Getting traffic to your website is an ongoing battle faced by every small and large business owner. SEO – Search Engine Optimisation – is a major tool in organically driving visitors to your website. But improving your SEO can be difficult when you’re not employing the expertise of dedicated SEO experts. However, SEO Plugins for WordPress can help!

The value of SEO starts with search results, as without a decent SEO strategy it is highly unlikely that your website will ever appear as a recommended search result. Our first tip, and one that has inspired much of this blog’s content, is to invest in WordPress. WordPress is a blogging website hosting provider which allows a number of Plugins to make your life easier. All you have to do is determine which Plugin is the most compatible with your vision.

So, as we strive towards 2020, we’ve pulled together a list of some of the best SEO Plugins for WordPress.

Yoast

Yoast SEO is one of the most valuable Plugins on the market, with over 5 million downloads on a global scale. Simply by looking at this one figure you should already be recognising the popularity of Yoast SEO – and for good reason. Yoast handles a wide range of aspects across your WordPress site’s SEO. This includes metadata for both homepage content and individual articles, a detailed sitemap that is automatically shared with different search engines, SEO and readability.

And best of all, the basic Yoast SEO plugin is a free download for WordPress users. It has been built in a way that is perfectly user friendly for anyone – even complete beginners. Of course, there is a paid-for upgrade version as well which includes a few additional features, but the basic plugin does more than enough to help you see results. So, what are you waiting for?

Schema

Schema is what we call a rich snippet plugin. A rich snippet is an additional content that pops up as being immediately interactive, for example, user reviews. Generally, rich snippet content is visually presented and highly compelling, not only enticing potential customers but also enabling search engines to see exactly what your website is about.

Of course, adding rich snippets is only one part of improving your online presence. In order for that additional content to be viewed, you still have to have a solid SEO strategy. But with Schema – All In One Rich Snippets, you have the freedom to create a number of different types of content. Including reviews, events and videos. Schema supports the creation and use of rich snippets and is a goldmine of great content once you’ve got your head around how to use it.

Broken Link Checker

Managing a frequent series of blog posts can throw up unprecedented problems with links. As your site grows, the number of links your site is managing grows. Including both internal and external links in line with all those SEO tips that advocate the use of external links within your blogs. Well, that’s all very well, but what happens when things start to go wrong?

The Broken Link Checker Plugin does just that – it checks your content and flags up any broken links or missing images. It also tracks any broken comment boxes or edited URL’s that can damage your own links. Why is this important? Search engines can tell if your site is full of broken content and links, and this can impact on your SEO negatively. WordPress’s Broken Link Checker makes sure that doesn’t happen – so you can just sit back and enjoy creating content.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics for WordPress has millions of installations, with the Monster Insights version attracting the most popularity in recent years. This is because all of your Analytics content can be viewed from inside your WordPress dashboard. This makes the process very user friendly and streamlined – connecting the GA plugin with your WordPress site automatically.

There is both a free and a premium option for the Google Analytics plugin, with the free version providing you with the bare minimum of data you may find useful. The paid option delves a lot deeper into your website activity and as a result, becomes a lot more valuable in tracking site visits.

AMP

AMP deals mainly with mobile optimisation and the problems that arose when sites began to create content, especially for mobile. Though mobile optimisation seemed like the most important thing at the time, by creating great visual content for mobile the site creators began to impact on their response time. The more content is on the mobile page, the longer it takes to load – and the bounce rate went through the roof. The answer? Accelerated Mobile Pages.

AMP was created to optimise the loading of mobile pages, using specially created HTML code to make the page load faster. By downloading the AMP plugin for WordPress, you can rest assured that your website content will become quicker. And this makes it more user friendly for those visiting your site on a mobile device. And with its user-friendly interface designed for website owners as well, using the AMP plugin will improve the experience for you as well as your customers.

EWWW Image Optimiser

If your content relies on text, adding images and infographics is a must-do to liven it up. Not only do these reflect well on your SEO, but they also help your website to retain the attention of readers. The trick is to make sure that visually engaging content isn’t impacting on your web page load time.

The EWWW Image Optimiser was designed to optimise images whenever you upload a new one.  Ensuring it only takes up the amount of space it needs to across your site – with no limit on how many images it will upload. When you choose to download Image Optimiser, it will also give you the option to optimise all your existing images across your website. An added bonus that means you don’t have to go through and manually edit every image.

Jetpack by WordPress

This one was made by WordPress themselves. It’s a culmination of a number of other plugins you may have downloaded throughout your time as a WordPress user. Able to complete several tasks simultaneously, Jetpack covers SEO tools, analytics, site management and performance optimisation, image loading, site backup, security, and much more.

It’s a bit like an umbrella that sits atop all the other plugin experiences. Jetpack updates itself on a regular basis to ensure you always have the up to date new features and bug fixes.

All in One WP Security and Firewall

Added security is something we recommend investing in wherever possible, and All in one WP is one of the best. By guiding you and sitting across everything from password strength to Google reCaptcha, this plugin gives you live updates on the security strength of your website. Plus, it takes ownership across a number of important areas that could otherwise be vulnerable.

W3 Total Cache

In 2020 users are growing increasingly busy, with little to no time to wait for your website to load. Google and other search engines are also evolving to recognise site speed. It is fast becoming the element of your site that you simply cannot ignore. W3 Total Cache serves as a page store for each individual user. It ensures each time they open a page, there is no need for the page to reload completely.

For this reason, enabling page caching is probably the most important feature to note when you set up this plugin. In short, a cache is a form of memory that stores the pages visited. It ensures quick load time for all devices, delivers all the content to high quality, and is compatible with different types of hosting.

Ultimate Nofollow

For every link you include on your website, Google will backtrack to find out exactly where it came from and why you have linked it on your own site. And when you add in a link, selecting the Nofollow button will make clear to Google that your webpage ranking should not impact that of the link’s target. In short, you are telling Google that the link destination should not benefit from your site’s SEO.

Doing this in WordPress is a little more challenging than on any other site as there is no automated option, but the Ultimate Nofollow plugin provides an extra checkbox to your profile when adding new links.

Of course, all of the above Plugins cover very different areas of your WordPress site, and depending on your market and target audience, it is likely only a couple of these will be relevant to you. The thing to remember is that plugins actually can make your life a lot easier – and the millions who already use them serve as great advocates for their value. Trust the masses and start delving further into understanding your WordPress site and the options available to you.

Need help with your WordPress site?? Talk to us.