We are bringing to your attention 10 of the best SEO plugins you can and probably should use on your blog.
The goal (as usual) is to turn your WordPress blog into a real SEO beast and well optimized websites get more organic traffic – meaning more revenue and opportunities for you to monetize your online presence.
Google, a.k.a. the main player in the SEO craze, loves the WordPress because it is fast, cleanly coded and handles most of the optimizations automatically. For what the CMS lacks in terms of optimization – we have plugins. Great, right!
1. WordPress SEO by Yoast
One of the mature and stable SEO plugins, packed with features and trusted by a huge user base.
Bloggers love the WordPress SEO plugin because it guides them on making content the true king. You get a Page Analysis for each piece you write – the plugin checks and reminds you for all of the requirements your posts should meet. You will be aware whether keywords are present in your titles, subtitles & meta-titles, with what density and much more.
Apart from that, it handles automatically some technical optimizations and gives you fine control over others. For example, the plugin optimizes and inserts Meta tags but also lets you edit them yourself; you can choose which pages search engines should include in the results and which not, etc.
Other sweet features – WordPress SEO comes in more than 20 languages, it supports WordPress Multiuser installations, and also you can export your setting and quickly set up another blog in the same manner.
Downloads: 14,466,117
Link: https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-seo/
2. All-in-One SEO Pack
Also one of the major players in the all-in-one SEO plugins corner. Bloggers agree that All-in-One SEO Pack offers a simpler approach to search engine optimisations than most other “pack” solutions, making it suitable for both novice and advanced users. It works right out of the box – simply install and activate it in WordPress.
It optimizes your titles, generates Meta tags automatically and takes care of your XML sitemaps. This WordPress SEO plugin supports optimizations for custom post types and WP e-Commerce sites!
Downloads: 20,639,920
Link: https://wordpress.org/plugins/all-in-one-seo-pack/
3. SEO Ultimate
One of the powerful “all in one” SEO plugin solutions, packed with many features, broken down into easy to navigate modules.
SEO Ultimate unleashes your control over the Title and Meta tags all over your website. You need a different title tag for your home page? No problem. Add a Meta description for those old 300 posts? Sure, just use the mass-editor.
The plugin is packed with an impressive No Follow manager, removes poor quality keywords from your slugs and notifies you about unnecessary plugins that are active on your blog.
There is also a video tutorial to get you started, so don’t worry if it sounds overwhelming.
Downloads: 1,536,125
Link: https://wordpress.org/plugins/seo-ultimate/
4. SQUIRRLY SEO
The new kid in town. Squirrely is advertised as a tool for non-SEO experts that should act as a personal consultant and even give you suggestions for keywords and image ideas as you type.
Unlike the other free plugins listed here, this one follows the freemium model – it is free for 3 articles and 5 keywords per month.
Bloggers and website owners are reporting varying experiences with the plugin and its innovative approach to SEO. Squirrly won’t clash with your other SEO plugins, so it is safe to try in case you are curious.
Downloads: 704,672
Link: https://wordpress.org/plugins/squirrly-seo/
5. SEO Friendly Images
Images can bring you traffic through Google Image Search, so don’t forget they require their share of search engine optimizations too.
SEO Friendly Images is a WordPress SEO plugin that will make sure you have Alt tags and Titles automatically added to all of your images. This really comes in handy for image based blogs with lots of pictures (think photographers, graphic designers, etc.). Also, it is perfect for bloggers who want their images/graphics shared via Pinterest or similar services – meaningful titles ensure discoverability.
Downloads: 1,304,752
Link: https://wordpress.org/plugins/seo-image/
6. Google XML Sitemaps
This is a must-have SEO plugin – it generates a sitemap of your blog for Google, Bing and other search engines, plus it keeps it up to date automatically. Sitemaps are important because you want to make it as easy as possible for search bots to get around your website, to discover your content and show it in search results. Wait no more, give those bots a sitemap!
Downloads: 15,826,915
Link: https://wordpress.org/plugins/google-sitemap-generator/
7. SEO Smart Links
This interesting plugin will automatically insert links to your older and important articles into the new ones you write.
Here is an example – set ‘dog bite’ as a keyword and each time you write those two words in you blog the plugin will turn them into a link to that important article on Dog Bite Remedies you wrote 3 years ago.
SEO Smart Links is an amazing SEO plugin that can save you a lot of time and brain cycles since you won’t need to memorize the list of your publications by heart.
Downloads: 901,756
Link: https://wordpress.org/plugins/seo-automatic-links/
8. All In One Favicon
Whether or not favicons affect SEO directly or not has been a hot topic lately. In any case, experts agree that it certainly improves user experience and makes your brand more recognizable. Ultimately, this means more people will return to your website again and again.
This SEO plugin in particular supports .ico, .png and animated .gif favicons, as well as Apple Touch Icons.
Downloads: 666,805
Link: https://wordpress.org/plugins/all-in-one-favicon/
9. All In One Schema.org Rich Snippets
Rich Snippets plugins have been gaining popularity lately. “Snippet” is the preview of your blogs’ pages in search engine results. Those are usually in text-only format, but with this SEO plugin you can add ratings, prices, author and images which can increase the clicks on your results and improve ranking.
Whether you write articles or reviews, promote events or products, or have a website full of recepies – give rich snippets a try.
Downloads: 128,473
Link: https://wordpress.org/plugins/all-in-one-schemaorg-rich-snippets/
10. Broken Link Checker for WordPress
As time passes and your blog gets bigger, broken links are bound to appear here and there in your pages, articles and comments. The Broken Link Chekcer SEO plugin monitors your content and helps you quickly take care of those “dead end” links search engines hate so much.
Downloads: 2,947,873
Link: https://wordpress.org/plugins/broken-link-checker/
Those were our suggestions for the best WordPress SEO plugins.
Go plug them in and let us know what we have missed!
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