If you want your WordPress site to rank well in search engines like Google, you need an SEO plugin in WordPress. This is so important.
WordPress is a total packaged content management system, but if you want your WordPress website to compete favorably on Google search, you have to fix your SEO manually.
You don’t have to get scared about this because there exists a dedicated SEO plugin in the WordPress repository that will easily guide you and get your site SEO fixed.
But… which SEO plugin in WordPress is the best for you to choose?
Let’s find out with an overview of the 5 of the best WordPress SEO plugins.
Then, I will dwell more on my most preferred SEO plugin choice that will help you, especially if you are a newbie or don’t consider yourself proficient in SEO.
Recommended: Everything You Need To Know About WordPress SEO
Popular SEO plugin in WordPress
The following WordPress plugins are not just popular for no reason. They all have been well used by WordPress users and boast hundreds of thousands of positive reviews.
They are all free, or at least have the free options with features that are abundantly sufficient for you to fix your site’s SEO issues and raise your score with the major search engines.
Feel free to use any of them.
1. SEO Framework plugin
SEO Framework is a great option to consider.
One major reason why I like this WordPress plugin is that it is designed for small businesses as opposed to large businesses.
Like several other SEO plugin in WordPress, it allows you to quickly configure:
- Meta titles and descriptions
- Social meta information, plus a fallback image to use when nothing else is available
- Basic schema information
- Settings for search engine robots
- How your sitemap works
2. Rank Math
For good reason, Rank Math is one of the most popular WordPress plugins. They have managed to enter an extremely competitive market and slowly but surely capture a significant share of the market.
As you’d expect, the plugin is extremely easy to use and has all the features of Yoast, plus what I would consider a better implementation of Schema.
Using the Rank Math WordPress SEO plugin makes it super easy to set up your posts, pages, and custom post types with all of the following Rich Snippet types:
- Article Rich Snippets
- Rich Snippets course
- Excerpts from the event
- Rich Snippets
- Local Business Rich Snippets
- Product Rich Snippets
- Check rich snippets
- Rich Snippets Service
- Rich snippets of software/applications
This WordPress plugin will tell you what keywords you are ranking for, as well as how many impressions you are getting for different searches. Rank Math also detects issues on your site that Google notices. All this information is easy to consult, read and digest.
Additionally, Rank Math has features for:
- XML sitemaps
- Rich extracts
- Internal Link Recommendations
- 404 monitoring
- Redirects
- Local SEO
- SEO Image
This tool also makes previewing your message on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter a breeze.
3. All in One SEO Pack
The All in One SEO Pack is the second most popular SEO plugin in the market. According to WordPress.org, it’s active on over 1 million sites while maintaining a 5-star rating from over 1,000 reviews.
It has a clean, easy-to-navigate dashboard. If you have a basic blog or website, the free version will meet your needs. It’s great for beginners, advanced users also use All in one Pack.
One of the things you might appreciate about All in One SEO Pack, or dislike about it, is that it lacks analytics features.
That is, it provides the necessary settings but makes no recommendations for how to use them… So you must consider this if you want to install it on your WordPress website.
The main features of the All In One SEO pack plugin are:
- Control basic title/description format, including using variables.
- Choose the content types on which to use the All in One SEO Pack.
- Configure the site-wide base schema.
- Index certain types of content.
Finally, the SEO All in One package gives you a feature management area where you can enable individual features. If desired, the All in One SEO Pack can:
- Create an XML sitemap for you.
- Allows you to edit social metadata to control how your content appears on social media.
- Allows you to edit your .htaccess file or your robots.txt file directly in your dashboard.
4. SEMrush SEO plugin
The SEMrush SEO Writing Assistant plugin for WordPress isn’t as widely used as some of the other plugins we’ve reviewed so far, but it’s still a choice worth considering.
One of the most complete SEO toolkits available is SEMrush. The brand is a big name in the SEO industry, so I wanted to include their plugin on this list.
The plugin screens your content and scores your write-ups based on its SEO strenght. Text suggestions will appear, describing how to optimize your content for SEO objectives.
With the writing assistant, you can also add or edit your target keywords. Based on these keywords, the plugin will make recommendations for you.
To access the SEMrush SEO plugin, you must have an account with them.
My Choice: YOAST SEO plugin
Yoast is the plugin you should use, particularly if you are just getting started with SEO. This doesn’t mean that SEO experts don’t use it too.
More than five million websites have installed Yoast plugin with a constant 5-star rating, making it one of the most used WordPress plugins.
Yoast plugin will easily assist you with fixing readability mistakes that several writers do make.
Also, Yoast wizard walks you through the process of fixing the SEO attributes of your webpage/posts before you publish.
Get started with Yoast, using this simple step-by-step detail.
Install
1 Go to the Plugin tab on your WordPress dashboard and click Add New
2 At the search bar of the WordPress Plugin directory, type in Yoast, then Install and Activate
3 Click Yoast at the option by the left menu tab and click First-time Configuration. Click Continue
4 At the Does your site represent a person or an organization, pick your preferred option and save and continue
5 Add up your social media links if you wish to, and continue
6 Once done with your configuration, click the Go to your dashboard, and congratulations, Yoast is now configured on your WordPress website.
Use the SEO and Readability criteria of Yoast plugin to tweak your blog articles until you have achieved the amber or green which indicates a perfect score for each attribute.
Another interesting feature of Yoast SEO plugin is its ability to create and manage your XML Sitemaps. It’s much easier than having to code your sitemap yourself, especially if you don’t have a lot of technical experience.
Yoast SEO helps you identify and avoid duplicate content so you don’t have to worry about getting penalized by Google. It also offers optimized title and meta description templates, which will make your pages more attractive in the SERPs.
You can install the Yoast SEO plugin for free to access all these features and benefits. But there is also a premium version at €79 per year which gives you upgrades such as:
Page previews on different platforms
- Internal Link Suggestions
- Redirection management options
- 24/7 Support
- No advertising
I recommend at the very least installing the free Yoast SEO plugin for WordPress.
Which WordPress SEO plugin is the best for you?
You definitely don’t want to install multiple SEO plugins on the same site.
So how do you choose the best WordPress SEO plugin for your needs?
Well, it goes through several scenarios…
If you are new to SEO and WordPress, I recommend sticking with Yoast SEO.
But what Yoast SEO does is make SEO more accessible to casual users, which is great if you’re just getting your feet wet.
If you already know WordPress and SEO, then you can try any of these SEO plugins based on your most preferred features.
Conclusion; Best SEO Plugin In WordPress To Consider In 2022
WordPress is an all-in-one content management system but when it comes to fixing your SEO for search friendliness, you will have to fix this yourself.
With some great SEO plugin WordPress repository, fixing your website SEO issues can be an easy fry.
Top SEO plugin for WordPress includes Yoast, RankMath, SEMrush, and All-in-One SEO plugin.
While I recommend Yoast SEO plugin, especially for beginners, you can go through the features of these plugins as I explain in this article, and pick one that meets your SEO goals the most.
Which of these SEO plugins you do prefer? Share your experience in the comment section.
We love to hear from you.