Top 9 WordPress Technical SEO Issues to Address

WordPress, which has a market share of that is just below 65%, has been the top CMS platform in the world for many years.

WordPress is a favorite among bloggers, small businesses, ecommerce sites, news websites and even experienced professionals. This is due to its ease of use, customization options and active community.

WordPress does a great deal of heavy lifting for you.

This software is SEO-friendly right out of the gate. It has clean code, semantic marking, and a structured that search engines are able to easily crawl and understand. It’s easier to index and rank your content in search engine result pages (SERPs) with this approach.

Every WordPress blog is not perfect.

As a WordPress blog auditor, I can say with confidence that focusing on certain technical aspects is the fastest and easiest way to improve SEO, increase traffic, and boost bottom-line RPMs.

You can make your WordPress website as technical as possible by following these top priorities.

1. Install Google Analytics 4 by July 31

Google has been warning us since over two years ago that Google Analytics 4 will replace Universal Analytics as of July 1,. Many site owners have not yet switched to the new system.

The search engine will migrate your properties for you from UA into GA4 ( unless is selected).

They also say that because the GA4 setup is different, it’s better to do it yourself so you can be sure you are happy with your choices.

Google offers an interactive Quickstart Tutorial to help you set up your new GA4 account in parallel with your existing GA3 Universal setup.

WordPress users can add tracking to their website using two popular plugins: Google Site Kit or Code Snippets.

Here is a tutorial that explains how to use the Google Site Kit plugin for GA4.

Here’s an example of how to use the Code Snippets plugin with GA4.

2. WordPress Core Web Vitals:

Core web vitals and page performance are ranking factors that deserve your attention.

Focus on the bottom line recommendations to ensure that 99 out 100 WordPress blogs pass CWVs.

Compressing images

I recommend Imagify or Shortpixel. Focus on compressing images to less than 200KB or maximum.

Cheap hosting is not a good idea

Avoid hosts with names like “Gator”, “Blue” and “Gator”.

I recommend Big Scoots and Agathon. Invest in WordPress managed hosting.

Use a CDN

A CDN (content distribution network) stores files on multiple servers around the world and delivers them to users from the closest location. Cloudflare makes a great choice.

Invest in quality caching software

WP Rocket is my recommendation. This plugin, when set up correctly will remove 99% of the PageSpeed Insights CSS and JavaScript warnings.

Create a site with a high-quality theme

All of the choices are good: Genesis, Feast Kadence and Astra.

It’s not the best option if it’s “free”.

Optimize fonts

While custom fonts are flashy and attractive, “system fonts”, on the other hand, load much faster.

Paginate Comments

Paginating comments reduces the number of DOM nodes on a page and its size, improving speed.

Show the newest comments first.

The goal of passing Core Web Vitals, is to reduce the size of pages and optimize delivery on-page elements. By focusing on the strategies above, you can solve both of these WordPress priorities.

A permalink internal redirect allows you to change an existing permalink into a new one within your website.

This helps to maintain the SEO value for your website. It does this by avoiding broken hyperlinks, 404 errors and other issues which can damage your website’s rankings in search engines.

This can be done by adding a redirection rule to your website’s file.htaccess or by using a plugin like Redirection, or Yoast.

For example, links to https://sample.com/2022/02/sample-url.htm can be redirected to https://sample.com/sample-url/ and links from https://sample.com/sample-url can be redirected to https://sample.com/sample-url/.

The problem is that many site owners do not perform a “find-and-replace” to convert all of the old URL internal links to the new ones (without using the previous permutation).

According to Google, unnecessary server jumps and HTML redirects must be avoided because they reduce the authority and PageRank of your site.

Additional HTTP redirects may add up to two network roundtrips, or even three if a DNS lookup is needed. This can result in hundreds of milliseconds extra of latency when using 4G networks. We encourage webmasters, to reduce the number of redirects and, if possible, eliminate them entirely. This is particularly important for HTML documents (avoid the “m dot”, redirects).

Contact your host to have them scan your website to find the problem. Install a plugin such as Search and Replace and fix this problem yourself.

Edit internal links in content to reflect new URLs, especially if redirections have been implemented. Internal redirects add to the complexity of the server and can annoy customers.

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Terms.

Have you ever been browsing a website and clicked on every link, only to have it open in a separate tab? It’s pretty annoying, isn’t it? ?

Most users are still confused by the correct behavior of link targets. The best practice for link targets is to simplify it as much possible:

Common sense is the best way to describe it.

It is annoying to have multiple tabs/windows open on your mobile device while you are navigating the same website.

The problem of “tab fatigue” is a serious one that should be combated.

Comparatively, having all internal links open in one tab while a user navigates a website average increases the chances that the user will stay on the domain for longer.

It is possible to track the path of the user throughout the entire journey. This is a simple SEO 101, and it’s a good UX practice.

