WordPress powers a large share of Sri Lankan business websites. It's SEO-friendly out of the box, but common setups with heavy themes, too many plugins and default settings hold many sites back. Here's how to get WordPress SEO right.
1. Check the basic settings
- Settings, Reading: make sure "Discourage search engines from indexing this site" is unticked. It's often left on after a site launches, hiding the whole site from Google.
- Settings, Permalinks: choose Post name (
/sample-post/), not?p=123or date-based URLs. - Settings, General: use your HTTPS address for both WordPress Address and Site Address.
2. Choose one SEO plugin
Yoast SEO, Rank Math or SEOPress all handle the essentials:
- Custom title tags and meta descriptions per page
- XML sitemaps
- Canonical tags
- Basic structured data
- Social sharing images
Install one, not several. Two SEO plugins create duplicate tags and conflicts.
3. Configure the plugin properly
- Set title templates for posts, pages and categories
- Noindex thin archives: tag pages, author archives on single-author sites, date archives and attachment pages
- Enable the XML sitemap and submit it in Search Console. See XML sitemaps.
- Fill in your organisation details for structured data
4. Write each page's title and description
Don't rely on the defaults. Write a unique title and meta description for each important page. See title tags and meta descriptions.
5. Choose a lightweight theme
Multipurpose themes with dozens of demos and built-in sliders load a lot of code on every page. Lightweight themes like GeneratePress, Kadence or Astra, or a well-built block theme, are much faster.
If you use a page builder, use it carefully, and avoid stacking several builders and add-ons.
6. Speed up WordPress
- Caching: use one caching plugin (WP Rocket, LiteSpeed Cache if your host uses LiteSpeed, or W3 Total Cache)
- Image optimisation: compress and convert to WebP. See image SEO.
- Fewer plugins: deactivate and delete plugins you don't use
- Good hosting with recent PHP. See hosting and SEO.
- CDN such as Cloudflare
More in website speed for Sri Lankan mobile users.
7. Use headings correctly
Each page should have one H1, usually the page title, then H2 and H3 headings for sections. Some themes wrap the logo or widget titles in H1 or H2 tags; check with your browser's inspector.
8. Keep WordPress secure
Hacked WordPress sites can be flagged by Google and lose rankings.
- Update WordPress core, themes and plugins regularly
- Use strong passwords and two-factor authentication
- Remove unused themes and plugins
- Use a security plugin and daily backups
- Avoid "nulled" (pirated) themes and plugins; they often contain malware
9. Fix common WordPress SEO problems
- Attachment pages indexed as thin pages: redirect them to the file or parent post
- Category and tag overlap: use categories for structure; use tags sparingly or noindex them
- Duplicate content from pagination and archives
- Broken links after changing permalinks; set up 301 redirects
10. WooCommerce stores
WooCommerce adds product, category, cart and filter URLs that need attention. See the ecommerce SEO guide.
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