If you’re looking to generate more traffic to your website through improved search engine optimization, keep reading, as today we’ll reveal the top WordPress SEO plugins for 2021.
When it comes to content management systems, you’ll be hard-pressed to find one more SEO-friendly than WordPress. Even without any SEO add-ons, WordPress offers built-in features to optimize your traffic so you can build your online following.
Want examples? For starters, WordPress helps prevent duplicate content that can cause your SEO rankings to plummet. In addition, the CMS makes it easy to rewrite URLs with a single click, so they’re clean and crawlable for search engines.
2021’s Best SEO WordPress Plugins
While WordPress can work wonders for SEO on its own, there are still ways to improve your rankings via plugins. Here are the best of the bunch for the current year.
Yoast
Out of all the available WordPress SEO plugins, Yoast is probably the most well-known. As such, if you’re just starting and want something dependable to draw traffic to your site, picking Yoast is likely your best bet.
Highlights:
- Tracks internal links.
- It makes your site easier to navigate and index, thanks to customizable breadcrumbs.
- Integrates with Google Search Console.
- Allows for seamless 301 redirects so you can send visitors to the page of your choice.
- Makes sure your posts are readable and SEO-friendly.
- Avoids duplicate content through canonical URLs.
- Increases your site’s search engine crawlability by automatically creating an XML sitemap.
- It gives you control over what Google visitors will see when you appear on a SERP by letting you add and edit customized snippets.
- Allows you to add multiple focus keywords for your content.
All in One SEO
As you can tell by its name, All in One SEO is a WordPress plugin with the power to replace multiple optimization tools, thanks to its long list of features. This is true even if you use its free version, which is quite robust.
Highlights:
- Customizable page titles, headings, and meta-descriptions.
- URL control.
- Redirect tool to avoid 404 pages.
- Automatic sitemap generation so your site can be indexed and viewed in search results.
- Integrates easily with social media.
- Optimizes posts and pages via a checklist and on-page analysis.
- SEMRush integration to help you discover additional keywords that can boost your ranking.
SEOPress
You don’t have to pay a single penny to get many SEO-friendly features through this plugin’s free version. Beyond that, SEOPress is an attractive choice since its default setup is user-friendly and ready to go, even for beginners.
Highlights:
- Gives you total control over the page title, heading, meta-description, and URL for each page.
- Automatically generates sitemaps for images, content, and HTML navigation.
- Connects to your social media accounts.
- Improves social media sharing through Twitter Cards and Facebook Open Graph.
- Offers enhanced redirection and URL rewriting.
- Makes it easy to switch from other WordPress SEO plugins by allowing you to import data quickly.
Rank Math
For the time being, you can enjoy Rank Math’s WordPress SEO plugin at no cost. There is a premium version in the works; however, that should offer more features.
Highlights:
- Easy to use right out of the box if you’re looking for a no-fuss approach to SEO.
- Advanced install option lets you customize configuration.
- It lets you tweak page titles, headings, and meta-descriptions to your liking.
- Integrates with Google Search Console.
- Allows you to assign user roles.
- Generates XML site map.
Squirrly SEO
Unless you’re a true SEO-lover, you may find the task of improving your site’s ranking a tad tedious. It’s still necessary, though, which is why it’s great to know that a plugin like Squirrly SEO exists.
Highlights:
- It makes SEO entertaining through its colorful interface.
- It helps you learn optimization on the go by analyzing your writing in real-time.
- Offers detailed instructions on how to improve your rankings to give you a better understanding of how SEO works.
- Tracks performance across 100-plus search engines.
- Picks the best keywords for your SEO needs.
Broken Link Checker
One easy way to sabotage your SEO goals is to have broken links on your site. While such links will hurt your ranking, they’ll provide a terrible user experience that could be much more damaging.
Smaller websites could probably do without this tool, as you could simply check for broken links manually. But if your site is already large or expanding at a rapid pace, having Broken Link Checker could help ensure that all of your internal and external links are in tip-top shape.
Broken Link Checker is quick to install and easy to use. Once it kicks into gear, it will analyze your WordPress site and give you a list of faulty URLs. From there, you can edit, delete, dismiss, or ignore the links with minimal effort.
