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February 13, 2023

14-Step Technical WordPress SEO Framework (Proven Checklist)

Do you need a technical search engine optimization (SEO) checklist?

Optimizing your site for search engines can be a challenge if you’re not sure what to look for. Many website owners will ensure basic SEO practices but overlook technical elements.

In this article, we will show a WordPress technical SEO framework and share a checklist you can use for your business.

WordPress technical SEO framework checklist

Why Do You Need a WordPress Technical SEO Framework?

Technical SEO is a key component of your WordPress SEO strategy. You could be creating the world’s best content, but if search engines can’t find and understand your content, then all your efforts are wasted.

That’s why it is important to have a WordPress technical SEO framework.

Our WordPress SEO framework checklist will ensure that search engines can easily crawl and index your content. Plus, you can also evaluate other technical aspects of your WordPress website that might be preventing you from achieving higher rankings.

For example, your website might be taking a long time to load. This would result in poor rankings since the page load time is a ranking factor.

Similarly, you might have mistakenly added nofollow tags and prevented search engines from crawling and indexing your content.

How to Evaluate Technical SEO in WordPress

There are many SEO tools that let you conduct SEO audits and find out if your site is technically optimized. However, not all tools will show details inside your WordPress dashboard.

The easiest way to evaluate technical SEO for your WordPress site is by using All in One SEO (AIOSEO). It is the best WordPress SEO plugin that helps you optimize your website for search engines.

It offers a free SEO Analysis tool that you can use to conduct a technical SEO audit. The tool is available in the AIOSEO Lite version, which you can use for free. There are also premium AIOSEO plans that offer more features like schema markups, sitemaps, redirection manager, and more.

First, you’ll need to install and activate the AIOSEO plugin. For more details, please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you can go to All in One SEO » SEO Analysis from your WordPress admin panel. Under the ‘SEO Audit Checklist’, you’ll see an overall score for your website.

Next, you can scroll down to the Advanced SEO and Performance sections.

Here, the plugin will evaluate the technical SEO aspects of your website based on different parameters and ranking signals. It will then highlight missing elements and critical issues that could stop your site from ranking higher.

You can use AIOSEO to continuously monitor your site’s technical SEO and fix issues. Similarly, you can also perform a competitor analysis and see what they’re doing differently for their technical SEO optimization.

That said, let’s look at our WordPress SEO framework checklist that you can use to ensure higher rankings and organic traffic. You can click the links below to jump ahead to any section:

Ensure Your Website is Visible to Search Engines
Uncover Crawling and Indexing Issues
Make Sure Your Website is Secure with HTTPS
Find and Fix Broken Links
Look for Duplicate Versions of Your Site
Use SEO-Friendly URL Structures
Ensure Your Site is Mobile Friendly
Check Your Website Speed and Improve Performance
Minify Your CSS and JavaScript Files
Generate XML Sitemaps and Submit Them to Search Engines
Use Schema Markup for Rich Snippets
Optimize Your Robots.txt File for SEO
Make Sure Google Doesn’t Flag Your Site for Malware
Use Server Side Rendering vs Client Side Rendering

1. Ensure Your Website is Visible to Search Engines

The first thing you need to check is whether search engines are able to find your WordPress site.

You can simply enter site:example.com in the search engine and see if your website appears in the search results. Just replace ‘example.com’ with your own domain.

If your site isn’t showing up, then you can check the visibility settings in WordPress.

Go ahead and visit the Settings » Reading page from your WordPress admin panel. Next, scroll down to the Search engine visibility setting and be sure the ‘Discourage search engines from indexing this site’ option is unchecked.

Search Engine Visibility Setting in WordPress

This option is usually enabled if your website is under construction or is put in maintenance mode.

2. Uncover Crawling and Indexing Issues

If your website is visible to search engines, then it is important to check that your content is crawled and indexed.

Crawling is the process where Google, Bing, and other search engines discover and understand your website. Indexing is the process where search engines collect and store information about your website.

A simple way of checking crawling and indexing issues is using webmaster tools. For example, Google Search Console is a free tool by Google that shows your site’s performance on search results, helps uncover bugs, and allows you to submit your site to Google.

