What is a plugin? The best SEO plugins for WordPress The best seo plugin for wordpress

Meet Petya. Petya has a very cool blog - beautiful, functional, full of the most useful and interesting information. Not a blog, just a fairy tale. But Google does not agree with this, which means Petya’s visitors are his parents and girlfriend. And this is because Petya knows nothing about the CEO.

SEO - or more precisely, SEO - is search engine optimization (Search Engine Optimization). And correctly implementing SEO on your blog is not an easy task. It includes optimizing articles and posts for keywords, using human-readable URLs, working on the site structure and a detailed analysis of all external links. In general, Google rankings are affected bymore than 200 factors - and these are only those that have been published and proven.

Of course, you can start following all 200 manually, or try to write code that will do it for you. But it is much easier and more effective to use SEO plugins and applications.

Yoast SEO

If you only want to install one plugin on your blog, let it be Yoast. Yoast is an incredible WordPress add-on that is entirely focused on optimizing your blog content for search engines.

Yoast SEO allows you to:

  1. Manage titles, keywords and descriptions on every page and blog post.
  2. Optimize posts and pages for social networks using the protocol OpenGraph.
  3. Create a site map and Twitter Maps
  4. Inform search engines about the publication of new posts
  5. Use your RSS footer.

And much, much more...

Overall, Yoast is an SEO plugin that does a lot. But it doesn’t do everything well, so it’s worth playing it safe and installing other plugins from the list below.

All in One SEO Pack

Free, but there is a paid version

All in One SEO Pack is an alternative for Yoast SEO. All in One SEO Pack also offers a huge number of settings and options to improve site optimization, but it uses different interface design principles.

While Yoast is very beginner-friendly, with its organized settings pages and helpful tips, All in One SEO is a system designed from the ground up for professionals. That's why the number of settings on the page looks daunting, and many of Yoast's life-making features are simply missing. On the other hand, the SEO tools of the All in One SEO Pack are more powerful.

The advantage of All in One SEO Pack is its ability to disable functions that the user does not need. This allows you to optimize the work of the plugin and use it even on weak hosting. On the downside, there are no analogues to Yoast tools for content analysis. Russian-speaking bloggers are unlikely to miss them, but they are indispensable for SEO of English texts.

Link Patrol

Paid

It allows you to evaluate and optimize links - for example, make sure that the links are not spammy, look natural and generally contribute to the development of the site, and do not interfere with it.

The plugin is paid, but it works much faster than free editions and allows you to achieve good results without slowing down your blog to a snail's pace.

SEO Friendly Images

Free, but there is a paid version

Adding images to a post is easy. But you will have to bother if you want a search bot to find them and add them to the catalog. Especially if your site is aimed at visual content, because then a lot of time will be spent working with images.

SEO Friendly Images automatically fills in all the right tags based on context. When working with Russian-language content, it makes sense to first look at the results of its work - after all, the rules of the Russian and English languages ​​are very different and the plugin may well pick up a conjunction or particle as a tag.

SEO Smart Link

Paid

Linking articles and posts on your site is a great way to help readers visit more pages. The problem is that when there are many articles on a blog, it is difficult to find those that are suitable for linking.

SEO Smart Link solves this problem. Using tags and keywords, it automatically links your pages and posts. The plugin has difficulties with the Russian language, so you should carefully view the results of its work. But nothing better has yet been invented for automatic linking.

Google Keyword Planner

Free

Google Keyword Planner is a tool for selecting keywords. Using the endless power of Google, it shows the number of searches, relative popularity and difficulty of each keyword.

Anyone who wants to optimize their website should use Google Keyword Planner.

KeywordTool.io

Free

If you don't trust official Google tools, KeywordTool.io is just for you. According to the developers, Google Keyword Planner hides some keywords - unlike KeywordTool.io. Therefore, after making a request in Keyword Planner, it makes sense to repeat it on KeywordTool.io and check if there are any other popular keywords that Keyword Planner did not list.

If you are thinking about an SEO plugin for WordPress, then you can safely narrow down your choice to the 2 most popular ones: All in One SEO Pack And Yoast SEO . They compete in popularity and functionality.

Let's compare their strengths and weaknesses so you can make your choice.

I’ll say right away that in TemplateMonster we chose Yoast SEO. However, in this article we will take a detailed look at both plugins so that you can choose the plugin that is right for you.

Let's try to figure out which one is actually better.Both plugins are in the TOP popular WordPress plugins and have many positive reviews.

All in SEO Pack was created in 2007 by Michael Torbert and Steve Mortiba. Since then, it has become one of the most popular WordPress plugins in terms of downloads.

Yoast SEO was released in 2010. It was originally called Joost de Valk and was inferior All in SEO Pack in many ways. But after a while, thanks to constant upgrades, it becomes the main competitor All in One SEO.

Both of them are excellent solutions for solving SEO optimization problems with rich functionality that will help you increase website traffic.

