Search engines are the main foundation to get free traffic to a website. The more pages of your website on the first page of a search engine, the more free traffic you will generate. In order to have your pages on the first page of a search engine, you need to optimize them.
The process is called search engine optimization a.k.a SEO. If you have a WordPress-powered website, you can install an SEO plugin to assist you in optimizing a page to make it SEO friendly. We have curated the 6 best SEO plugins that you can use.
SEO itself is a complex job. There are some aspects you have to notice. Installing an SEO plugin is just a little step out of a long process. The main job of an SEO plugin is to help you to optimize the content of your page to make it SEO friendly. That is why most SEO plugins come with indicators to gauge how good your page in terms of search engine optimization.
Here are the 6 best SEO plugins you can install on your WordPress site to help to optimize your pages to make them SEO friendly. The list below is ordered by the number of users based on the stats on WordPress.org.
1. Yoast
Whether you are a new or old WordPress user, chances are you have heard about Yoast. It’s not just a popular SEO plugin. It’s one of the most popular WordPress plugins in general. According to a stat on WordPress.org, Yoast is used by over 5 million users to optimize their websites. Yoast comes with nearly all features you can expect from an SEO plugin.
First, it comes with an SEO analysis feature which helps to ensure every article you write is search engine optimized. There are three indicators that show the SEO level of your article: green, yellow, red. Yoast can help you to optimize a certain keyword.
When writing a new article, Yoast allows you to add a meta description. Yoast also offers key features of SEO, including breadcrumbs and XML sitemaps. It also supports integration with the most popular page builder plugin — Elementor.
2. All-in-one SEO
All-in-one SEO is another popular SEO plugin for WordPress. The plugin has over 2 million users. All-in-one SEO Pack itself is now owned by Awesome Motive, the company behind popular WordPress plugins like WPForms, OptinMonster, SeedProd, and MonsterInsights. Awesome Motive acquired All-in-one SEO Pack back in early 2020. All-in-one SEO Pack previously had no feature to analyze the content of your page, but it now has one.
Same as Yoast, you can simply provide the keyword you want to target and All-in-one SEO Pack will analyze the content and offers suggestions on which parts need to be changed to improve the SEO score. You can also add a meta description to your content.
Same as Yoast, All-in-one SEO Pack is also released as a freemium plugin. The core features are available on both versions of All-in-one SEO Pack. You will be able to add multiple focus keywords if you use the pro version. Other features available on the pro version include the local SEO, image SEO, and video SEO.
3. Rank Math
You can also use Rank Math to optimize the content of your website to make it SEO friendly. Not just regular pages or blog posts, you can also optimize your Elementor page SEO friendly with the help of Rank Math in case you use the most popular page builder plugin. The Rank Match tagline — The Swiss Army Knife of WordPress SEO — is representative enough as Rank Math is a feature-rich SEO plugin.
In addition to an SEO analysis feature to help you to make sure that your content is SEO friendly, Rank Math also comes with features to allow you to integrate your website with Google’s products like Google Search Console (formerly Google Webmasters and Web Stories) more effortlessly. There is also a feature to optimize your content for local SEO.
If you use WooCommerce, Rank Math SEO also allows you to optimize a single product page. Rank Math itself is installed by over 600,000 users according to a stat on WordPress.org.
4. SEOPress
If you use Elementor on your WordPress site, you can also use SEOPress to optimize the SEO aspect of your page as SEOPress comes with an Elementor integration. Of course, it also allows you to optimize the regular page you create with Gutenberg (the default block editor of WordPress). The SEO analysis feature of SEOPress will evaluate the following elements on your page:
- Keyword density
- Structured data types
- Meta title
- Headings
- Outbond links
- Keyword in permalink
- Meta title
- Meta description
- Alternative text of images
In addition, you can also set a custom title as well as a description for social media (Facebook and Twitter). While you can use SEOPress for free, the pro version offers more advanced features like an integration with Google Analytics to allow you to monitor your site traffic right from the WordPress dashboard, the ability to export/import metadata, breadcrumbs, the ability to optimize your WooCommerce pages as well as Easy Digital Downloads pages.
5. The SEO Framework
The SEO Framework has over 100,000 users. Compared to other SEO plugins above, the features offered by The SEO Framework tend to limit. For instance, it offers no SEO analysis feature. All it offers to optimize your content is the ability to set a custom meta title and a custom meta description, be it for search engines or social media (Facebook and Twitter).
The SEO Framework tends to ideal to be used on a single page site whereby you can optimize the homepage of your website. Features like sitemap and breadcrumbs are available.
6. WP Meta SEO
Another SEO plugin that you can use to optimize the content of your website is WP Meta SEO. It comes with an SEO analysis feature that you can use to analyze the optimization level of your pages. WP Meta SEO analyzes the following elements of a page:
- Page title word in content heading
- Page title word in content
- Page URL
- Meta title
- Meta description
- Alternative text of the images
WP Meta SEO allows you to set a custom title as well as a custom meta description for your content both for search engines and social (Twitter and Facebook).
The pro version of WP Meta SEO offers more advanced features such as Google Search Console integration, the ability to optimize your WooCommerce, and Google My Business integration.
