Introduction
Welcome to the world of WordPress. If you are just starting, you should aim to add content that can attract traffic to your website. While doing so, you want to make it search-engine friendly, a process called Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). A plugin in WordPress can help you optimize your content for search engines. We have covered the 3 best WordPress SEO plugins to help you make an informed choice.
If you cannot afford to hire an expert, you can simply install the plugin and get started on your own. Only the right plugin is what you need to get your SEO going. You will be learning and doing things on the fly. That is our way of doing things!
1. Yoast SEO
This free plugin by Yoast (Premium is also available) is considered the number ONE for WordPress SEO. The two main features are:
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- Ease of use and email support (in Premium Version).
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- Availability of numerous features in the free version.
With Yoast SEO, not only the technical part of SEO is taken care of, but also the quality of your content is improved. For example, it compels the author (or editor) to use the main keywords with an optimal density. That way, you will neither lose on SEO nor fluff the content unnecessarily.
Other features include readability analysis, meta tags, sitemap generation, schema integration, and control of breadcrumbs. If you are new to SEO and don’t know these terms, just Google them or look into the help available for each of these features within the plugin.
PS: We have used this plugin ourselves and found it helpful. We have switched between Yoast SEO and Rank Math SEO (described below) to gain the most out of the free versions of the two plugins.
2. Rank Math SEO
You may not find this plugin in some of the recommendations you find on the internet. Do you know why? That’s because it was launched in 2020 and is labeled as ‘New 2023’ when you search WordPress SEO plugins. However, it has become our first choice, and so by others (2+ million active users, more than five thousand 5-star ratings, as of Oct 2023).
The reason it is our first choice is that it uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to help you optimize your content. The features include dynamic keywords, suggested questions (for including in the content), integration with Google Analytics and search console, etc. Rank Math has about 30 detailed tests for SEO which too in the free version.
The only thing that we (and others) hate about rank math is the limitations on freely available resources. You must pay for Content AI credits. However, we do understand that it is necessary to keep the plugin running.
3. All in One SEO (or AIOSEO)
This is another wonderful WordPress SEO plugin to consider. What makes this plugin unique is that it is the oldest among the three plugins we listed here (launched in 2007!). This makes it a comprehensive plugin that can take care of a variety of things including generation (and submission) of sitemaps, on-page, local SEO, meta descriptions, schema markup, etc. There are 3 million + active users of this plugin, as of Aug 2022.
PS: Although we haven’t tried it yet (we are too young to try out everything yet!), however, this plugin appears on top of search results for SEO plugins within the WordPress plugin’s directory.
Way Forward
While we have covered only the top 3 WordPress SEO plugins, you can find plenty of others. What is good for us, may not be suitable for your needs. That’s because we believe that there is no one-size-fits-all. Also, this blog post just represents the tip of the iceberg of these three plugins. Why don’t you go ahead and try the top plugins yourself and let us know in the comments what you like and which plugin addresses your needs?
To be on the safe side, just make sure that you have a backup of your website data before you try something out. We wish you the best of luck and look forward to hearing about your experiences.
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