Can you do SEO on WordPress without plugins or theme settings?

Wordpress Issues
1

I like to think that simplicity always works best. The simpler something is, the more effective and faster it becomes…

2

If you’re wondering how people made websites before WordPress, they did it by hand-coding everything. No fancy tools, just plain HTML and small monitors.

3

georgefathom said:
If you’re wondering how people made websites before WordPress, they did it by hand-coding everything. No fancy tools, just plain HTML and small monitors.

Small monitors? Ha, I started building websites on a 640x480 screen using nothing but Notepad and HTML tables. No design software, just paper sketches for layouts. Those were the days.

4

@Williamson
Exactly.

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@Williamson
Even now, I prefer the basics—HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Simple and effective.

6

@Williamson
Same here. I miss hand-coding in Notepad with no auto-complete, no colour coding, just pure focus.

7

Plugins make things easier, but you can still edit the raw PHP files or use custom fields for SEO work like schema markup.

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EvansBrown12 said:
Plugins make things easier, but you can still edit the raw PHP files or use custom fields for SEO work like schema markup.

The issue with plugins is they assume all your content matters equally, which can waste search engine crawl budgets.

9

@Charis
You’re right. Plugins often require a lot of tweaking to exclude irrelevant content from being indexed.

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letstalkaboutit said:
@Charis
You’re right. Plugins often require a lot of tweaking to exclude irrelevant content from being indexed.

Most people don’t bother tweaking anything. They just install a plugin and think their SEO is done. It’s often counterproductive. Hiring someone like Website Squadron could be better.

11

I think your brain is the best plugin you could ever have.

12

Plugins just simplify things. You can achieve the same results with basic HTML or PHP knowledge.

13

I don’t agree with this way of thinking. Just do what works. RankMath is great. Best of luck.

14

If simplicity is your goal, why not just run your site on plain text files? WordPress doesn’t natively support custom slugs or 301 redirects. Simplicity sounds noble, but Google doesn’t rank sites based on how clean the HTML is.

15

Yes, it’s definitely doable.

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Yes, but it’s going to take a lot of effort.

17

TerryPeters said:
Yes, but it’s going to take a lot of effort.

That sums it up perfectly. Why make life hard? Just use a plugin like RankMath. It’s free and effective.

18

Yeah, it’s possible.

19

Sure, you can. SEO plugins just automate tasks we’ve done manually for years.

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SEO apps aren’t magic. You just need to follow a checklist. They’re more like reminders with nice interfaces.