WordPress SEO Audit Checklist to Boost Your Rankings

Here is an essential WordPress SEO audit checklist to help boost your website’s rankings:

Yes, it is possible to automatically post to Facebook from WordPress. Here are a few ways to do this:

1. Use a plugin: Several WordPress plugins allow you to automatically post to Facebook. Some popular options include the official Facebook for WordPress plugin and third-party plugins like Social Media Auto Publish and Revive Old Post.
2. Use IFTTT: IFTTT (If This Then That) is a web-based service that allows you to create “recipes” that connect different web services. You can use IFTTT to automatically post new WordPress posts to Facebook by completing a recipe that triggers a Facebook post whenever a new post is published on your WordPress site.
3. Use Zapier: Zapier is similar to IFTTT, it is a web-based service that allows you to connect different web services. You can use Zapier to automatically post new WordPress posts to Facebook by creating a “zap” that triggers a Facebook post whenever a new post is published on your WordPress site.
4. Use the Facebook API: The Facebook API allows developers to interact with the social media platform programmatically. This can be used to automatically post to Facebook from WordPress by using a script that uses the API to publish new posts as they are created.

Note that for some of the above options you need to have a Facebook developer account and a Facebook App, also you need to have the right permissions and access tokens to be able to post on your Facebook account

You can change the color codes in the function to match your desired color scheme.

It is recommended to test this code before applying it on a live website, in a development/staging environment.

How Is an SEO Audit?

An SEO audit is a process of analyzing and evaluating a website’s performance and visibility in search engines, to identify areas for improvement and make recommendations for increasing its search engine rankings.

Here are the general steps involved in an SEO audit:

1. Gather data: Collect data on your website, including analytics, backlinks, and keyword rankings.
2. Analyze technical SEO: Check for technical issues affecting your website’s search engines visibility, such as broken links, duplicate content, and crawl errors.
3. Evaluate On-page SEO: Examine the quality and relevance of your website’s content, as well as its structure and organization, and make recommendations for improvement.
4. Analyze off-page SEO: Analyze the quality and quantity of backlinks pointing to your site, and evaluate the authority and relevance of the linking websites.
5. Create a report: Compile all the data and information gathered from the audit into a report that summarizes the findings and recommends specific actions to improve the website’s search engine visibility.

A comprehensive SEO audit will take into account the website’s technical, on-page, and off-page SEO. It’s important to note that SEO is an ongoing process, so regular audits are recommended to check the website’s performance and make adjustments as needed.

There are several audit tools and software that can help you with the process, such as SEMrush, Ahrefs, and Moz, but they require a subscription to use them.

What is Performing an SEO Audit in WordPress?

Performing an SEO audit in WordPress is the process of analyzing and evaluating a WordPress website’s performance and visibility in search engines, to identify areas for improvement and make recommendations for increasing its search engine rankings.

The steps involved in performing an SEO audit in WordPress are similar to a general SEO audit, but with a focus on specific aspects of a WordPress website:

1. Gather data: Collect data on your website, including analytics, backlinks, and keyword rankings.
2. Analyze technical SEO: Check for technical issues that could be affecting your website’s search engines visibility, such as broken links, duplicate content, and crawl errors. Pay special attention to the site’s indexability, mobile optimization, and page speed
3. Evaluate On-page SEO: Examine the quality and relevance of your website’s content, as well as its structure and organization. Also, check for internal linking, meta tags, header tags, and if the site is using an SEO plugin.
4. Analyze off-page SEO: Analyze the quality and quantity of backlinks pointing to your site, and evaluate the authority and relevance of the linking websites.
5. Create a report: Compile all the data and information gathered from the audit into a report that summarizes the findings and recommends specific actions to improve the website’s search engine visibility.

It’s important to note that when performing an SEO audit in WordPress, you should also check for any issues related to the theme, plugins, and custom development that might affect the site’s performance.

There are several audit tools and software that can help you with the process, such as SEMrush, Ahrefs, and Moz, but they require a subscription to use them. Some of them have a free version, but they limit their functionality.

How to Make Sure Your Website is Visible to Search Engines?

Here are some steps you can take to ensure that your website is visible to search engines:

1. Submit your website to search engines: Submit your website’s URL to Google, Bing, and other search engines to ensure that they are aware of your site’s existence and can begin crawling and indexing it.
2. Create a sitemap: Create a sitemap that lists all of the pages on your website and submit it to search engines. This will help search engines understand the structure of your site and make it easier for them to crawl and index your pages.
3. Use keywords strategically: Use keywords in your page titles, meta descriptions, and throughout your content to help search engines understand the topic of your pages and improve their rankings.
4. Optimize your images: Use descriptive file names and alt tags for your images to help search engines understand the content of your images.
5. Use internal linking: Use internal linking to help search engines understand the relationship between the pages on your site and make it easier for them to crawl and index your pages.
6. Build quality backlinks: Build backlinks from high-quality and authoritative websites to your site. Backlinks are one of the most important ranking factors for search engines.
7. Use schema markup: Use schema markup to help search engines understand the content of your pages and provide rich snippets in search results.
8. Use Google Search Console: Use Google Search Console to monitor your website’s performance in search results, identify any issues and submit your sitemap.
9. Make sure the site is mobile-friendly and responsive: With the rise of mobile device usage, it’s important to make sure your website is mobile-friendly and responsive to ensure that it is accessible to all users.

