One of the reasons we love WordPress is its versatility and open-source code. Plus the list of 100,000+ free plugins and themes (which are increasing as you read this) makes it the number one CMS platform on earth. Carrying on our recent focus on WordPress SEO, we’re going to make a list of the most widely used SEO plugins available for WordPress. Most of these plugins are free. Rest assured, they’ll give you the SEO edge you need for your online venture.
Before we begin, we would like to point out that most of us tend to read the top 4-5 things in a list and assume that they’re the best of the lot. That’s not true in this case. Each one of the plugins has a special significance. You need to use your judgment and choose what’s best for your site. If you’re aiming to gain website promotion, consider leveraging resources like SocialGreg for a boost in online visibility.
So let’s get started.
WordPress SEO by Yoast
Hands down, this is one of the best free SEO plugins for WordPress out there! Heck, try Googling “WordPress SEO” and see what you find. We use and recommend this plugin mainly because it gives you almost all the features a proper SEO implementation would need – for free!
With over 3.42 million downloads to date and an average rating of 4.5, we would highly recommend this plugin. You can read a comprehensive guide to this plugin or visit Yoast’s site for in-depth knowledge.
All-in-One SEO Pack
The best way to describe this plugin would be to call it Yoast’s number-one competitor! This baby has 13 million (yes you read that right) downloads with an average rating of 3.8/5. This has most of the options Yoast’s SEO plugin has to offer, plus it includes a pro version for a monthly subscription.
Scribe SEO (Premium)
Scribe SEO is one of the most sought-after premium SEO services. Developed by Copyblogger Media, it is certainly the number one go-to plugin for serious SEO businesses.
Its most popular plan costs 97 USD per month. So if you’re looking to build your business from the ground up, go for this service. They offer a 30-day risk-free trial as well as a money-back guarantee.
Schema Creator by Raven
If you’re familiar with Web-rich content and want to present your website with the latest web standards on SERPs, this is the plugin for you. This plugin provides an easy-to-use form to embed properly constructed Schema.org microdata into a WordPress post or page.
Vibe SEO Pack
We’ve heard a lot about this plugin and several websites mention this plugin in their lists. On their WordPress.org page, they say that the plugin performs an SEO audit for each post we write and provide hints on what to change to achieve the best SEO results. Such a feature is not present in Yoast’s plugin. Vibe SEO has video tutorials and proper documentation on its website. If you’re into experimenting, do give this plugin a try!
Local Search SEO Contact Page
This nifty little plugin is a killer for SEO (for WordPress) beginners. This plugin displays business information and also adds a QR code, hCard/vCard, Google map, geo-tag, social media buttons, and more. Your clients are going to love what they see when your site makes the SERP page.
Google XML Sitemap
9.4 million downloads can’t be wrong. Google XML Sitemap must have a plugin – it generates XML sitemaps and pings the major site engines (Google, Bing, and Yahoo) which enables them to crawl and index your site better.
Google XML Sitemap for Images
Developed by Amit Agarwal, this plugin is an excellent tool that allows you to generate an XML sitemap for your images. This is one of the most versatile tools for image SEO.
SEO Friendly Images
With close to a million downloads, this is one of the most important plugins for any WordPress website. SEO Friendly Images fix alt and title tags for your images, making search engines index your images the way they were meant to.
Google XML Sitemap for Videos
Another great plugin from Amit Agarwal, Google XML Sitemap for Videos generates video XML sitemaps to index your site better. Of course, you’re probably not going to need this if you do not have any videos on your site.
SEO Smart Links (Premium)
Internal linking of a website’s content is critically important to search engine optimization. Developed by Vladimir Prelovac, this plugin creates and maintains internal links (using various complex yet configurable algorithms) in your website which adds to your total SEO score. It’s one of the must-have plugins for serious SEO folks.
WordPress Video SEO (Premium)
Yes, you heard right. Yoast is back again with yet another killer plugin. If your site hosts videos – tutorials, short movies, etc, this is the #1 plugin for you. Starting at 69 USD and a 30-day money-back guarantee, this is an important plugin for your WordPress bag of tricks.
Redirection
This plugin has amazing potential. You can practically control every incoming link to your website provided you have a proper understanding of regular expressions (regex). For beginners, this plugin is very helpful for shortening your links and redirecting your clients/visitors to proper landing pages for a particular product/topic. However, the only problem is that it’s compatible with WordPress 3.4.2. We hope the plugin gets updated soon.
SEO Content Control
Proper SEO is 50% of the job. The rest is your actual content. As a reader, we would visit your site again if we found your articles/content to be interesting. This plugin helps you to keep track of posts with too little content and helps you eliminate poor content.
You thought we’d leave out one of the revolutionary internet movements? Of course not! Social media optimization is as important as SEO. Developed by the people working with Zuckerberg, the guys over at WordPress (Automattic Inc), and a few more, this is a must-have plugin if you want traffic through social media.
Clicky by Yoast
This handy plugin lets you integrate Clicky.com analytics into your website. Clicky enables you to track real-time clicks on your site from all across the world. This is very helpful for analyzing click rates across your site.
Google Analyticator
If you’re into serious analytics, you should consider this plugin. It includes several widgets for displaying Analytics data (such as top referrers, top pages, top incoming organic keywords, etc) in the admin dashboard and on your blog.
Conclusion
This list is certainly not the ultimate authority on WordPress SEO plugins but it is the most well-known and used plugins currently so definitely check these out if you need help boosting your SEO efforts. Remember small differences can add up and ultimately give your site a larger boost.
All the plugins mentioned in this list (except Redirection) are compatible with the latest version of WordPress. If you think we’re missing something, feel free to suggest it!