Understanding that the accessibility of links is a key component to link behavior.

You have taken away the choice of the user by forcing all links to open in a new tab.

Inform the user whenever you force links into new tabs. WP External Links is a great plugin to use for marking a link that opens in a brand new tab.

Broken links can be a major source of frustration for users. If a user navigates your site, and then hits a 404 error message, they won’t return.

Google says that 404s and 503s are not indicative of poor quality. They can impact crawl quality because they interrupt the flow of link value between pages. This can have an effect on the ranking of internal pages.

Each broken link must be repaired as quickly as possible.

Broken Link Checker is a handy, open-source plugin developed by the folks at WPMU DEV.

The “Classic Version”, which I recently relaunched, still works best. I recommend using this plugin once a week to fix and find issues.

External SEO tools such as Semrush, Sitebulb or Screaming Frog are also available to WordPress users. They all do a good job of surfacing both internal and external 503s and 404s.

6. Improve internal anchor text

The anchor text should be relevant to the link. This will help users understand what they can expect when they click on it. This helps search engines determine the contextual relevance of pages.

SEO-wise, anchor text such as “Read more” and “Here” are essentially useless.

These pages are not contextually relevant to the user and they miss an opportunity to link two pages that are logically and linguistically related.

In a similar vein, the use of the same anchor text for links to internal pages that are similar creates an issue with content cannibalization.

If I, for example, have four “banana-bread recipes” but use the same anchor text “banana-bread” on each of them, I cannibalize any ability I may have to rank these independently. This is a confusing signal for Google.

Selecting detailed anchor texts is a simple way to improve your SEO ranking. Google will be able to rank and find your best content easier.

Perhaps I should use “gluten free banana bread” or “instant pot banana loaf” instead to differentiate my recipes? This will help me to avoid any possible topical dilution, and increase my ranking.

Link Whisper is the best plugin for WordPress users to use to leverage the power of internal links.

This plugin is available in both a free and premium version.

Internal links are one of the best ways to increase traffic. This plugin automates the process.

7. Optimizing sidebars

It’s ironic to see that webmasters don’t pay enough attention to the sidebars on their pages.

WordPress blogs have traditionally used sidebars to display things like blogrolls or email embeds.

In a world dominated by mobile devices, where most users never see a sidebar, its value has been lost.

Do not this!

The sidebar is a vital tool for linking within the site and discovering new content.

A typical site should have a sidebar that is fully optimized to show off popular content or seasonal content. Rotate the content to reflect changes in seasons and holidays.

The sidebar may be hidden on mobile but it still contains links that are very important.

8. Reinforcing E-E-A-T in 2023

WordPress blogs offer multiple ways to support individual authors and teams.

Search Engine Land’s overview article on E.E.A.T covers each component in greater detail.

For our purposes, a WordPress blogger can have a significant impact on their E-E.A.T by focusing primarily on the following:

This list isn’t exhaustive, but it gives a quick overview of how WordPress users can influence E-E.A.T over the long-term.

9. Accessibility concerns

You’re in for a rude awakening if you don’t know your legal obligations to make your WordPress site accessible. Accessibility lawsuits have been on the rise and whole websites track them every month.

You should immediately focus on the following important accessibility aspects:

Use alt text to provide information for screen readers.

Alt text is and not a place where you can stuff keywords. It should only be 12-16 words long and describe the image.

End it with a period to ensure that the screen reader can recognize the end of your description.

Color contrast ratios should be considered when designing.

Inadequate color contrast is the most common cause of ADA harassment suits against bloggers.

Make sure that all links and colors on your website meet accessibility standards. For example, requires a contrast ratio of 4.5:1 or more.

Add an accessibility policy for your website

This will let your visitors know that you are working to improve the site.

You can link to a policy for free from the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative in your footer.

Learn how to use headings

The main way that users with disabilities can navigate through a website is by using headings. They must be arranged in a certain order.

Never use an H3 without an H2 before it. Don’t just use a title because it is in a font or size you like.

Here’s an excellent guide to headings: Guidelines for Modern Page Headings.

The use of plugins that “solve” accessibility has increased significantly.

The founders of the Yoast Digital Accessibility plugin for WordPress have recently announced an equity investment.

This looks promising. the majority of overlays and automated access fixes are disliked by those they are meant to assist. It’s still too early to tell if this plug-in will be adopted. Stay tuned.

All WordPress users can achieve success in technical SEO.

There has never been a time when being a WordPress blog was more competitive.

WordPress can do a lot for you but it is not perfect. This is a list of popular action items that you should be aware of.

Even small changes in technical SEO can have a significant impact on the return of investment for a blog.

If you can master the topics covered in this article, I promise that your users and you will enjoy a more successful year. Good luck!

The first Search Engine Land article to appear was Top nine WordPress technical SEO issues that need to be addressed.

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