It’s important to note that SEO is an ongoing process, and keeping up with the latest SEO best practices, as well as monitoring your website’s performance in search results, is crucial for maintaining and improving your website’s visibility.

How to Ensure That Your Site is Using HTTPS?

There are several ways to ensure that your site is using HTTPS:

1. Purchase an SSL/TLS certificate from a trusted certificate authority (CA) and install it on your web server.
2. Use a service like Let’s Encrypt, which offers free SSL/TLS certificates that can be easily installed on your web server.
3. If you’re using a content delivery network (CDN), check if it offers HTTPS support and enable it.
4. Use a plugin or extension that can force your site to use HTTPS, such as “Really Simple SSL” for WordPress.
5. Check the URL of your site and make sure it starts with “HTTPS” instead of “HTTP”.

Once you have implemented HTTPS on your site, it is important to monitor your site for security and make sure your SSL certificate is up to date.

How to Check If All Versions of Your URL Lead to the Same Site?

There are a few ways to check if all versions of a URL lead to the same site:

1. Use the “site:” operator in a Google search. For example, “site:example.com” will show all pages indexed by Google that are on the example.com domain.
2. Use a tool like Xenu’s Link Sleuth, which can check a website for broken links and redirects.
3. Use a tool like the Redirect Checker, which can check if a URL is redirecting to another URL.
4. Use browser extensions like Check My Links, which can check all the links on a webpage and highlight any that are broken or redirecting.
5. Use a command-line tool like cURL to check the HTTP status code returned by the URL. A status code of 200 indicates that the page is accessible, while a status code of 301 or 302 indicates a redirect.

It is important to note that the website owner can configure their webserver to redirect requests from certain versions of the URL to another version, which can result in all versions of the URL leading to the same website.

How to Improve Indexing with an XML Sitemap?

An XML sitemap is a file that lists all the URLs of a website in a structured format, which makes it easy for search engines to find and index the pages on a website. To improve indexing with an XML sitemap, you should:

1. Ensure that the XML sitemap is accessible to search engines. This can be done by submitting the sitemap to the search engines through their webmaster tools or by including a link to the sitemap in the robots.txt file of the website.
2. Keep the XML sitemap up-to-date. As new pages are added to the website, they should be included in the sitemap and the last modified date updated.
3. Include all important pages in the sitemap. This should include all pages that you want to be indexed, including the main pages and any important sub-pages of the site.
4. Use correct priority and change frequency. These are optional tags in the sitemap that can help the search engines understand which pages on the site are more important than others and how often they change.
5. Submit the sitemap to Google and Bing Webmaster Tools. This will help these search engines find your sitemap and improve the crawling and indexing of your site.
6. Monitor the sitemap’s performance. You can use webmaster tools to see which pages from the sitemap have been indexed and track any crawling errors.

By following these steps, you can ensure that your XML sitemap is effective in helping search engines find and index the pages on your website.

How to Find and Fix Broken Links on Your Website?

There are a few ways to find and fix broken links on your website:

1. Use a tool like Xenu’s Link Sleuth, which can scan your website for broken links and generate a report that shows the broken links and their location on the site.
2. Use browser extensions like Check My Links, which can check all the links on a webpage and highlight any that are broken or redirecting.
3. Use Google Search Console, it has a feature that allows you to see crawl errors that Googlebot encountered on your site, which includes broken links.
4. Manually check the links on your website. This can be time-consuming but is a good way to identify broken links that might not be found by automated tools.

Once you have identified the broken links, you can fix them by:

1. Updating the link to point to the correct URL.
2. Removing the link if it is no longer necessary.
3. Redirecting the broken link to a relevant page on your website.
4. Replacing the broken link with a relevant resource, if the link is important.
5. Use a custom 404 page that allows users to navigate through the website.

It is important to regularly check for broken links and fix them as soon as they are discovered, as broken links can negatively affect the user experience and the search engine optimization of your website.

How to Check If You Are Missing Meta Tags?

Meta tags provide information about a web page to search engines and users. To check if you are missing meta tags, you can use the following methods:

1. Use browser developer tools: Most modern browsers have built-in developer tools that allow you to view the source code of a webpage and inspect its meta tags. You can access these tools by right-clicking on a webpage and selecting “Inspect” or “View Page Source”.
2. Use online tools: There are online tools such as Meta Tag Analyzer or SEO Site Checkup that allow you to check the meta tags on your website by entering the URL of the page you want to check. These tools will show you a report of the meta tags found on the page, including any that are missing.
3. Check the code of your webpage: You can check the code of your webpage by viewing the source code of the page, to look for the meta tags, like <title>, <meta name=”description”>, <meta name=”keywords”>, <meta name=”robots”>, etc.
4. Use a crawler: Use a website crawlers tool like Sitebulb, Screaming Frog, or Ahrefs, which will crawl your website and provide a detailed report of the pages, including the meta tags found on each page.

