Give your WordPress site that SEO edge

Search engine optimisation looms over every website. You want people to find your site. You want them to land on the right page, click the right thing and maybe even make a purchase. But for many website owners, SEO seems like a dark art — something that either needs piles of money or years of training to accomplish.

But here's some good news. WordPress gives you a head start. With a bit of structure, some smart thinking and the right plugin, even a small site can climb the rankings.

Follow the tips below, and your WordPress site will be racing towards the top of the results in no time.

The basics

These often get overlooked when setting up a WordPress site, but they can make a world of difference to how well your content performs in search results.

Your permalinks and file structure

When WordPress creates a new post, it automatically gives it a file name like ?p=123. Which, let's face it, means nothing to you, nothing to your visitors — and definitely nothing to a search engine.

To change this, head to Settings > Permalinks in your WordPress dashboard. You'll see options to make your site far more search-friendly.

If you're running a blog or publishing time-sensitive content, the "Day and name" or "Month and name" formats will automatically organise your posts by date. They also include the title in the file name, so instead of ?p=123, you'll have something like /2025/08/the-best-feather-cat-toys.

If you don't need the date, the "Post name" format is a good choice — clean, simple and descriptive. You can also customise the structure to include things like categories, tags, or author names.

For example, if you had a collection of catnip toys under your "Cat Toys" category, you could have the permalink be /cat-toys/catnip-toys. Or if you tagged some of your posts with "Veronica the Siamese Cat", it could be /veronica-the-siamese-cat/guess-who-got-into-the-dreamies.

Whichever approach you take, using meaningful post names will already give your SEO a noticeable boost. And make sure you apply the same logic to any Pages you create too.

Your titles

Once your permalinks are sorted, your titles are next.

Good titles are clear, succinct and reflect what people are actually searching for (you've sorted your keyword strategy, right?). For example, "The reason I spend hours cleaning" doesn't really tell your visitor — or any search engine — what your post is about. But "What to do when your cat sheds"? That's something people might actually type into Google, so will much more likely rocket up the search results.

Spend some time in Mangools Keyword Finder, Semrush's Keyword Overview, or check out Answer the Public to understand what sort of questions people are searching for. These three tools will give you a good guide on what to call current (and future) pages.

Your formatting and theme

You can optimise your content as much as you like, but without a good site layout and structure to support it, you'll just hit a ceiling and never reach the right audience.

Headings aren't just great for breaking up text into clear sections (as you can see from this post), they also point search engines to specific phrases, giving you an easy way to focus on certain keywords. See how you can break up your text, and then, when in WordPress, put the heading on a new line, then choose "Heading" from the menu that pops up. Headings follow a numerical order, so there should only be one <h1> on the page, then go for <h2>s, <h3>s, and <h4>s as needed.

Your theme plays a role too. Page speed is a major SEO factor, and a slow, outdated theme can drag everything down. Aim for something lightweight, modern and responsive to keep things fast and accessible, especially on mobile.

There's a reason people care so much about Core Web Vitals. A site that loads quickly and behaves well helps your SEO and keeps visitors happy.

The Plugins

Once you've done the groundwork, a good WordPress SEO plugin can help tie everything together. These tools help fine-tune your meta data, give real-time content recommendations and keep your technical SEO neat and tidy in the background.

Here are five of the most popular out there, and what they can provide.

Yoast

One of the most popular plugins full stop. Yoast helps you optimise each post by choosing a keyword or phrase and then checking how well your content supports it. It also builds an automated sitemap and makes it easier to manage your metadata.

Want more features like local SEO, automatic redirects, or AI-powered suggestions? You can get Yoast SEO Premium, which starts at £9.90 per month.

All in One SEO

All in One SEO is really that — all in one. Whether you're needing recommendations on how to include your best keyword into your post, want to make sure your site looks great in the search engine page results, or need to make sure your OpenGraph information is in place for social media, AIOSEO does it all.

It does come with a caveat — it will install other plugins to give you the full experience. If you don't want to crowd your site with too many plugins, you can deactivate them individually, but you will lose out on some of the added features they provide.

And if you need a little more, AIOSEO Pro adds advanced features like redirects, Google Search Console integration and internal link recommendations. It starts at around £90/year.

Rank Math SEO

Another powerful, all-in-one SEO plugin, with many premium features available for free. Rank Math covers local SEO, automated sitemaps, keyword suggestions, content scoring, and more. If you sign up for a free Rank Math account, you also get access to other free features, such as an SEO audit and AI content recommendations.

Rank Math SEO Pro starts at around £6 a month and gives you even more keyword options, automated sitemaps and support, as well as more credits to use in your AI content recommendations.

Slim SEO

If the plugins above feel like they have too much going on, and you just want something lightweight that'll check your site, make sure all your meta tags, schema and OpenGraph details are in place, and gives you a place to do redirects, Slim SEO might be for you.

It doesn't offer keyword recommendations or AI tools, but if you already know what you're doing and you just want to make sure the basics are covered, this is a fast little plugin that'll make quick work of your SEO.

Slim SEO Pro starts at around £44/year and includes advanced features like link checking and custom schema.

The SEO Framework

The SEO Framework is the perfect balance between the big SEO plugins and something small like Slim SEO. It not only gives you detailed keyword recommendations, it also shows you where you need to do added work on your posts directly from the Posts page — no need to go into each post to make sure you're doing good.

The SEO Framework is absolutely free, but if you want even more features, such as blocking comment spam, connecting your site to Meta Pixel or Google Analytics, or getting detailed keyword recommendations, you can download and install their Extension Manager, which lets you install whatever you want to use. And this detailed plugin actually starts out free as well, then increases in price to around £5/month.

The Results

With a bit of structure, the right tools and a dash of keyword insight, even a basic WordPress site can do well in search.

And when you pair that with a fast, secure, and reliable hosting setup like you get with Krystal's Managed WordPress hosting, everything just clicks into place.

Our platform includes built-in caching, daily offsite backups, malware protection, a world-wide CDN, and UK-based support when you need it. All designed to keep your site fast, available and optimised for search engines.

So, it turns out that you don't need expensive consultants or advanced coding skills to make SEO work for you. Just the right foundation, the right plugin and a hosting partner that helps your site thrive. Drop us a line if you'd like to chat.