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7 SEO Plugins for WordPress (And Must-Have SEO Tools)

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If you have a WordPress website and want to know how to increase its rankings on search engine results pages, you’ve come to the right place.

With 75% of users not scrolling past the first page of search results, it can be challenging to attract organic traffic and grow conversion rates. Thus, implementing SEO efforts is essential for the success of your website.

A great way to improve your SEO strategy is using SEO plugins. They’ll provide you with several SEO tools and features for optimization and monitoring.

That said, it’s critical to make sure your website has proper resources as installing plugins takes up storage space. To ensure a well-performing website, make sure to use a reliable WordPress hosting package with sufficient bandwidth and storage.

Then, you can start looking for options to boost your website ranking. This article has compiled the seven best WordPress SEO plugins to improve your website’s visibility on search engines.

Let’s get started.

1. Yoast SEO

Yoast SEO

Yoast SEO

Yoast SEO stats:

  • Downloads: 5,000,000+
  • Rating:8/5
  • Price: freemium

Yoast SEO is the most popular WordPress SEO plugin on the market. It’s packed with search engine optimization tools to boost the ranking of WordPress sites.

For starters, it offers title and meta description templates for better and more consistent snippets in search results.

It features automated technical SEO improvements such as canonical URLs and meta tags, which identify your pages and better inform search engines about the content on your WordPress website.

The plugin also has an SEO analysis feature to help write SEO-friendly content with the correct key phrases. Additionally, it ensures readability so both users and search engines can understand your content without hassle.

Additionally, Yoast SEO supports multiple languages, from English and French to Russian and Indonesian. The plugin also comes with great add-ons such as Yoast Local SEO to help optimize your WordPress website for a local audience.

On top of that, adding WordPress websites to Google Search Console is essential for better crawling and visibility. Thus, Yoast SEO has a short tutorial to help its users complete the task.

These features are accessible in the plugin’s free version. However, for more advanced SEO functionality, such as automatic internal linking suggestions and redirects, consider investing in a paid package for $89/year.

2. All In One SEO

All In One SEO

All In One SEO

All In One SEO stats:

  • Downloads: 2,000,000+
  • Rating:5/5
  • Price: freemium

All In One SEO, or AIOSEO for short, is a comprehensive WordPress SEO plugin. It has features such as schema markup, webmaster tool connection, and social media integration to improve the site’s rankings on search engine results pages.

Users can optimize their WordPress website’s SEO settings based on their website type – be it blogs, portfolios, or eCommerce.

The plugin helps pages rank using the TrueSEO score. It analyzes readability and content for relevant keywords, so search engines understand your posts and pages.

It also has seamless integration with social media platforms. That way, website owners can preview their content before publishing on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube.

Additionally, AIOSEO integrates with webmaster tools such as Google Search Console and Google Analytics. They help improve the site’s crawling process and measure SEO results and progress.

Another notable feature is the SEO schema markup, where the plugin uses SEO snippets and breadcrumbs to boost organic traffic.

Those interested in the AIOSEO plugin can download it for free on the WordPress directory. Alternatively, consider purchasing a paid plan if you need more features and priority support.

The pricing starts at $49.50/year for a single site and goes up to $299.50 for 100 sites. All plans include unlimited keywords and a money-back guarantee.

3. Slim SEO

Slim SEO

Slim SEO

Slim SEO stats:

  • Downloads: 10,000+
  • Rating:6/5
  • Price: free

If you’re looking for easy-to-use SEO tools, look no further than this WordPress SEO plugin. It requires zero configuration – users can start using it right after the installation.

The plugin is also lightweight, with only 40 KB. Thus, it’s fast loading and great for site performance.

Slim SEO can auto-generate meta tags to optimize SEO scores and rank your site higher on search engine page results. They consist of SEO-friendly meta titles and meta descriptions for posts and pages excerpts.

Other excellent auto-generating features include social media sharing tags for Facebook and Twitter, which create essential information like titles, descriptions, and thumbnails.

Additionally, if you forget the alt texts when uploading images, the plugin will automatically add them. This is an essential step since image alt text can help improve site ranking.

Other automated SEO features included in this free plugin are XML sitemap, schema, and auto redirection.

4. SEOPress

SEOPress

SEOPress

SEOPress stats:

  • Downloads: 200,000+
  • Rating:9/5
  • Price: freemium

SEOPress is a powerful plugin with SEO tools for optimization, markup, structuring, and monitoring.

For optimization, the plugin offers meta customization for titles and descriptions. It also lets you customize thumbnails for sharing on Facebook and Twitter. Before publishing, users can view the post to ensure the content will appear properly.

It’s also possible to edit the default canonical URL for each post, page, or post type, which improves crawling and indexing.

