SEO Plugins for WordPress Website in 2023

September 12, 2023 Ruchi Goraksha Knowledge, Search Engine Optimization, Skill Development

About SEO

SEO is a term that is most commonly used if you are doing a course in ‘Content writing’ or ‘Digital marketing’. So before turning to SEO plugins it’s most important to understand, what is SEO?? What does it stand for?? And besides what is its importance in the world of content writing and marketing??

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization in technical terms, whereas in layman terms it means driving more traffic and users to your website so that the search engine shows your online content as the top result for the searches of a certain keyword.

Very often you will hear about synchronous words like Keywords, Rankings, Organic traffic, Click through rate, digital marketing when you hear about SEO

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WHY IS SEO IMPORTANT

Search engines are the primary route to drive traffic to your websites. It’s important that when people search for the topics you write about, your website should appear in search results, hence optimizing your website in google and other search engines will help you to rank better in search results which in turn will help you to grow your business. Therefore business owners need to make their website search engine friendly.

Even if we consider our very own habits whenever we want to buy anything or visit any restaurant the first thing that we do is start with a search by using some keywords, and go with results on the first page. It’s said that the first five SERPS (search engine result pages) receive 67.6% of all clicks.

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WHY WORDPRESS

WordPress is the most popular and relatively user-friendly which has been accessed by approximately 75 million websites. There are thousands of plugins and templates which are available which reduce developmental costs and are time-saving. WordPress is one of the best publishing platforms for web design in business.

THE BEST WORDPRESS SEO PLUGINS

One of the best parts about WordPress is that there is a plugin for almost everything, and the count is endless and at times it becomes hard for beginners to choose the best amongst them.

Listed below are the best WordPress SEO plugins:-

1. YOAST SEO

The most popular and commonly used SEO developed by Joost De Valk and his company Yoast offers splendid features designed in a way that will enable you to get the most of your website.

Yoast plugin helps to add SEO titles to your posts and pages and, add social media images to your article.
It helps to create an XML site map.XML site map is a list of the website’s URLs. It will tell the search engine what content is available and how to reach it.
It helps to optimize the content through AMP (Accelerated mobile pages)which helps to load websites on mobile and load web pages at a much faster rate.
There’s also a feature that shows how well the page is optimized for the targeted keyword.
There is a Readability analysis which tells how difficult or easy it is to read your Content
Google preview helps you to understand, how your content will look even on the mobile devices

2. SEMRUSH

Semrush is the next popular SEO tool that will give detailed information about traffic analytics, keyword research, rank tracking, and competitive research.

Key features are:-

Organic Research:

You can gain a lot of information about competition like how much monthly traffic the site will get from search engines.
SEMrush shows you keywords that bring that site the most traffic.
You can also sort by volume and see terms that are searched the most
The advanced filter will ensure that you can see terms with cost per click.
SERP feature (search engine results pages) ensures you can filter out keywords that will get you lots of organic clicks.
Additionally, you will be able to see a site’s average page views, bounce rate, session duration, and more.
It is also a very good PPC (Pay per click) tool, so, that you will also be able to see “Keywords” that competition bids very often.

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3. ALL IN ONE SEO PACK

All in One SEO Pack has functions that are similar to that of YOAST SEO and are more customized and have some additional features.

You will be able to add SEO title and Metatags
Open graph meta tags
Add XML sitemaps and image sitemaps
It has a user-friendly interface
Add site links search box mark-up (Site-links are links to other pages that appear under Google search results, and also help users navigate to relevant information on a website easily)
All in One Seo Pack Pro Plugin is more affordable than YOAST SEO and most popular after the YOAST SEO plugin.

4. GOOGLE SEARCH CONSOLE

Google Search Console is an indispensable tool available free of cost which is helpful to maintain the site’s presence in Google search results.

It is extremely useful to find keywords that can be used to optimize content and rank higher in the search engines which can eventually help to come up with new blog post ideas.
It can help to fix crawling errors,(Crawling error occurs when a search engine tries to reach a page on a website but fails due to error 301 or 400)
It provides URL inspection
It helps to monitor the site traffic and performance and optimize content with search analytics

5. GOOGLE KEYWORD PLANNER

GOOGLE KEYWORD PLANNERis a free tool available mainly for advertisers which helps them to identify the keywords, which can be used for the bidding purpose mostly in advertising campaigns.

It will be helpful to find out the right targeted keywords with a specific focus on the volumes, cost per click, and difficulty level.

Find the right targeted keywords will result in higher search volumes which in turn will lead to a higher ranking on the search engine.

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6. AHREFS

AHREFs SEO plugin is also one of the most popular SEO plugins and offers some ‘distinct’ added features making it unique from other SEO plugins available in the market.

