The core WordPress software is optimized for SEO. However, you shouldn’t stop there. With SEO plugins, you can further ensure your website ranks as high as possible on Google and other search engines. There are plenty of factors that affect a website’s SEO. Using a good plugin is just one factor for optimizing your website for search engines.
Here are the top SEO plugins for WordPress websites:
Yoast SEO
In the WordPress community, Yoast is highly recommended and is often touted as a must-have plugin for any WordPress site. This free plugin has been around for years, and it gets updated very regularly too. The plugin helps you structure your website in a way that makes it easy for search engines to crawl your site. It also helps you write better content that search engines love!
Yoast gives you detailed and highly actionable suggestions in real time. It helps you craft SEO-optimized titles, metadata, URL slugs, and so much more. The plugin is generally easy to understand. However, for the novice user, you’d probably find yourself reeling from all the technical terms you’ll encounter on the plugin’s settings. The good thing is the Yoast community is very robust. You’ll find people willing to help out and give suggestions to help make your site better SEO-wise.
All In One SEO Pack
The second most popular SEO plugin is the All In One SEO Pack plugin. It has most of the features that Yoast has but in a slim and bloat-free interface. It also has comprehensive documentation, so whether you’re a beginner or an advanced WordPress user, you can easily use all that this plugin has to offer.
All In One SEO
Pack gives you the freedom to choose which features to activate. For instance, you can activate XML sitemaps, social meta, robots.txt, file editor, bad bot blocker, etc. Some people also prefer this plugin’s interface over Yoast. But, of course, that all boils down to personal preferences.
Conclusion
Both Yoast and All In One SEO Pack are useful plugins for improving your on-site and on-page SEO. Whichever plugin you choose to install, it’s just one-half of the equation. You still need to consider the off-site SEO factors if you want to have your site rank for the long-term.