WordPress SEO: The Complete Beginner’s Guide

A WordPress website can rank well in Google, but only if it is set up properly. WordPress has useful SEO features built in, and plugins add the rest. This guide explains how to improve SEO on WordPress step by step: the settings to check first, the plugins worth installing, and the content, speed and security work that keeps a site visible. If you are new to the platform, start with our article what is WordPress and how to use it.

SEO (search engine optimisation) is the work that helps search engines find, understand and rank your pages: improving the technical side, the text, the structure and the keywords. It usually has four parts:

• On-page SEO: work on the site itself, such as keyword research, clear and useful text, a logical structure and key pages like Contact, About and FAQ. Most of these changes help visitors as much as search engines;
• Off-page SEO: your reputation online, including directory listings, reviews and links from other websites;
• Local SEO: bringing in people from your area, using both on-page and off-page methods;
• Technical SEO: page speed, errors, image loading, indexing and security.

SEO for WordPress helps your site attract visitors and customers without paying for every click. It works for any kind of site: a blog, an online shop, an information site or a company website. The main benefits:

• The right visitors. When search engines understand and index your pages correctly, they show them to people looking for what you offer, which can bring more enquiries and sales;
• More trust. Sites that appear high in the results and look well organised earn more trust from visitors;
• A better experience. A clear structure helps visitors find what they need, so they stay longer and come back.

WordPress has many built-in tools that help search engines read your site. Here are the main settings and tasks, from our experience with SEO and WordPress website development.

Check Your WordPress Visibility Settings

WordPress can ask search engines not to index a site, which is useful while a site is being built but blocks SEO once it is live. How to check:

1. Log in to the WordPress dashboard.
2. Go to Settings, then Reading.
3. Find “Search engine visibility” and make sure the box “Discourage search engines from indexing this site” is not ticked (WordPress documentation).
4. Save the changes.

Then check that Google can index the site. Sign in to Google Search Console with your Google account and add your site if it is not there yet. Paste a page address into the URL Inspection tool at the top: it shows whether the page is in Google’s index and lets you request indexing.

Set Up SEO-Friendly Permalinks

Good URLs are short, readable and describe the page. By default, WordPress uses the “Plain” structure, with addresses such as /?p=123 (WordPress documentation). To change it:

1. Open the WordPress dashboard.
2. Go to Settings, then Permalinks.
3. Choose “Post name” or set a custom structure, then edit each page’s slug so it is short and contains the main keyword.
4. Save the changes.

On an established site, changing permalinks changes every address, so set up 301 redirects from the old URLs before you switch.

Choose the Best SEO Plugin for WordPress

Plugins add features to WordPress. An SEO plugin lets you edit titles, meta descriptions and robots settings, manage sitemaps and structured data, and check your text for keywords and readability. Popular options are Yoast SEO, Rank Math, All in One SEO and SEOPress. To install one:

1. Go to Plugins in the dashboard menu.
2. Choose to add a new plugin and search for the one you want.
3. Click Install.
4. Activate the plugin and go through its settings.

Use only one SEO plugin at a time, so their settings do not conflict.

Use XML Sitemaps

An XML sitemap is a file that lists the pages you want search engines to find. Since version 5.5, WordPress creates a basic sitemap automatically at your-site/wp-sitemap.xml (WordPress core announcement). SEO plugins such as Yoast SEO replace it with their own WordPress sitemap and more settings, for example to leave out pages that should not appear in search. Once the sitemap is ready, submit its address in Google Search Console.

Plan Your Site Structure

A clear structure, with pages grouped into sections and categories, helps search engines and visitors understand the site. Link the home page to the main sections, group content into categories and subcategories, link related pages to each other and keep the navigation menu simple.

Enable Breadcrumbs

Breadcrumbs show the path from the home page to the current page, for example Home > Blog > WordPress SEO. They help visitors move around the site and help search engines understand its hierarchy. Most SEO plugins and many themes can add breadcrumbs together with BreadcrumbList structured data, which Google can show in search results. Breadcrumbs usually sit at the top of the page, with each step as a clickable link.

Write Optimised Meta Tags

Meta tags are HTML elements that tell search engines what a page is about. The most important are:

• Title: short, informative and with the main keyword near the start. Google has no fixed character limit, but it shortens long titles to fit the screen;
• Meta description: a short summary of the page that can include a call to action. There is no length limit, but Google truncates long snippets and sometimes writes its own from the page text (Google Search Central);
• Meta robots: controls whether a page is indexed and its links followed.

Every page needs its own title and description. An SEO plugin lets you edit them for each page.

