We are often asked which are the best WordPress SEO plugins and tools that we recommend .
It is because search engines are a major source of traffic for most websites on the internet. Optimizing your website for search engines can help you rank higher in search results and grow your business significantly .
In this article, we are going to share the best WordPress SEO plugins and tools that you should use. Some of these tools offer similar functionality, so we’ll also highlight which ones are best for specific use cases .
Things you should know about WordPress SEO plugins and tools
When reading SEO tips or searching for “best free WordPress SEO plugins”, you will come across articles with dozens of tools .
This can be very confusing for novice and non-professional users .
The truth is, you don’t need dozens of the best SEO tools to get higher search rankings .
Although most blog posts (including ours) will share the most popular SEO plugins, it is very important that you understand the use cases for each tool .
For example, you never want to use more than one WordPress SEO plugin on your website. We will mention All in One SEO, Yoast SEO, SEOPress, and Rank Math. You need to choose only one to avoid plugin conflict .
We’ll mention SEMRush, Ahrefs, and a few other powerful tools, but you don’t need all of them when you’re first starting out since they have a similar feature set. We will share what tools we use in our business, and which features are the best among each tool .
With that said, let’s take a look at our experts’ pick of the best WordPress SEO plugins and tools .
All in One SEO for WordPress (AIOSEO) :
It is the best WordPress SEO plugin on the market .
Used by over 2 million users, it’s the most comprehensive SEO toolkit out there .
It comes bundled with a wizard that helps you provide the best SEO option for your business. Displays your AIOSEO software .
Spreadsheet is a page SEO smart meta tag generator where you can use dynamic values (current year, month, day, fields, info and many more) in your SEO title and descriptions. This means that you don’t need to update a post just to change the search engine addresses .
AIOSEO also comes with rich snippet schema markup, smart XML sitemaps (with advanced controls), SEO health check, and other useful features to increase your search engine visibility.
There is a built-in social media integration to add Open Graph metadata as well. This means that you can choose which image or thumbnail you want to show when you share your pages on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc .
AIOSEO also comes with built-in WooCommerce SEO tools for ecommerce websites .
This includes features like dynamic optimizations, single product page optimizations, product image SEO, and other useful features for bringing more organic traffic to your online store .
It includes full control over your RSS feeds, Robots.txt editor, local SEO, Google News sitemaps, video SEO, and more .
Overall, All in One SEO (AIOSEO) is the most beginner-friendly and comprehensive WordPress SEO plugin on the market .
It eliminates the need to install multiple plugins to do things on your website and works perfectly for all kinds of business, e-commerce, blogs, news and other websites .
SEMRush :
SEMRush is the best SEO tool on the market. Used by SEO experts, marketers, bloggers, and businesses of all sizes, it provides a comprehensive set of tools to grow your traffic .
You can use it to find organic keywords and search terms that you can easily rank for. It also allows you to do competitive research and see what keywords your competitors rank for, and how you can beat them .
The SEMRush SEO writing assistant helps you optimize your website content to hit the top 10 results for the keyword you focus on. It integrates with WordPress, and this will help you write more SEO friendly content .
Google Search Console :
Google Search Console is a free tool offered by Google to help website owners monitor and maintain their site’s presence in Google search results .
Alerts you when Google is unable to crawl and index the pages on your website. You can also get helpful tips on how to fix these crawl errors .
Most importantly, it shows the keywords your website is ranking for, anchor texts, average ad position, impressions, and more .
You can use this data to find keywords where you can easily rank higher by optimizing your content . You can also use this keyword data to come up with new blog post ideas .
MonsterInsights , another tool we’ll mention later, helps you bring Search Console reports inside your WordPress dashboard for easy access .
Yoast SEO :
Yoast SEO is a WordPress SEO plugin that allows you to optimize your WordPress site for search engines .
It allows you to easily add SEO titles and descriptions to all posts and pages on your website. You can also use it to add Open Graph metadata and social media images to your articles .
Yoast SEO automatically generates an XML sitemap for all your website content making it easier for search engines to crawl your website. It also helps you to easily import SEO data if you are using an SEO plugin .
For more details, see our complete guide on how to install and setup the Yoast SEO plugin in WordPress .
Google Keyword Planner :
Google Keyword Planner helps you to generate your own keyword ideas from Google itself .
No one on the planet has more insights into what people are searching for than search giant Google .
This free tool is offered to Google advertisers for free and anyone can use it. Its main purpose is to show advertisers the keywords they can bid on for their ad campaigns .
It also helps advertisers choose the right keywords by showing an estimate of search volume, number of results, and difficulty level .
As a content marketer or blogger, you can use this data to find keywords with high search volume, great interest from advertisers, and most importantly keywords where you can easily outperform all other sites .
Ahrefs :
Ahrefs is the all-in-one SEO tool for marketers, bloggers, and businesses . Also It is a popular alternative to SEMRush and offers a lot of similar tools and features .
It lets you perform keyword research, competition analysis, backlink research, monitor keyword rankings, and more
Beside It also provides a detailed content analysis tool that helps you optimize your content while targeting specific keywords .
