Technical SEO Specialist for WordPress

TITLE: Technical SEO Specialist for WordPress Publisher Site — Audit + Fix (Schema, Core Web Vitals, AI Search Visibility) ────────────────────────────────────────── Our site: biomesci.com We've included the URL up front because we want applicants to actually look at the site before applying. See screening question 2. We run a WordPress-based publishing site with 3 to 20 published articles. We're showing up inconsistently (or not at all) in AI-generated answers from ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews, and Perplexity. We're looking for someone to do a thorough technical SEO audit and then implement the fixes. This is scoped as a one-time engagement, not a monthly retainer, though there's a good chance of ongoing work if it goes well. WHAT WE NEED DONE Audit phase: - Full technical crawl — indexation, crawl budget waste, redirect chains, orphaned pages, canonical issues - Structured data review across article, author, organization, and breadcrumb schema - Core Web Vitals assessment (field data, not just Lighthouse scores) - Title tag and meta description quality pass on our top [50-100] URLs by impressions - Internal linking structure and topical clustering - Review of how our content is currently being cited (or ignored) by AI search tools Implementation phase: - Deploy corrected schema markup sitewide via [our theme / a plugin / direct template edits] - Fix the technical issues surfaced in the audit - Rewrite titles and metas for the priority URL set - Core Web Vitals improvements — we'd expect recommendations on caching, image handling, and script loading, with implementation where it doesn't require a rebuild - Content structuring changes that improve extractability for AI answer engines (headings, answer-first formatting, entity clarity) DELIVERABLES 1. Written audit document with issues prioritized by expected impact vs. effort 2. Implemented fixes on the live site (staging first, then push) 3. Before/after benchmarks on Core Web Vitals and schema validation 4. A short handoff doc so our team can maintain what you've built WHO WE'RE LOOKING FOR - Demonstrated technical SEO work on WordPress publisher or media sites — not just small business or e-commerce - Comfortable working directly in WordPress: themes, plugins, and enough PHP to modify templates safely - Fluent with GSC, Screaming Frog, Ahrefs or Semrush, and PageSpeed Insights / CrUX data - Real, current understanding of how AI answer engines select and cite sources — we want someone who can explain their reasoning, not someone reciting checklist advice - Clear written communication and a habit of showing your work NICE TO HAVE - Experience with [our CMS setup / Google News / Discover optimization] - Familiarity with [WP Rocket / Cloudflare / our specific stack] PROCESS Written application (see screening questions below) TO APPLY Please answer the screening questions below. Applications that lead with a generic agency pitch and no answers will be passed over. We read every application that answers question 2 with something site-specific. Answers that could have been written without opening our site will not be reviewed. SCREENING QUESTIONS 1. Share 2-3 examples of publisher or content-heavy sites you've done technical SEO work on. What was the situation when you started, what did you change, and what happened to traffic afterward? I'd like to test in a prompt to see your work/sites get suggested. 2. Go to our site and spend five minutes looking around. Name ONE specific thing you'd change, citing the actual page or template you'd change it on, and tell us why you think it matters for this site in particular. 3. Describe a Core Web Vitals problem you fixed on a WordPress site. What was the specific bottleneck and how did you resolve it? 4. How do you think about visibility in AI-generated search results (ChatGPT, AI Overviews, Perplexity)? What concretely can be influenced, and what do you think is outside our control? 5. Which parts of this scope would you handle yourself, and would you bring in anyone else?