Do Keyword Research

Keywords are the phrases people use to find sites like yours, and they help search engines understand your pages. Google Keyword Planner, Ubersuggest and Semrush show keyword ideas and search volumes. Look at:

• search volume: high, medium and low;
• length: short phrases and longer, more specific long-tail phrases;
• search intent: informational, navigational, commercial or transactional.

Use keywords where they read naturally. Repeating them too often is keyword stuffing, which Google treats as spam. Our guide on how to do keyword research explains the process in detail.

Create High-Quality SEO Content

Text is one of the main things search engines rank, and it directly affects whether visitors buy or get in touch. Content that ranks well is:

• Original: written for your site, not copied from other sites;
• Expert: written or checked by someone who knows the subject, with facts and sources where they matter;
• Written for people: clear, useful and natural to read;
• Accurate: if you use AI tools to draft text, check and edit it before publishing. Google accepts AI-assisted content when it is accurate and adds value for readers.

Internally Link Your Site

Internal linking helps visitors find related pages, keeps them on the site longer and shows search engines which pages matter most. Link related pages throughout the site and point more links to your key pages, such as main services or products. Use descriptive link text and add links where they help the reader.

Optimise Your Website for Local SEO

Local SEO helps you reach people in your area. It includes work on and off the site:

• adding local keywords, such as your town or area, to your pages;
• creating and completing your Google Business Profile;
• earning links from relevant local websites;
• taking part in local forums and community groups;
• listing your business in local and UK directories, with the same name, address and phone number everywhere.

If you need help with this part, see our local SEO service.

Optimise Your Images

Images affect page speed, which affects rankings, and they shape how visitors see your site. The main recommendations:

• choose the right format: WebP gives good quality at a small file size, and SVG suits logos and icons;
• compress images before or during upload, keeping them as light as possible without visible loss of quality;
• make sure images display well on both computers and phones. WordPress creates several sizes of each uploaded image for different screens;
• add alt text: it helps search engines understand the image and helps people who use screen readers.

Speed Up Your Website

Page speed matters for both visitors and rankings. Google measures it with three Core Web Vitals:

• Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), loading: 2.5 seconds or less;
• Interaction to Next Paint (INP), responsiveness: 200 milliseconds or less. INP replaced First Input Delay in 2024;
• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS), visual stability: 0.1 or less.

To speed up WordPress, choose good hosting, enable caching (for example with LiteSpeed Cache or WP Rocket), use a lightweight theme and compress images. A content delivery network (CDN) and removing plugins you do not use also help.

Mark Up Your Pages with Schema

Structured data (schema markup) tells search engines what a page describes, such as an article, a product, a business or a breadcrumb trail. You can add it to the code by hand, but it is easier with a plugin. Popular options:

• Schema Pro;
• Rank Math;
• Yoast SEO.

Get an SSL Certificate and Use HTTPS

Google recommends serving pages securely over HTTPS, and visitors trust secure sites more. An SSL certificate can be free or paid: free certificates, such as those from Let’s Encrypt, give the same encryption, and many hosts include one. Some paid certificates also verify your organisation. After you install a certificate:

• change the WordPress Address and Site Address to https in Settings, then General;
• redirect all http addresses to https with 301 redirects;
• update internal links in your content, for example with the Better Search Replace plugin;
• make sure Google Search Console covers the https version (a Domain property includes both), and update the website address in Google Analytics.

Choose WWW or Non-WWW

Your site can work with “www” or without it. Both are fine for SEO, but search engines can treat the two versions as separate addresses, so choose one, redirect the other to it with a 301 redirect and use the same version in canonical tags, the sitemap and internal links. This avoids duplicate pages.

Manage Your Security

HTTPS is only one part of protecting a WordPress site from attacks, data breaches and bots. We also recommend:

• two-factor authentication for all users;
• regular updates of WordPress, themes and plugins;
• a limit on login attempts;
• regular malware scans with a security plugin;
• regular backups stored away from the website server.

Monitor and Improve Your WordPress SEO

SEO is an ongoing process. Run a regular SEO audit, watch changes in traffic and user behaviour, and adjust your pages. Useful tools:

• Google Analytics 4: pages, traffic sources and visitor behaviour;
• PageSpeed Insights: speed and Core Web Vitals;
• Google Search Console: searches, positions, errors and indexing;
• Yoast SEO, All in One SEO or Rank Math: checks of your content and settings.

VOLL Digital Agency has built, optimised and promoted websites since 2008 and is a Google Partner agency. WordPress SEO is one of our core services: we can check your site, fix what holds it back and report on the results. To see what is included, visit our WordPress SEO services page and tell us about your website.