The search engine is the major source of traffic for many websites if your site is optimized properly. WordPress plugins play an important role in helping many people to optimize their sites and rank better in the search results.
A lot of WordPress plugin developers have created many effective SEO plugins to help the website owners to create the search engine optimized site. The good point of WP plugins is that one needs not to be an expert in SEO to ensure their website ranking.
If you have a new site or have a website for a while and have not used any SEO plugins yet, then it’s time to choose the one and start to use your own SEO test for your site.
How to maintain Your SEO Ranking?
Every online business has to generate a consistent source of traffic on its website. If you are unable to attract visitors to your site then it’s impossible to collect the number of people visiting your website and converting them into loyal and prospects customers. You can increase the visibility in the search engine when you establish yourself as an authority through the lens of Google.
It is not true that the only keyword plays a vital role to rank higher there are other ways also which will help to maintain SEO ranking:
Update your site
Both content quality and content freshness are important where Google takes into account as a part of its ranking that helps to keep your site updated which is a great way to maintain your position. Google serve high quality, updated and relevant content to its users. If you want to maintain your SEO ranking then you have to update your content attractive and good by adding images and videos to the articles. This will help to maintain your position by enhancing the reader’s experience.
Speed up your website
The speed of the site has been one of the ranking factors in Google search for a long time where we can see that there are many websites with poor speed. Especially, on mobile devices, the loading speed is very slow where most of the searches take place.
As we all know that each day number of blogs is posted so if your website doesn’t load faster then, the visitors will look for an alternative. To improve the speed of your website here are the three ways:
- Use a hosting service with a reliable connection
- Enable the image compressions
- Just increase the download speed by using a content delivery network
After applying all these methods, still, your website is not loading faster than; you can try Google Page Speed Insights tools. This is the tool that will help you to analyze the issues by slowing down the loading time and suggesting ways to fix them.
Expand your link building
One of the common mistakes that most marketers make is focusing on the quantity rather than the quality of the backlink.
There is no need to build an excessive backlink to your webpage if you have rankled for a particular keyword. And if your site is gaining links unreasonably then Google can detect it. Building the links quickly can be very disadvantageous because your website can be banned.
It’s very important to expand your inbound links to all the different pages on your website if you want to maintain your keyword rank. From the perspective of Google’s, this strategy will help to diversify your backlink profile and increase the overall site’s authority.
Outbound and Internal links
You may think that outbound link doesn’t carry any value but it’s not like that. By sending outbound links to the authority brands, it will help Google to determine the relevancy of your website. You have to link to the relevant and valuable links but don’t overdo it.
In internal linking, you have to link to the related article on your own website. This will help in maintaining your keyword ranking and help to understand the importance of each page of your site. It also helps to keep the users on the website for a longer period of time.
Till now it’s unknown that social media engagement has an impact on ranking or not. But there is a belief that getting links from social media network helps Google to determine the relevancy of your site. The more your content have like and share, there will be more visibility from these social channels.
So, here are the tips that will help to increase your blog’s visibility on social media:
- Add social media sharing button to the sidebar of your content.
- Offer useful things to the users in exchange for social media share
- Use an explicit call to action in your content
How to Choose a Good SEO WordPress Plugin?
The best part of WordPress is that it gives you full control over your content. You don’t need any coding skills to publish your content on this WordPress platform but it doesn’t mean that WordPress can do everything out of the box. If you really want the visitors to find your content then, you need to optimize it for search.
SEO has become a very important factor in the ranking of a website. Whether you are running a WordPress website, a static website or a company portfolio, on-page SEO optimization is crucial to make sure that Google and Search Engine consider your website for top ranking.
Here are some of the qualities that are found in a good WordPress SEO plugin:
Clean and efficient code
A good SEO plugin should come with a clean code that does not include any unnecessary CSS or JavaScript entities which ensures the plugin is efficient and fast by loading the website faster. The plugin code should always be well commented on so that it can be understandable. The clean code is the basic factor that helps the WordPress plugin to function properly.
Multiple SEO features
The plugin should have more than one SEO feature to reduce the number of other SEO plugins on your site. There are many single feature SEO plugin that only does one task where the best SEO plugins come with a host of features which makes it a complete and effective plugin by handling multiple tasks. If you install many plugins on your site, it will increase the loading time so better to use the plugin that includes more feature.
Extensive documentation
The detail documentation is very important because it helps the users to install and use the plugin without any difficulty. The documentation may come in the form of video guides or article with the full detail with images on how to install, configure and update the plugin. Most of the SEO plugin includes an admin dashboard where the configuration is done. The perfect SEO plugin should consist of all the instructions like how every setting is done.
