There are numerous things you can do, and plugins you can install, to improve WordPress SEO. However the basics are fairly straightforward and following the steps below will get your WordPress SEO into good shape.

1. Use an Appropriate Theme

Many themes are designed to look good rather than help optimise the site for the search engines. There are themes designed with WordPress SEO in mind and using one of these is a good start.

2. Set Permalinks

Make sure that the Permalinks are set to /%postname% to ensure that the post title (which will include a keyword) is in the URL.

3. Control Meta Titles and Meta Descriptions

Install the WordPress SEO Plugin "All In One SEO Pack" which allows you to enter meta titles and descriptions which will appear on the search engines. It can auto generate descriptions but it is best to write these manually as you need to entice people to click through to your site.

4. Control Titles

The "All In One SEO Pack" also lets you control how the titles appear. It is a case of what looks best on the search engines. I prefer the page/post title to appear on the search engines on its own without the blog title after it.

5. Control Duplicate Content

An issue for WordPress SEO is that there is always duplicate content on a WordPress site because posts appear on their own and also, for example, with a different URL under their category. The "All In One SEO Pack" should be set to "noindex" this duplicate content.

6. Generate Sitemap

There are several plugins that can be used to generate a site map for the search engines such as Google XML Sitemaps.

7. Write Good Content which is Search Engine Optimised

Although this is the last point, it is the most important for WordPress SEO or that of any site. However good the structure and configuration of your site if it not clear to the search engines what it is about then you will have difficulty getting a high ranking.

It helps if your site is focused on one topic and your pages and posts are linked internally. You also need external links to relevant authority sites. Each page/post should focus on a keyword and include this in the URL and title. The keyword should be used throughout the text (without overdoing it) but particularly in the first sentence. There should always be a graphic with the keyword as the ALT text.

Fortunately you can install a WordPress SEO plugin to help with this.