Seating on Google’s first row is your #1 goal and with SEO plugins, you get one step closer to that. In this guide, I’ll walk you through the 6 best WordPress plugins for SEO in 2022, to help you boost your website’s search engine visibility — whether it be an eCommerce store, a blog, or a portfolio website.
That said, let’s dive in.
1. Best Must-Have SEO Plugin for WordPress: Yoast SEO
YoastSEO is our top pick for SEO plugins for WordPress. It lets you optimize your website with a wide range of SEO suggestions to help your website do well in the search engines.
With over 11 million downloads and 11 years of expertise, YoastSEO is one of the first plugins SEOs & content marketers install on a new website. If everyone is doing this, why not you?
The plugin is compatible with WordPress at its best and is well-optimized for user experience. It lets you add meta descriptions and SEO titles for every page and blog post on your website. It even throws in suggestions regarding the length of meta descriptions & titles.
Furthermore, YoastSEO automatically generates an XML sitemap for your website, which helps get search engines to crawl through your site. If you own a brand new website, an XML sitemap is particularly helpful to get your site and its pages listed on Google (and other search engines).
Another highlight of YoastSEO is it lets you set a target keyword for each page and gives you an SEO score depending upon how well you use this keyword in:
- The body of the content.
- The headings.
Moreover, YoastSEO also offers a readability analysis to ensure your content is easy-to-lead which is an important factor of SEO (as it affects the user experience).
YoastSEO is a free plugin. However, it also comes with a paid version that unlocks various SEO benefits like 24/7 customer support, new SEO workouts, social preview, and so on.
Another important benefit of YoastSEO is it’s lightweight. So, it works well on any WordPress site, whether you’re using managed WordPress hosting or have just started with shared hosting.
2. Best SEO Plugin for Fast Page Loading Speeds: Google PageSpeed Insights
PageSpeed Insights is a service from Google that runs tests and gives you an overview of your website’s speed. It also points out how well your website performs in page loading speeds and responsiveness.
Moreover, it also gives you suggestions on improving your website’s page loading speed as it’s a crucial SEO factor (since it impacts user experience).
So, if you’re concerned about making sure your website is well optimized for a high page loading speed, installing Google PageSpeed Insights is worth consideration.
3. Best SEO Plugin for Image Compression: TinyPNG
As mentioned, the page loading speed of your website is an SEO factor as it impacts the user experience. One of the main factors leading to slow page loading on your website is unoptimized images.
To overcome this issue, TinyPNG is a powerful image compressor plugin that you can use. It lets you decrease the size of any image you upload on your WordPress editor without losing quality.
The best part is that TinyPNG effectively reduces the image file sizes. In most cases, it decreases the file sizes by 50% and sometimes even more.
In this digital era where web pages are supposed to be enriched with descriptive images & infographics, having an image compressor tool like TinyPNG is definitely worth it.
4. Best Keyword Ideas Generator: Answer the Public
Let’s break it down. Getting some inspiration for keywords to create content around on your website can be challenging. Though you can use the keyword ideas generator tools available on the internet, having a plugin that you could use right on your WordPress can be handy.
That’s exactly what AnswerThePublic serves for. The plugin gives you over 30 variations for any keyword or keyphrase that you type in for free. The premium version unlocks more benefits, of course.
So, if you often find yourself struggling to get some keyword ideas around the main keyword or phrase, do consider Answer the Public.
5. Best Advanced SEO & Content Analysis Plugin: Ahrefs
Ahrefs is one of the complete SEO tools on the market. It has been widely used by SEO experts & digital marketers for SEO insights over the past year.
The development of Ahrefs’ WordPress plugin has brought comfort to the lives of bloggers and WordPress publishers who can now use Ahrefs right from their WordPress dashboard.
A highlight of Ahrefs SEO plugin is that it’s lightweight and user-friendly. Regarding pricing, you can install the Ahrefs plugin for free but using the advanced functionalities requires you to have an Ahrefs license.
Ahrefs hits you with in-depth information about a website’s performance as an advanced tool. For instance, you can look into the Google position, total traffic, and numbers of backlinks for each & every page of a website.
Using this feature, you can explore your website’s pages and see their performance overview & history to find out what pages should be updated for better SEO results.
However, note that the pricing of Ahrefs is sharp. The plans start from as low as $99, which is pretty expensive for SEO tools. But, if you’re an expert who knows how to use SEO tools for their benefit, Ahrefs is undoubtedly worth the price.
6. Best SEO Plugin for Content Marketing: Semrush
Semrush is yet another fantastic SEO tool to improve your website’s visibility in search results, drive more organic traffic, and generate more sales.
Using it, you can:
- analyze keywords to ensure you use the most profitable ones,
- research your competitors for your SEO benefit,
- explore paid search marketing for the best use of your bucks,
- and so on.
Semrush’s WordPress plugin is known as SEO Writing Assistant. As the name suggests, the plugin helps to improve your website’s content for SEO. The plugin lets you input the target keywords and throws in recommendations & the content score as you prepare your content.
The content score consists of :
- Readability (use of active/passive voice, length of sentences, and so on)
- SEO (use of keywords, etc.)
- Originality
- The tone of voice.
If you opt for the premium plan, you can unlock over 40 advanced SEO tools related to SMM, PPC, etc. However, note that Semrush is not free. The paid version starts from $99, which is, of course, expensive.
Key Takeaways
What are the best WordPress plugins for SEO to install on my website? Here are the takeaways:
- A must-have WordPress plugin and our top pick for SEO plugins on WordPress is the YoastSEO tool. It’s a free SEO tool that gives you insights into your content’s SEO score, readability, and much more.
- The best WordPress plugin for SEO in terms of keyword planning is Answer the Public. It lets you generate keyword ideas with the click of a button, even with the free version.
- If you’re looking for an advanced SEO solution for your website/s, Ahrefs is your best bet. Though it comes with sharp pricing, Ahrefs offers everything you could ask for, to improve your website’s SEO.