When using a WordPress website for the first time, it’s important to know that if you want it to be SEO optimised, you’re probably going to have to turn to a third-party plugin to set everything up. WordPress has basic SEO features out of the box, but to really rank well for your important keywords, you’re going to need to install some additional plugins (a WordPress plugin adds additional features to your WordPress website that are not installed by default). All are free, but some have paid options that give you more functionality.
Here are six that we recommend and have used over the years.
We should note that SEO is not a ‘set it and forget it’ task – you need to actively manage your SEO to make sure you get the success you’re looking for.
These plugins will help you with the 5 Easy SEO wins we wrote about recently.
Yoast
Yoast SEO is a widely used and popular plugin for improving the on-page SEO of a WordPress website. It provides a range of features to optimise your content, including the ability to set meta titles and descriptions, add focus keywords, and create XML sitemaps. It also analyses the content and provides recommendations for improving the SEO of the page, such as adding internal and external links, optimising images, and improving readability. Yoast SEO also provides advanced features for optimising the technical aspects of your site, such as controlling the indexing of pages, managing canonical URLs, and setting up breadcrumbs. Overall, it’s a comprehensive and powerful SEO tool for WordPress users.
W3 Total Cache
The speed of your website is now a critical search ranking factor. So, you’re going to need a plugin that makes your website faster. W3 Total Cache is a free caching plugin for WordPress that optimises website performance by caching pages and posts, reducing download times and improving server performance. It also includes features such as minification, content delivery network (CDN) integration, and browser caching to help speed up your website. Additionally, the plugin provides advanced caching options like database caching, object caching, and page caching, which can be customised according to your website needs. W3 Total Cache is designed to work with shared hosting, virtual private servers (VPS), and dedicated servers, making it a flexible and scalable solution for website optimisation.
Redirection
The Redirection plugin for WordPress is a powerful tool for managing 301 redirects and tracking 404 errors on your website. It allows you to create and manage redirects from within your WordPress dashboard, without having to edit your .htaccess file manually. This can be very helpful for SEO, as it ensures that any broken links or outdated URLs on your site are redirected to the correct page, which can improve user experience and prevent search engine penalties. Additionally, the plugin provides advanced features such as import/export, regex support, and conditional redirects, which give you greater control over your redirects and help to optimise your site for search engines.
Google Search Console
Google Search Console is a free tool provided by Google that helps website owners monitor and maintain their website’s presence in Google search results. It provides a range of features to help you understand how Google crawls and indexes your website’s pages, identify any issues that may be affecting your search rankings and optimise your site for better performance. Installing Google Search Console on a WordPress website is essential for any website owner who wants to improve their SEO. It can help you identify crawl errors, submit sitemaps, monitor search traffic, and much more. When you install the plugin provided by Google, it integrates all the graphs and data right into your WordPress dashboard.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a free tool that provides website owners with detailed insights into their website traffic and user behaviour. It helps you track how visitors engage with your website, including where they come from, what pages they visit, and how long they stay on your site. Google Analytics is a valuable tool for SEO on WordPress because it can help you optimise your content based on user behaviour and preferences. By analysing the data, you can identify which pages are performing well, which keywords are driving traffic, and which areas of your site need improvement. This information can help you make data-driven decisions to improve your SEO and drive more traffic to your site. Google Analytics is completely free, and you can set it up easily by using the Google plugins for it.
Internal Link Juicer
The Internal Link Juicer plugin for WordPress is a powerful tool for managing internal links on your website. It automatically adds internal links to your content based on pre-defined rules, which helps to improve your site’s SEO. Internal links are very important – as they tell the Google bot what content you think is most important. The plugin allows you to define keywords, phrases, and URLs that should be linked automatically, as well as set the maximum number of links per page. By adding internal links, you can distribute link equity throughout your site, which can help to improve your site’s search engine rankings. The free version does the job, and it’s pretty easy to set up. You just have to remember to set your link keywords every time you publish a post.
Installing these tools and learning the basics of how to use them is the perfect way to ensure you have some SEO success with your WordPress website. Looking for super-fast WordPress hosting in Ireland? Then, be sure to check out Blacknight’s WordPress Hosting plans, which offer the resources needed for every size WordPress website.
About the Author: Jonathan Thomas
