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Search Engine Optimization is something every website owner struggles with continuously. It’s not that understanding the principles of SEO are difficult, but that there are so many details that go into SEO: from keyword optimization, to data and image loading, to content links and more.
This adds up to a lot of little details that can quickly spin out of control for the novice entrepreneur! Luckily, WordPress users have the option of many SEO Plugins that can assist with monitoring and continuously offering feedback to ensure ongoing Search Engine Optimization for their site.
Here are five examples of top-rated plugins, and how they can assist you with keeping your website on the front page.
1 – Yoast SEO
One of the most popular WordPress plugins available today is Yoast SEO; in fact, you’ve probably heard the name a few times! Yoast is a multi-function plugin: it does a little bit of everything that’s necessary to improve a website’s appearance and ranking in search engines.
There are both paid and free versions of this plugin, but the subscription version is much more robust and offer more options than the free version.
Additionally, the Yoast SEO plugin is updated every two weeks, meaning it is capable of checking new Google algorithms as they are updated. That’s a huge boon for keeping aligned to search engine needs.
The services Yoast offers are many and mighty, including keyword and keyphrase ranking, which allows you to check if you’re using the right keywords in the right places.
It can assist with internal linking, to ensure search engines are capable of reading site structure. It adds schema.org code to make sure search engines are able to understand your site.
This is done by whittling all the information on your site down to “This is a webpage about a topic written by person”, which makes it faster and easier to dissect and retrieve relevant information from your site.
The suite of services provided by the Yoast SEO plugin help users make sure their site isn’t overlooked by search engines, and as we all know, being visible is the best way to attract future customers!
2 – Rank Math
Rank Math is another multi-feature, multi-capable SEO plugin for WordPress sites.
Some of its main functions include Google Schema Rich Snippets Integration (learn what Rich Snippets are), Automated Image SEO, Keyword Ranking, Internal Linking Suggestions, and Local SEO, which helps your business be found in your community.
Rank Math is designed to take a lot of guesswork out of the SEO process. Once it’s installed, it reviews your site’s settings, then provides recommendations with it’s own site wizard.
It has a modular interface, which means users can enable and disable functions that are more or less meaningful to the tasks at hand.
Rank Math is particularly helpful by providing a whole picture of your website, with an SEO Analysis Tool that reviews the entire site to report on what might require attention.
It also has a Role Manager function that allows for various users of the site and its plugin, which means no unauthorized changes or updates.
Rank Math is a powerful SEO WordPress plugin that allows users to see the forest and the trees, as the saying goes, with overviews and drill down reports.
3 – SEOPress
The keyword game can be hit-or-miss for many business owners and site developers. It’s always hard to pinpoint exactly what keywords or phrases are going to attract a particular audience, and keyword relevance changes frequently.
SEOPress is a WordPress plugin that helps minimize keyword confusion by providing suggestions based on your content and Google’s Suggestion tool.
It’s basically an option to go straight to the proverbial “horse’s mouth” to find out what keywords work best.
From titles and meta descriptions to content keywords on each page, this plugin allows users to optimize each line of text using dozens of variables that will help your site reach the right audience.
In addition to helping with content, SEOPress also speaks fluent Google in many other ways. The built-in dashboard displays Google Analytics traffic, which can help users learn more about optimum and peak usage times.
This plugin also helps you apply Google Structured Data types, such as product, article, event, video, local, and more, which helps optimize your site in Google’s very own language.
4 – WP Smush
An often-neglected facet of search engine optimization is making sure your site loads correctly.
If you have an image-heavy site, such as retail shops, it can be hard to provide all the high-quality and large images customers need in, without sacrificing loading speed.
Smush for WordPress helps resize and compress images to speed up loading, which ensures your site ranks highly on search engines, and doesn’t get skipped over by potential customers.
Smush allows users to address up to 50 images per click, while letting users choose the dimensions of each image. This WordPress plugin has the ability to locate which images are the culprit for slow load speeds, and provides statistics to users.
WP Smush works for PNG, JPEG, and GIF files, up to 5MB, forever with no daily limits. Instead of spot-checking and testing each image, WP Smush makes sure your site is attractive to search engines and customers alike.
5 – Broken Link Checker
Another important factor in SEO is whether a site works. Consider the times you’ve found exactly what you needed from a Google search, only to click on the link and receive a 404 message.
In most cases, you probably just gave up on that site entirely and kept searching. Broken Link Checker is a WordPress plugin that reviews your site for broken links, and displays them on a handy dashboard.
You can actually edit and correct broken links from this dashboard, rather than having to fix each one manually.
Broken Link Checker also prevents broken links from showing up in search engines, so you won’t have to worry about having a reputation for the dreaded 404 message.
This plugin automatically reviews all posts and content, so you can simply install it and let it run, rather than having to scour your site and spot-check every single link.
Do you know that you can use broken links as a SEO strategy? Check this page to learn how does Broken Link Building work.
Conclusion
When it comes to keeping a website relevant, there are many tools available for WordPress users. From multi-function SEO plugins like Yoast to tools that monitor keywords, it’s helpful to have assistance in keeping your site fully optimized for search engine recognition.
Other tools assist with keeping things tidy and relevant, monitoring important features like image size and broken links, which can bump a site off the main search results page quickly. While search engine optimization requires constant attention, plugins such as these can help make the process easier and more accurate.
