Sometimes the jobs that sink to the bottom of a business to-do list do not stay small.

They sit there quietly. They look harmless. They wait. Then one day they pop back up bigger, meaner, and wearing steel-toed boots.

That is what happened when I started cleaning up my website redesign.

I thought I was doing a simple round of website housekeeping on my WordPress site. Strip away the stuff I was not using. Tidy things up. Be responsible. Feel accomplished.

Cute.

Instead, I found myself staring at a bigger website audit than I had planned for, complete with WordPress SEO issues, accessibility problems, and a growing pile of image alt text that had clearly been waiting for its moment.

Then I found the real problem.

My Rank Math SEO plugin was gone.

Not disabled.
Not inactive.
Gone.

Deleted.

And that, my friends, is how a “quick cleanup” turned into a full SEO and accessibility audit.

It also became very obvious, very quickly, that SEO and accessibility overlap more than people often realize, especially when it comes to images, alt text, structure, and the kind of routine maintenance tasks that are easy to ignore until they stop being ignorable.

So yes. Two rabbit holes. Same crash site.

There is a particular kind of business task that looks minor right up until it bares its teeth.

Website cleanup is one of those tasks.

It sounds simple enough. Remove unused stuff. Update a few pages. Clear out old clutter. Maybe fix a broken thing or two. In theory, this is all very reasonable and grown-up.

In practice, website cleanup has a nasty habit of exposing the systems underneath.

You are not just tidying pages. You are finding old decisions. Old plugins. Old images. Old shortcuts. Bits of structure that made sense once and maybe do not now. You are opening drawers in the digital workshop and discovering that several of them are full of mystery screws.

That was the shape of this one.

I started with cleanup. I ended up looking at the bones of the site.

If you run a WordPress website, a solid SEO plugin is not a cute little extra. It is one of the main tools helping you manage the behind-the-scenes details that affect how your content is understood by search engines.

In my case, that tool is Rank Math.

Rank Math handles things like:

• SEO titles and meta descriptions
• schema markup
• XML sitemaps
• on-page content checks
• SEO audits and recommendations

In other words, it helps keep your site from wandering around the internet barefoot and confused.

There are alternatives, of course. Yoast SEO is another established option and plenty of people use it happily. This is not about starting a plugin cage match in the parking lot.

The point is simpler than that.

You need a working SEO system.

Without one, every post becomes more manual. Every page needs more checking. Every tiny publishing task turns into one more thing to remember while your brain is already juggling seventeen tabs, three ideas, and a snack you forgot you made.

That kind of systems untangling is also a big part of what I do through TechAlchemy. Sometimes the problem is not dramatic. Nothing is actively on fire. It is just quietly sitting there, making everything harder than it needs to be.

Which, frankly, is how a lot of website problems operate.

Once I reinstalled Rank Math and ran an SEO analysis, one issue jumped out almost immediately:

my images needed proper alt text and better accessibility attention.

And yes, that was a moment.

Because I have a lot of images.

A lot.

This is where the cleanup stopped being adorable and started becoming a job.

Image alt text is often treated like a tiny SEO task, but it is not just that. It is also part of making a website more accessible. Alt text helps search engines understand visual content, and it helps screen readers communicate meaningful images to people who cannot see them.

That overlap matters.

SEO is partly about clarity. Accessibility is also about clarity. Both benefit when your site is structured well, labeled clearly, and maintained like it belongs to actual human beings instead of search goblins.

That does not mean every image needs a dramatic little memoir attached to it. It means the images that matter need useful, accurate context.

And it means decorative images should be treated like decorative images, not padded with awkward filler text just because a plugin would like you to do busywork in its honor.

That is part of why website accessibility and SEO are so often connected in real-world site maintenance.

This is one of those website jobs that can get out of hand without making a sound.

You add images.
You redesign pages.
You swap out graphics.
You remove sections.
You change direction.
You pivot.
You pivot again because apparently we are doing that now.

Then one day you realize your media library has become a whole museum of “I’ll deal with that later.”

That was my moment.

