SEO plugins for WordPress

Best SEO Plugins for WordPress in 2019

Search engines are a major source of traffic, leads and customers for any website. Here at VA Partners we primarily use WordPress to build and manage websites, and while WordPress is generally considered to be an SEO-friendly platform, it is still very important to use a properly optimized theme coupled with SEO plugins for WordPress. But which plugins to choose when there are hundreds of options available? In this blog we’ll review some of the best SEO plugins for WordPress in 2019.

 

Yoast

Almost anyone in the blogging sphere who’s ever researched anything about SEO plugins for WordPress has probably heard a thing or two about Yoast. Yoast is actually the original WordPress SEO plugin that was introduced back in 2008. Today, it is the favourite tool of millions of different users. And that’s not surprising given its vast capabilities combined with user-friendly interface.

Yoast does everything in its power to please both search engines and visitors, by helping you take care of many aspects of your WordPress website SEO. From adding meta value to pages and posts, setting focus keywords and optimizing images, titles and descriptions, to creating a sitemap file, controlling indexing of your blog, editing robot.txt and more.

Here at VA Partners we use Yoast on a daily basis, and we believe that Yoast should be the first SEO plugin to be installed on your WordPress site.

 

Broken Link Checker

When you have a WordPress site with dozens of pages and posts, checking for broken links can become truly tedious. Random links may vanish, pages and sites might move without your awareness, making it really hard for you to track these broken links. Yet, if you want to make sure your site is still ranking and it is in good SEO health, then it’s crucial for you to constantly scan your posts and pages for broken links and fix them as necessary. Luckily, you don’t have to do it manually. Thanks to Broken Link Checker, a free WordPress plugin, you can easily monitor links in all your posts, pages, comments and custom fields. Furthermore, the tool allows you to easily edit broken links right from the plugin’s page, without having to manually update each post. If you want to optimize your SEO and save your customers and prospects a lot of headache, use this plugin.

 

Schema Rich Snippets

Rich snippets are visual features that Google shows between the URL and the description of your page. They include reviews, recipes, images, videos, people, products etc. Why are they important? Rich snippets spice up your search listing and stand out from other snippets. They look much nicer than regular search results, and therefore tend to have a higher click-through rate (CTR). Furthermore, they give search engines precise information about your page and hence help you rank higher in search results. But how do you create rich snippets? All in One Schema Rich Snippets, our personal choice, is a user-friendly plugin that makes it easy to create snippets and improve you CTRs.

 

Caching

Caching creates an ultra-fast load time and that’s why it is essential for improving SEO and increasing conversions. But how can you achieve caching? While some of the modern hosting providers offer built-in caching, a lot of hosting companies do not offer that option, and therefore using a cache plugin would be your best bet. Our personal pick is the WP Rocket plugin – it is considered to be one of the best caching solutions, as it is truly easy to use and configure, it has vast capabilities and offers great performance. The main downside of this tool is that it is a premium plugin that starts at $49/month. If you are looking for a free alternative, we would recommend WP Super Cache that also yields great results and has over 2 million installations on WordPress.

 

Image Compression

Images are an integral part of any website, they make your content more engaging and interactive. However, images are larger than text and therefore take much longer to load. As we mentioned earlier, loading time is crucial for SEO. So how can you solve this problem? One way would be to optimize each image in Adobe Photoshop or any other photo editor, and then manually update your posts. Or you could just install an image compression plugin, such as reSmush.it Image Optimizer. This free tool provides image size reduction based on several advanced algorithms, and includes a bulk operation to optimize all your images in 2 clicks. reSmush.it is considered to be one the best WordPress image compression plugins, and we agree.

 

Final Thoughts on SEO Plugins for WordPress

If you want your site to be successful and have high rankings, it is crucial to think about SEO. Yet, when you don’t have the right tools, SEO may seem confusing and rather tedious. That’s why it is important to research the best SEO plugins for WordPress and then spend some time learning how to use them. It might take a bit of effort and resources, but this knowledge will certainly pay off in the long run.

 

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Best SEO Plugins for WordPress in 2019