Installation and Configuration

Learning all aspects of SEO and applying them correctly on your website will require a lot of time and practice. In addition, this information is constantly updated, algorithms are improved, and ranking principles change. You need to follow the news in this industry and make adjustments to your website.

But don't be afraid. You have a simple and fast solution - WordPress plugins. They approach the problem comprehensively and make it much easier to configure many functions.

The main thing is that they do not require any special skills or knowledge.

Let's compare these WordPress plugins when it comes to installing and configuring basic website settings.

Yoast SEO

After installation you need to activate the plugin Yoast SEO.

After successful activation, you will need to go to the control panel inSEO » General and set SEO settings for your website.

At one stage, you have the opportunity to subscribe to the newsletter and receive interesting news from the world of SEO in text and video format.

Yoast SEO is a convenient WordPress plugin with rich functionality. In chapter Possibilities V General settings you will find the activation of the following functions: SEO analysis, Readability analysis, Key content, Text link counter, XML sitemap, Ryte integration.

There is a purple help icon in the lower right corner. Just click on it and in the pop-up window, search for the information you are interested in.

Just keep in mind that this function is not presented in Russian.

All in On SEO Pack

After installation All in One SEO Pack you also need to activate it. After which, you will find the All in one menu item under the toolbar, clicking on which will take you to the plugin settings page.

All settings of this plugin are on one page. This may seem unusual.

However, for some users this option may be more convenient. Therefore, choose what is convenient for you personally: multi-page settings Yoast SEO or optionAll in On SEO Pack.

The settings page is divided into several sections, and each of them is devoted to settings for a specific area or function.

In this section you will find: settings for the main page, headers, content type, display, indexing and keys.

Each section has a help button that, when clicked, displays a brief description and links to additional information. It is very convenient and can help beginners.

After updating the plugin settings, you will be able to use All in One SEO Pack on your WordPress site.

In General Settings, go to the Modules section to activate the free features you are interested in, which are deactivated by default.

Eventually:

Both plugins are rich in functionality and therefore installing them may seem intimidating for users. But you don't have to worry because their creators have thought of everything to make the installation process as easy as possible. In our opinion, Yoast SEO more intuitive to use and better structured than All in One SEO Pack with its multi-page settings and tabs.

Everyday SEO tasks

SEO is an ongoing process, and each new post or page you add to your site has its own SEO score. This means you will have to use your SEO plugin to optimize your content constantly. Let's see how these WordPress plugins handle their daily tasks.

Yoast SEO

This plugin comes with a functional content analysis tool that will help you optimize every single post or page of your site. At the bottom of the page, just below your post, you will findSEOYoast meta box which contains:

  • snippet preview;
  • analysis of your content from an SEO optimization point of view:
  • focus keyword.

The snippet preview will show how the title and description of your site will look in search engines. Plugin Yoast SEO automatically uses the title of your post as the title and a snippet of text for the description. However, we recommend that you edit them. Consider what description in your snippet will help your users better understand what information they will find on your site.

Entering a keyword in SEO Yoast will allow the plugin to analyze your content for a given keyword.

Yoast SEO will analyze your content and show you how you can improve it. You can decide for yourself whether to listen to these tips and whether they will help you improve your posts for SEO optimization of your site.

Also in the metabox Yoast SEO There is a section with a social icon where you will find the social media settings for your post.

In this section, you can set an image for your Facebook and Twitter post and create a description and title because the plugin will use your main title and description in the meta tags.

All in One SEO Pack

All in One SEO offers a similar metabox for editing your content and SEO optimization. It is also under the post.

However, compared to Yoast SEO, this meta box is much simpler. You have the opportunity to edit the title and description, but you do not have the option to analyze your content based on SEO criteria. You can enable the use of nonindex and nonfollow links in your text.

WordPress plugin All in One SEO Doesn't offer advanced per-post tools to help you control search engine indexing and tracking. It even has an option that disables All in One SEO for a specific post or page.

For social networks, you will need to activate the free Social Meta module, after which in your admin panel All in One SEO the corresponding section will appear. With himyou can set your own images and description for Twitter and Facebook.

Eventually:

Both of our competitors make it easy to edit SEO settings on a per-post basis, offering plenty of options.

All in One SEO uses a simple and clear approach. You can enable additional fields if desired.

Plugin SEO Yoast offers comprehensive solutions, according to the developers, necessary for SEO optimization of all sites.

We believe that being able to get content analysis, keyword focus and an overall assessment of your site's SEO settings is a big advantage Yoast SEO.

Additional settings and features

On page SEO requires an integrated approach. Therefore, both plugins contain additional functions and tools beyond meta tags.

With these features, you won't need to install additional plugins to optimize your content for SEO.

