WordPress: Core SEO Setup and Best Practice

Ensuring your WordPress website is correctly optimised for search engines from the ground up.

This guide explains how to review, adjust and optimise the key SEO elements in WordPress. You’ll learn how to make sure your site is visible, structured, and ready for Google and AI-powered search engines to index and rank effectively.

Why Core SEO Setup Matters

Your core SEO setup determines how well search engines understand your site’s structure, pages and purpose. Getting these foundations right ensures your content and updates are properly crawled and indexed by Google, Bing, and AI tools like ChatGPT and Gemini.

Neglecting the basics can lead to missing pages in search results, poor click-through rates, and wasted content effort.

Step-by-Step: Reviewing Core SEO Settings in WordPress

Step 1: Check Search Engine Visibility Settings

1. Log in to your WordPress dashboard.

2. Go to Settings > Reading.

3. Make sure “Discourage search engines from indexing this site” is unchecked.

4. Save changes.

If this box is ticked, your entire website may be hidden from Google. Always double-check this setting before publishing or launching your site.

Step 2: Set a Clear Site Title and Tagline

1. Go to Settings > General.

2. Enter your Site Title (your brand or business name).

3. Write a Tagline (a short, keyword-relevant description of what your site offers).

For example:

• Title: “Harbour Automation”

• Tagline: “Smart home technology and automation experts in Poole.”

Your title and tagline often appear in Google search results and help both users and search engines understand your focus.

Step 3: Install and Configure an SEO Plugin

Go to the Plugins - Plugins > Add New > Search “Yoast SEO” or “Rank Math”

An SEO plugin gives you full control over how your pages appear in search results. The two most popular options are:

• Yoast SEO

• Rank Math

The plugin Yoast SEO offers a long-proven, beginner-friendly interface with strong readability analysis but limits key features such as multiple focus keywords and redirects to paid upgrades. Rank Math provides a richer feature set even in its free version—such as multiple keyword support, built-in redirects, and enhanced schema markup—but has a steeper learning curve and fewer years of track record.

Once installed:

1. Complete the plugin’s setup wizard.

2. Enter your site name, logo, and social links.

3. Ensure the sitemap feature is enabled.

4. Connect to Google Search Console when prompted.

Both plugins provide a live “SEO analysis” for each page you edit, showing how well your content is optimised for target keywords.

Step 4: Set Up Your Permalinks (URL Structure)

To do this go to: Settings > Permalinks > Common Settings

Please read this guide to help you decide on the setup - Customize permalinks

1. Go to Settings > Permalinks.

2. Select Post name for a clean, search-friendly URL format.

   • Example: https://yourdomain.com/seo-guide/ instead of https://yourdomain.com/?p=123.

3. Save changes.

This makes your URLs descriptive and readable by both people and search engines.

Step 5: Enable HTTPS (SSL Certificate)

1. Check your site loads securely using https:// rather than http://.

2. If not, contact your hosting provider and request an SSL certificate (often free via Let’s Encrypt).

3. Update all internal links and settings to use HTTPS.

Google prioritises secure websites in search rankings, and browsers now show warnings for insecure sites.

Step 6: Create and Submit a Sitemap

1. In your SEO plugin settings, make sure XML Sitemap is turned on.

2. Copy your sitemap URL (usually https://yourdomain.com/sitemap_index.xml).

3. Go to Google Search Console and submit this URL under Sitemaps.

Your sitemap tells Google which pages to index and how often they’re updated, improving crawling efficiency.

Step 7: Review and Optimise Robots.txt

Your robots.txt file controls which parts of your site search engines can or can’t access.A simple example:

User-agent: *
Allow: /
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Sitemap: https://yourdomain.com/sitemap_index.xml

This allows all public content to be indexed while hiding admin areas.

Step 8: Optimise Page Titles and Meta Descriptions

For each page or post:

1. Scroll down to the SEO plugin section.

2. Enter a Focus Keyword that matches your content goal.

3. Add a Title (under 60 characters) and Meta Description (under 160 characters).

Example:

• Title: “Home Automation Experts in Poole | Harbour Automation”

• Meta Description: “Smart home design, installation and support for Poole and Bournemouth homes. Discover comfort and control with Harbour Automation.”

Your SEO plugin will show a green light when your title and description are the right length and include the focus keyword naturally.

Step 9: Optimise for Mobile and Speed

1. Visit PageSpeed Insights - https://pagespeed.web.dev/

2. Enter your website URL and review your score.

3. Follow any recommendations to improve performance, such as:

   • Compressing images.

   • Enabling caching (via plugins like WP Rocket or LiteSpeed Cache).

   • Reducing unused plugins or large scripts.

Mobile speed and usability are key ranking factors for both Google and AI search visibility. There is documentation on the Pagespeed homepage to explain the terms. As Wordpress is a platform with a lot of options it is best to follow the biggest gains then run the analysis again and understand the impact. 100% for all metrics is possible but not realistic - above 80 should be the aim.

Step 10: Add Structured Data (Schema)

Schema helps search engines understand your business details, services, and products.Your SEO plugin (Yoast or Rank Math) can automatically add basic schema, but check these are correct:

• Business name and logo

• Address and contact details

• Type of business (e.g. LocalBusiness, Organisation, Product)

This can improve your visibility in rich search results and AI summaries.

Step 11: Connect Google Tools

Make sure your site is connected to:

• Google Search Console – tracks indexing and performance. Guide here: Verify your site with Google Search Console.

• Google Analytics – measures visitor activity and conversions. Guide here: Connect to Google Analytics.

• PageSpeed Insights – monitors site performance.

  
  

These tools give you real data to guide future SEO decisions.

Quick Wins Checklist

✅ Search engines allowed to index site

✅ SSL (HTTPS) active

✅ SEO plugin installed and configured

✅ Sitemap submitted to Google Search Console

✅ Clean “Post name” permalinks

✅ Descriptive titles and meta descriptions

✅ Robots.txt verified

✅ PageSpeed score above 80

✅ Schema markup active

✅ Connected to Google Analytics and Search Console

Key Takeaway

WordPress gives you a strong foundation for SEO — but only if the key settings are reviewed and maintained. By following this checklist, you’ll ensure your site is easy for search engines to crawl, index, and rank — setting you up for better performance in both Google and AI-driven search results.

The Wordpress eco-system can be a little complex to make sure you read and plan ahead for any changes. There are a set of useful detailed guides here.

Keep your setup simple, secure, and regularly reviewed. Even small technical improvements can lead to major visibility gains over time.