If you haven’t connected to the webmaster tool, then see our guide on how to add a WordPress site to Google Search Console.

In Google Search Console, you can head to the ‘Pages’ report. Here, you’ll see pages that are indexed and not indexed.

Next, you can scroll down to the ‘Why pages aren’t indexed’ report.

Google Search Console will show you crawling and indexing errors on your website and which pages are affected by them. You can then resolve these issues, so your web pages can appear in Google search results.

Besides that, you can also check indexing and crawling issues for individual URLs.

Simply enter the page link in the URL inspection tool at the top. Google Search Console will then show you a report on whether the URL is indexed and on Google.

If it is not, then you’ll see a ‘URL is not on Google’ message. To fix this, you can click the ‘Request Indexing’ button so Google can crawl and index your page.

3. Make Sure Your Website is Secure with HTTPS

Another important thing to check from a technical SEO framework standpoint is whether your website is secure or not.

Google and other search engines will give preference to sites that use HTTPS over those that use HTTP. To secure your site, you will need an SSL certificate to encrypt the connection between your website server and the user’s browser.

You can check this by looking for the padlock sign in your browser’s search bar at the top.

Most WordPress hosting companies now offer free SSL with all their plans. You can ask your host to see if they offer that.

For more details, please see our guide on how to move your WordPress site from HTTP to HTTPS.

4. Find and Fix Broken Links

Broken links are bad for your website’s SEO framework, and it negatively impacts your user experience. These are links that no longer exist and will return a 404 error.

Since search engine crawlers find different pages on your website by following internal links. A broken link can stop them from discovering new content. As a result, your page might not get indexed in the search results.

Similarly, if a visitor clicks on a link and is unable to find a page they’re looking for, then they might exit your website.

The MonsterInsights custom 404 error design

With All in One SEO (AIOSEO), you can easily find and fix broken links on your WordPress website.

It offers a powerful redirection manager that helps track 404 errors on your website and lets you set up permanent 301 redirects to fix broken links.

To learn more, you can follow our detailed guide on how to find and fix broken links in WordPress.

5. Look for Duplicate Versions of Your Site

It is important that Google and other search engines only index one version of your website.

Your website can have different versions, but they should all point to one version. For example, you can have a site that has www and non-www version or HTTP and HTTPS version:

https://www.example.com
https://example.com
http://www.example.com
http://example.com

Whether you choose a www or non-www version, all the URLs should redirect to the primary WordPress URL. Otherwise, Google will consider each version as a different website.

This can negatively impact your overall SEO rankings. Search engines won’t know which version to index, and it could cause duplicate content issues.

You can check the primary URL for your site by going to Settings » General from the WordPress dashboard. Next, look at the web address in the ‘WordPress Address (URL)’ and ‘Site Address (URL)’ fields.

With AIOSEO, you can automatically set the proper canonical URL in your site header, so search engines will know your preference.

6. Use SEO-Friendly URL Structures

After setting a primary URL for search engines to index, you can now check the URL structure of your website.

URL structure plays an important role in your SEO. Having an SEO-friendly URL structure will help Google, Bing, and other search engines easily crawl your pages and understand your content.

Here’s an example of a bad URL structure:

https://www.example.com/category.php?id=42012

Instead, you should be using URLs that describe the content, like:

https://www.example.com/blog/how-to-start-a-wordpress-website

You can create SEO-friendly URLs by making sure that they are short and descriptive. Besides that, don’t forget to include a keyword in the permalinks, use hyphens to separate words, keep all the words in lowercase, and don’t use stop words.

Pro Tip: Don’t include numbers in your URL slugs, either. That way, you can update your content in the future

7. Ensure Your Site is Mobile Friendly

The next item in the technical SEO framework checklist is to ensure your WordPress site is mobile responsive.

With Google now going mobile-first, it will now index your site’s mobile version instead of the desktop version.

You can check your site’s mobile responsiveness by using the free Google Mobile-Friendly Test tool.

Simply enter your website URL and click the ‘Test URL’ button.

The tool will then show results for your website. You can see if it is mobile-ready or not.

