WordPress has become one the most widely used website creation tools because of it’s easy to use interface and modular design. Beginning as simply a blogging tool, WordPress has expanded to become an internet powerhouse used by businesses around the globe.
Since all of these websites are competing against each other for visibility on Google, it’s never been more important for them to utilise proper SEO tactics to get an edge. The correct use of SEO requires not only a keen eye for what search algorithms prefer, but a way of recording analytics accurately.
For this reason the use of SEO plugins in WordPress is an opportunity that shouldn’t be missed by web developers. The following will discuss some of the best SEO plugins that are available on WordPress.
Yoast
Most SEO experts will recommend Yoast’s SEO tools for use in WordPress websites. Yoast works on the two most important and intertwining aspects of a websites SEO, technical optimisation as well as encouraging high quality content. It’s for these reasons that popular sites like best in Australia use Yoast throughout their web design.
Yoast’s page analysis tool is perfect for determining whether or not a page is on the right track in terms of SEO. The plugin will work fast to scan pages for images that have not been optimised with alt tags related to the target keyword.
It will also determine the optimal word count, paragraph structure and level of image use for a site’s content. This includes an analysis of meta descriptions to ensure they perform well in Google search results.
Yoast provides an easy to understand checklist that will slowly become second nature to web creators as they begin to habitually optimise their own content. It is a seamless addition to WordPress that shouldn’t be missed out on.
Google XML Sitemaps
Another important part of on-page SEO is making sure that the page is getting properly indexed by Google. Search engines will eventually crawl the websites’ content, but it’s much more efficient to optimise the sitemap in-house.
Google XML Sitemaps will work to automatically generate a sitemap for the WordPress site. This will make it much easier for Google to fully index the website.
Once the settings are finalised, web developers can ‘set and forget’ this plugin as it will automatically keep the sitemap up to date as new content is changed or added. Sitemaps also help getting better search engine optimisation results.
W3 Total Cache
Not only is it important to have high quality and mutually supporting content, but a webpage that loads quickly for users. Google has outright declared page speed as part of its ranking factors, so it’s important not to miss this area of optimisation.
Luckily, the W3 Total Cache plugin makes it easy to improve the speed of the website as well as the total user experience. Using this tool can in conjunction with regular website SEO audits will help identify issues that can be resolved to improve performance.
This plugin has been reported to give a ten times increase to the performance of websites that use it. By caching pages, posts and images as well as optimising JavaScript or CSS elements W3 Total Cache is magnificent at ‘cutting the fat’ of a webpage so it can reach its highest speed potential.
Conclusion
These are just some of the most useful SEO plugins available for WordPress users and while each have their own competitors, these stand out as the most widely used. SEO experts are very familiar with these tools and will use them routinely as part of their larger strategy for SEO optimisation.