Although there is a lot of overlap in features, what Ahrefs does well is backlink analysis. We can use it to see which sites link to multiple competitors .
Last but not least, Ahrefs helps us better identify duplicate content and keyword scraping which helps us combine and promote relevant content to boost our rankings .
For the above reasons, we pay both SEMRush and Ahrefs because they are good for specific use cases .
SEOPress :
SEOPress is a simple yet powerful SEO plugin for WordPress . It includes all the features you would expect from an SEO plugin such as meta title and description, open graph support, XML sitemaps for images and content, redirects, and more .
not only It comes with a straightforward setup for beginners and advanced controls for more experienced users .but also It is similar to other top WordPress SEO plugins on the market in terms of features and options .
The paid version of the plugin is cheaper than some of the other premium WordPress SEO plugins on the market .
Note : SEOPress is a WordPress SEO plugin. Remember, you only need a WordPress SEO plugin on your site .
Rank Math :
Rank Math is an easy to use and fast growing WordPress SEO plugin that allows you to optimize your website for search engines and social media. It comes with a setup wizard and allows you to import data from other SEO components during setup .
You can use it to easily add your Open Graph meta title, description, and metadata to your blog posts. The plugin also allows you to create an XML sitemap, connect Google Search Console, and control access to plugin features based on user roles .
Note : Rank Math is an alternative to AIOSEO. Remember, you only need a WordPress SEO plugin on your site .
Schema Pro :
Schema Pro allows you to add rich snippets to your website that will make it stand out in search results .
Rich snippets allow you to make your website stand out in search results by showing star ratings below the review, prices below the product, image or video next to the description, etc .
WordPress SEO plugins like All in One SEO (AIOSEO) actually add structured rich snippets data to your website. However, if you need more types of schema or want to extend the functionality of your existing WordPress SEO plugin, Schema Pro is the way to go .
Schema Pro also allows you to use it alongside your existing WordPress SEO plugin by mapping the plugin’s data to Schema Pro fields .
KeywordTool.io :
KeywordTool.io is one of the best free keyword research tools out there right now. It allows you to generate keyword ideas by simply typing in a keyword. These keyword suggestions are collected from Google’s autosuggest feature. It also shows you keyword suggestions from Bing, YouTube, Amazon, and more .
These keywords are a treasure trove of information. You can also get search volume, cost per click, and other data for each keyword by upgrading to their paid plan .
Redirection :
Redirection helps you set up SEO-friendly redirects in WordPress. It is one of the most useful WordPress plugins which helps you to easily fix 404 errors in WordPress by setting up redirects .
Broken links can affect your site’s SEO and create a bad experience for your users. If you have been running a blog for some time, you should check your site from time to time for broken links and fix them .
There are multiple ways to easily find broken links in WordPress. Once you find a broken link, you may need to fix it by directing users to the correct link or removing the incorrect link .
SEOquake :
SEOQuake is a useful SEO tool for website owners. It is available as a browser add-on for Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Opera and Safari web browsers .
It provides SEO related information for any website. This data includes page health, age, last update, Alexa rank, and many other parameters. It is one of the most downloaded browser add-ons by SEO professionals .
Aside from that, the SEOquake toolbar can show you all the same data search results when you type in a keyword. This information can be very useful if you are measuring competition for different keywords. You can also download search results in CSV format and prepare your own Excel sheets of research data .
Alternative : Ahrefs SEO Toolbar
Additional plugins for WordPress website owners
These tools give you an added edge when optimizing your website for SEO. They do not advertise themselves as SEO tools but they are essential for every website and play an important role in the search performance of your website
WP Rocket :
Site speed is a major factor in search rankings. This is why you need to monitor your website speed and performance to ensure that it does not affect your SEO .
The easiest way to increase your website speed is to enable caching. WP Rocket is the best WordPress caching plugin on the market, which allows you to set up caching without diving into any technical stuff .
Alternative : WP Super Cache
MonsterInsights :
Many beginners rely on their best guesses to make their marketing decisions. You don’t need to do this when you can easily get the ideas you need to improve your website’s SEO strategy.
MonsterInsights is the best Google Analytics plugin for WordPress . It allows you to easily install Google Analytics in WordPress and displays human-readable reports within your WordPress dashboard .
It tells you where your users are coming from, your top content, what users are doing on your website, and more . and It also allows you to track your ecommerce SEO by knowing which products are popular and where you are losing customers .
Other powerful growth tools :
- Apart from the plugins mentioned above, we also recommend the following tools to increase traffic and conversions from your SEO visitors :
- PushEngage – Connect with your SEO visitors and interact with them after they leave your website with web notifications .
- OptinMonster – Convert abandoned visitors into email subscribers and customers .
- Constant Contact – Stay in touch with your SEO visitors with email marketing .
- WPForms – Get more leads from your SEO traffic with the #1 WordPress form builder .
- SeedProd – Create friendly custom landing pages with the WordPress drag and drop page builder (no coding needed).