Yoast SEO

Key features of Yoast SEO:

  • Navigation Breadcrumb
  • Import data from Google Webmaster Tools
  • Open Graph Meta Tags
  • Export/import SEO data
  • XML Sitemaps
  • robots.txt and .htaccess= editors

All in One SEO Pack

All in One SEO also contains enough functions, just notyou need to remember to activate them in the Modules section.

Main functions:

  • File editor
  • Open Graph Meta Tags
  • Task Manager
  • XML Sitemap
  • Bad Bot Blocker
  • Import and export of SEO data
  • Editor Robots.txt

Eventually:

In terms of functionality, these WordPress plugins are very similar. However, in All in One SEO There is no navigation and import of data from Google Search Console. However, these features are unlikely to have a significant impact on your site's SEO.

We also like that All in One SEO allows you to activate certain features only when needed.

Support and additional settings

While both plugins are fairly easy to use and come with detailed instructions, free support options are very limited. Let's compare how Yoast SEO And All in One SEO work with professional support and add-ons.

Yoast SEO

In the free version of the plugin Yoast SEO support not included. The only thing you can do is search for information on the WordPress.org forums and ask questions from other users there. However, you will not be able to receive a response from the Yoast team.

To receive professional support, you will have to purchase. The cost of a license for one site is $79, and it increases with each new site. There is also a premium license with additional options including a redirect manager, content update recommendations based on Google algorithms, the ability to preview your page on Google, Bing, Facebook and Twitter, and multi-focus keywords and much more.

Yoast SEO also offers several paid addon plugins. These are the options for niche sites with specific SEO needs:

  • Local SEO
  • SEO News
  • Video SEO

All in One SEO Pack

Free version of the plugin All in One SEO also does not include support. To receive professional support for one year, you need to purchase the version All in One SEO Pack Pro, which costs $79 per year per site, and also depends on the number of sites. Typically this version is one major version ahead of the free plugin All in One SEO. It also includes additional features such as SEO options for categories, WooCommerce product support, videos SEO module, d access to premium support forums, to b basic knowledge, video XML site map and more.

Eventually:

Previously, the license for All in One SEO Pack Pro was more expensive than its competitor, and the license for All in One SEO premium previously could be used for an unlimited number of your sites.

Today, competition has equalized the cost of both licenses. You can purchase them at the same price and under similar conditions. In addition, manufacturers regularly offer discounts on these products.

Is ouropinion

Plugins Yoast SEO And All in One SEO- are an excellent solution for SEO problems with very similar functionality and pricing policy. We have made our choice in favor Yoast SEO, because we consider it more convenient and useful for solving our problems. It has the ability to view SEO content analysis, the distribution of keywords in your text, analyze the text in terms of readability, view the Flash readability index, and much more.

I would like to add that an SEO plugin is, of course, not a guarantee of high traffic. You definitely need to pay attention to your website. Statistics show that sites with outdated design, poor user experience and slow loading do not inspire trust among users. As a rule, after leaving a page, users do not return to these sites.you will find a large selection of professional WordPress themes, made according to the latest web design trends and with code optimized for SEO tasks.

Good day, dear blog readers. Today I want to talk to you about choosing an SEO plugin for Wordpress, since this niche is filled to capacity and choosing the right plugin is becoming more and more difficult.

Page navigation:

I, a WEB master, have created dozens of websites using the WordPress management system, and it so happened that I constantly used the SEO Ultimate plugin for the projects I created. I completely switched to this SEO plugin in 2010-2011 from the All in One SEO Pack. The reason for the transition was numerous requests from CEOs to stop installing it. For several years in a row, the SEO Ultimate plugin completely satisfied me and my SEO friends. Perhaps it was not completely satisfactory, but no one complained, it worked well.

This year I tried the WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin and don’t want to use any others anymore 🙂 , it’s really cool. But first, I want to give a comparison of all 3 plugins and their descriptions, so that all their strengths and weaknesses can be seen.

SEO plugins for WordPress - review and rating

1st place - wordpress seo plugin: WordPress SEO by Yoast

2nd place - wordpress seo plugin: SEO Ultimate

SEO plugin with a wide range of functionality and many plug-ins. Allows you to manage titles, descriptions, and keys manually for each post.

This plugin can:

  • monitor 404 errors
  • create automatic robots.txt
  • make aliases from links with 301 redirects
  • create micro markup on the website
  • generate canonical URLs and much more

The functionality of this SEO plugin is quite impressive, and perhaps it would have been the first, but the incorrect work of titles with user posts and taxonomies pushed it to second place in my ranking.

Recently, the plugin has not been updated for a long time, it feels like the developers have forgotten about their brainchild.

Advantages:

  1. a solid set of SEO modules that can be disabled one by one
  2. ability to track 404 errors online
  3. automatic creation of robots.txt
  4. ability to manage 301 redirect from any page to any
  5. targeting all search engines
  6. has a common page for editing titles and page descriptions


Flaws:

  1. periodic bugs out of the blue
  2. inability to normally set a title for custom post types (their archives, etc.)

