1. Web Hosting

Before you make the leap to a hosting service provider, ask yourself these questions:

• Do they have support for plugins?
• What type of backup support do they offer?
• Is there a staging environment?
• What is the volume of bandwidth?
• Which operating system are they using? Linux? Windows?
• What other sites are in your IP range?

For more information on choosing a web hosting provider, read this post.

Web hosting provider recommendations:

• Kinsta.
• Flywheel.
• SiteGround.
• Cloudways.

SEO benefits:

• Increased website speed.

2. CDN

The way your web manages static content including photos, javascript, and CSS is altered by a CDN. A CDN stores the static content to speed up page loading, reaction time, and total website speed – all of which makes you rank higher in search engines.

CDN recommendations:

• Cloudflare.
• MaxCDN.
• Incapsula.

SEO benefits:

• Increased website speed.
• Lower response time.

3. SEO-Friendly Theme

Clean and quick code: You can reduce page load time and improve crawlability by using a clean code layout.

SEO-friendly WordPress recommendations:

• Divi theme.

• Genesis theme.

• Astra theme.

• GrowthPress theme.

SEO benefits:

• Increased website speed.
• More pages indexed.

4. Cache Plugin

Cache plugin recommendations:

• WPRocket (my personal favorite).
• W3 Total Cache.
• Cache Enabler.
• WP Fastest Cache.
• WP Super Cache.

SEO benefits:

• Increased website speed.
• Increased site performance.

5. Categories

If your pages aren't useful to search engines (for example, archived pages), noindex them.

 

Your categories in WordPress are the general topics of your blog posts, whether you're blogging about health, travel, clothes, or something else.

 

Think of categories as a table of contents for your website. Also, if you don't categorize your post on WordPress, it will end up in the "uncategorized" list, which is useless to everyone.

 

 

Recommendations for categories:

• Stick to broad subjects. Personally, I choose five generic products with new content per month.
• Each article can only have one or two categories.
• Remember to update the taxonomy and archive pages with new material.
• Per category should describe a keyword that a user might type into a search engine.

Advantages in SEO:

• The customer interface has been improved.
• Allows quick access to sites that need to be indexed.

6. Tags

Tag suggestions are as follows:

• Keep your tagging to the subjects you discussed in the post.
• Not every post needs tagging.
• Tags should be simple and sweet, with no more than two sentences.
• Delete tags that are overused or underused on a monthly basis.

Advantages in SEO:

• The customer interface has been improved.
• Increased User participation.

7. Permalinks

Example of an SEO friendly permalink:

www.searchenginejournal.com/how-to-optimize-wordpress/

Example of a not-so-SEO-friendly permalink:

www.searchenginejournal.com/?p=2043

Permalink recommendations:

• The default WordPress plugin is not SEO-friendly according to Google, so update your settings.

• Post name option is a safe choice because this makes URLs short.
• If you’re a larger site, you may want to include dates or categories before the post name option.
• Leave out “&,” “?,” “!” characters in the URL.
• Use hyphens (-) instead of underscores (_).

SEO Benefits:

• Increased crawlability with search engines.
• Better search rankings when keywords are used.

8. Spam Comments

Spam comment recommendations:

• Disallow anonymous posting.
• Use CAPTCHAs to prevent automated spamming.
• Use the “nofollow” attribute.
• Disallow hyperlinks.
• Use the Askimet plugin to monitor spam comments.

Here’s a screenshot of what you get with the Askimet plugin:

SEO benefits:

• Improved site credibility.

9. Meta Titles, Meta Descriptions, & More

Meta titles and descriptions recommendations:

• Download the Yoast SEO plugin.
• Optimize your Content Type settings.

SEO benefits:

• Increased click-through in SERPs.

10. XML Sitemaps

XMP Sitemap recommendations:

• In the Yoast SEO plugin tab, go to General, then Features.

• Swipe to turn on the XML sitemap.

• Head over to Google Search Console, under Crawl, then Sitemaps.

• Click Add Sitemap and submit.

SEO benefits:

• Faster crawlability.

11. Internal Linking

Internal linking recommendations:

• Link to pages deep on your website.
• Link as naturally as possible for the reader.
• Use a reasonable amount of links (i.e., 100 internal links for a 1,000-word blog is not reasonable).

SEO benefits:

• Creates a clean site architecture.
• Distributes page authority throughout the site.

12. Image Alt Tags

Image alt tag recommendations:

• Name your image file name a natural keyword-rich phrase. I always include my brand name.
• Write a descriptive image alt tag description.
• Complete the image alt attribution description with your brand name.

SEO benefits:

• Better user experience.
• Higher chances to show up in image search.

13. Header Tags

Header tag recommendations:

• Name your image file name a natural keyword-rich phrase.
• Write a descriptive image alt tag description.
• Complete the image alt attribution description with your brand name.

SEO benefits:

• More readable, easy-to-digest content for readers.
• Increased user engagement.

14. The rel=”canonical” Tag

rel=”canonical” tag recommendations:

• If your content is being published on another website, then use the Yoast SEO plugin to add the rel=”canonical” tag.

SEO benefits:

• Eliminate duplicate content issues.

15. Robots.txt

robots.txt recommendations:

• Disallow wp-admin in your robots.txt file.
• Allow all other quality content to be indexed in the robots.txt file.
• Add your sitemap to the bottom of your robots.txt file.
• Edit your robots.txt file in Yoast SEO plugin > Tools > Editor.

SEO benefits:

• Eliminate duplicate content issues.

16. Broken Links

Broken links recommendations:

• Download Integrity or Xenu and fix whatever external links are popping up.
• Use Yoast SEO’s Redirection to fix your 404 errors listed in Google Search Console’s crawl errors.

SEO benefits:

• Better user experience.

17. Backup Your Site

Backup recommendations:

• Backup your website using the cPanel if you’re feeling tech-savvy.
• If the cPanel sounds like something out of Short Circuit, then opt for a plugin like Backup Buddy.

SEO benefits:

• Peace of mind.

Reference: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/wordpress-seo/wordpress-site-launch-checklist/