If your site is not mobile-friendly, then you can start by changing to a responsive WordPress theme.

You can also follow our guide on how to change your WordPress theme without losing any data or traffic.

8. Check Your Website Speed and Improve Performance

Your website speed is also a critical part of your WordPress technical SEO framework. Google uses page load speed as a ranking factor and will rank fast-loading sites higher compared to slow-performing websites.

You can check website load time by running a site speed test. For instance, you can use MonsterInsights, which is the best Google Analytics plugin that shows a site speed report inside your WordPress dashboard.

You’ll first need to install Google Analytics to your WordPress site using MonsterInsights.

After that, you can head to the Insights » Reports page from your WordPress admin panel. Next, you can go to the ‘Site Speed’ tab. Here, you’ll see an overall score for your website speed for desktop and mobile.

The report will also show other metrics that are important for measuring your website speed.

If you scroll down, then MonsterInsights offers recommendations and benchmark goals for each metric you should target.

To improve website load time, you can see our ultimate guide to boost WordPress speed and performance.

A quick tip that you can use to improve your website speed is minifying your CSS and JavaScript files.

The term minified means reducing the size of website files by removing white spaces, lines, and unnecessary characters. When a user visits your website, different files are sent to the user’s browser, which includes CSS, HTML, and JavaScript files.

By reducing the file size, you can significantly improve website speed and performance. There are many WordPress plugins and hosting services that allow you to minify CSS and JavaScript files, like WP Rocket and SiteGround.

For more details, you can check out our guide on how to minify CSS and JavaScript files in WordPress.

9. Improve Your Internal Linking Structure and Remove Orphaned Pages

Internal links play an important role in your website’s technical SEO framework. Search engines reward websites that have a proper internal linking structure without too many orphaned pages.

AIOSEO has a powerful SEO Link Assistant feature that makes it easy for you to discover link opportunities and even automate the process for you.

It is the best internal linking plugin for WordPress that crawls the links on your WordPress website and provides a detailed report. You can see the number of internal links, outbound links, and affiliate links for each post and page.

You can see all the link suggestions in one place, and it can even automatically go back and add internal links in your older posts with a single click.

Find internal link opportunities and orphaned pages

10. Generate XML Sitemaps and Submit Them to Search Engines

Another important part of technical SEO framework is making it easier for search engines to find your content. One of the ways you can do that is by creating an XML sitemap.

It tells search engines about the important pages on your website. This way, search engine bots can crawl your site faster and index your content. While a sitemap won’t boost your rankings, it will improve the overall crawling and indexing process.

You can create and customize the sitemap using AIOSEO. The plugin will automatically generate a sitemap upon activation. Besides, it also lets you create a video sitemap, a news sitemap, an HTML sitemap, and an RSS sitemap.

Once you’ve created a sitemap, you can then submit it to different search engines using their webmaster tools.

For instance, Google Search Console gives the option to enter the sitemap URL and submit it to the search engine. To learn more, you can see our guide on how to submit your site to search engines.

Similarly, you can also add your site to Bing Webmaster Tool and then submit an XML sitemap to improve crawling and indexing.

11. Use Schema Markup for Rich Snippets

The next technical SEO framework item you should check is schema markup. It helps search engines understand your content better and how it will appear on the search results.

You can use schema markup for recipes, reviews, events, organizations, FAQs, blog posts, product pages, multiple locations for local businesses, and more.

Search engines can use this information and display rich results. It also helps capture Google featured snippets, which can increase organic clicks and traffic.

For example, here’s how Google shows recipes, ingredients, ratings, cooking time, and other information for blog posts that use a recipe schema markup.

You can easily add a schema markup in WordPress and WooCommerce using AIOSEO.

The plugin lets you choose the schema type depending on your content, and it takes care of the rest.

With AIOSEO, you can also add completely custom schema markups based on your needs using the WordPress custom schema generator feature. This can help you get star ratings, and other rich snippets in Google.

AIOSEO Custom Schema Generator for WordPress

12. Optimize Your Robots.txt File for SEO

Robots.txt is a text file that specifies instructions for search engine bots on how to crawl your website. You can tell which pages to crawl and which pages to skip while crawling.

