A Technical SEO Audit Checklist for Wordpress

Technical SEO focuses on optimizing your website's infrastructure to ensure better crawling and indexing by search engines. Without a good technical foundation, even the best content or prettiest website may not be visible in SERPS. Regular audits help by taking a look at the following:

• Identifying crawl errors and broken links
• Ensuring all of your pages are being indexed
• Improving site speed and/or mobile rendering
• Ensuring an overall positive user experience

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Top Areas of Focus for a Wordpress Technical SEO Audit

We will explore the following:

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Site Accessibility & URL Structure

• Variations: Check that all URL variations (e.g., http, https, www, non-www) redirect to a single preferred version.
• Permalinks: Set your URL structure to be keyword-rich by including the post name.
• HTTPS: Implement HTTPS to secure your website and gain trust from both users and search engines.

Meta Data Optimization

• Title Tags: Create titles that grab the attention of the user improve click-through rates.
• Meta Descriptions: Write relevant descriptions that accurately summarize your page content.
• Meta Robots: Utilize meta robots tags to control indexing of specific pages when needed.

Canonicalization & Duplicate Content

• Canonical Tags: Make sure each page has a self-referencing canonical tag to prevent duplicate content issues.
• Duplicate URLs: Identify and resolve duplicate content caused by URL parameters or session IDs.

XML Sitemaps & Robots.txt

• Sitemaps: Generate and submit an XML sitemap to search engines to ensure better, quicker crawling.
• Robots.txt: Configure your robots.txt file to guide search engine bots on which pages to crawl or avoid.

Site Speed & Performance

• Caching: Install a caching plugin like WP Fastest Cache to decrease load times.
• Image Optimization: Compress images using tools like TinyPNG before uploading, and consider plugins like Imagify for further optimization.
• Lazy Loading: Implement lazy loading for images and videos to improve initial page load speed.

Tools for Ongoing SEO Maintenance

• Screaming Frog SEO Spider: Use this tool to crawl your website and identify technical issues.
• Yoast SEO Plugin: Leverage Yoast for on-page SEO optimization, including meta tags and sitemaps.
• Google Search Console: Monitor your site's performance, indexed pages, and crawl errors.

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Access the Full Checklist

To complete an audit, we've made our checklist available as a Google Sheet. You can access and make a copy to use here:

Never Settle's WordPress Technical SEO Audit Checklist

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Elevate Your WordPress Site's SEO

You should be performing regular SEO audits on your site to maintain and improve performance in search engines and search engine result pages. By addressing the items outlined in our checklist, you can increase your site's visibility, user experience, and overall effectiveness.

For more insights and personalized assistance, feel free to reach out to our team at Never Settle. We're here to help you navigate the complexities of SEO and achieve your digital goals.

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