12-Point WordPress SEO Audit Checklist to Boost Your Rankings

Ever watched your organic search traffic drop and had no idea why?

Often the real cause is something you’d least expect. It could be a WordPress setting that got turned off, a broken redirect, or even a page quietly telling Google to ignore it. Problems like these can cost you real money if not fixed quickly.

That’s where an SEO audit can help. In this guide, we’ll walk you through our 12-point WordPress SEO audit checklist that you can use with free tools to find the hidden SEO issues holding your site back and fix them one by one.

Here is a quick overview of the topics we’ll cover in this guide:

Part 1: Make Sure Google Can Find Your Website

Before you optimize anything else, you need to make sure search engines can actually find your website. If Google can’t crawl and index your pages, then no SEO improvements will make a difference.

1. Ensure You’re Not Accidentally Blocking Search Engines

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

WordPress has a built-in search engine visibility option to prevent search engines from crawling your website. Make sure this option is not enabled on your website.

To view the setting, you can head over to Settings » Reading from your WordPress dashboard.

Next, you’ll want to check your robots.txt file. A healthy robots.txt file typically blocks only areas that don’t need to appear in search results, such as the WordPress admin section, while still allowing essential files to be crawled.

You can view it by typing your domain followed by /robots.txt into your browser (for example, example.com/robots.txt).

User-agent: *
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Allow: /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php

Sitemap: https://example.com/sitemap.xml

If you see a rule that reads Disallow: /, your entire website is blocked from search engines. Remove that rule or replace it with a more specific path, such as Disallow: /private-folder/, if you only want to hide part of your site.

Even when your site-wide settings are fine, a single post or page can still be set to noindex. You only need to check this if an important page has suddenly stopped ranking or disappeared from Google.

To check if a page was accidentally set to noindex, you can look at the source code of that page. Visit the page, right-click anywhere, and select View Page Source (or Inspect, depending on your browser)

Next, search the page source for noindex by pressing Ctrl + F on Windows or Cmd + F on a Mac.

If you find a tag like <meta name="robots" content="noindex" />, that page has been instructed not to appear in search results. This is often caused by a page-level setting in your SEO plugin. Most WordPress SEO plugins, including AIOSEO and Yoast SEO, let you control whether individual pages can be indexed. That means fix is similar regardless of which plugin you’re using

If you’re using AIOSEO, open the affected post or page in the editor, scroll down to the AIOSEO Settings box, click the Advanced tab, then find the ‘Robots Meta’ section and enable ‘Use Default Settings’.

Once you update the post, Google will be able to find, crawl, and rank your page again during its next visit.

2. 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.

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.

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 find your primary WordPress URL by going to Settings » General. Here, look at the address in the ‘WordPress Address (URL)’ and ‘Site Address (URL)’ fields.

It’s also a good idea to actually test this rather than assume it works. Type each version of this address into your browser (the www and non-www versions, plus the http and https versions) and confirm that each one lands on the exact same URL.

If you’re using an SEO plugin, then it will automatically set the proper canonical URL in your site header. A canonical URL simply tells Google which version of a page is the ‘master’ copy, which lets Google know your preference and prevents duplicate content issues.

You can confirm this tag is in place by opening a page, right-clicking, and choosing ‘View Page Source’. Then search the code for ‘canonical’, and you should see a line similar to <link rel='canonical' href='...'> that points to the correct version of the page.

3. Make Sure Your XML Sitemap Is Working and Submitted

An XML sitemap is a file that lists your pages, posts, and other content, helping search engines discover and index everything more efficiently.

WordPress automatically creates a basic XML sitemap for you (you’ll find it at yourdomain.com/wp-sitemap.xml).

To get more control over your sitemap, it’s recommended to generate a custom sitemap in WordPress with an SEO plugin.

For example, if you’re using AIOSEO, you can check if your sitemap is enabled by going to All in One SEO » Sitemaps » General Sitemap in your WordPress dashboard. Then, make sure that the toggle for ‘Enable Sitemap’ is switched on.

After creating the sitemap, you need to submit it to Google and Bing. For the full steps, see our guide on how to submit your website to search engines.

If you’ve already submitted the correct sitemap, then it’s worth taking a moment to check in Google Search Console that your sitemap shows a ‘Success’ status, not ‘Couldn’t fetch’ or ‘Has errors.’

Part 2: Fix Technical SEO Errors

Even when Google can find your site, technical problems like slow load times, a poor mobile experience, or broken links can still hold your rankings back.