3rd place - wordpress seo plugin: All in One SEO Pack

A much-suffering plugin for WordPress that has gone through many reincarnations since its creation. For those who don’t know, this plugin’s name comes from the times when SEO plugins for Wordpress had to be installed separately for headings, separately for keys, separately for descriptions :), in general, those were good times. This was the first plugin that could do everything together. Today, the plugin has changed its appearance quite a lot and developed functionality. Now he can:

  • manage canonical urls
  • work with custom post types and taxonomies
  • link Google webmaster with your site
  • make an XML map
  • create micro markup
  • create robots.txt

In general, now I’m really hesitating whether to put him in second place, today he will be more powerful than before, although the old troubles are making themselves felt, that’s why he’s in third place.

Advantages:

  1. modular system for connecting individual parts of the plugin
  2. memory and resource saving function
  3. XML map
  4. micro markup
  5. Google webmaster connection with the site
  6. There are localizations for 50 languages

Flaws:

  1. Poor set of functions for managing SEO in post
  2. Keyword analysis functions hidden in the PRO version

Other SEO plugins for WordPress

Plugin name Active sites with the plugin Downloads WP rating Link
HeadSpace2 SEO 70 000 747 612 4 wordpress.org/plugins/headspace2/
Platinum SEO Pack 100 000 1 020 769 5 wordpress.org/plugins/platinum-seo-pack/
SEO Title Tag 20 000 253 883 2.7 wordpress.org/plugins/seo-title-tag/

If you know of other SEO plugins for Wordpress, write in the comments, I will be happy to evaluate their work and add them to the rating; over time, the leader may change.

As far as I understand, there is a lot of controversy regarding the first and second places. Yes, indeed, these SEO plugins, on the one hand, are completely different, although they serve to provide the same tasks. If you don’t know which one to choose, you should try both on a test site and choose what you like.

P.S. In my opinion, the first two presented SEO plugins for Wordpress deserve respect, it’s just that Yoast is more tailored for Google and ordinary users, while SEO Ultimate is designed for a more advanced audience - optimizers.

Of course, it’s up to you to decide, but plugin usage statistics show that Yoast is more popular and deserves first place. Other SEO plugins for wordpress are not worthy of attention, except perhaps the “All in One SEO Pack”.

WordPress is the most used blogging platform in the world. More than 20% of websites are made in WordPress. If you have such a site, then you need to optimize the articles or other content of your site for search engines such as Google, Yahoon and Bing. This will allow them to crawl and index your website.

Here you can choose and use them to give your website an amazing look. After installing the theme, you need to install the WordPress SEO plugin. Optimization is a very labor-intensive field that requires a lot of knowledge, work, and experience. Luckily, WordPress offers a variety of SEO plugins.

Here you will find a list of the best SEO plugins for WordPress. After installing these plugins, you will notice big changes in the search engine promotion of your site.

1. YOAST WORDPRESS SEO PLUGIN - SEO plugin for WordPress

Yoast wordpress seo plugin is the best plugin for search engine optimization in WordPress. It can help you improve your website's SEO. You can fully optimize your website using Yoast wordpress seo plugin.

Important features of Yoast wordpress seo plugin:

  • Content optimization
  • Page analysis
  • Technical Search Engine Optimization
  • Availability of meta tags and links
  • XML sitemaps
  • RSS optimization
  • manupilate .htaccess and robots.txt files
  • Integration into society
  • Multisite compatibility
  • Import/Export functionality

Yoast seo plugin will help you focus on your main keywords when writing an article. It carries out all the technical optimization to improve your content.

How to use Yoast wordpress seo plugin

This plugin is very easy to use. Below is an actual screenshot of the Yoast plugin as it will appear in each post.

  • Above you can see a fragment of an image that shows the plugin in action.
  • Keyword Tab: Place your first keyword in this tab. You will see how often the keyword is used in the post. In it, you can maintain keyword density.
  • SEO Meta Title Tab: Write your Meta Title on this page. This is one of the most important tabs for your entry. The focus keyword is set only here. It must be less than 70 characters.
  • Meta Description Tab: Write a short summary of your post that will be displayed on the Google search engine page. It usually contains less than 156 characters. You must include both keywords - primary and secondary.

2. ALL IN ONE SEO PACK PLUGIN FOR WORDPRESS

This plugin can easily optimize your WordPress blog for search engine optimization. This is the best WordPress SEO plugin after Yoast WordPress seo plugin. It has a built-in XML sitemap rendering system, directly displays your sitemap to Google and Bing and improves your site's SEO.

Important features of All In One Seo Pack Plugin For WordPress:

  • Google analytics support
  • Support for customizing post types for SEO
  • Promoting Sample URLs
  • Automatic site title optimization for Google and other search engines
  • Automatically generated Meta tags on the site

All in one seo pack is the best WordPress SEO plugin that automatically optimizes your website for search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Bing.