Good customer support
A good SEO plugin should have excellent customer support which helps to solve the difficulties of your customer. The free SEO plugins that are available in the WordPress repository includes free support. You should choose those plugin that comes with a support forum which helps to understand the common problem associated with the plugin and the solution.
Good reviews and ratings
All the SEO plugins collect reviews and ratings from the users. This will be an essential guide to know the value of a certain plugin. You can see the reviews of free plugins on the plugin page which is a good place to start and find out that the plugin is well supported or not.
Regular updates
The SEO plugin should be frequently updated to ensure that it is compatible with the latest version of WordPress. If the plugin is not updated for a long time then your website can be hacked or can be incompatible with the core files of WordPress or other plugins. So, you should not compromise on the update of a plugin if you are planning to choose the best SEO WordPress plugin for your site. You can check the changelogs of the plugin to see whether the SEO plugin is updated on the regular basis and see the changes that have made this far.
Plugin compatibility
If one SEO plugin is not compatible with another plugin then it may lead to the death of the WordPress screen and an error that causes a crash on your site. So, make sure that the WordPress SEO plugins are highly compatible with the other WordPress plugins. The SEO plugins that utilize JavaScript libraries are more likely to cause these problems.
Some of the Best WordPress SEO Plugins 2018 for Higher Rankings
You should be very careful while choosing the SEO plugin because it is a very important factor that helps to determine whether your website is going to be successful or not. There are many plugins available in WordPress that comes with a broad range of SEO features and also there are some other plugins that include all the necessary features for on-page SEO. You should finalize your SEO needs before choosing any plugin for your site. There are some plugins that optimize images for fast loading speed whereas others just create an XML sitemap. These types of single plugins cannot be used to optimize the website completely.
So, here I’ve presented you some of the best WordPress SEO plugins 2018 for higher rankings:
Yoast SEO
To date, Yoast SEO has crossed 5 million downloads which means that it is one of the best WordPress SEO plugins 2018. This plugin is an original WordPress SEO plugin since 2008 in which you will get a solid toolset that helps you to aim the number one spot in search engines. You can write killer content that helps in ranking and also allows adding SEO title, Meta description and meta keyword to each of your post.
With the help of this plugin, you can write a custom title for your main site, category, archive and tag pages. It provides active support from the forum to its users as well as gives priority to email support too. The features like cornerstone content and internal linking help to optimize your site structure in a breeze.
Features of Yoast SEO:
- Bulk editor
- Manage SEO roles
- Integrates with Google search console
- Advanced XML Sitemaps
- Full control over site breadcrumbs
- Content and SEO analysis
This plugin also has the premium version that allows you to add more keywords and helps to optimize your posts pages for multiple keywords. It has social media integration which optimizes the content for social media sharing. You can get the premium version here.
All in one SEO pack
All in one SEO pack is another comprehensive WordPress SEO plugin that is used to optimize individual post and page. This plugin is easy to use and works out of the box for beginners that include many advanced features. It is a very popular WordPress SEO plugin that has more than 2 million downloads. The plugin comes with an inbuilt API where other plugins and themes can easily access to extend the functionality.
All in one SEO pack automatically optimizes the posts, pages, and custom types title for ranking on search engines and also generates meta tags. The Plugin supports Google analytics which works perfectly well to track the traffic on each of the pages of your sites. It also helps you to avoid duplicate content.
Features of All in one SEO pack:
- Google AMP support
- Google analytics support
- Advanced Canonical URLs
- XML Sitemap support
- Compatible with many other plugins
- Supports for SEO on custom post type
The premium version of this plugin is more advanced with many features. You will get a video tutorial that will help you to use the plugin easily. For more detail, you can go here.
The SEO framework
The SEO Framework is an amazing WordPress SEO plugin which is easy to use and provides automated, unbranded, accessible and extremely fast SEO solution for any types of WordPress websites. The plugins help you to create a better SEO value to your content and improve the search presence by ranking your site distinctively.
This plugin allows you to adjust the SEO to global options and also shows you how to improve the SEO with a beautiful SEO bar. It helps your pages to get shared in a perfect way through Facebook, Twitter, and other social sites. The plugin generates paginated content relationship links that help the visitors to go to the right page.
Features of The SEO framework:
- WooCommerce and bbPress compatible
- Prevents canonical errors
- Homepage specific options
- Feed anti-scraper options
- Open Graph description
- Structured data for Google search and chromium
SEO Squirrly
SEO Squirrly is an awesome free WordPress SEO plugin that can be used by anyone although you don’t have SEO knowledge. This plugin helps you to create the high-quality content which is SEO friendly. The best SEO tools Audit website allows you to track the content marketing strategy and also helps you to improve your SEO statistics by using weekly reports from the site.
