There might be numerous SEO tools out
there and though nobody disputes their role, one of the easiest and
most accessible ways to optimize your WordPress site is with the help
of WordPress SEO plugins. Fortunately, there are quite a lot of
WordPress SEO plugins for you to choose from. While you can't say
there is a WordPress plugin for every type of SEO tool you can think
of, there are some SEO plugins for WordPress you really must try (if
you haven't already done it). Here is a list of the most important
ones.
1 WordPress SEO by Yoast
WordPress
SEO by Yoast is rightfully considered one of the top SEO plugins
for WordPress. It's a complete suite that covers almost any aspect of
SEO. With WordPress SEO by Yoast you can analyze onpage and offpage
factors, create XML sitemaps,
optimize meta and link elements, as well as RSS and breadcrumbs, edit
.htaccess
and robots.txt
file, enjoy integration with social media, use it on multiple sites
and many more. In a sense, if you get this plugin, you might not need
anything else.
2 All in One SEO Pack
All
in One SEO Pack is another really popular and comprehensive SEO
suite for WordPress. Similarly to WordPress SEO by Yoast, you can use
this one to handle all your SEO tasks. All in One SEO Pack offers XML
sitemaps, optimization of titles and metatags, advanced canonical
URLs, and what not. One of its uniques features is the ability to
eliminate duplicate content issues. Additionally, it's a plugin you
can use on e-commerce sites.
3 Google XML Maps
If you are not looking for a complete SEO suite, such as WordPress
SEO by Yoast or All in One SEO Pack that among their numerous
features come with XML sitemap generation functionality but would
like a simple plugin especially for this, then Google
XML Maps is your best choice. This plugin doesn't come with bells
and whistles and it doesn't offer tons of functionality but it is
really fast and reliable for XML sitemap generation, even if your
site is pretty large and there are thousands of pages.
4 HTML Sitemap for WordPress
Here is another plugin (or more precisely a template) from Yoast
de Valk HTML
Sitemap for WordPress. While XML sitemaps are no doubt useful for
search engines, an HTML sitemap is definitely more useful for your
human visitors. HTML sitemap generation is not part of the WordPress
SEO by Yoast it's provided separately. The template in the link
is special because it gives you a lot of flexibility when you decide
what to include in your HTML sitemap and what to skip.
5 SEO Friendly Images
We all know how important it is to optimize images and how much
time this could take. This is why it really makes a difference when
you have a reliable ally on your site. With the SEO
Friendly Images plugin for WordPress, it gets so much easier to
optimize your images. This plugin automatically adds alt and title
attributes to all your images. Of course, if you are not pleased with
its suggestions, you can always modify the automatically added alt
and title attributes to something you like more.
6 Share This
You might have mind-blowing content but if it doesn't get traffic,
then it's useless. Out of the many ways to drive traffic to your
site, social
sites are among the best. With the Share
This plugin for WordPress, content sharing is much easier. The
plugin not only allows you and your readers to share your content on
sites such as Facebook,
Twitter, and 120 others but it also comes with analytics features,
too.
7 Broken Link Checker
There is hardly a SEO expert who doesn't know how bad broken links
are. Checking broken links one by one is not physically possible,
even for a small site. While there are numerous free and paid tools
that check for broken links, if you don't want to leave WordPress,
you can get the Broken
Link Checker plugin and monitor the health of your links with it.
When a broken link is found, you are notified about this.
8 SEO Links Checker
While the previous plugin is great with broken links detection, if
you want more power in dealing with your links, then you need SEO
Links Checker. The purpose of this plugin is to automatically
create links (i.e. affiliate links) and make them nofollow, if you
like. If you are running a big site with a lot of affiliate links
tied to a particular keyword, this plugin is a valuable assistant.
Just remember to use links wisely i.e. don't stuff your posts
with links simply because it's so easy to do.
9 SEO Plugin By Squirrly
The last plugin on this list SEO
Plugin by Squirrly is again a full SEO suite but the difference
is that it's for NON-SEO experts. This said, the plugin is by no
means inferior to the rest, it simply doesn't offer that may
opportunities to mess directly with code. SEO by Squirrly deals with
all aspects of SEO customization from content marketing, to
keyword research, to SEO analytics, to onpage optimization.
Of course, there are many more SEO WordPress plugins we couldn't
cover in this article. If the plugins on the list are not what you
need, browse the Net for alternatives. However, be warned that most
of the other plugins are either not as good, or they are for earlier
versions of WordPress (and might not be compatible with the latest
ones). While the WordPress plugins on the list are generally OK for
most WordPress Web masters, if they are not OK for you, you always
have the option to optimize your WordPress site with external tools.