It is important to have the right meta tags, like the title and description, on each page of your website, as they can have a significant impact on the visibility of your website in search engine results pages (SERPs) and the user’s first impression of your website.

How to  Ensure You’ve Got Internal and External Links?

There are a few ways to ensure you have internal and external links on your website:

1. Check your website’s navigation menu: The navigation menu is a good place to start as it should contain links to the main pages of your website. Check that all the pages of your website are linked to the navigation menu.
2. Use a website crawler tool: A website crawler tool like Sitebulb, Screaming Frog, or Ahrefs will scan your website and provide a detailed report of all the links on your website, including both internal and external links.
3. Check your website’s sitemap: If your website has a sitemap, this is a great place to check for internal links. Make sure that all the pages of your website are listed in the sitemap and that they are all properly linked.
4. Check your website’s content: Check the content of your website for links, both internal and external. Make sure that your website’s content contains a healthy mix of both internal and external links.
5. Monitor your website’s backlinks: Use a backlink checkers tool like Ahrefs, Majestic, or SEMrush to monitor the backlinks to your website. This will help you identify any missing external links, and also allow you to see where your website’s links are coming from.

It’s important to have a good mix of both internal and external links on your website, as internal links help users navigate your website and external links help to establish your website’s authority and credibility.

How to Measure Your Website Loading Speed?

There are a few ways to measure the loading speed of your website:

1. Use online tools: There are several online tools available, such as Google PageSpeed Insights, GTmetrix, and Pingdom, that allow you to measure the loading speed of your website by entering the URL of the page you want to test. These tools will provide a report that includes the loading time, the size of the page, and suggestions for improving the loading speed.
2. Use browser developer tools: Most modern browsers have built-in developer tools that allow you to measure the loading speed of a webpage. You can access these tools by right-clicking on a webpage and selecting “Inspect” or “Developer Tools”.
3. Use website analytics tools: Some website analytics tools, such as Google Analytics, can track the loading time of your website pages. This allows you to see how the loading speed of your website changes over time and identify any issues.
4. Use the browser’s network tab: When you open the developer tools of your browser, you can find the network tab. This tab will show you how long it takes for each file to load, the size of each file, and the type of file it is.
5. Use monitoring tools: There are monitoring tools that can measure your website’s loading speed from different locations and at different times. This can help you identify issues that may only occur under certain conditions.

It is important to regularly measure the loading speed of your website as it can affect the user experience and search engine optimization of your website. Slow loading speeds can lead to a high bounce rate and low conversion rate.

How to Make Sure Your Site is Mobile-Responsive?

There are a few ways to make sure your site is mobile-responsive:

1. Use online tools: There are online tools such as Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test, which allows you to test the mobile responsiveness of your website by entering the URL of the page you want to test.
2. Check your website on different mobile devices: View your website on different mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets, to see how it looks and behaves on different screen sizes.
3. Use browser developer tools: Most modern browsers have built-in developer tools that allow you to simulate different screen sizes and viewports. This can help you see how your website will look on different mobile devices.
4. Use website analytics tools: Many website analytics tools, such as Google Analytics, can track the number of visitors to your website from mobile devices. This allows you to see how many of your visitors are coming from mobile devices, and if the numbers are high, it’s an indication that your website needs to be mobile-responsive.
5. Look for common issues: Common issues on the mobile-responsive website are, text that is too small to read, buttons that are too close together, and links that are too close to the edge of the screen.
6. Test your website on different mobile platforms: Test your website on different platforms like Android, iOS, and Windows to make sure it is responsive on all platforms.

A mobile-responsive website is important as it allows users to easily view and interact with your website on mobile devices, which can improve the user experience and help with search engine optimization.

How to Scan for Malware and Unwanted Vulnerabilities?

There are a few ways to scan for malware and unwanted vulnerabilities on your website:

1. Use online tools: There are online tools such as Google Safe Browsing, Norton Safe Web, and Sucuri SiteCheck, which allow you to scan your website for malware and other security issues.
2. Use malware scanning software: There are software programs available, such as Malwarebytes, that can scan your website for malware and other security issues.
3. Use a website firewall: A website firewall, such as Sucuri or Cloudflare, can help protect your website from malware and other security threats by blocking known malicious traffic before it reaches your website.
4. Use a website monitoring service: A website monitoring service, such as Site24x7, can alert you to any unexpected changes on your website, such as the addition of new files or changes to existing files.
5. Keep your software up-to-date: Keep all the software that your website runs on, such as the CMS, web server, and any plugins or themes, up-to-date. This can help to fix any known vulnerabilities that have been discovered and patched.
6. Have a regular security audit: Have a regular security audit by an expert, to check for any vulnerabilities or weaknesses in your website, and help you to identify any areas that need improvement.

It is important to regularly scan for malware and unwanted vulnerabilities on your website, as they can negatively affect the user experience and the reputation of your website.