3. SEO FRIENDLY IMAGES PLUGIN FOR WORDPRESS

As everyone knows, the ALT attribute plays an important role in search engine optimization. It is one of the important components of search engine optimization, since it describes images for search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Bing.

SEO Friendly Images Plugin For WordPress provides a feature to automatically add alt and title attributes to all your blog images. If your images are missing alt or title attributes, then this plugin will add them according to your choice.

Installing and using SEO Friendly Images Plugin

5. SQUIRRLY SEO PLUGIN FOR WORDPRESS

Squirrly seo plugin is a great SEO plugin for WordPress. It is an exceptional tool that allows you to optimize your content and also promote it in search engines. It is convenient for both the user and search engines.

Squirrly seo plugin will help you create content that is both Google search engine and user friendly. This is an excellent SEO plugin for WordPress that creates convenience for both search robots and readers of your content.

Important features of Squirrly seo plugin for WordPress:

  • It gives you SEO tips as you enter your content
  • Helps in optimizing articles
  • Suggests keywords your customers are searching for
  • Has keyword analysis algorithms
  • Gives professional advice for editing
  • Analyzes each article separately
  • Optimizes content for readers
  • Provides free images for use
This is what the Squirrly seo plugin looks like

6. BROKEN LINK CHECKER PLUGIN FOR WORDPRESS

This SEO plugin for WordPress is very useful for any blog or website. It checks all posts, comments and other content on the site. It tells us if it finds a broken link or any missing image on the site.

Broken link checker plugin will monitor your entire website and blog for broken links that lead nowhere.

Important features of Broken link checker plugin for WordPress:

  • Monitors links on a site page, in comments or user fields
  • Finds a broken or broken link
  • Notifies via control panel or email
  • Alerts search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo about broken links
  • Extremely customizable
This is how Broken link checker plugin works

If you use another WordPress plugin for SEO, you can suggest your best plugin in the comments. We will study it and add it to the list.

WordPress currently powers more than a third of the 10 million websites. The latest data from W3Techs shows that WordPress is used on 33.5% of these sites - far more than any other CMS:

But choosing to use WordPress on your website is only the beginning of the journey. WordPress has over 54,000 plugins to customize and optimize your site.

So how to choose the right SEO plugin for your his WordPress site?

To help select plugins for WordPress, the author of the blog https://www.robbierichards.com/ asked 50 experts the following question:

List your top WordPress SEO plugins in the following categories:

  • Universal plugin
  • Single function plugin

How do you use each plugin to optimize WordPress sites?

Respondents listed their favorite SEO plugin and explained which specific features provide the most value to their business and/or clients.

Final result

List of the best SEO plugins for WordPress (based on votes):

Universal plugins :
1. Yoast (32 votes)
2. SEOPress (6 votes)
3. RankMath (4 votes)

Specialized plugins:
1. Redirection (11 votes)
2. WP Rocket (9 votes)
3. Schema Pro and W3 Total Cache (7 votes)
4. Broken Link and Smush (6 votes)
5. All in One Schema (5 votes)

Plugins were also mentioned: AMP, Autoptimize, ShortPixel, XML Generator, Better Search Replace, WP Post Ratings and Really Simple SSL.

18 Best WordPress SEO Plugins (And How to Use Them)

This section takes a closer look at all the SEO plugins that received the most votes from experts and/or received the highest ratings in the WordPress directory.

Each plugin will show the number of installs, average user ratings, and use cases.

1. Yoast

Yoast SEO is a top SEO plugin for WordPress with over 5 million active installs and nearly 25,000 5-star ratings. And it's our experts' favorite all-in-one WordPress SEO plugin.

The premium version includes a redirect manager, content analysis, internal relinking suggestions, and free support.

Editor's note. One feature of the plugin that not everyone likes is content and readability analysis. And Yoast's infamous "traffic light" signal for keyword density is also ignored by some SEO experts.

Why Yoast SEO is one of the best SEO plugins for WordPress

Yoast SEO releases updates (fixes and improvements) every couple of weeks to keep up with the fast-changing SEO world.

Since Yoast SEO is a versatile plugin, it can help you configure both technical and on-page settings to optimize search results. You can use it for:

  • Creating an XML sitemap and synchronizing with Google Search Console
  • Optimizing meta titles and descriptions on pages and posts
  • Applying meta tags (e.g. noindex, nofollow) to selected pages
  • Canonical and URL redirection settings
  • Creating Open Graph microdata

Editor's Note: As a result A major update to Yoast SEO 7.0 created images that were indexable. Soon, users noticed a surge in indexed pages in Google Search Console. However, Yoast responded quickly to update the plugin with the redirects configured correctly. Additionally, they developed a search index cleanup plugin to force all pages with indexed images to be removed from the index of affected sites.

