Resources
Checklists you can actually work through.
No email gate, no download form. Two checklists for two different jobs: one takes a WordPress site from setup through every post you publish, with the exact plugin menus; the other audits the technical health of any site, whatever it runs on.
Which checklist do you need?
Use the WordPress SEO checklist if you run a WordPress site and want one list to follow from setup through every post you publish. Use the technical SEO checklist if you need to know whether a site of any kind is technically sound: before or after a migration, after a redesign, or when traffic falls and the content has not changed. A WordPress site that has never had a technical audit needs both.
| At a glance | WordPress SEO checklist | Technical SEO checklist |
|---|---|---|
| Built for | WordPress owners, bloggers and small teams who run their own site | Developers, technical SEOs and agencies auditing a site on any platform: WordPress, Shopify, Webflow, headless or static |
| Size | 47 items in 6 sections: initial setup, technical settings, on-page, content quality, schema markup, ongoing optimization | 42 items in 7 categories: crawlability and indexing, speed and Core Web Vitals, mobile and rendering, URL structure, structured data, security and site health, international and headless |
| Format | Each item says why it matters, where to check it and how to fix it, naming the screen in WordPress, Rank Math, Yoast SEO or Search Console | Each item says why it matters, how to check it and how to fix it, with the free tool or Search Console report to use |
| Leaves out | Server and CDN diagnostics, JavaScript rendering, hreflang, HSTS, and keyword research | Titles, descriptions and other on-page copy, WordPress plugin settings, backlinks, and migration planning |
| How often | Setup once; on-page and content items for every post; technical items monthly; the ongoing routine weekly or monthly | Monthly if you publish weekly, quarterly for quieter sites, and straight after a migration, HTTPS change, permalink change or redesign |
Who should use which
- You are launching a WordPress site, or just took one overWordPress checklist, starting with Initial Setup. Those seven items (SEO plugin, search engine visibility, Search Console, sitemap, permalinks, HTTPS, site title and timezone) are done once, and everything else builds on them.
- You publish on WordPress every weekThe On-Page SEO and Content Quality sections of the WordPress checklist for every post before it goes live, and the Ongoing Optimization section as your weekly or monthly routine.
- Pages are dropping out of Google, or traffic fell for no clear reasonTechnical checklist, Crawlability and Indexing first. A stray noindex, a robots.txt rule or a broken canonical can remove pages faster than any content problem, and nothing else on either list helps until those are ruled out.
- You are migrating, changing domain, moving to HTTPS or redesigningTechnical checklist before the change, to record a baseline, and again straight after it, while problems are still cheap to undo.
- Your site is not on WordPressTechnical checklist. The WordPress checklist’s plugin steps will not apply, although its on-page and content standards still do.
- You assume Rank Math or Yoast already handles SEOWordPress checklist. Once configured, the plugin covers sitemaps, canonicals and base schema; the checklist shows which settings to confirm and which work, like titles, internal links and content, stays yours on every post.
- You audit sites for clientsTechnical checklist for the audit itself. For clients on WordPress, hand over the Ongoing Optimization section of the WordPress checklist as the routine that keeps your fixes in place.
Where the two overlap
Both lists check robots.txt, the XML sitemap, canonical tags, Core Web Vitals, redirect chains and structured data. On a WordPress site, do those once: the WordPress checklist gives the plugin route, and the technical checklist adds what WordPress settings cannot reach, such as JavaScript rendering, server headers and crawl traps.
How to work through them
- Indexing before anything else. Rewriting titles on a page Google is not indexing changes nothing, so start with the indexing items on whichever list you use.
- Both lists run on free tools: Google Search Console, PageSpeed Insights, the Rich Results Test and Screaming Frog’s free crawler, which handles up to 500 URLs. Neither needs a paid subscription.
- Write down what you changed and when. Search Console shows the effect weeks later, and a dated note is the only reliable way to connect a change with what happened next.
- The tick boxes are not saved: they clear when you reload the page. If you will work through a list over several sittings, print it or save it as a PDF from your browser first.
Only have an hour?
Do the four items that catch the most damage for the least effort. Confirm the site is verified in Search Console and the sitemap is submitted. Open Indexing → Pages and check that your most important URLs are listed as indexed. Run PageSpeed Insights on the homepage and your busiest post. Then sort the Performance report by impressions and rewrite the title of the page with the most impressions and the weakest click-through rate. The rest of either list can wait for a second sitting.
Would rather not work through these by hand? RankHive audits your WordPress site every week and drafts the fixes for your approval.