Let’s fix them one at a time.

4. Check and Fix Your Core Web Vitals and Site Speed

Google uses page speed as one of many ranking factors, so a slow website can hurt your search rankings. Not only that, but faster WordPress websites are also crawled much more efficiently by search engine bots.

Typically, a website is considered slow if it takes more than 2 to 3 seconds to load. Before doing anything else, you’ll need to find out how fast your website loads for your users by running a speed test.

The quickest free way to do this is with Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool.

The PageSpeed Insights tool provides you with specific suggestions to fix what is slowing your pages down, for both mobile and desktop versions of your site.

You should also pay attention to your Core Web Vitals. It is a yardstick Google uses to measure a website’s overall user experience based on three metrics. Take a look at those metrics and the thresholds Google defined to pass the assessment.

• Largest Contentful Paint: It measures how quickly the main content on your page becomes visible to users. The score must be below 2.5 seconds
• Cumulative Layout Shift: It measures the visual stability of your page as it loads. The score must be below 0.1
• Interaction to Next Paint: It measures how long it takes for your site to provide visual feedback after a user interacts with it. The score must be below 200 milliseconds

For more tips, check out our guide on how to optimize Core Web Vitals for WordPress.

5. Audit Your Mobile-Responsive User Experience

Google exclusively uses the mobile version of a website’s content for indexing and ranking. If your mobile site has less content or a poorer layout than your desktop version, your search engine rankings will suffer.

When you open your website on your phone, pay close attention to these specific usability factors:

• Font Sizes: Body text should be at least 16 pixels so users do not have to pinch-to-zoom.
• Tap Targets: Buttons and links need to be at least 48×48 pixels with plenty of breathing room around them to prevent accidental clicks.
• Pop-ups: Avoid intrusive overlays that block the main content and are difficult to close on a small screen.
• Horizontal Scrolling: Users should only ever scroll vertically. If content stretches sideways, the page layout is broken.

6. Find and Fix Broken Links on Your Website

A broken link or dead link points to a page that no longer exists. When someone clicks it, they land on a 404 Not Found page instead of the content they were expecting. Both visitors and search engines hit a dead end, which hurts your user experience and rankings.

You will need to find these broken links and redirect them to working pages on your website.

One free option for finding broken links is the Broken Link Checker. This plugin scans for broken links and shows a report inside your WordPress dashboard.

See our complete guide on how to find and fix broken links in WordPress for the full walkthrough.

While you’re reviewing redirects, it’s also smart to look for redirect chains. This happens when one URL redirects to a second URL, which then redirects to a third, which hurts your SEO.

To fix a redirect chain, make sure the original URL redirects straight to the final destination instead of passing through multiple intermediate URLs.

Part 3: Find Opportunities to Improve Your Rankings and Traffic

Now that Google can find your site and your technical foundations are solid, you can focus on the quick wins that push your rankings higher and bring in more traffic.

7. Use Google Search Console to Find SEO Opportunities

Google Search Console is one of the best free tools for finding ways to grow your traffic because it shows you exactly how people are already finding your site.

For example, you can look at your top pages. Then compare the keywords now versus 3 months ago (or your preferred time frame). Figure out what happened during the time and why.

Ask yourself these questions:

• Did you make any major changes to your website, content, or SEO around the time rankings changed?
• Is your content still the best result for that search, or is it outdated or missing important information?
• Did search intent change? Are people now looking for something different than when you first published the page?
• Are there new keyword opportunities where you’re ranking on page 2 or near the top of page 1 that could improve with a few updates?

Once you know the reason, you can update your content strategically instead of making random SEO tweaks.

8. Check Whether Your Pages Show Up in AI Search

Ranking in Google is no longer the only kind of visibility that matters.

More people now get answers from AI tools like Google’s AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini, and these tools often name and link the sources they pull their answers from.

Google Search Console also now has a dedicated Generative AI performance report. It shows your impressions from AI Overviews and AI Mode.

Google is still rolling this report out to all websites across the globe, so if you don’t see it in your account yet, it’s coming.

If you want more detailed insights, Semrush One tracks your brand’s visibility across AI search platforms with in-depth reporting.

Alternatively, if you want AI visibility data right inside WordPress, then you might want to check out the AI Suite feature in AIOSEO.

9. Optimize Your SEO Titles and Meta Descriptions

Meta tags are snippets of HTML code that tell search engines what a page is about. The two most important are the title tag and the meta description, which usually appear as the clickable headline and summary in search results.

