A WordPress SEO audit
A full crawl, a Search Console and analytics review, and a proper look at your theme, plugins and hosting. You get every fix in priority order, written in plain English.
WordPress SEO
WordPress SEO services from a senior consultant
WordPress can rank as well as anything on the web, but most WordPress sites don't, because years of plugins, page builders and theme settings stack up problems nobody is looking at. I find those problems, fix them in the order that matters most for your traffic and enquiries, and build the content that brings in the right searches. You work with me directly, from the first audit to the monthly report.
- 10 yearsin SEO and website builds
- 220%year-on-year search growth for The Telegraph's Money section
- One contactthe same person audits, fixes and reports on your site
Where WordPress sites go wrong
Why most WordPress sites underperform in search
WordPress isn't the problem. Google crawls it without any trouble, and it gives you full control over URLs, titles, redirects and structured data. The problems come from what gets layered on top over the years, and on the sites I review it's usually the same handful.
Page builder and plugin bloat
Elementor, Divi and WPBakery sites often load hundreds of kilobytes of CSS and JavaScript on every page, most of it unused, and each plugin adds its own on top. It shows up in Core Web Vitals, particularly on mobile, which is where most of your visitors are.
Pages nobody meant to publish
Tag pages, author and date archives, media attachment pages and thin categories pile up over the years, and they compete for Google's attention with the pages you actually want to rank.
Yoast or Rank Math left on defaults
The plugin gets installed and never configured, so titles follow a template nobody chose, the schema describes the wrong kind of business, and the sitemap lists pages that shouldn't be indexed at all.
Themes that get the basics wrong
Logos wrapped in H1 tags, headings picked for their size rather than their meaning, render-blocking fonts and images without dimensions. None of it is dramatic on its own, but it repeats across every template on the site.
Slow hosting and conflicting caches
Cheap shared hosting, or a caching plugin and a CDN working against each other, is behind a lot of slow WordPress sites. No amount of on-page work makes up for a server that takes two seconds to respond.
Content that grew without a plan
Years of posts from different writers, several of them targeting the same search, so Google splits its attention between them and none ranks as well as one strong page would.
What's included
What WordPress SEO with me covers
Every engagement starts from an audit, so the work goes in the order that will move traffic and enquiries soonest. From there it covers whichever of these your site needs.
Technical fixes
Indexation, redirects, canonicals, XML sitemaps and structured data, done hands-on in your WordPress admin or written up as specifications your developer can pick up without a meeting.
Yoast or Rank Math, set up properly
Title and meta templates, schema settings, breadcrumbs, redirects and indexing rules, configured around how your site and your business actually work rather than left on the defaults.
Speed and Core Web Vitals
A plugin audit, image handling, caching and script loading, with a backup taken and every change tested before it goes live. If your page builder is the main bottleneck, I'll say so plainly and set out what replacing it would involve.
On-page SEO and content
Keyword and intent research, rewrites of the pages that already get impressions but not clicks, and a content plan built around the searches people make when they're ready to buy.
Migrations and redesigns
Moving to a new theme or host, or onto WordPress from another platform, with a full redirect map and checks before and after launch so your rankings come through intact.
Brands I've worked with
Track record
Work I've done, and what people say about it
“Will is an exceptional SEO professional who collaborated seamlessly with teams across the newsroom to raise SEO standards and deliver measurable results. His expertise and innovative strategies were instrumental in driving The Telegraph's search visibility and organic growth across key target areas.”
Harry Clarkson-Bennett
SEO Director, The Telegraph
The Telegraph
I worked across the newsroom to raise SEO standards on one of the UK's largest websites. On the Money section, that audit-led approach helped grow search traffic by 220% year on year.
Bristol Community Sauna
Their site runs on WordPress. I built the first version, then rebuilt it from the ground up ahead of an expansion crowdfunder that has raised over £42,000, keeping it on WordPress so the team can update it themselves.
Community Sauna Network
A site I built and still look after. It drew 316 clicks from 9,789 Google impressions in its first fourteen months, and ranks around position two for its brand name.
Agency or consultant?
Should you hire a WordPress SEO agency or a consultant?
If you searched for a WordPress SEO agency, it's worth being clear about what you'd be hiring here. Sibley Digital is me, Will Sibley, a senior SEO consultant, rather than a team with account managers and junior staff. For most businesses that works in your favour, because the person who audits your site is the person who fixes it and reports on it, and you aren't paying for layers of management in between.
