Here’s IFB’s roundup of the best WordPress SEO plugins on the market.
WordPress.org has a lot of great plugins to choose from that can help you enhance the features, speed, and functionality of your blog – and improve your blog's SEO.
If there is a tool available that makes life easier for you while improving your blog's search prowess – and it’s FREE – why not give it a try? Such is the case with the following handful of SEO-related plugins for WordPress that will do some work for you, while reminding you of ways to improve your site's search engine optimization.
As recommended before on IFB, check out The Beginner's Guide to SEO for some general rules of thumb to follow to boost important keywords in posts, tags, titles, and more.
All in One SEO Pack
Pretty much every blogger I know uses this. It's essentially the gold standard SEO plugin. If you don't have it yet, put it at the top of your list. FYI, I've been told that recent versions of WordPress already come with it installed as well.
What it does is deposit meta titles, meta descriptions, and keywords to search engines such as Google, to help with search and for potentially new readers out there to easily find your site.
Be sure to fill out the box toward the bottom of the post with the title, description and keywords to take the best advantage of the plugin; I found this guide helpful in explaining how to best work it to maximize the SEO benefits
WordPress SEO by Yoast
Bloggers seem to be equally devoted to this Yoast plugin, as it offers more functionality and help that can be applied to different levels of running a blog for better SEO power. It's basically a bunch of plugins combo'ed into one package.
It gives you a preview of how your content will look in search engines. It also makes sure your images have an alt tag containing the focus keyword, control which pages from your site go to Google, automatically makes XML sitemaps and notifies Google and Bing about them, Facebook integration, and more.
StatCounter
We all know about Google Analytics, but I tend to really like StatCounter. It gives you the rundown of pageloads, unique visits, first time visits, and return visits. It breaks it down by day, total count, and weekly average. StatCounter also includes an in-depth analysis of your last 500 page views.
The thing that I like best about it is that every Monday morning I get an email with all of the stats. I don't have to remember to click around and analyze them, I look at the posts that I put up on the days with the highest views, and make note of what the subject(s) were, keywords used. That way, I can learn even more about what is of most interest to my readers and perhaps further cater my content toward them in the future.
Google XML Sitemaps
This plugin creates a sitemap for your blog.
Don't know what a sitemap is? It's essentially a list of all of the pages (or posts) on a blog, and it's crucial for blogging success.
Sitemaps extract links and some text, so that a variety of search engines can index your site. This plugin does that, and automatically delivers your new content to the search engine once created. You don't have to have a Google account to use it. Just remember to register your site as your own and submit it to Google. That way, you'll be sure it's on their radar to index and rank it.
What WordPress SEO Plugins are you using?
Editor's Note: This post was originally published on June 11th, 2013 by Julia Dinardo. It was updated on January 13th, 2018 by Laura Kell.
I have found that my traffic has increased because of the WordPress SEO plug-in and it is most useful! Great post. Looking into these other plugins as we speak!
I use the second one by Yoast and it is phenomenal! It pretty much allows me to SEO my posts from top to bottom. I especially love the ‘check’ button, this gives you a green, yellow, or red button to let you know how good your SEO is for the post you’re working on. Then they tell you step by step how you can improve the post. Awesome plug in!
You are so right!..It works well for me too…I was using All in One SEO pack.
But i’m gonna try the others.
I’m not using wordpress but I use statcounter and it’s way handier than google analytics especially when you need to access things right away and have everything in one place.
http://lazyobsession.blogspot.ie/2013/06/paisley-lace.html
Glad to hear you are a StatCounter fan too!
I plan on launching my blog this summer. Is it recommended to use all 5 SEO plug-ins? Thanks!
Hi Erika, I don’t think you need to use all five, since some of them do overlap. I would recommend starting with an all-in option, perhaps the 1st or 2nd ones I mentioned, and go from there!
I find the redirection plugin is great for creating 301 redirects and tracking 404 page errors without having to mess around with any confusing and complicated files.
Great, thanks Nathan!
I’ve used all of these at some point, but currently just have All in One SEO Pack & SEO Images as I try to keep my number of plugins to the bare minimum. I actually think the Yoast is an incredibly good plugin, I just find that All in One SEO Pack is all I really need. There are definitely added benefits to Yoast’s verion though, so I would recommend it if you’re looking for more than what All in One SEO Pack does.
Awesome, thanks for the advice Catherine!
Great advice on wordpress plugins for SEO. Thanks for sharing this.
I’ve used SEO by Yoast and All in One SEO and those two are really nice plugins but didn’t knew about SEO Friendly Images will definitely check it out.
Extremely useful!
Thank you for this informative information I just plugged in all you suggested hopefully it helps our blog.
Realy Nice Post .
Keep it up .
I use all in one seo and squirrly seo. All in one for settings and squirrly for writing articles. The other plugins for seo, didn’t worked for me, I mean, by learning something if I still use them. Since I use squirrly I learnt how to do on page seo 🙂
I have used both the “All in One SEO Pack” and the “WordPress SEO by Yoast”. I have been using Yoast more as of lately. However, I notice with one of my blogs, that it was conflicting with the theme I was using. What was odd about the situation was that it had been working fine for months and then all of a sudden I started having issues. What I especially like about Yoast is that it has Flesch–Kincaid readability scoring built into the plugin.
