Top 10 WordPress SEO Mistakes That Beginners Make by Joe Howard #376

You should set permalinks to the post name, giving you a clean URL like yoursite.com slash post title. Avoid including categories, dates, or page IDs in the URL because they create long, confusing links that hurt both user experience and search rankings.

Open graph metadata tells social platforms like Facebook exactly which image and description to display when a page is shared. Without it, Facebook may pull a random image or truncate content unpredictably, reducing the click-through appeal of your shared posts.

Set goals based on actionable items such as contact form submissions, downloads, or phone calls. Avoid setting goals for vanity metrics like average time on site, because those can be inflated by users who open a page and get distracted without meaningfully engaging.

Schema markup is structured data that influences how your pages appear in search results. The majority of websites do not use it at all. At minimum you should mark up your name, address, and phone number, and expand to menus, events, or locations depending on your business type.