Here’s what a robots.txt file would look like for a WordPress site:

User-Agent: *
Allow: /wp-content/uploads/
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /readme.html
Disallow: /refer/
 
Sitemap: http://www.example.com/post-sitemap.xml
Sitemap: http://www.example.com/page-sitemap.xml

Adding a robots.txt file helps save the crawl quota. A search engine crawler will crawl a certain number of pages during a session. If they don’t finish crawling all the pages on your site, they will resume crawling in the next session.

This can slow down the indexing of your content, and it will appear in search results after some delay. That’s why optimizing the robots.txt file is an important component of the technical SEO framework.

You can disallow pages unnecessary pages like the WordPress admin area, theme folder, plugin files, and more. This way, you get to save the crawl quota and allow search engine bots to crawl even more pages.

On the other hand, you can add sitemaps and other important pages to robots.txt. This way, search engines will crawl and index them as quickly as possible.

A simple way of optimizing the robots.txt file is by using AIOSEO. You can enable custom robots.txt using the plugin and add rules to allow or disallow search engines to crawl.

To learn more, please see our guide on how to optimize your WordPress robots.txt for SEO.

13. Make Sure Google Doesn’t Flag Your Site for Malware

Another important technical SEO checklist item is to ensure your site isn’t flagged by Google for malware or unwanted software.

If your website is a security risk for users, then Google will show the following warning message:

This can be really bad for your WordPress SEO. It will keep people away from visiting your website, and impact your rankings, and overall website traffic.

To scan for malicious files on your website, you can use a WordPress security scanner. At WPBeginner, we use Sucuri as it is the best WordPress firewall and security plugin. It checks for vulnerabilities like malware, spam injection, malicious code, and helps clean up the website.

You can also take a look at our guide on how to fix ‘this site ahead contains harmful programs’ error in WordPress, if Google flags your site for malware.

14. Use Server Side Rendering vs Client Side Rendering

Another technical SEO best practice is ensuring that your site’s JavaScript renders on the server side and not on the client side.

Server-side rendering is when the JavaScript files render on the website server. While client-side rendering is when the JavaScript files render in the user’s browser.

Client-side rendering is bad for your site’s user experience and SEO. All the burden of loading your site quickly falls on the visitor. Plus, search engine bots use JavaScript resources for crawling and indexing your content. This could result in JavaScript content being missed by crawlers and not included in the search engine index.

With server-side rendering, your website server ensures everything loads quickly. This way, you get a better user experience, faster page load speed, and reduce any risk of content being missed from indexing.

One way of ensuring that JavaScript is rendering on your site’s server is by running a site speed test. If your website speed is low, then it could be because of this issue. You can also look at crawled pages in Google Search Console and see if Google missed any content while crawling. If it did, then it could be because of JaveScript-related SEO issues.

That’s it. You’ve made it to the end of the list. You don’t need to go through each and every point in the technical SEO framework at once. Simply go one step at a time and work your way through the list.

We hope this article helped you learn about WordPress technical SEO framework. You may also want to see our comparison of the best keyword research tools, and our proven tips on how to increase your blog traffic.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post 14-Step Technical WordPress SEO Framework (Proven Checklist) first appeared on WPBeginner.

June 23, 2022

How to Add Multiple Locations Schema for Local Business in WordPress

Are you managing a local business website that have multiple physical locations?

In that case, you would need to add local business schema markup for multiple locations on your site, so Google and other search engines can display detailed information about your various business locations.

In this article, we’ll show you how to properly add local business schema markup for multiple locations in WordPress to improve your SEO.

How to Create multiple locations with schema markup in WordPress

Why Create Local Business Schema Markup for Multiple Locations?

Schema markup or structured data is HTML code that provides more details about your content to search engines.

By adding schema markup to the source code of your WordPress website, search engines can easily find the extra information and display it in the search results as featured snippets. For instance, you can show FAQs in search results, add Google Maps in WordPress, display recipes, and more.

If you have multiple business locations like retail outlets, restaurants, or regional offices, then you can display them on Google and Bing search results through schema markup.

