WordPress is beloved because it turns the task of building blogs and websites into a joyride with its user-friendly software. It’s like a playground where customization knows no bounds, perfect for amateurs and pros alike. Thanks to WordPress, even those without coding chops or time to spare can showcase their brand and business online.
But just setting up a WordPress site won’t guarantee success. If your site doesn’t climb the ranks and capture the attention it needs, it could spell trouble for your brand. That’s where Top SEO plugins for WordPress swoop in to save the day, making WordPress a breeze to work with and sparing users heaps of frustration. Why? Because these plugins aren’t just for SEO newbies; they also turbocharge the workflow of seasoned SEO pros.
Top SEO Plugins for WordPress
There’s a treasure trove of free WordPress plugins out there, packed with fantastic features. But if you’re after top-tier advanced features, premium plugins are the way to go. Here, we’ve rounded up a mix of both free and premium SEO plugins, offering you the cream of the crop.
Installing plugins opens up a world of possibilities for adding extra functionalities to your WordPress site. That’s why we’ve curated a list of the finest free WordPress SEO plugins, making your WordPress journey a whole lot smoother.
All in One SEO Pack
The All in One SEO Pack comes jam-packed with all the essential features you’d expect from an SEO plugin, along with some intriguing enhancements. You can effortlessly add meta tags, generate sitemaps, steer clear of duplicate content, and keep search engines like Google and Bing in the loop about any changes to your site. Its primary goal is to optimize and boost the ranking of your WordPress site.
This plugin boasts a user-friendly interface seamlessly integrated into your WordPress dashboard, making it a breeze for beginners to navigate. Plus, it offers advanced features and an API for developers, catering to users of all levels.
While the basic version of the All in One SEO plugin is available for free, if you’re seeking additional bells and whistles, there’s the All in One SEO Pack Pro version. For $79 per year, you’ll get a year of professional support, video sitemaps, eCommerce SEO, and much more.
Advanced WordPress users will appreciate that this plugin blocks bots and allows for easy customization of robots.txt and .htaccess files. It’s a boon for those well-versed in SEO fundamentals. Additionally, the plugin supports Open Graph for social media sharing and AMP. It even automatically redirects attachment pages to their parent pages, preventing these low-content pages from being indexed by Google.
Broken Link Checker
Broken Link Checker is a lifesaver for website owners, boasting over 400,000 active installations and holding the crown as one of the most popular plugins for detecting broken links. While broken links can sneak in from various sources, this plugin goes the extra mile by sniffing out redirects, missing images, and scouring the comment section, blogroll, and custom fields for any signs of link decay.
When it discovers a broken link, you’re promptly notified either through the Dashboard or via email. And here’s the cherry on top: fixing those broken links is a breeze. No need to manually sift through each post and page; you can tackle them directly from the plugin’s interface. And guess what? Broken Link Checker won’t cost you a dime, as it’s freely available on WordPress.org.
Here’s a quick rundown of some key features:
- Monitors your blog posts, pages, comments, and custom fields for broken links.
- Allows easy filtering and searching of links by URL, anchor text, and more.
- Provides notifications through the dashboard or email.
- Offers the option to prevent search engines from following broken links.
- Lets you edit links directly from the plugin’s page, saving you time and hassle.
MonsterInsights – The Best Google Analytics Plugin for WordPress
Many people see MonsterInsights as a worthy contender to Google Analytics. While both serve the same purpose, MonsterInsights takes the hassle out of managing and tracking your Analytics data.
Originally known as Google Analytics for WordPress and developed by Yoast, renowned for their WordPress SEO plugin, MonsterInsights underwent a transformation in 2016. It was acquired and rebranded by the team behind WPBeginner, OptinMonster, and WPForms. Since then, it has maintained its status as one of the most popular and downloaded plugins for Google Analytics.
With MonsterInsights, you can access Google site tracking services right from your WordPress dashboard, eliminating the need to switch between different platforms or log into separate accounts. This seamless integration simplifies the process of understanding your audience and converting more visitors into customers.
Recently, MonsterInsights rolled out an add-on for Google Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) tracking. This feature accurately monitors all your mobile visitors to AMP-enabled pages, ensuring you have comprehensive insights into your website traffic across all devices.
Smush Image Compression and Optimization
There are so many minor and major steps to improve your WordPress website. Optimizing images used on your site is also one of the ways to improve the performance of your WordPress site. Smush Image Compression is not only limited in compressing the images, but you can customize and set maximum height and width for all images. You can ensure consistency and the fastest image loading possible with this plugin.
This plugin makes compressing and optimizing the images easier without compromising on the quality of your image. Smush Image Compression is built by the super team of WPMU DEV.
The main advantage of Smush is the amount of information provided about your images and how much space you’ve saved. There are two versions of this plugin, Free and Premium. In the free version, you can only bulk optimize 50 old images at a time, so you might need to click the button a few times if you have lots of images.
The premium plugin package is for $49 per month.
Jetpack
Jetpack stands out among WordPress plugins as it’s developed by Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com. Many hosting providers include Jetpack automatically since it’s pre-installed in most WordPress instances.
However, activating Jetpack isn’t as straightforward as clicking a single button. You’ll need to sign up for a WordPress.com account and activate Jetpack using this login information. Essentially, Jetpack brings the functionality of the WordPress.com platform to self-hosted WordPress websites. It comprises several dozen separate “modules” that you can toggle on or off according to your needs.
Jetpack also offers a premium version, which includes over 200 premium WordPress themes, unlimited static file hosting, images, videos, and lightning-fast search powered by Elasticsearch.
Moreover, Jetpack Pro provides automatic real-time backups, protection against brute force attacks, downtime monitoring, automated spam filtering, malware scans, and security fixes. The support for Jetpack is top-notch; as a Pro user, you have access to email support, a concierge setup service, and premium theme support for customization and configuration.
Depending on your requirements and needs, Jetpack offers a fantastic way to elevate your WordPress system to the next level.
WP Rocket
If you do not have your own server, you can install a caching plugin to improve page load times and take the load off the hosting package. Ideally, in our opinion, WP Rocket is the best choice for PageSpeed plugin. If you do not wish to buy the plugins then the best alternative would be free plugins WP Super Cache or W3 Total Cache.
- WP Super Cache WP Super Cache uses the dynamic WordPress blog to generate static HTML files, which are then processed instead of the large WordPress PHP scripts.
- W3 Total Cache The plugin W3 Total Cache is suitable for experienced users. Among other things, it enables the integration of a Content Delivery Network (CDN), the setup of which Tutsplus explains in this guide.
Squirrly SEO
Squirrly SEO is designed for those who aren’t SEO experts, offering excellent SEO capabilities alongside improved content, rankings, and analytics. As Neil Patel himself noted, “Squirrly is more than an SEO tool – it’s a complete content marketing suite.” With this plugin, you can craft SEO-friendly content that not only boosts your Google ranking but also provides valuable content to your audience.
One of the standout features is the weekly reports, which provide insights from a top SEO Tools Audit website, helping you track and enhance your SEO stats. Additionally, Squirrly SEO assists in identifying the best keywords for your site, as recommended by industry leaders like Neil Patel, co-founder of Kissmetrics and Crazy Egg, Brian Dean, and over 100 other content marketing experts.
Conclusion
The best content is of no use if you can not make it to Google’s Page 1. Those who are serious about search engine optimization can achieve a great deal with free WordPress SEO plugins. These plugins listed above does a good job in basic search engine optimization. If you want to delve further into the world of WordPress SEO, you can not avoid having to pay premium SEO plugins.
