WordPress SEO: What to Fix Before Publishing Your Next Page

SEO works best as part of the publishing process, not something bolted on after a page has been live for months. Here is what we check before anything new goes out.

Before you hit publish

• One clear H1 that matches what the page is actually about
• A meta description written to earn a click, under about 155 characters
• A URL slug that is short and readable, not a copy of the full title
• At least one or two internal links to genuinely related pages
• Image alt text that describes the image, not stuffed with keywords

After it is live

Check that the page is indexing correctly in Search Console within a week or two, and keep an eye on which query it starts showing up for – it is often not the keyword you originally had in mind, which tells you something useful about actual search intent.