For example, if you search for McDonald’s locations in Florida, Google will show you a featured snippet with the different destinations and a map with pinned locations.

Creating multiple local business locations with schema markup helps improve your website SEO rankings.

Since the featured snippets are placed right at the top of the search results, it helps you to increase your click rate in search. That means more organic traffic and more conversions.

That being said, let’s take a look at how you can create local business schema for multiple business locations in WordPress.

Creating Multiple Locations Using Schema Markup

The easiest way of setting up local business schema markup in WordPress is by using the All in One SEO (AIOSEO) plugin. It’s the best SEO tool for WordPress that’s used by over 3 million website owners and professionals.

AIOSEO removes the need for any technical knowledge or hiring an expert to boost your search engine visibility.

For this tutorial, we’ll be using the AIOSEO Pro license because it includes the Local SEO addon which is what you need to dominate local business SEO. It also other powerful features like the redirection manager, advanced sitemap, link assistant, and more. If you’re on a budget, then you can use the free version of AIOSEO to get started with SEO optimization.

The first thing you’ll need to do is install and activate the AIOSEO plugin. For more details, please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you’ll see the setup wizard. Go ahead and click the ‘Let’s Get Started’ button.

After that, follow the onscreen instructions in the setup wizard to configure the plugin. If you need help, then please see our guide on how to properly setup AIOSEO in WordPress.

Next, you’ll need to head over to All in One SEO » Local SEO from your WordPress dashboard and click the ‘Activate Local SEO’ button.

Once the Local SEO addon is active, you’ll see different Location Settings.

Go ahead and click the ‘Multiple Locations’ toggle to enable the option. This will add a new menu in your WordPress admin panel called Locations.

After that, you can scroll down to the ‘Advanced Settings’ section.

Here you can see the permalink AIOSEO will use to show your multiple business locations and location category. If you wish to use a custom link, then simply check the ‘Use custom slug’ box and enter your permalink url structure.

Next, you can also switch on the ‘Enhanced Search’ option, which will include your business locations in your WordPress site search results.

When you’re done, don’t forget to click the ‘Save Changes’ button.

Next, you can go to the ‘Opening Hours’ tab and configure the times for your local businesses.

By default, the ‘Show Opening Hours’ option will be set to Yes. If you don’t want to show opening hours, then simply click the toggle to No.

After that, you can scroll down and change the labels for when your business is open or closed.

There are also options to change the opening and closing timings for specific days or set it to open 24/7.

Note: The opening hours will be used across all the locations you add in WordPress. However, you can disable them for specific locations in the content editor.

AIOSEO also lets you integrate Google Maps with your WordPress website which helps show your local business on Google Maps. For more details, you can see our guide on how to add Google Maps in WordPress.

Next, you’ll need to add your multiple business locations in WordPress.

Adding Multiple Business Locations in WordPress

When you enable the Multiple Locations option in AIOSEO, a new ‘Locations’ option will appear in your WordPress admin panel.

To add your local business locations, simply go to Locations » Add New from your WordPress dashboard.

Next, you’ll need to add your location details in the WordPress content editor. Here you can add a title for your business location, which can be the location name.

Under the title, you can add more details or description about your location. You can also create location categories from the settings panel on your right.

Add title and description for your location

After that, simply scroll down to the AIOSEO Local Business metabox.

In the ‘Business Info’ section, you can add your business name, select a business type (industry), add an image, enter the address for your location, business phone, payment info, area served, and more.

Next, you can switch to the ‘Opening Hours’ tab under the AIOSEO Local Business metabox.

AIOSEO will use the default settings automatically. However, you can disable the ‘Use Defaults’ option and then configure the opening and closing hours for your local business.

Next, you can go to the ‘Maps’ tab and configure how your local business will appear on Google Maps.

For instance, you can change map style and upload a custom marker to pin your location on the map.

When you’re done, go ahead and publish your location page.

Now you can simply repeat this process for other locations you want to add to your WordPress website.

