Blake Smith Hire Me

Independent SEO consultant · WordPress & WooCommerce

WordPress SEO Consultant

Hi, I’m Blake Smith, an independent SEO consultant with more than 10 years of experience improving WordPress and WooCommerce websites for Google and AI search.

I work directly with business owners, marketing teams and WordPress developers to find what is holding a site back, then help fix it in the right order.

Book a Consultation Common WordPress Problems
Blake Smith, Australian SEO consultant

WordPress SEO Consulting Services

Most WordPress sites that come to me have a specific problem rather than a general need for more SEO.

I can help if:

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    Organic traffic has stalled or dropped and you want to know why.

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    You’re planning a redesign, theme change or migration and want to keep the rankings you’ve earned.

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    Your developer is building a new site and you want SEO decisions made before launch.

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    Your WooCommerce store has thousands of products, filters and categories that need a clear structure.

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    You’re using a page builder such as Elementor, Divi or Beaver Builder and pages are slow or bloated.

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    Yoast SEO or Rank Math is installed, but nobody has checked how it is configured.

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    You want a technical audit that ranks issues by impact rather than listing every warning.

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    You want your business represented accurately in Google and in AI search tools.

WordPress can be excellent for SEO. Most problems come from how a particular site has been built and configured.

The work covers technical SEO, site architecture, on-page SEO, content, internal linking, migrations, WooCommerce, Core Web Vitals, digital PR and AI search visibility.

From WordPress audits

Common WordPress SEO Problems I Fix

WordPress publishes more than most site owners realise.

Archive and Attachment Pages Nobody Meant to Publish

By default, WordPress can create tag archives, author archives, date archives and a separate page for every uploaded image. On many sites those pages are thin, near-duplicate and indexable.

WordPress 6.4 switched attachment pages off by default, but only for new installations. A site built before then usually still has them unless someone has changed the setting.

Plugins, Themes and Page Builders

Every plugin and theme adds code. Page builders can add a lot of it, and two plugins that both output titles, schema or sitemaps can quietly contradict each other.

The goal isn’t fewer plugins for the sake of it. It’s knowing exactly what each one adds to the page, and removing what slows the site down or confuses search engines.

Launches and Migrations

Some of the most expensive WordPress SEO problems happen on launch day: the “Discourage search engines from indexing this site” setting left ticked, a staging site left open to Google, or permalinks changed without redirects.

I check these before and after go-live, so problems are caught in hours rather than discovered weeks later in Search Console.

WooCommerce Structure

WooCommerce stores need a clear decision about what owns each search: categories, tags, attributes or individual products. Layered filters can also create large numbers of crawlable parameter URLs.

Getting that structure right usually matters more than adding content to product pages.

The fix is rarely another plugin. It’s usually a decision about what the site should and shouldn’t publish.

“

Very talented internet marketer who thinks outside of the box.

– Andrey Matveyev

Why Work With an Independent WordPress SEO Consultant?

You work directly with me, the person auditing the site and making the recommendations.

I’ve worked on WordPress websites for more than 10 years, from small business sites to WooCommerce stores and custom builds.

I’m comfortable working with your developer: setting SEO requirements, reviewing staging, and checking the live site after changes go out.

Recommendations are prioritised by likely commercial impact, so your developer’s time goes where it matters.

What I Check on a WordPress Site

Every review starts with the business and the evidence: Search Console data, the search results you’re competing in and how the site makes money. Then the WordPress specifics.

Illustration of an SEO audit with a magnifying glass

  1. 01

    Indexation

    Robots settings, XML sitemaps, noindex rules and what Google has actually indexed.

  2. 02

    SEO plugin configuration

    Titles, canonicals, schema and archives in Yoast SEO, Rank Math or similar.

  3. 03

    Archives and attachment pages

    Which tag, author, date and media pages should exist at all.

  4. 04

    Theme and page builder output

    Heading structure, markup, duplicated content and page weight.

  5. 05

    Speed and Core Web Vitals

    Hosting, caching, images and the plugins that slow things down.

  6. 06

    Site structure and internal links

    Which page owns each topic and how authority flows between them.

  7. 07

    WooCommerce

    Categories, attributes, filters and product URLs, where relevant.

  8. 08

    Redirects and history

    Past migrations, permalink changes and lost URLs worth recovering.

Then everything is prioritised by likely commercial impact.

Common questions

WordPress SEO Questions

Is WordPress good for SEO?

Yes. WordPress gives you control over URLs, titles, structure and content, which is most of what SEO needs. Problems usually come from configuration, plugins or how the site was built, not from WordPress itself.

Do I need Yoast SEO or Rank Math?

An SEO plugin is useful for managing titles, meta descriptions, canonicals and sitemaps. Which one you use matters far less than how it is configured. Running two at once is a common source of conflicts.

Can you work with my web developer?

Yes. I can set the SEO requirements, review changes on staging and check the live site after launch, while your developer handles the build.

WordPress SEO and Wider SEO Consulting

WordPress SEO is one part of my consulting work. If your store runs on Shopify rather than WooCommerce, see my Shopify SEO consulting page.

For an overview of everything I do, see my SEO consultant in Australia page.

SEO Success Stories

You’ll be in good company. I’ve worked on SEO campaigns for:

Client logos: ELMO Cloud HR & Payroll, Versace Home, Carpet One Floor & Home, Mettro, Manchester Warehouse, Aquabliss, St. Frock and JDH Architects

247%

increase in organic traffic for a national flooring brand

Industries include SaaS, national flooring companies, local solar providers and just about everything in between.

Testimonials from People I’ve Worked With

Blake is cool, calm and collected, you can throw anything his way, he’ll handle it like pro

– Georgia Leaker

Blake was focused and reliable as a strategic consultant

– Christopher McLaren

I would gladly give Blake a referral to anyone ready to progress or make the imperative jump into the online space

– Lindsey McIntyre
SEO consultation on a video call, talking a client through their results

Need Help With WordPress SEO?

Tell me about your site, what’s changed recently and what you need search to do for the business.

I’ll look at where things stand and recommend the most sensible next step.

Book a Consultation

Tell me about your project. You’ll hear back from me directly.