WordPress is one of the most accessible, easy to use, and efficient platforms to build a website for free. One of its best features is the possibility of tweaking almost any aspect of your site with plugins. You can tailor your customer experience with them and, even more importantly, you can substantially boost your SEO efforts by installing the right ones. However, since there are well over 50,000 WordPress plugins available, knowing where to start is the hardest part.
Here are 9 awesome WordPress plugins that will boost your SEO efforts to keep your site management moving smoothly.
- Yoast SEO
Yoast SEO is, by far, the best SEO plugin of all time. With more than 3 million websites currently using it, Yoast is the most popular plugin – and for good reasons. It offers plenty of useful functions, such as a snippet editor, a page analysis tool, a content optimizer, keyword research features and a lot more. Although there are more “technical” plugins available, Yoast SEO is also blessed by a simple interface that makes it easier to use than most. More importantly, it can guide writers to produce the best content possible.
- Noindex Pages
If you want to run some A/B split testing on pages to see what works best or simply want to use a bunch of them as landing pages for PPC campaigns, you certainly don’t want them to be indexed. The Noindex Pages prevents search engines from indexing individual pages by just checking an option in the publish post/page box. This is a quick way around what can easily become a big problem.
- Google Analytics for WordPress by MonsterInsights
Connecting Google Analytics to a WordPress site is, quite obviously, a mandatory step to keep everything under control. However, without a plugin, you will have to fumble with code – which is all but a simple thing to do. Instead, use Google Analytics for WordPress by Monster Insights. All it requires is a few clicks, and you’re able to keep an eye on all the information provided by Analytics in your WordPress dashboard.
- WPtouch Mobile Plugin
Having a responsive website is now a requirement since Google changed its algorithm to show mobile-responsive website results firsts. The WPtouch Mobile Plugin will help you build a smart, mobile-friendly website without modifying its code or affecting the desktop version in any way.
- WP Super Cache
Definitely one of the top plugins in 2017, WP Super Cache is the easiest way to help you caching efforts, and it has been recently adopted by the same company that makes WordPress: Automattic. Super Cache can help keep the site’s hosting cost down by reducing server load, and it’s great to boost SEO since it increases the always-important page speed.
- WP Smush and PNG to JPG
When it comes to rankings, Google gives a lot of importance to page loading time. The quicker a page is, the better. One of the quickest and easiest ways to reduce loading time is reduce the size of your images and visuals. WP Smush is a simple tool that reduces image file sizes on the go from the pic interface. Together, these two plugins will help free up web space and boost your SEO in a few minutes.
- Eggplant 301 Redirects
Another must-have, the Eggplant 301 Redirects (commonly known as “the EPS”) is a great tool that lets you redirect any page or post to a different URL. Is your old URL too long or over-optimized? Do you want to get rid of that old page without losing the traffic that it still able to generate? The EPS plugin lets you do that quickly and neatly without messing with a page’s code.
- Broken Links Checker
Checking your backlinks profile from time to time is necessary to ensure that your link strategies are still sound and effective. However, running a full site audit to scan for broken and non-relevant links you want to disavow can be even more important. If a site doesn’t agree with your bottom line, you shouldn’t be linking to it. The Broken Links Checker is a great tool that keeps you updated on links that need to be changed or removed, sends you email alerts each time they spot something and even provides you with a fantastic database of all your internal and external links.
- All In One Schema.Org Rich Snippets
Rich Snippets are longer SERP results that provide users with more detail than regular results. They can be really helpful to attract more people towards your website thanks to the shiny stars that will make your content stand out among competition. This plugin helps creating Rich Snippets that comply with Schema.org standards.
WordPress is a good and efficient platform on its own, but knowing how to take full advantage of its plugins will take its power to the next level. Just by using the above ones we talked about, you will see a huge leap in your SEO efforts (and less stress from maintaining them).