To do keyword research
For Competition Analysis
To monitor backlinks which is a distinct feature that differentiates from others and to find out the website’s backlink profile which is also essential to get higher rankings in search engines.
It gives an index of live backlinks, which is updated every 15 to 30 minutes and gives detailed information on Ahref’s rank, Domain Rating, and URL rating.
Google Analytics Integration helps to analyze traffic and conversion data to get more traffic to your website.
Google Search Console Integration feature helps to give better recommendations for keywords and analyze keywords data to merge the content.

7.RANKMATH

RANKMATH is the most user-friendly and feature-packed SEO plugin available in the market.

It has some power-packed features as compared to other SEO plugins like

Google Search Console Integration
Redirection in case of any specific page error (It has a 404 error monitor that looks for visitors reaching the 404 error page and eliminates this type of error by removing internal links to the error 404). Rankmath goes one step ahead and tells where the users are unable to find the content with the 404 monitor tool.
It allows to add meta title, description, Open Graph Metadata, add an XML sitemap to the blog post like other SEO plugins.
It comes up with a setup wizard that allows you to import data from other SEO plugins during the setup.

8.SEOPress

SEO Press is simple and economical that’s why it is preferred over YOAST SEO and has many similar features.

It has the following features like other SEO plugins like

Adding Meta-title, description (Quick & easy Twitter meta tags)
Open graph support (Facebook open graph data)
Image & Content XML sitemaps
It also provides content analysis to write SEO optimized posts
It has an easier set-up and user-friendly interface for beginners and advanced controls for experienced users
You can add Google analytics which enables you to track your site in seconds, set up custom dimensions, enable demographics, and also helps in cross-domain tracking.

9. HUBSPOT

HUBSPOT WordPress login is absolutely free of cost and comes with built-in analytics about marketing performance in dashboards that are easy to use.
You will be able to monitor the quantity and quality of traffic.
The plugins come with add-ons such as live chat(lets visitors ask you questions as they’re on your website and engage with them when they’re interested using live chat), email marketing, create and publish forms, slide-ins, and banners using the drag-and-drop builder to generate leads on your website which will help to grow your business.

10. MONSTER INSIGHTS

MONSTER INSIGHTS is the most powerful, user-friendly, and one of the best Google Analytics for WordPress.

WithGoogle Analytics on the WordPress dashboard, you will be able to see web analytics report in the dashboard with actionable insights
You will be able to set up Universal Website tracking across devices and campaigns with few clicks
Real-time Stats to see who is online, what they are doing etc.
Page-level Analytics to get detailed stats for each post and page which will ensure that you can see the most popular posts, sections and, pages of your website.
Performance & Optimize enable Google to optimize wherein you can adjust speed & sample rate and several other advanced features.
EU compliance (GDPR friendly) You can now make Google Analytics compliant with GDPR and other privacy regulations automatically
Affiliate Link & Ads Tracking Automatically track clicks on banner ads, and other outbound links with link tracing feature.
Enhanced E-commerce Tracking for WooCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads & Member Press
Custom Dimensions Set up tracking for authors, categories, tags, searches, custom post types, users, and other events with one click.

In short Monster, Insights provides a simplified and methodical way to analyze the data without actually logging into the Google Analytics platform

11. SEO SQUIRRLY

SQUIRRLY SEO is one of the excellent SEO which helps in the following ways:-

Have improved rankings on search engines and track the rankings simultaneously by finding and choosing the right keywords
Keyword optimization is done as you are writing the article as opposed to the YOAST plugin where you have to save the article, and then see the results
It also analyses the competition to see how can you go ahead of the competitors
It includes content reports which can be used as a reference for you and others
SEO approves to publish the content
Improve your online presence by getting the details of knowing how your website is working

12. KEYWORDTOOL.IO

KEYWORD TOOL.

It is one of the best tools available in the market for keyword research. It allows you to generate keyword ideas that are gathered from Google’s autosuggestion feature, YouTube, Amazon, etc.

Additionally, you will also gain information by which you can increase organic traffic to your website like search volume, cost per click by simply upgrading to their paid plan.

13. BROKEN LINE CHECKER

Broken Line Checker is a Word Press plugin that is absolutely free of cost and, which helps you to find out broken lines on your website, hence it becomes relevant to find the broken links which are essential for the blog to run smoothly.

It tells the typical error (404, or 301 redirects) and the source of the link which makes it easy to fix the error. It’s a very useful plugin that runs in the background most of the time like the way antivirus runs in the backdrop and alerts in case of any error by email.

The only downside is that the plugin can slow your website and internet speed. So the most effective way to use it is to run it now and then, and then deactivate it in between.

14. SEO Framework

THE SEO FRAMEWORK is an SEO that is a great value add and can generate critical SEO meta tags in any language by reading the WordPress environment.

