There are many SEO plugins available to WordPress websites which allow you to optimise your website and improve its ability to rank in the search results.
Plugins can include all in one SEO plugins, however, they can also be specialised plugins that allow full control of a specific area of SEO. This may be a redirection plugin or schema markup plugin.
Let’s break down our preferred plugins for ranking WordPress websites.
Yoast Plugin
Arguably the most popular SEO plugin ever created. This plugin has free and premium features available for the user. At the time of writing this post, the plugin costs $99/ year.
Yoast has some awesome features. The dashboard is unique in that you can activate certain settings if need be. Another one of our favourite features is that the content optimisation section at the bottom of the page editor makes it simple to check off your to-do list. However, I am a huge fan of the fact that Yoast has a “same as” schema built-in at the bottom of the page allowing you to add that to your schema.
The Best Yoast Features:
Yoast SEO has numerous features. These are some of our favourites.
- Make technical improvements like canonical URLs and meta tags.
- Advanced XML sitemaps creation
- Title and meta description editing
- Schema Markup setup
- Faster loading times
- Content optimisation – the green light
There are many Pros when using Yoast, but let’s not forget that there are some Cons when using it. One of my biggest disappointments is that you can’t add multiple keywords and the LSI versions into the free version of Yoast. To add to that, I would prefer some Local SEO optimisation options for the free version like Rank Math.
Rank Math Plugin
Rank Math is the second most popular WordPress SEO plugin at the moment. It is a relatively new plugin and believe me when I say the popularity for this plugin is growing quickly.
Rank Math also has a custom dashboard where you can activate or deactivate certain settings in order to achieve your desired SEO settings.
At first glance, Rank Math has more features than the free version of Yoast SEO. It also has a more comprehensive checklist to ensure on-page optimisation is complete and it can also optimise your website for Local Search. Local SEO optimisation features are lacking in the free version of Yoast.
These are some of our favourite Rank Math features:
- Google Schema Markup aka Rich Snippets Integrated
- Optimize Many Keywords (usually 5 for the free version)
- Google Search Console Integration
- Google Analytics Integration
- LSI Keyword Tool Integrated
- Smart Redirection Manager
- Local Business SEO
- 404 Monitor
- Internal Linking Suggestions
My favourite feature is the ability to add multiple keywords and LSI variations in the free version.
Redirection Plugin
The redirection plugin is my favourite redirection plugin. I find it easy to use and prefer it to use the redirection setup by Yoast or Rank Math.
With 2 million active installs, there are many fans and advocates for using this plugin. Redirection is also the most used redirect manager for WordPress. With Redirection, you can easily manage 301 redirections, keep track of 404 errors, and generally tidy up any loose ends your site may have. Reducing these errors can improve user experience and thus improve your website rankings. You also have the added advantage of importing settings from a few of the SEO plugins.
Schema Plugin
This Schema Markup plugin is by far the best Schema Markup plugin created to date. It is easy to use and helps with your structured data. The plugin allows you to win featured snippets.
You might be thinking. Why would you use this plugin when you can insert the schema code itself into the header of each page with all the bells and whistles you need to rank the page. Simple, I use both. While, you can upgrade this plugin and have more functionality, I prefer to use the free version and then add specific code as needed. I just prefer it this way but you can either use the premium version of the free version with your own code.
Well, there you have it! Our four favourite SEO plugins, which we use on all our major SEO projects. Redirection and schema provide reliability every time and depending on my mood, either Rank Math or Yoast work perfectly well with the other two plugins.
If you require help with your SEO, consider our SEO services in order to get a better understanding of what we do and how we help businesses.