This plugin is compatible with most of the themes and plugins. It creates your site’s XML sitemap for Google and Bing. With just a few clicks this plugin lets you concentrate on your eCommerce SEO strategy. The plugin helps you to improve the ranking of your website in Google by providing your readers with interesting content.
Features of SEO squirrly:
- SEO settings remain
- The algorithm for SEO keyword research tool
- Send the audit report by email
- Monitor your progress week by week
- Use the marketing research tools
- Tracks all the aspects of your content marketing strategy
The premium version comes with more advanced features so if you want to switch to the premium then you can get it here.
SEO optimized images
SEO optimized images is a free WordPress SEO plugin that allows you to insert SEO friendly title and alt attributes to your images. After the installation and activation of the plugin, you need to select the pattern you want which automatically switch title tags and alt tags without changing the database.
This plugin allows you to add post title, image name and post category in the title and alt attributes of the images. You can easily activate the plugin; provide the pattern after that you are ready to go. It makes you easy to return your site to the original state before the activation of the plugin.
Features of SEO optimized images:
- Insert alt and title attributes on your images
- Switches title tag and alt tags
- Helps to return that original state
- Add image name, post category, and title in title
- Support forum
If you like to try premium version of this plugin then you can get here.
SEO Redirection Plugin
SEO Redirection Plugin is a free SEO WordPress plugin that helps to boost up your site. This plugin manages 301 redirections when a post’s URL changes and builds a perfect site. It will help to migrate the pages of your old website or are looking to change the directory of your WordPress website. The advanced control panel feature that is included in this plugin controls all the functions.
You can easily redirect the folders, content and use the regular expressions in redirections. It reflects all the changes when you change your domain name or move your site. With the help of this plugin, you can know the number of times the redirection has occurred, who did it, when it happened and where they found their URL.
Features of SEO Redirection Plugin:
- Advanced control panel
- WPML support
- Import/Export feature
- Full logs for all directed URL
- Friendly GUI
- Manually adds 301, 302, 307 redirections
smart SEO
smart SEO is a simple and modern premium WordPress SEO plugin that is the easiest way to optimize your site for search engines. This plugin helps to find out the first and last 100 words contain focus keyword or not. You can find out that your SEO title contains a focus keyword or not which is very important for ranking in search results.
With the help of this plugin, you can verify whether the page content has any potential competing links or not. And also helps to find out the keyword density by verifying the number of focus keyword occurrence in the content compared to the number of words in the content.
Features of smart SEO:
- Auto check current post
- Custom title and Meta format
- SEO settings
- Multiple focus keywords
- Parse content shortcodes
- smart SEO scores
Rankie
Rankie is a premium WordPress SEO plugin that will help you to track WordPress rankings on Google by analyzing each of the keyword positions. This plugin will update the keywords rank positions and generates powerful reports. It stores every single action that is done by the plugin and allows traced keywords to be instantly filtered by the group, search team or site.
A daily email can be sent by using this plugin with each transition up and down. There are four different methods for locating the positions like Google directly, GOOGLE custom search API, Google via F-secure.com and Google via kproxy.com.
Features of Rankie:
- Track WordPress ranking on Google
- Generate ranking reports
- Keyword research tools
- Auto track searched keywords
- Daily report email
- Detailed action log
SmartCrawl Pro
SmartCrawl Pro is a stunning premium WordPress SEO plugin that boosts your page rank that helps to drive more traffic to your site with some efforts and simple configuration tools. You can easily customize the titles and descriptions and display the way you like on the search pages. It connects with the social accounts to get full credit for shared content.
Just get an overview of the SEO for all your sites from one place to the hub. This plugin optimizes your site with a click and makes it easy to customize with lots of pro tips to reach more users. It is built in Moz integration which makes it a unique one.
Features of SmartCrawl Pro:
- One-click setup
- Connected social sharing
- Automatic keyword linking
- Page analyzer
- Keep authority with redirect
- Share your custom setting
Wrapping Up
I’ve tried to list down some of the Best WordPress SEO Plugins 2022 that will help you to ensure the content published on the site is highly optimized for search engines. The above-listed SEO WordPress plugins offer you a wide range of features that can be used easily. Also, I’ve mentioned how to maintain your SEO ranking and how to choose a best SEO WordPress plugin for your new site.
Have already used any of these plugins feel free to share your experience with us that will be a great help for the newbie.
If you have any queries related to this theme then comment us below.
Thank You for such an informative Article.
You’re most welcome!