Technical SEO: what to fix first on WordPress

Most sites I audit do not need more blog posts first. They need the basics fixed in the right order so search engines can crawl, index, and understand what is already there.

I have worked with technical SEO and WordPress since 2008 and built tools like SEO Perception and SEO Booster because I got tired of guessing. Here is the order I use when a client asks what to fix first.

1. Can Google crawl and index the right pages?

Start with coverage and crawlability, not keywords.

• Check Google Search Console → Pages / Indexing: what is indexed, excluded, or soft-404?
• Review robots.txt and meta robots: are important URLs accidentally blocked?
• Confirm canonical tags point to the URL you want indexed - especially on paginated archives, parameter URLs, and trailing-slash variants
• Map redirect chains and 404s on money pages
• Confirm the XML sitemap is submitted and returns 200 without junk URLs

If the right pages are not in the index, nothing else matters yet. This is the foundation of technical SEO work I do for clients.

Search Console triage I actually do

1. Sort indexing issues by affected URL count and business impact
2. Sample 5–10 money pages: status, canonical, robots, sitemap presence
3. Note templates that fail together (all tags, all filters, all paginated archives)
4. Fix the template or rule once - not URL by URL forever

2. Fix indexation waste

Next, stop Google from spending crawl budget on junk:

• noindex thin or duplicate archives if they add no value
• Consolidate duplicate paths (www/non-www, http/https, slash variants) with 301s
• Clean up sitemap entries so they match pages you actually want indexed
• Remove faceted / filtered URLs from the index when they create near-duplicates

On WordPress, common culprits are tag archives, attachment pages, and search result URLs getting indexed. A small robots or SEO plugin tweak often fixes more than a month of content writing.

Also watch for:

• Old /page/2/ archives of thin content
• Print or AMP leftovers still linked somewhere
• Staging or “dev” subdomains that leaked into the index

3. Structured data and entity clarity

Once crawl and indexation look sane, make the facts machine-readable:

• Organization and Person schema on about/home pages
• Service or Product schema where you sell something specific
• BreadcrumbList on inner pages
• FAQPage only where FAQs are visible on the page (not hidden filler)
• Article / BlogPosting with coherent datePublished / dateModified

Structured data does not guarantee rich results, but it reduces ambiguity - for Google and for AI systems pulling quotes. This overlaps with AI & GEO visibility work: clear entities help citation engines too.

4. Internal linking and site architecture

Then improve how authority flows:

• Orphan pages (in sitemap but no internal links) are a frequent find
• Important service or product pages buried three clicks deep rank worse than they should
• Anchor text that says “click here” wastes context

I often produce a short internal link map: homepage → money pages → supporting posts. No need for a 200-line spreadsheet - just fix the obvious dead ends.

5. Core Web Vitals and performance (when they block crawling or users)

Speed is not always step one, but it matters when:

• LCP or TTFB is so poor that users and bots bounce
• Server errors spike under load
• Render-blocking assets prevent primary content from loading

See PageSpeed & Performance and WordPress Core Web Vitals for how I approach CWV without breaking WordPress. Performance and SEO are not the same project, but they share a queue.

6. Content and keywords - after the plumbing works

Only now does keyword research and new content usually pay off. Publishing into a site with indexation holes, duplicate canonicals, or broken schema is expensive busywork.

If you use SEO Perception, its AI/LLM readiness checks fit naturally after step 3 - once entities and crawl paths are coherent.

What I need from you to start

• Search Console access (or an export of coverage issues)
• CMS/admin access for WordPress or your stack
• A list of money pages - what actually drives leads or sales

I will return a prioritized fix list, not a 40-page PDF nobody reads. Implementation can be me, your dev team, or a mix.

Related reading: SEO Perception: what to fix next · SEO Booster and Search Console in WordPress

Need a technical baseline before your next content sprint? Tell me about your site.