BTW, thanks for sharing…
I had a blogspot for a couple of years then moved to a .com (using WordPress) last year, have been disappointed in the low number of readers as some of my posts are really interesting and we even make our own videos! I’ve been blitzing Twitter and my Facebook page trying to drum up readers (possibly to the point of irritation), hopefully the All in One SEO will greatly help. Just installed it today, did anyone notice a significant jump in their readership?
Great post by the way!
I’m still in the early stages of building my blog/e-shop and I have found WordPress SEO by Yoast to be absolutely the best! I’ve trouble others, and this one is the easiest to use without having knowledge of SEO.
Can you use more than one SEO plugin at the same time or do they conflict?
I currently am using the wordpress SEO plugin by Yoast but wondered about adding the ALL in One plugin.
I am using the Yoast SEO pack for right now. I just switched to wordpress, so I am still learning the ropes of all the plug-ins.! Thanks for all of these posts. It’s really helpful.
Jessica from Southern Rambles
http://southernrambles.com
Great post! We’ve been using Yoast now for three months and it’s a super easy plugin that makes you think hard about content. Have also started using Disqus which has stopped all the spam comment posts. It also has a great community.
What can I use for blogger?
Thank you, i am new in wordpress and i am searching some use full tips, after reading your post i think my 70% work is completed. please guide me some SEO tips for my this website thanks.
All In One SEO Pack is my favorite. While others will boast about Yoast (LOL), I just don’t like how it works. We’ve had great success with the All In One SEO Pack and we highly recommend it for any WP site…
Nice article! Thanks for sharing.
I’ve been using SEO by Yoast for a while and I like it so far.
Great collection of seo plugins. We use wordpress seo by yoast in all our wordpress based sites. This is the best seo plugin.
Julia,
thanks. These plugins will be really useful for my. By the way – I don’t if it’s you in a picture, but looks very beautiful.
Julia,
thanks. These plugins will be really useful for me. By the way – I don’t know if it’s you in a picture, but looks very beautiful.
Wondering which plugins are best for Blogger.
Thanks!
thank’s for the article. i found new plugins here. now i can improve SEO for my blog.
I have been using yoast since it first came out. His plugins and blog articles are a must for any SEO pro. The only thing I dont like is the built in sitemap. Not the best.
hi
What is your suggested plugin?
Thanks for the wounderful list of wordpress plugins,its helped me lot as i new in blogging but i liked very much all in one seo pack
Hey Julia,
Thanks a lot for sharing such a useful post. I am pretty new to SEO & was keenly looking for some tools which would share some of my workload. You made my life easy. Surely looking forward for some more interesting blog feeds from you.
Cheers!!!
really nice post keep it up
I started with All In One SEO and while I think it’s great plug-in I switched to Yoast.
I really like the way Yoast is layed out for a user but one catch. When entering your sitemap into Google Webmaster I constantly get errors with the Yoast Sitemap.
I eventually turned this option off and use Google XML Sitemaps for that function. Works great.
Here is the more list of SEO Plugins that is really awesome for you
Great collection of seo plugins.:)
Hey guys, I found this plugin http://wordpress.org/plugins/audio-comments/ . Has anyone tested it before? I am also interested in their support/services.
Great article, I have used most of these plug-ins, and they are all great.
Thanks so much for the thank me later plugin that’s cool
Thanks for sharing great collection of WP SEO plugins
i use 3 of 5 plugins that mentioned above
So how about jetpack..??
This plugin really useful, such as counter?
im using Yoast SEO Plugin on my site www.dailynewscompany.com but someone said that install Easy WP SEO Plugin for better results on same site, now my question is that can i use both on my site ?
Nice list.
What the role of State Counter in SEO.
How do you use the data from State counter in optimizing SEO?
Thanks
It’s really helpful for beginners, a great help for wp beginner
Yoast is already a well-known plugin, and totally deserves to be in the list. And thanks for introducing me to statcounter.
Recommend use “AVADA” wp theme. Friedlly for “Google”.
“Youst” or “All in ONE SEO PACK”.
So, what I use in my website?
1. Yoast SEO
2. WP Smush (for images. Smush weight)
3. Ultimate Nofollow ( for comments)
4. TinyMCE Advanced ( help to create great content)
5. Redirect 404 Error Page to Homepage
6. Simple Redirect ( when delete post, and want to redirect to another)
7. My Custom Functions
8. Google Analytics for WordPress by MonsterInsights ( use very long time, so cant change 🙂 )
Yoast SEO
Redirect 404 Error Page to Homepage
Is my top plugins. When I create new website I use them.
How about “SEO all in one” plugin? Do u use it?
Thank you so much Julia for sharing with us the knowledge of these tools. SEO is so important in today’s digital atmosphere for one to be known.
I have been using some of these plugins for my WordPress sites and have found them useful. It is a nice list of plugin provided. especially all in one seo pack that has delivered the most.
Nice post. I am following most of the plugin mentioned in this post but Yoast is mine favorite. This offers great functionality to users. Thanks for sharing .
I do local SEO for my WordPress Income Tax business website. You need to add plugins. I have added ones for Yelp, Facebook and my Google listing.
Chris
Owner CEL Financial Services
IRS Registered Tax Preparer
Registered bonded California CTEC Tax Preparer
https://incometaxprepfillmore.com/income-tax-piru-ca