Most WordPress SEO advice is 5,000 words of theory. This is the opposite: the exact checklist to run on any site, in order. Steps 1–8 take about 30 minutes total.
The foundation (do once)
1. Clean permalinks — Settings → Permalinks → "Post name". No dates, no ?p=123.
2. One SEO plugin — Rank Math or Yoast, never both (our comparison settles the choice).
3. Submit your sitemap in Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.
4. Force HTTPS + one host — www or non-www, pick one, 301 the other.
5. Speed basics — caching plugin, WebP images, and a theme that doesn't ship 2MB of JavaScript.
The per-page work (automate it)
6. Focus keyword on every page.
7. Title under 60 chars, keyword first.
8. Meta description 120–155 chars with a reason to click.
9. Schema markup — Article or Product on every important page.
10. Image alt text, everywhere.
Doing 6–10 by hand across an existing site is weeks of tedium, so start with your most-visited pages and work down. For new articles, the free Automizer app checks each one against the Rank Math and Yoast tests before it publishes.
The growth loop (ongoing)
11. Instant indexing — every new URL pushed to Google's API and IndexNow (why this matters).
12. Consistent publishing — the compounding step everyone skips. If writing is the bottleneck, the free Automizer app writes and publishes SEO-checked articles on schedule from your PC while you sleep — our auto-blogging guide shows the full setup.