2. Rank Math

Rank Math calls itself the "Swiss Army Knife of WordPress SEO" and it's a fair name as its versatile suite of SEO tools means you can remove some custom plugins.

For example, it contains advanced Google Schema snippet integration, local SEO, automated image SEO, keyword ranking, internal linking suggestions, and more.

Even though it has significantly more features than other plugins, it will not slow down your site.

Why Rank Math is one of the best SEO plugins for WordPress

Although Rank Math is a new SEO plugin, you can use it to:

3. SEOPress

SEOPress is a simple, fast and powerful SEO plugin for WordPress. It includes many features that you can quickly enable/disable as needed.

The premium version adds even more functionality including
e-commerce optimization, integration of external link control (via Majestic), Google News and video XML Sitemaps, and Google Structured Data (Schema).

Why SEOPress is one of the best SEO plugins for WordPress

You can use all the features of SEOPress to:

  • Find keywords for your content using the Google Suggestions Tool
  • Fine-tune your content using the Content Analysis tool
  • Track Google Analytics events and traffic using the built-in dashboard
  • Create and manage 301, 302 or 307 redirects in one place
  • Checking website speed and optimization using Google Page Speed
  • Google Structured Data Implementations: Product, Article, Event, Local Business, Recipe, Review, Course, Video and more.

WP Rocket is a top-notch caching plugin designed to make your WordPress site load faster. But it also offers additional features such as Lazy Loading Images and Database Optimization to improve page loading speed.

Why WP Rocket is one of the best SEO plugins for WordPress

Long site loading times have a bad effect on UX and conversion.

WP Rocket's user-friendly interface makes it easy to use and improves the performance and experience of your site because it:

  • Compresses all your HTML, CSS and JS files
  • Caches content for regular visitors
  • Optimizes database and Google fonts
  • Integrates with all CDNs such as MaxCDN and Cloudflare
  • Improves page load time by loading images as the user scrolls down

Other speed optimization plugins for WordPress:

WP Super Cache
Hyper Cache
WP Super Minify
WP Fastest Cache
Cache Enabler

5. Redirection

Redirection is a popular redirect plugin for WordPress. It manages 301 Redirects and tracks 404 errors to help maintain rankings and avoid technical SEO issues that can arise during site migrations and content restructuring.

Apart from simple URL matching, you can set up redirects based on other conditions such as login status, browser, IP address, server, etc.

Why Redirection is one of the best SEO plugins for WordPress

No matter how many redirections you need to set up, Redirection allows you to:

  • Automatically add redirects when the page or post URL changes
  • Create 1:1 redirects or redirect groups
  • Monitor 404 errors and redirect them to active pages
  • Creating conditional redirects based on various criteria
  • Avoid having to edit the ".htaccess" file

6. All In One Schema Rich Snippets

All In One Schema Rich Snippets is a schema markup plugin that allows you to create attractive search results using rich snippets.

It includes structured data types for reviews, events, recipes, articles, products, services, etc. In turn, they allow you to display rich snippets such as ratings, images, and cooking times between the URL and meta description in the results search.

Editor's Note: rich snippets will not help you immediately rank higher in search results. But they can help increase your CTR and reduce your bounce rate. Which, in turn, sends a behavioral signal to Google that helps improve rankings and increase the traffic and conversion potential of your content.

Why All In One Schema Rich Snippets is one of the best SEO plugins for WordPress

WordPress doesn't have built-in functionality for adding Rich Snippets, but the All In One Schema Rich Snippets plugin allows you to:

  • Add different types of schema content to the site
  • Add a visual layer to search results
  • Save time because no code editing is required

7.WP Smush

WP Smush is an image optimization plugin for WordPress. It allows you to resize and compress all your images without losing quality.

Why WP Smush is one of the best SEO plugins for WordPress

Images are usually bad for website loading speed, so using WP Smush helps speed up your website because:

  • Removes unused data without affecting image quality using lossless compression
  • Resizes images according to compression settings
  • Optimizes up to 50 images with one click of the Bulk Smush button
  • Delays loading behind-the-scenes images using lazy loading

8. W3 Total Cache

W3 Total Cache is another popular caching plugin for WordPress. When fully configured, it gives a 10x improvement in overall site performance—that is, a Grade A in WebPageTest—or a significant improvement in Google Page Speed. A fast loading site improves the user experience because visitors arrive faster and stay longer.

Why W3 Total Cache is one of the best SEO plugins for WordPress

W3 Total Cache has a wide range of caching options that can be difficult to configure, but if done correctly:

  • Improves website performance and speed
  • Integrates well with various CDNs such as CloudFront
  • Shortens and compresses HTML, CSS, JavaScript and Feeds
  • Teams with CloudFlare to significantly improve page load times

9. Broken Link Checker

The Broken Link Checker plugin monitors a site for any broken links, missing images, and redirects. You can edit and fix broken links directly from the plugin's toolbar (without having to manually update each post or page). Or you can remove the broken link but leave the text in place.