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

You can add meta tags to any blog post or landing page using a free SEO plugin, like AIOSEO.

To add your meta title and description, simply scroll down to the ‘AIOSEO Settings’ meta box in your WordPress editor.

When writing or updating your titles, here are a few rules we follow:

• Keep it under 60 characters. Google cuts off longer titles in the search results, so place your most important keywords near the start.
• Check the competition first. Search Google for your target keyword and look at the titles and descriptions already ranking on the first page.
• Beat them, don’t copy them. Ask yourself how you can make your headline clearer, more compelling, or more useful than what’s already out there.

You can also use you WPBeginner Headline Analyzer to craft titles that stand out in search results and attract way more clicks.

10. Improve Your Internal Linking

Internal links connect one page on your site to another, and they help search engines discover new content and pass authority from page to page.

When auditing your site, check whether you’re actually linking to your most important pages. Ask yourself: can a visitor reach your pillar content directly from your homepage or your main navigation menu?

If your most important pages are buried five clicks deep, Google will assume they aren’t very important and won’t rank them as high.

You should also make orphan pages an explicit part of your SEO audit. An orphaned page is one that has no internal links pointing to it from anywhere else on your site. This makes it hard for both readers and search engines to find the orphaned page.

For a detailed walkthrough, see our guide on how to find and fix orphan pages.

11. Check Your Images are Optimized for SEO

Unoptimized images can slow down your site and cost you rankings in Google Image Search, so make sure to check image SEO in every SEO audit.

There are two main things to check.

First, make sure every image on your site has an alt attribute. In WordPress, this is simply known as Alternative Text or Alt Text.

Alt text tells search engines what an image shows and also improves accessibility for users who rely on screen readers.

Second, check whether your images are adding unnecessary load time to your pages. Large, uncompressed image files are one of the most common causes of slow WordPress sites.

To compress and optimize your images automatically, you can use an image optimization plugin.

12. Verify Schema Markup on Key Pages

Schema markup is structured data that helps search engines interpret your content more accurately, which can improve how your pages appear in search results.

This means they may display it as rich results in the search listings, like star ratings, product prices, or recipe cards.

Rich results stand out visually in search results and typically earn higher click-through rates than standard listings. So, adding schema markup to your key pages is a straightforward way to improve your search appearance without changing your content.

If you sell products, Product schema is especially valuable. It can add details like price, availability, and review stars to your search listings, which helps your products stand out.

Popular SEO plugins like AIOSEO, Rank Math, and Yoast all allow you to add schema markup to your pages from WordPress with no coding required.

For a full walkthrough of the different schema types and how they appear in search results, see our beginner’s guide on how to use rich snippets in WordPress.

Once you’ve added schema markup, you can verify that it’s working correctly using Google’s Rich Results Test. Simply enter a page URL and the tool will show you which rich result types are properly added to that page and flag any errors.

Grab the free downloadable version of this checklist below:

Frequently Asked Questions About SEO Audits (FAQ)

Below are answers to some of the most common questions we get about performing an SEO audit in WordPress.

1. How often should you perform an SEO audit on your website?

It is smart to conduct a comprehensive SEO audit at least once or twice a year to make sure everything is working correctly. You should also perform an audit if you notice a sudden or unexpected drop in your website’s traffic to troubleshoot the cause.

2. Can I perform an SEO audit for free?

Yes, you can perform a basic SEO audit for free. Tools like Google Search Console provide valuable data about your site’s performance.

3. What tools do I need for a WordPress SEO audit?

You can run a thorough SEO audit using a combination of free and paid tools.

For technical analysis, use AIOSEO’s built-in SEO Analysis tool and Google Search Console. For speed and performance, use PageSpeed Insights. For content and keyword data, use the Google Search Console Performance report.

If you want more advanced features like detailed backlink analysis or competitor research, paid tools like Ahrefs or Semrush are popular options.

4. What should I do after completing an SEO audit?

After completing your audit, create a prioritized list of issues to fix.

Start with the highest-impact items first, such as indexability issues, broken links, and missing meta tags.

Once you have made your changes, track your keyword rankings using Google Search Console to see whether your updates are making a difference.

We hope this WordPress SEO audit checklist helped you find and fix issues on your website. You may also want to see our ultimate WordPress SEO guide to improve your rankings, and our pick of best keyword tracking software to keep track of the rankings.

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