We hope this article helped you learn how to create multiple locations in WordPress with schema markup. You may also want to see our guide on must have WordPress plugins for business websites, and our comparison of the best email marketing services for small business.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Add Multiple Locations Schema for Local Business in WordPress first appeared on WPBeginner.

October 11, 2021

11-Point WordPress SEO Audit Checklist to Boost Your Rankings

Do you want to perform an SEO audit of your WordPress website so you can improve your search engine rankings and get more traffic?

Search engine optimization can be tricky if you don’t know what’s working and what’s not. By performing an SEO audit, you can analyze your site, find opportunities for improvement, and resolve critical issues.

In this article, we’ll go through a WordPress SEO audit checklist to boost your rankings.

What Is an SEO Audit?

Optimizing your WordPress website for search engines is important for attracting more visitors and growing your audience. However, many business owners don’t know if their SEO strategy is working or not.

This is where SEO audit comes in handy. It is a process of finding out if your website is properly optimized to rank better in search results.

By conducting SEO audits, you can also uncover critical issues on your WordPress website that might be stopping you from ranking higher in search engine results.

Then, based on the results from the audit, you can make adjustments to your WordPress SEO strategy, resolve any issues, and optimize your site.

How to Perform an SEO Audit in WordPress

There are many SEO tools in the market that can help you audit your WordPress website. However, not all of them will let you conduct an audit inside WordPress, so you don’t have to leave your site.

To perform an SEO audit of your WordPress website, we recommend using the All in One SEO (AIOSEO) WordPress plugin.

It’s the best SEO plugin for WordPress and helps you optimize your site for search engines without any technical knowledge.

The plugin offers an SEO Analysis Tool that allows you to perform a complete website SEO audit in your WordPress dashboard. It monitors your site and highlights critical issues, and then offers actionable insights to help you boost your organic traffic and keyword rankings.

You can get the SEO Analysis Tool in the AIOSEO free version. There is also a premium version of AIOSEO that offers advanced features like a redirection manager, schema markup, local SEO, powerful sitemap tools, and more.

First, you’ll need to install and activate the AIOSEO plugin. For more details, you can follow our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Once the plugin is active, you can head over to All in One SEO » SEO Analysis from your WordPress dashboard.

Then under the SEO Audit Checklist tab, you’ll see an overall site score and a complete SEO checklist. A score of 70 or above is good, and it means that your site is well optimized for search engines.

AIOSEO will check your website on different parameters. It will then highlight critical issues on your site that could hurt your SEO and provide suggestions for improving your rankings.

AIOSEO is a great tool to use to continuously monitor your site, so you’re aware of any big SEO issues that could hurt your rankings and traffic.

Besides that, it’s smart to do your own SEO audit once or twice a year to make sure everything on your site is working as expected.

The SEO audit checklist below can also help you troubleshoot any sudden drops in traffic, so you can fix the issue and recover your rankings.

That being said, let’s look at the SEO audit checklist for your WordPress blog.

1. Make Sure Your Website is Visible to Search Engines

When conducting a WordPress SEO audit, first you’ll want o make sure that your website is visible to search engines like Google and Bing.

WordPress has a built-in option to prevent search engines from crawling your website. If you’ve enabled that option, then Google or any other search engine will not list your site in the search results.

To view the setting, you can head over to Settings » Reading from your WordPress dashboard. After that, ensure that the ‘Search Engine Visibility option is not checked.

If it is enabled, then simply uncheck the ‘Discourage search engines from indexing this site’ option and click the ‘Save Changes’ button.

You can check and see if your site is indexed in Google by searching site:example.com in Google. Just replace “example.com” with your own domain.

If you just launched your site or recently changed the setting above, then it may take a few days to get indexed. You can also see our guide on how to get new content indexed faster.

2. Ensure That Your Site is Using HTTPS

The next SEO audit checklist item is to find out if your website has an SSL certificate. An SSL certificate encrypts the connection between your user’s browser and your website server.

Google and other search engines will give priority to secure website that use HTTPS over those that are still using HTTP.

You can check if your site is secure by looking for a padlock sign in your browser’s search bar.

If you don’t have an SSL certificate, then see our guide on how to get a free SSL certificate for your WordPress site and how to move your site from HTTP to HTTPS.