As for structuring, the plugin allows building custom XML and HTML sitemaps to help search engines understand and crawl your WordPress website more efficiently. Users can customize pages, posts, taxonomies, videos, and authors.

The plugin also has a URL rewriting feature to remove trailing slashes such as /category/ and /product-category/ for a cleaner URL, which improves crawlability and visibility.

It’s also possible to mark up your content with business or marketing details to get featured in Google Knowledge Graph cards. For instance, it lets you add logos and organization phone numbers.

All these features are accessible in the free version. However, consider purchasing a pro version if you want more advanced SEO tools.

There are two plans to choose from, which cost $39 and $99/year and come with different SEO tools. Alternatively, users can purchase a bundled version for $118/year.

5. Rank Math SEO

Rank Math SEO

Rank Math SEO

Rank Math SEO stats:

  • Downloads: 900,000+
  • Rating:9/5
  • Price: freemium

Rank Math SEO has a clean and organized interface, making it one of the most user-friendly WordPress SEO plugins in our list.

Its setup wizard offers a step-by-step installation and configuration guide to help you implement SEO on your WordPress website without hassle.

Another great feature is the compatibility checker, which checks if your website is fully compatible with the plugin. It’s a handy tool to save time and prevent unwanted errors in the future.

Rank Math SEO also integrates with Google Search Console, so users can see data right from their WordPress dashboard.

Other valuable integrations include popular WordPress page builders such as Elementor and Divi. That way, users can handle SEO-related configuration in real-time using a visual editor.

These features are available in the plugin’s free version. Rank Math also offers premium plans from $59/year to $499/year.

6. W3 Total Cache

W3 Total Cache

W3 Total Cache

W3 Total Cache stats:

  • Downloads: 1,000,000+
  • Rating:4/5
  • Price: freemium

Unlike others in this list, W3 Total Cache is a caching plugin that improves search engine optimization by enhancing website performance. It leverages features such as content delivery network (CDN) integration and Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) support.

The AMP support ensures the website loads as fasts on mobile as it does on desktops. Since 92.6% of worldwide internet users access the internet via mobile devices, this is essential for your website.

Furthermore, the plugin uses minification to save bandwidth and further increase site speed. It minifies HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files, as well as posts, pages, and RSS feeds.

Thanks to the above feature, your WordPress site can render and return content faster. Aside from reducing page load time, it also has a positive effect on users’ browsing experience.

These features are available for free if you download the plugin from the WordPress plugin directory. However, you can access more performance options such as extensions support and Google Maps optimization using the plugin’s pro version, which costs $8.25/month.

7. WP Meta SEO

WP Meta SEO

WP Meta SEO

WP Meta SEO stats:

  • Downloads: 30,000+
  • Rating:3/5
  • Price: freemium

The last WordPress SEO plugin in our list comes with a meta information manager. It’s an excellent feature to edit meta titles and descriptions in bulk from a single interface.

Additionally, the plugin also comes with a bulk editor for editing image information. Users can quickly change file name, title, description, and alt text to optimize images.

This SEO plugin also generates and sends Sitemap XML and HTML to Google Search Console to improve your WordPress website’s crawling. Additionally, users can select pages, posts, and menus to automatically include in the HTML and XML sitemaps.

It’s also possible to track analytics on the WordPress dashboard by enabling Google Analytics with a one-click authentication.

If you’re looking for more SEO features such as Google keyword suggestions and custom email reports, consider upgrading to a paid plan, starting at $39 for six months of support and updates.

Conclusion

A WordPress SEO plugin is a must-have tool for improving the site’s visibility on search engines. When configured properly, they can help WordPress websites rank higher and increase organic traffic.

If you don’t know which SEO plugin to try first, here’s a recap of the seven options listed in the article:

  • Yoast SEO. A versatile option with features like local SEO and multiple-language support.
  • All In One SEO. A user-friendly solution for those looking for an easy setup.
  • Slim SEO. A lightweight and simple SEO plugin for those who prioritize site performance.
  • A powerful plugin with SEO tools for optimization, markup, structuring, and monitoring.
  • Rank Math SEO. An excellent solution for those looking for a clean and organized interface. It includes a step-by-step installation and configuration guide as well.
  • W3 Total Cache. A web performance optimization tool to improve SEO using features such as minification and CDN integration.
  • WP Meta SEO. The best SEO plugin to edit information in bulk, be it image or meta titles and descriptions.

There you have it, the best WordPress SEO plugins to optimize your website for search engines. Best of luck!

Author Bio:

Juliet is an Editor at PRable.org, all in one content marketing agency. She loves creating articles about technology, innovative product reviews, and technical writing to help scale up digital growth. She is a writer by day and a frustrated singer by night.

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