Common WordPress SEO Problems I Fix
Over hundreds of WordPress audits, I have identified the issues that appear most frequently — and cause the most damage.
Slow page speed from plugins tops the list. I regularly audit sites running 30 or more plugins when 12 would suffice. Each redundant plugin is dead weight. I identify which plugins are essential, which can be replaced with lightweight alternatives, and which should be removed entirely.
Poor permalink structure is surprisingly common. Sites running default permalinks (the ?p=123 format) or overly complex URL structures with dates and categories baked in are leaving rankings on the table. I restructure URLs to be clean, keyword-relevant, and flat — then handle redirects so you do not lose any existing authority.
Thin taxonomy pages — tags, categories, and custom taxonomies — often index hundreds of near-empty pages. These waste crawl budget and create duplicate content signals. I audit every taxonomy, noindex or consolidate where appropriate, and ensure the ones that remain are genuinely useful to both users and search engines.
Missing schema markup is another gap I frequently close. WordPress does not output structured data by default, and many themes only add the most basic schema if any at all. I implement custom schema — FAQ, HowTo, LocalBusiness, Article, Product — to give your pages the best chance of earning rich results.
Render-blocking resources slow down your Largest Contentful Paint and hurt your Core Web Vitals scores. I defer non-critical JavaScript, inline critical CSS, and ensure your above-the-fold content loads as quickly as physically possible.
Poor mobile performance rounds out the usual suspects. With Google's mobile-first indexing, a WordPress site that only works well on desktop is a site that will not rank. I test across devices and fix layout shifts, tap target issues, and viewport problems that harm your mobile experience.
If any of these sound familiar, a technical SEO audit is the logical starting point.