3. Check If All Versions of Your URL Lead to the Same Site

Now, you should check that the www and non-www versions or HTTP and HTTPS versions of your URL are redirected to the same website.

For example, if someone enters https://www.example.com, https://example.com, http://www.example.com, or http://example.com in their browser, then they should see the same website.

You can check your primary WordPress URL by going to Settings » General and then look at the address in the ‘WordPress Address (URL)’ and ‘Site Address (URL)’ fields.

If different versions of your site’s URLs don’t redirect to the same location, then Google will consider the two URLs as separate websites.

As a result, it won’t know which URL to prioritize while indexing and could lead to duplicate content issues.

If you’re using AIOSEO, then it will automatically set the proper canonical URL in your site header, which will let Google know of your preference and prevent any issues.

4. Improve Indexing with an XML Sitemap

The next thing to check is whether there’s an XML sitemap and if it’s submitted to search engines.

An XML sitemap helps search engines to find and index your website pages easily. It also allows website owners to tell search engines about the most important pages on their website.

While having a sitemap won’t instantly boost your search engine rankings, it will help search engines crawl your website better.

For example, suppose you’re starting a new website. In that case, a sitemap will help Google or Bing to quickly discover new content on your website, as you won’t have many backlinks initially.

To create sitemaps, you can use the AIOSEO WordPress plugin. Simply head over to All in One SEO » Sitemaps from your WordPress dashboard and go to the ‘General Sitemap’ tab.

After that, make sure that the toggle for ‘Enable Sitemap’ is switched on.

You can also preview the sitemap and use different options provided by the WordPress plugin to edit the sitemap. Besides that, the plugin also allows you to create video, news, and RSS sitemaps for your WordPress site.

Once the sitemap is created, you can submit it to different search engines like Google and Bing. For more details, check out our guide on how to create a sitemap in WordPress.

5. Find and Fix Broken Links on Your Website

A broken link or dead link occurs when a link goes to a page that no longer exists at that URL. In such cases, you’ll see a 404 not found error when you click on the broken link.

Some commons reason why you see a 404 error is because the WordPress site was moved to a new domain, the page was deleted, or it was moved to a new location.

Having a lot of broken links can be bad for your site’s SEO. They can have a negative impact on your keyword rankings and user experience, since search engines and website users won’t find the page they’re looking for.

That’s why when you’re conducting an SEO audit, it’s important to look for dead links and fix them.

To find broken links, we recommend using MonsterInsights. It’s the best Analytics solution for WordPress and it automatically tracks 404 errors on your site in Google Analytics.

MonsterInsights monitors broken links without slowing down your website like other broken link plugins do.

Once you’ve found broken links on your website, you can fix them by setting up 301 redirections.

The easiest way to redirect dead links is by using AIOSEO’s powerful redirection manager. It will also logs 404 errors on your website and allows you to set up redirects.

You can check out our complete guide on how to find and fix broken links in WordPress.

6. Check If You Are Missing Meta Tags

Meta tags are snippets of HTML code that help search engines like Google to understand what a page is about, so it can rank it for relevant searches.

There are different types of meta tags, but the two most important tags are the title tag and meta description. Search engines will use this information to understand the content of the page.

Usually the title tag and meta description are displayed in search results, though Google may sometimes change the text depending on various factors like what that user is searching for.

When performing an SEO audit, you should ensure that the meta tags aren’t missing from your blog posts or product pages.

That’s because your title is the first thing people will read in the search engine page results and decide whether they want to click on your link or not.

Similarly, meta descriptions are short text that appears under your post title and URL on search engine page results. They help in describing your article to search engines and users.

You can add meta tags to any blog post or landing page using AIOSEO. Simply scroll down to the ‘AIOSEO Settings’ meta box in your WordPress editor and add your title and description.

7. Ensure You’ve Got Internal and External Links

The next thing to check during an SEO audit is to make sure that the pages you’re trying to rank have internal and external links.

Internal links are links from other pages on the same website, while external links or outbound links are links to other website. They’re are crucial for your SEO success, yet many business owners overlook their importance.