Pro tip: disable the plugin when you're done crawling your site to prevent performance degradation.

Why Broken Link Checker is one of the best SEO plugins for WordPress

  • Detect links from pages, posts or comments that are broken
  • Notify via toolbar or email if broken links are found
  • Flag broken links in messages
  • Prevent search engines from following broken links

10.Autoptimize

Autoptimize is an optimization plugin that helps speed up your WordPress site. Technically, this is achieved by combining, minifying and caching scripts and styles. Moreover, it also reduces the HTML code to make your pages lightweight.

Why Autoptimize is one of the best SEO plugins for WordPress

Use Autoptimize to improve your site speed because it:

  • Lays down Javascript and removes query strings
  • Aggregates and optimizes Javascript and CSS
  • Removes things you may not need; for example Google fonts

11. WP Review Pro

Installed: 100 000 | Use case: Schema rich snippets

WP Review Pro is a review plugin that helps you rank higher in search results by displaying rich snippets.
It is ideal for displaying products, books, movies, games, etc. as it supports 14 types of rich snippets.

As a bonus, the plugin also includes a notification bar and custom widgets so you can post reviews in different places on your site.

Why WP Review Pro is one of the best SEO plugins for WordPress

WP Review Pro helps you create impressive, information-rich, mobile-friendly reviews that stand out in search results:

12. Better Search Replace

Better Search Replace is a handy plugin that you can use when migrating your WordPress site to a new domain or server. At some point in the process, you'll need to do a search and replace in the database to make things work.

For example, if you have updated your domain to "HTTPS" and "non-www", you can use it to bulk update all the links on your site from "HTTP" to "HTTPS" and "WWW" to "non-WWW".

Advice: Always use a backup of your database before using this plugin.

The premium version adds more functionality, such as the ability to backup and import the database when performing a search/replace, and view changes.

Why Better Search Replace is one of the best SEO plugins for WordPress

There are several similar plugins in the WordPress repository, but Better Search Replace has the advantage because it allows you to:

  • Select specific tables from a database
  • Do a "test run" first to see how many fields will be updated before making changes.
  • Change links (such as affiliate links) in bulk

13. Sucuri

The Sucuri Security plugin for WordPress is free for all users with the option to purchase additional premium services such as a firewall. It is important to ensure that your site is secure and free of malware, as a hacked site can seriously damage your reputation and ranking.

Why Sucuri is one of the best SEO plugins for WordPress

  • Security Activity Audit- Monitors all security-related events in your WordPress installation; For example, who is logging in? What changes are being made?
  • File integrity monitoring- compares the last known “good” state of the files with the current state. If there is a difference, there may be a problem.
  • Remote scanning for malware– checks whether your site is infected with any type of malware (including SPAM), and whether it has been blacklisted or deleted.
  • Monitoring blacklist - checks various blacklist mechanisms to ensure your site is not on the list. If so, then Sucuri will help you remove your site.
  • Effective security enhancement- adds only the most effective security enhancements that complement Sucuri.
  • Security Actions after a compromise - will walk you through the three key things you should do after a compromise.
  • Security Notices- Allows you to customize how and when you want to receive notifications about security alerts.
  • Website Firewall (Premium)- An enterprise-grade website firewall designed to provide the best protection.

14. AMP for WP

AMP for WP automatically adds the Google Accelerated Mobile Pages feature to your WordPress site so it works faster for mobile visitors.
And with more than 50% of search engine visits coming from mobile devices, you need to provide the best user experience and reduce your bounce rate—and that's a good sign for Google.

Why AMP for WP is one of the best SEO plugins for WordPress

Google launched their first mobile indexing in March 2018, meaning they now index the mobile version of a website rather than the desktop version. Using AMP for WP means you can:

  • Automatically integrate AMP into your site
  • Add other AMP-only content
  • View AMP Pages
  • Optimize your website's mobile pages for much faster loading speeds than standard web pages
  • Add canonical tags so Google knows the original page

15. Rel Nofollow Checkbox

The Rel Nofollow Checkbox plugin adds a checkbox to check when creating links in WordPress. Although it doesn't seem like much at first glance, it is a useful time-saving tool. An alternative would be to have to bypass the HTML code and add the code manually.

Why Rel Nofollow Checkbox is one of the best SEO plugins for WordPress

  • Mark links nofollow
  • Mark affiliate links
  • Prevent search engines from punishing your site for links to low-quality content

16. Really Simple SSL

The Really Simple SSL plugin automatically detects your WordPress settings and configures your site to run over HTTPS. It's easy to use - get an SSL certificate, activate the plugin and enable SSL.

The premium version includes content scanning and shows you what you should do if you don't already have a green lock.