Once I started looking at missing alt text and image descriptions, I realized this was not just about a few recent uploads. It was about years of content, old design choices, unused images, legacy clutter, and pages that needed a proper second look.

Could parts of this be automated? Maybe.

Could some tools speed it up? Probably.

But automation still does not know your site the way you do. It does not know which images are decorative, which ones are important, which ones are outdated, which ones are still in use, or which descriptions actually make sense in context.

It does not know what the image is doing on the page.

That part still needs a human brain.

Rude, but true.

Looking at accessibility more seriously made me realize something I should probably have named more clearly earlier:

website accessibility is not an optional gold star for extra-credit goodness.

It is part of basic site maintenance.

It is part of building a site that is more usable, more welcoming, and less frustrating for real people.

That includes alt text, yes, but also:

• clear structure
• readable text
• sensible headings
• useful link text
• navigation that makes sense
• images used thoughtfully
• content that is not making people work harder than necessary

Accessibility is not a fancy add-on for perfect websites. It is part of making your site function properly.

And once I started looking at that, I also found myself reviewing my Policies page and thinking more carefully about how the site is set up overall.

That is often how this goes.

You pull one thread, and suddenly the whole sweater wants to have a conversation.

If you are wondering whether Rank Math is the only option, no.

Rank Math is a strong choice if you want a feature-rich SEO plugin with built-in analysis, schema support, and a fairly broad toolset.

Yoast SEO is another solid option. It has been around for a long time, and plenty of WordPress site owners still prefer it.

Both can do the job.

The bigger mistake is not choosing the “wrong” one. The bigger mistake is running a WordPress site without a working SEO plugin at all.

That is when routine publishing starts turning into unpaid admin labor.

And most of us already have enough of that.

If your own “quick cleanup” has started growing teeth, these are some good places to look first.

1. Check your SEO plugin setup

Make sure your SEO plugin is actually installed, active, and doing the job you think it is doing.

Look at:

• SEO titles
• meta descriptions
• sitemap settings
• schema defaults
• basic post and page optimization

Do not assume it is all fine just because it used to be.

2. Review image alt text

Look at the images that are actually in use and ask:

• Is this image meaningful or decorative?
• Does it need alt text?
• Is the current alt text useful and accurate?
• Is this image even still supposed to be here?

This is where SEO and accessibility tend to collide in a very direct way.

3. Check your site structure and headings

Make sure pages have clear headings, readable sections, and a structure that helps both humans and search engines understand what is going on.

If a page feels messy to scan, there is a good chance it needs attention.

4. Review key pages and policies

Your main service pages, about page, contact page, and policies all deserve an occasional check.

Old wording, broken expectations, or neglected details can make a site feel less trustworthy than it actually is.

5. Look for outdated content and digital leftovers

Unused images, old design elements, stale pages, and half-retired ideas have a way of hanging around longer than they should.

A cleanup is a good time to ask what still belongs and what is just taking up shelf space.

6. Check internal links and site maintenance basics

Look at whether your important pages connect clearly to each other.

That includes links to your services, blog content, useful resources, calculators, and anything else people may genuinely need.

Good maintenance is not glamorous, but it does make a site easier to use.

What started as a redesign cleanup turned into a reminder I probably needed.

The jobs we ignore on our websites do not stay small.

A missing plugin does not stay small.
Weak SEO does not stay small.
Missing alt text does not stay small.
Accessibility gaps do not stay small.

They pile up quietly until one day you are not doing a quick cleanup anymore.

You are doing repairs.

That does not mean panic. It means pay attention.

Your website is not just a digital business card. It is your base of operations, your archive, your body of work, your communication hub, and often the clearest place people go to understand what you do.

For me, that includes everything from TechAlchemy to the blog, where I get to think out loud, share what I am learning, and occasionally admit when a “quick fix” has become a whole situation.

It also includes useful evergreen resources like my knitting and crochet calculators, which are exactly the sort of site tools that deserve clear structure, good labels, and regular maintenance.

A neglected website task is basically a slow leak in the hull.

You can ignore it for a while, but eventually you are not running a business anymore.

You are bailing water.