Search Engine Optimization stands at the core of any ranking website on WordPress. SEO helps make your WP site visible to web users and brings good traffic you can take advantage of. Even though WordPress is an SEO-friendly Content Management System coming up with lots of SEO tools to use there are still specific ones you can definitely benefit from. These are WordPress SEO plugins. So, in this article, we decided to share with you a word about the top features of SEO plugins on WordPress.
Stay tuned to know which SEO plugin features can help you to appear on the top pages of search results.
What is a WordPress SEO Plugin?
The new version of the platform is quite developed to provide many WordPress SEO tools to bring your website to another level. However, SEO plugins come in handy when covering such essential aspects as keyword research, link attachment, content optimization, etc. To clarify, those WordPress plugins that help you optimize your WP website pages and posts to rank higher on Search Engine are called SEO plugins.
Even though using SEO plugins does not necessarily guarantee your site ranking in spite of other aspects it gives some deeper insights about your target audience and website traffic from different sources. So, first and foremost importance of SEO plugins is provide resources for improving content strategy and engagement rate on your WordPress site.
Do I Really Need WordPress SEO Plugins?
If you are familiar with the main SEO principles and conduct content optimization on your own then you are probably not required to use SEO plugins. This is because WordPress mainly offers different tools to get SEO-friendly content by adding meta titles and descriptions, alt texts, tags, etc.
Despite this fact, SEO plugins are very useful in reminding you about the main tasks you have to complete. In other words, these plugins become unique guides for an optimization to-do list, for instance researching valuable keywords or analyzing competitors.
So, as you understood, SEO plugins mostly help WP users to figure out the weak sides of their website as well as make a ranking improvement strategy.
Top Features of SEO Plugins
Conducting some on-page SEO tactics like keyword research and analysis, and putting strong meta titles and descriptions do not always lead to tangible results. In this case, you should try to look for a problem in another place. One of the reasons for unsuccessful outcomes can be a bad user experience on your website. This in its turn, is closely connected to various sides and tactics of Search Engine Optimization. So, with the right plugin, you can bypass those issues on your WordPress site. But how to find a good SEO plugin?
The below-mentioned top features of SEO plugins will greatly help you to identify a good tool for your further use.
1. Tools for On-Page SEO
In order to prepare good-ranking website pages it is mandatory to use on-page SEO tools. The process itself requires a lot of hard work. Starting from keyword analysis to slug modification – a good SEO plugin is what you need.
1. Breadcrumbs
Breadcrumbs are important to indicate the position of a certain page in the website hierarchy. The impact of breadcrumbs is widely shown in Search Engine Results (SERPs). They are a type of navigational URL displaying all the referring links to a certain viewing page.
2. Slug Modification
Slugs are a part of any URL indicating the file name. As a rule, WordPress automatically generates slugs for each page based on your current content. So, a good SEO plugin will enable you to make changes to slugs. Some of them reveal and remove stop words from slugs making them more effective in terms of SEO.
3. Readability Checker
To come up with more understandable content for all types of readers you should make sure to guarantee a high readability score. It is always important to know that such things as hard and long sentences, keyword stuffing, etc. are not good identifiers for website content. So, a well-designed SEO plugin will keep you away from repetitive keywords and low-quality content on your WP site.
4. Custom Tags for Title
When you write content on WordPress it automatically takes the text Heading 1 as a title tag for the post or page. Yet, sometimes you need to write them separately for SEO purposes. So, adding custom title tags is included in the top features of SEO plugins.
5. Meta Description
In case you do not fill in the meta description field for a certain page or post WordPress will automatically generate it from your content. This is sometimes great. However, it is not always a good and targeted part of your article that you would like to display on search results. So, an SEO plugin can be a perfect help to add a matching meta description (optimally, 150 characters) including your focus keyphrase.
2. XML Sitemaps
XML sitemaps have proven effects on increased SEO results. For instance, Google crawls new website pages by following some links. And in this case, you can make the crawling process more efficient and smooth by adding XML sitemaps to your website. This is a treasure map to redirect Search Engines to your site content more quickly, as well as mark the prioritizing content by including it in your sitemap. So, the XML sitemap function is also included in the list of top features of SEO plugins.
3. Analytical Tools Integrations
Above, we spoke about diverse tips and tools that can perfectly work for your website. On the other hand, some of those may not have any successful outcomes. So, how to know which method works for you and which one does not? Answering the question we would like to mention the importance of SEO plugins and Analytical tools integration. Tracking is an integral part of any strategy related to your Marketing campaigns. For instance, the source of traffic, keyword usage results, site speed, bounce rate, etc. are a part of SEO monitoring which can be conducted with an Analytical tool such as Google Analytics.
4. Lazy Load Images
Starting from WordPress 5.5 version, the platform enables the users to use lazy load images to improve website speed rate. Even so, SEO plugins including the lazy load images option help you to save time by manually adjusting the website speed and get valuable tips in this regard.
5. Marking Pages of Low Value with No-Index
By default, WordPress always generates archive pages daily. There are different archive pages, such as daily, monthly, yearly, author, category archives, etc. In addition to those, there are pages such as search result pages presenting a low value for your website. This wide variety of archive and low-value pages leads to duplicate content which in its turn, impacts website SEO. So, in order to avoid this situation, it would be better to add a “No-Index” tag to these types of pages indicating that you do not want Search Engines to index them. This is quite an essential feature with which you can choose an SEO plugin.
6. Adding Open Graph Meta Tags (Social Media Tags)
Open Graph (OG) tags are code snippets controlling the way your website URLs are displayed when being shared on Social Media. Actually, they do not help you to improve your SEO results. However, they are still very important if you tend to get access to Facebook Insights. This is because OG tags are an undividible part of Facebook Open Graph Protocol also being used for such networks as Linkedin and Twitter.
Our Choice – Which is Best SEO Plugin for WordPress?
Reading the whole article will cause you to think after all which is the best SEO plugin for WordPress. So, our choice is the Yoast SEO plugin. Offering both feature-rich free and paid versions, Yoast is among the best plugins for SEO. If you wonder to find the mentioned criteria in this plugin, then you will be pleased to reveal most of them and even more, included.
Along with good On-page SEO features, the plugin offers you analytical options and insights. Also, it provides site structure tools and link suggestions, social sharing (OG, Twitter card data, and Slack sharing), and important APIs.
Even though the free version of the WordPress Yoast SEO plugin contains many helpful settings to enhance your site’s ranking results you will highly benefit from the pro version at this pricing:
- Premium – $99 per year
- Plugin subscription – $229 per year
To Wrap Things Up…
At the end of this article, we are going to point out some important aspects of using SEO plugins. Those are site traffic, more optimized content, and permanent online visibility.
Yet, you may achieve these outcomes in case you select the right well-structured WordPress SEO plugin. Thus, we recommend you look for these top features of SEO plugins before focusing on a certain WP product:
- On-page SEO tools
- XML sitemap-generating options
- Analytical tool integration
- Lazy load images for the website speed optimization
- NoIndex tag for low-value pages
- OG meta tags and social sharing
So, do not hesitate to find out these features in a single SEO plugin you would like to install on your WordPress site.
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