Where a project needs more hands, such as a large content programme or digital PR, I bring in specialists I've worked with for years and manage them myself, so you still have one point of contact.
A larger agency is usually the better fit if you need
- A high volume of content every month, written to a set schedule
- Paid search, social and SEO under one contract
- A team on call for daily changes across several sites
Working with me is usually the better fit if you want
- Senior judgement on every recommendation, not just in the sales meeting
- The same person on your audit, your fixes and your reporting
- Your WordPress site fixed properly rather than reported on each month
Run an agency that builds on WordPress? If your clients keep asking about SEO, I deliver it under your brand, with NDAs signed and no contact with your clients. That's my white-label service.
How it works
From a first look to monthly reporting
A first look
Send me your URL and a little about the business. I'll look at the site and its search visibility, then come back with an honest view of what's holding it back and whether I'm the right person to fix it.
Audit and roadmap
A full WordPress SEO audit, with every fix ordered by impact against effort, so you know what happens first and why.
Fixes and content
Month by month, hands-on in your WordPress admin or through your developer. Nothing changes on the live site without a backup and a test first.
Reporting on what matters
A monthly report on traffic, enquiries and revenue from search, with a plain-English note on what was done and what comes next.
Ways to work together
An audit, a retainer or a project
A one-off audit
For sites that need a clear diagnosis and a prioritised plan, whether I then do the work or your own team does.
A monthly retainer
Ongoing technical fixes, content and reporting, for businesses where search should be a steady source of enquiries.
A defined project
A migration, a redesign or a speed clean-up, scoped up front so you know the cost and the timeline before anything starts.
I don't publish a rate card, because a ten-page brochure site and a publisher with five thousand posts need very different things. Tell me about your site and I'll send over my packages with a recommendation.
FAQs
WordPress SEO questions
- Is WordPress good for SEO?
- Yes. WordPress gives you full control over URLs, titles, redirects and structured data, and Google crawls it without any trouble. Where WordPress sites struggle, it's almost always down to what has been added on top, such as heavy page builders, too many plugins and SEO settings left on their defaults, rather than WordPress itself.
- Should I use Yoast or Rank Math?
- Either is fine, and switching from one to the other rarely moves rankings on its own. I work with whichever you already have. What matters is how it has been configured, and on most sites I review that's where the problems are.
- Do I need to rebuild my site to rank?
- Usually not. Most WordPress sites can be fixed in place. If your theme or page builder is the main thing holding the site back, I'll tell you, and set out what a rebuild would cost against what it would gain so you can decide. If a rebuild is the right call, I can handle that as well.
- Will you need access to my WordPress admin?
- For hands-on work, yes, ideally through an admin account of my own rather than a shared login, plus access to Search Console and Google Analytics. If you'd rather keep all changes with your developer, I write specifications they can work from instead.
- How long does WordPress SEO take to work?
- Technical fixes on an established site often show up in Search Console within a few weeks, once Google has recrawled the pages involved. Content and authority work takes longer, typically three to six months before it's clear in traffic and enquiries. I'll give you a realistic timeline for your site after the audit rather than a promise up front.
- How much does WordPress SEO cost?
- It depends on the size of the site and how much needs fixing, so I quote per engagement rather than publishing a rate card. Tell me about the site and I'll send over my packages with a recommendation.
- Do you work with agencies that build on WordPress?
- Yes, under their brand. If your clients keep asking about SEO, I deliver it for you with NDAs signed and no contact with your clients. That's my white-label service.
Guides
The technical SEO checklist I actually use
A working technical SEO checklist from real audits, ordered by what breaks rankings most often, not a 200-point list of everything that can be measured.
Core Web Vitals explained for non-developers
What Core Web Vitals actually measure, the thresholds that count as good, and what to do when your scores are red, explained without the jargon.
Schema markup in plain terms: what to add and what to skip
What schema markup actually does, which types still earn rich results in 2026 after Google's three-year cull, and which ones you can safely skip.
Website migration SEO checklist: keep your rankings through a rebuild
A working website migration SEO checklist from someone who has run and rescued dozens of them: what to do before, during, and after launch, in order.
Get in touch
Tell me about your WordPress site
Send me the URL and a line or two on what you'd like search to do for the business. I read every message myself, and I'll come back with an honest view of what's holding the site back and what it would take to fix.
What happens next
- 1I reply myself, usually within one working day.
- 2I take a proper look at the site and its search visibility.
- 3If there's a fit, I send my packages with a recommendation. If there isn't, I'll tell you.