WordPress SEO checklist I use before doing anything else on a new site

Before touching content or links on any WordPress site, I always run through this first:

• Permalink structure: set to Post Name
• Sitemap generated and submitted to Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster
• Robots.txt checked, make sure wp-admin is blocked, but nothing important is
• Yoast or RankMath configured properly, focus keyword, meta template, breadcrumbs on
• Images compressed and ALT tags filled in
• HTTPS verified, no mixed content warnings
• Core Web Vitals checked in Search Console
• No noindex tags left on important pages (common after migrations)
• Internal linking reviewed, every post should link to at least 2 others
• Schema markup added, at a minimum, Article and BreadcrumbList

This alone fixes 80% of the technical issues I see on new sites. The other 20% is site-specific.

What does your current pre-publish checklist look like?