Search engines follow different links to find and index new pages in the search results. Creating internal and external links allows search engine crawlers to discover new content on your website and boost rankings easily.

Not only that, but links also help your readers to navigate your website or find source for stats and other information.

You can use an SEO tool like Semrush to run a site audit, which will show you any pages that could use more internal links.

If you need help adding links to your site, then check out our guide on how to add a link in WordPress.

8. Measure Your Website Loading Speed

Google uses your website loading speed as a ranking factor. When you’re performing an SEO audit, it’s important to check for things that can slow down your website.

First, you’ll need to find out how fast your website loads for your users.

If you’re already using MonsterInsights, then you can check the Site Speed report inside your WordPress admin area.

Once you’ve connected Google Analytics to your WordPress website, simply head over to Insights » Reports from your WordPress dashboard and click the ‘Site Speed’ tab.

You can see a score for your site’s load time for desktop and mobile. Besides that, the report also shows different metrics that are important for measuring how fast your website is.

Next, if you scroll down, then you’ll notice that MonsterInsights offers recommendations and benchmark goals that you should aim for on your website.

Using the report, you can audit your site and find how to load your web pages faster. For example, you can use a caching plugin to improve the server response time or use a content delivery network (CDN) to boost website speed.

For more tips, you can check out our guide on how to run a site speed test, and then see our ultimate guide to boost WordPress speed and performance.

9. Make Sure Your Site is Mobile-Responsive

The next item to check in a WordPress SEO audit is whether your website is mobile responsive or not.

Google uses your site’s mobile version for indexing, instead of desktop. If you want to boost your rankings, then your website needs to be mobile-ready.

To find out how mobile-friendly your website is, you can use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test tool. Simply enter your site’s URL and click the ‘Test URL’ button.

The tool will now analyze your website and show the test results whether your site is mobile-ready or not.

If your website isn’t optimized for mobile, then you can change your website theme and select a responsive WordPress theme. See our guide on how to properly change your WordPress theme so you don’t lose any data or traffic.

10. Scan for Malware and Unwanted Vulnerabilities

Another essential thing to check while conducting an SEO audit is to scan for security risks. If Google Safe Browsing flags your website for malware or unwanted software, then it will show a warning to your visitors.

This can hurt your SEO, as people will avoid visiting your site. Google will also lower your rankings since your site contains malware and harmful programs.

To remove malware and other suspicious files from your website, you’ll need a WordPress security scanner.

At WPBeginner, we use Sucuri as it’s the best WordPress firewall and security service. It checks your website for malicious code, malware, spam injection, and other vulnerabilities and helps clear your site.

Sucuri also monitors your site for potential threats 24/7 and blocks any suspicious activity, hacking attempts, DDoS attacks, and more. Not only that, but it also helps in protecting the server-side.

If Google Safe Browsing flags your site as unsafe, then check out our guide on how to fix ‘this site ahead contains harmful programs’ error in WordPress.

11. Track Your Keyword Rankings for Drop in Traffic

Finally, it’s important to keep track of your keyword rankings when conducting an SEO audit and check their positions in case there’s a drop in traffic.

Keeping an eye on your keyword rankings not only helps you see which search terms people use to find your website, but you can also find opportunities to get even more traffic.

To track your keyword rankings, you can use Google Search Console. First, you’ll need to add your WordPress site to Google Search Console.

Once that’s done, you can log in to your Google Search Console account and head over to the ‘Performance’ report. Next, scroll down and see the search queries your site is ranking on.

Besides using Google Search Console, you can also use an SEO tool like Semrush to track keyword rankings.

Semrush is a popular keyword rank tracker tool that’s used by many professional marketers and SEO experts. All you have to do is enter your site’s URL in the ‘Organic Research’ option and click the ‘Search’ button.

From here you can view your top keywords, track their positions, and even monitor position changes.

If you’re seeing your rankings decline, you can use our guide on how to optimize your blog posts for SEO so you can recover your traffic and rankings.

We hope this article helped you learn how to perform a WordPress SEO audit using the checklist and boost your rankings. You may also want to check out our guide on the best email marketing services and our comparison of best keyword research tools.

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