Complete WordPress Website SEO Checklist

When creating a new WordPress website, it is crucial to perform a proper search engine optimization (SEO) setup. This helps to ensure results your site will produce the best results from Day One. Below is a basic WordPress SEO setup process you can utilize for any new website – either a blog or company site – in any niche. At InterActive Circle, we can help you effectively optimize your WordPress site for search using this easy checklist:

Select a Solid Hosting Provider

Choosing a quality host can help you save time and potentially even money in the long run. Choosing a reliable hosting provider, such as Bluehost, is recommended.

Select Your WordPress Theme Carefully

Choosing a reliable and smooth-operating WordPress theme is also recommended. Do not settle for a cheap or free WordPress theme that can hinder your search engine optimization efforts. Choose your theme carefully.

Create a Sitemap

You can auto generate a sitemap that lists your pages with Yoast. You also want to make sure you submit it to Search Console. When this is done, the Google search crawler will be notified automatically and immediately crawl the new pages on your website. This will enable faster indexing of your pages causing them to appear more quickly in search results once they are published.

Install an SEO Plugin

Setting up an SEO plug-in is important at the outset. Yoast is one of the most popular, and the basic version of it is free.

Google Analytics

It is important to track where your users come from, who they are, what they do on your site, and how they convert. Google Analytics can help you effectively learn and keep track of all this information.

Robots.txt

It is important to have a robots.txt file that contains instructions for crawlers. This code specifies the indexing status of your website.

Search Console

Create a profile and verify your website in Search Console. It is an essential tool for your SEO efforts.

Caching

To speed up your website, utilize a caching system. There are free options available, including WP Rocket, W3 Total Cache, and others.

Optimize Images

You can help make your website respond faster by optimizing your images. This can help boost your websites ranking in Google search results. The plugins you can use for this purpose include Tinify and Smush.

Google Tag Manager

Google Tag Manager is a free tool that enables you to track clicks, events, and form submissions, in addition to tracking of any third-party tools. It will help you avoid adding tracking codes from numerous tools you use for marketing purpose.

Enable CDN

Enable the content delivery network (CDN). This can increase the loading speed of your site.

AMP

Amplified Mobile Pages (AMP) is a technology promoted by Google that causes your mobile pages to load super-fast.

The above information represents a quick but important checklist of WordPress SEO items to complete during the creation, development, and launching of your website.

Interested in learning more about creating your own WordPress site and implementing a highly effective WordPress SEO checklist to launch your site successfully? Schedule a time with one of our InterActive Circle’s Digital Strategists to learn more.