It is time-saving and can be sued to write more content or focus on any other tasks.
SEO Framework helps to optimize all of your web pages.
It is the only SEO plugin that follows Google’s webmaster guidelines
It improves search presence.
It follows the best practices and is highly secure and compatible at the same time

15. ALL IN ONE SCHEMA RICH SNIPPETS

Rich snippets give a summary of your page in search results of Google, Yahoo, and sometimes even on Facebook.

1.Rich snippets have a unique benefit of showing star ratings below a review, prices below a product, image or video next to the description, and so on

2. Because of all these unique features of PHOTOS, STAR RATINGS, PRICE, AND AUTHOR, it definitely helps you to stand out from the competition, rank higher in search results, and makes a difference in the click-through rate.

3. This plugin also supports the following types of SCHEMAS: REVIEW, EVENT, PEOPLE, PRODUCT, and RECIPE, AND SOFTWARE APPLICATION. 4.It works excellently alongside the existing WordPress SEO plugin.

BEST SEO TIPS FOR WORDPRESS

Below mentioned are some SEO tips for Word press:-

1. KEYWORD RESEARCH IS THE MOST IMPORTANT KEY

Writing any blog or article is just not adequate but, it’s important to write blogs or articles which people proactively search for. Therefore before writing anything, it’s important to search for the right keywords, incorporate that into the main topic, and then start writing articles or blogs relevant to the keyword.

There are sites such as UBERSUGGEST, SEMRUSH, etc, and many others that can act as a good reference point.

UBERSUGGEST is a free SEO tool that will give you keyword ideas, content ideas, average monthly search volume, SEO difficulty, Paid difficulty and, Cost per Click.

Ubersuggest will give content ideas based on the keyword, top pages ranking for the keyword, and monthly web page visits.

Knowing the keyword’s difficulty level is necessary to access the potential for the ranking of the keyword. Ubersuggest’s Search Engine Result Pages show the top 100 page ranking for the keyword including the number of backlinks & domain scores.

2. MAKE INTERNAL LINKING A HABIT

It is important to interlink your own content from other blog posts and pages. Search engines give each web page on your website a score. Linking your own content will help to increase your web page views, increase the time users spend on the website and improve the SEO score of your blogs or articles.

3. OPTIMIZE WORDPRESS COMMENTS

Comments are the most important measure of user engagement on your website. If your blog attracts a lot of comments it means you were successful in building an engaging website. Engaged users mean more backlinks to your website, more traffic, and improved SEO.

4. SPEED AND SECURITY FOR SEO

Your site performance concerning speed is very important to get higher search rankings, if the speed is low then your search rankings will take a bigger hit.

OPTIMIZE YOUR SITE’S SPEED AND PERFORMANCE

Some experts suggest that visitors decide within a few seconds whether to visit or leave the web page, which means you have a very limited time to present content to your users. Your website loading time needs to be very fast. Search engines rank faster websites higher than slow-loading websites.

5. OPTIMIZING IMAGES IN WORDPRESS FOR SEO

As they say ‘A picture is worth a thousand words, images are more appealing, engaging than text, and also take more time to load. Image optimization needs to be done so that they can load faster.

Certain images can also slow your website, hence you need to be careful with image sizes and quality. Additionally Word press allows you to easily add title and alt tags when you upload an image.

“ENVIRA GALLERY” is the fastest Word press gallery plugin that is fully responsive and also SEO friendly.

6. SECURITY AND SAFETY OF YOUR WEBSITE

Security of the websites is extremely crucial for rankings since Google every year blacklists around 20,000 websites for malware and 50,000 for phishing and when a site is blacklisted it will never show in any of the Search Engine Result Pages.

‘SUCURI’ is used to protect our website against attacks recommended at Beginner.

7. START USING SSL/HTTPS

The top WordPress hosting companies offer free SSL certificates (Security Socket Layer) which are used to connect between a user’s browser and the server they are connecting to and acts as an additional security layer to your WordPress site.

8. MORE SEO TOOLS AND RESOURCES

The above-mentioned are few pointers that will help you to optimize your Word press site for SEO. Following the above-mentioned tips will definitely help you to increase traffic for your website.

There are some more useful articles on SEO that will further enhance your knowledge & skills on SEO. Kindly find the links for the same.

https://iimskills.com/free-digital-marketing-tools/

https://iimskills.com/Top-10-Wordpress-Training-Courses-in-India/

https://iimskills.com/simplified-seo-for-successful-digital-marketing/

https://iimskills.com/how-to-write-seo-friendly-content/

For beginners there are SEO-friendly content articles, below mentioned are the links for the same.

https://iimskills.com/the-basics-of-seo-for-beginners-in-2021/

CONCLUSION:

Installing a few SEO plugins are not sufficient to get a higher ranking in search engines, recently 3.2 million word press sites were searched and it was found that the majority of them get no organic traffic

It’s a combination of the following SEO tips to get the best out of WordPress in addition to using power-packed SEO plugins which will help you to get a higher ranking in search engines and thereby increasing traffic to your website.