WordPress content audit checklist: 12 small mistakes to fix

October 29, 2026 · 8 min read

Content audits usually focus on the big questions: which pages to update, merge or delete. But on any site older than a year, hundreds of small mistakes pile up in between — the kind readers notice without knowing why a page feels a bit careless. This checklist covers twelve of them, how to spot each one, and which can be fixed automatically.

Typography and spacing

1. Double spaces

Left by typing habits, edits and pasted text. Mostly invisible in the browser, but not in the editor, newsletters, feeds or apps. How to find and remove them.

2. Spaces before punctuation

Three days , twenty euros. Usually the result of an edit or a deleted word. A clear mistake in English — but not in French, where Bonjour ! is correct.

3. Missing spaces after punctuation

end.Next or apples,pears, often after merging two sentences. Watch out for false positives: example.com, 3.14 and e.g. are not mistakes.

4. Wrong dashes

-- and spaced hyphens instead of real dashes, and the wrong kind of dash for the language. What WordPress converts on display, and what it doesn't.

5. Straight quotes and three dots

"quotes" instead of “typographic” ones (or « guillemets » in French, «ёлочки» in Russian and Ukrainian), and ... instead of an ellipsis. WordPress converts some of these on display, but not everywhere.

Markup leftovers

6. Empty paragraphs

<p>&nbsp;</p> and empty paragraph blocks create uneven gaps. Why CSS does not catch them, and how to remove them.

7. Double line breaks

<br><br> used instead of a new paragraph — typical of pasted text. Not always wrong, so review before removing.

8. Empty headings and formatting tags

An empty <h2> or <strong></strong> left after editing. Invisible on the page, but an empty heading is still announced by screen readers and breaks the document outline.

Words and content

9. Duplicate words

the the, is is — the brain skips them while reading, so writers rarely catch them. Search for them as suggestions: "that that" can be correct.

10. Spelling and grammar mistakes

Typos and agreement errors that no rule can detect. A browser spell checker helps while writing; for existing content, AI proofreading can review whole posts. What that costs and what to watch.

11. Mistakes in custom fields

Subtitles, FAQs, testimonials and footer texts in ACF fields are skipped by most checks. Where ACF stores text and how to check it.

12. Headings and alt text

Bold paragraphs used as headings, skipped heading levels, and images without meaningful alt text. These need human judgment — check them in the editor, or with an accessibility or SEO tool.

What can be checked automatically

Run a scan, go through the issues by type, fix the safe ones in bulk and review the rest. Everything stays undoable from History, so an audit never becomes a risk to the site.