WordPress SEO: Essential Settings and Best Practices

WordPress is a widely used content management system and is fairly SEO-friendly out of the box. But a few settings and habits make a real difference.

1. Check that the site is visible to search engines

In Settings > Reading, make sure the option that asks search engines not to index the site is unchecked. It is sometimes enabled during development and forgotten at launch, which can prevent indexing.

2. Choose a clean permalink structure

In Settings > Permalinks, favor a readable structure, such as "Post name" (/my-article/), rather than an address with numbers. Choose the structure from the start: changing it later requires redirects.

3. Use a reliable SEO plugin

An SEO plugin makes it easy to manage:

• each page's title tags and meta descriptions;
• noindex directives and canonical URLs;
• structured data and breadcrumbs;
• the XML sitemap and redirects, depending on the plugin.

A single SEO plugin is enough: stacking several creates duplicates and conflicts.

4. The XML sitemap

WordPress generates a sitemap by default, and most SEO plugins offer a more configurable one. Check that only one sitemap is active, that it contains only pages to be indexed, then submit it in Search Console.

5. Control archives and low-value pages

WordPress creates archive pages (categories, tags, authors, dates) that can produce very redundant content. Set the ones with no search value to noindex, and don't create large numbers of tags, each with a single post.

6. Take care of speed

• Choose a lightweight, well-coded theme.
• Set up caching and, if possible, a CDN.
• Compress images and use modern formats.
• Limit the number of plugins and remove those no longer needed.
• Choose hosting suited to your traffic.

7. Content and structure

• Use categories logically and sparingly.
• Add internal links in your posts.
• Write a unique H1 per page via the post title.
• Fill in the alt text of images.

8. Security and maintenance

• Update WordPress, the theme and plugins: a hacked site quickly loses visibility.
• Use HTTPS and strong passwords.
• Make regular backups.
• Monitor Search Console to catch a problem quickly.

9. Common mistakes

• Leaving the search engine block active after launch.
• Installing several SEO plugins or several caching plugins that contradict each other.
• Changing permalinks without redirects.
• Publishing empty or redundant archive and tag pages.

With these basic settings, a WordPress site is well placed to be crawled, understood and perform well. The rest depends on the quality of your content.