Why Really Simple SSL is one of the best SEO plugins for WordPress

When you migrate your site from HTTP to HTTPS, it is very important to set up proper redirects and avoid being indexed by multiple versions of Google. Use Really Simple SSL for:

  • Prevent recurring data problems
  • Redirect all incoming requests to HTTPS
  • Changes Site URL and Homepage URL to HTTPS

17. BJ Lazy Load

The BJ Lazy Load plugin makes WordPress pages load faster by not displaying images in the browser until needed.

Instead, the plugin replaces all your images, labels, and frames with placeholder, and then loads the content just before it is displayed in the browser window; that is, how visitors scroll down the page.

You can also use the plugin with text widgets and embedded videos from YouTube, Vimeo, etc.

Why BJ Lazy Load is one of the best SEO plugins for WordPress

Google has been using site speed as a ranking factor since 2010. Additionally, your visitors expect fast and responsive websites.

BJ Lazy Load ensures that your pages load quickly by loading and displaying images only when needed. Why download everything when some users won't scroll down to see everything?

18.WPML

Installed: 600 000+ | Use case: multilingual sites

The WordPress Multilingual (WPML) plugin makes it easy to create and launch multilingual websites. You can translate pages, posts, custom types, taxonomy, menus, and even text into themes and plugins.

WPML helps search engines understand the structure of your site and directs the right traffic to the right language. It is also compatible with WooCommerce, so you can run a multilingual e-commerce site.

Why WPML is one of the best SEO plugins for WordPress

WPML allows you to fully optimize your site for search engines in multiple languages ​​so you can:

  • Control how URLs look
  • Set SEO meta information for translations
  • Link translations together
  • Create valid Sitemaps with correct pages

Best SEO Tools for WordPress

Besides adding SEO plugins to your WordPress site, there are several other SEO tools to improve performance, increase traffic, and increase conversions.

SEMrush

SEMrush offers a complete set of SEO tools:

  • Competitor analysis– Learn about your competitors’ content strategy, keywords, traffic, and most importantly, content gaps you can take advantage of.
  • Keyword Research- Use multiple SEMrush keyword reports to quickly find and evaluate keyword opportunities.
  • Link Creation— monitor the quantity and quality of backlinks to your site and your competitors. Use insights to find new backlink prospects and identify the most “linkable” content types and topics in your industry.
  • Tracking Ranking - Track keyword rankings for your site and your competitors at the domain, subdomain, subfolder, or URL level on mobile or desktop devices.
  • Site audit- Find and fix your tech and technical issues to improve your search engine rankings.
  • 133 SEMrush Expert Rating #1 Keyword Research Tool
  • Rated by 65 SEMrush Experts #1 Keyword Ranking Tracker Tool
  • Rated by 67 SEMrush Experts #1 Competitor Analysis Tool
  • Expert Rating 143 SEMrush #1 SEO Tool

Ahrefs

Ahrefs is a complete set of SEO tools:

  • Keyword Research– Check keyword difficulty, traffic, value and SERP overview reports to identify high value keyword opportunities.
  • Analysis Backlinks - Use link data to find competitor links, identify link building strategies, and identify keyword opportunities.
  • Content Analysis- Find out what types of content and topics drive the most traffic, links, and engagement on major social networks.
  • Site audit- Use the tool to determine which technical and on-page issues are affecting search performance.
  • Analysis competitors - research your competitor's link building, PPC and content strategy to find gaps so you can get ahead of them
  • 50 Experts Rate Ahrefs #1 Backlink Checker
  • 67 Experts Rate Ahrefs as the #1 Link Building Tool
  • 47 Experts Rate Ahrefs as the #1 SEO Audit Tool

Google Keyword Planner is designed for creating Google Adwords campaigns. But marketers also like to use data for keyword research.

But in this case, only some data is useful. Moreover, Google has introduced ranges of search queries and groups keywords with similar meaning,

  • If you have a budget, you'll get more specific numbers.
  • If you use the free option, you will get a rough estimate for your keywords, but you must be careful when interpreting the data.

Answer The Public

Answer The Public is a free visual research tool for keywords and content ideas. It's great for generating keyword ideas based on questions.

Enter a starting keyword; For example, "CRM" and press "Get questions."

You will receive hundreds of questions classified by what, where, why, what, who, will, how, maybe, in a visual format; For example, search query "CRM" gave 178 questions :

Expand to a specific question category; For example, "Maybe" :

Results for "CRM" also included:

  • 112 prepositions; for example CRM With project management
  • 99 comparisons; for example CRM against marketing automation
  • 519 alphabets; for example CRM a dministrator, CRM b enefits, etc.
  • 20 related; for example, software security CRM

Searching for question-based and comparison terms can provide great ideas for top and middle funnel content. For example, you can use them for FAQ sections on product pages.

Additionally, these terms can be used in sales support materials that may not necessarily have any direct search demand, but are vital to moving people down the buying funnel. They would be especially useful in the B2B space, where purchase times are longer due to the larger number of decision makers.