Discourage search engines” ticked after launch – the classic. Check Settings → Reading.
• Thin tag and category pages – hundreds of near-empty archive pages. Your SEO plugin can set tag archives to noindex.
• Not updating – out-of-date plugins are the most common way small WordPress sites get hacked, and hacked sites get flagged by Google.
• Changing a page's address without a redirect – use the free Redirection plugin, or the redirect tool in Rank Math.

What should I do after the basics?

Connect Google Search Console (Yoast and Rank Math can add the verification code for you), then write one page per service you offer. Plugins pile up over time, so turn on weekly monitoring to catch an update that breaks something.

Frequently asked questions

Is Yoast or Rank Math better?

Both cover everything a small business needs. Use whichever you find easier, and only one of them.

Is WordPress.com the same as WordPress.org?

They run the same software. On WordPress.com, installing plugins such as Yoast needs one of the higher paid plans; lower plans have more limited SEO settings.

Will a page builder like Elementor hurt my SEO?

Not by itself, but it adds a lot of code. Keep pages simple, avoid stacking many add-ons, and check your speed in the free SEO check.