Clients usually ask us: Which plugins are you using? Why use a plugin in the first place? What is a plugin?
The explanation isn’t too technical, especially when we show them what a plugin could do.
And knowing the importance of having the right plugin for a WordPress website, we cannot help but vouch for its usefulness and reliability.
This is particularly true for search engine optimization (SEO). Getting a web page to appear on the search engine results page (SERP) is the #1 challenge. An SEO plugin can help the website owner overcome such.
What is an SEO plugin?
An SEO plugin is a software add-on or module extension that assists with optimization tasks to improve a page’s ranking. The SEO plugin mostly aids on-page elements from metadata to internal links.
Best SEO Plugins for WordPress
But not all SEO plugins are created equal, however.
Here are some of the best SEO plugins nowadays.
1) WordPress SEO by Yoast
Yoast is by far the most popular SEO plugin. Why not? It is the most comprehensive in assisting with technical and non-technical optimization for any website.
Yoast SEO helps SEO specialists add titles, meta descriptions, focus keywords, internal links, and more. It also generates an XML sitemap automatically that you can easily submit to Google Search Console.
The best part is that it offers tips on how you can better optimize the page to make it search engine-friendly.
How do I use the Yoast SEO plugin for WordPress?
The Yoast website offers a definitive guide to using the plugin. Yoast SEO can be used by a beginner also—the learning curve isn’t steep as with other SEO plugins.
Is Yoast Premium worth it?
If you are planning to update to Yoast Premium, we can vouch for its worth. The need for the premium version will depend on your optimization needs. A personal blog or portfolio site may do with the free version. Then again, we all want to rank high on Google, right?
How much does Yoast SEO cost?
Premium Yoast SEO costs $69 per website.
2) All in One SEO Pack
All in One SEO Pack also includes customizable tools for metadata, sitemaps, images, etc., just like Yoast SEO. Nonetheless, it has more add-ons that are only available in Yoast Premium.
You can think of this as an alternative to Yoast, however. We don’t suggest having both.
This plugin is easily integratable with WooCommerce, WordPress’s e-commerce platform.
3) Rank Math
Rank Math helps in optimizing the website for both search engines and social platforms.
You may connect the website to the Google Search Console directly through the plugin. It also allows for importing data from other plugins.
The plugin offers greater control of access to its features by assigning user roles.
4) Broken Link Checker
From the name itself, Broken Link Checker finds broken links on your website. With this, you may quickly fix them without the need to edit the post or page.
This plugin is free, but it can slow down your website. So check your site’s speed after its installation to ensure minimal effect to the loading time.
5) Redirection
After identifying the broken links, you can fix them using the Redirection plugin.
It is perhaps the most accessible SEO plugin to use. You simply need to put the URL that you want to redirect in the first field and the URL of the page you want it to redirect to in the second field.
That’s it.
6) Easy Table of Contents
For long-form content that needs to be broken down into digestible chunks, since readers are always on the go, this plugin is the answer.
Easy Table of Contents adds a table of contents (TOC) to pages and posts with a few clicks, improving the navigability of each.
The plugin is highly customizable as well. For instance, you may pick the exact line to insert the table as well as the heading tag levels (h1, h2, h3, and so on).
7) Smush Image Optimization
An award-winning image optimizer, Smush Image Optimization compresses images without loss of quality (lossless).
The plugin offers bulk and auto-smush. You may also smush the directory.
And the best part about this plugin is it is unlimited and free — no caps whatsoever, allowing you to optimize images of up to 50 MB.
8) Rel NoFollow Checkbox
Dofollow and nofollow links are vital in SEO. To minimize the time it takes to put a rel-nofollow tag on each link, you may use this plugin.
The NoFollow Checkbox allows you to tag the link as nofollow as soon as you put a hyperlink. It appears below the Open link in a new tab checkbox upon correct installation.
9) WP Super Cache
Caching is essential in making your website load faster than expected.
WP Super Cache creates static HTML versions of the dynamic pages. These static pages are served to the visitors of the site.
Using the plugin is easy: just tick to enable caching.
10) Bruce Clay WordPress SEO
This plugin optimizes every page on your website at the keyword level. That’s the difference, more so than other plugins that offer optimization recommendations based on SEO best practices.
With recommendations tailored to each assigned keyword, the page has a better chance of competing with other pages for SERP display.The
Bruce Clay SEO plugin works compatibly with Yoast.
Other SEO for WordPress tips
When optimizing a website, don’t forget these fail-proof SEO tips. Also, these are some of the best practices—the foundations of a more effective SEO.
Do keyword research
Keyword research, or the practice of generating keywords that will serve as the backbone of the link-building campaign, including content creation, is paramount. The process allows for making each page SEO-friendly.
Your goal is to find the keywords that users actually use when searching for something. Some tools can help you with this, such as:
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- Google Ads Keyword Planner
- Ahrefs
- KeywordTool.io
- Lsigraph.com
Continue with link building
Backlinks are a ranking factor, not just a signal. Then again, Google is after quality backlinks or links that come from sites with high domain authority and not spammy.
As such, you must not sleep on building quality links on your most important pages. These are the homepage, product or service pages, and other landing pages.
Implement internal linking
One way to pass link juice to the other pages on your website is through internal linking. Anchor text and hyperlinks are usually used in internal linking.
For Google and the visitors, it is one way to discover related content. For the search engine, more specifically, it is a way of indicating the relative importance of the page in relation to other internal pages.
You don’t have to do everything manually because several plugins can help. Above are the best SEO plugins for WordPress that you should take advantage of to make each page on your website as perfectly optimized as they should.
If you are struggling to determine which is the best SEO plugin for your website, contact us! We will help you and walk you through the process.
