12 Best WordPress SEO Plugins for 2020

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Driving users to your website is key to growing your business. How do you get more traffic to your website? A great way to start is with search engines. The majority of traffic that goes to a website is the result of search engine optimization. But choosing the right plugin to help with your SEO can be tough with so many great choices out there. 

When you correctly optimize your website, you ultimately rank higher in the search results. This can have a positive impact on your business because more users will have access to and knowledge about your brand.

If you are interested in growing your business, I suggest you start by optimizing your website to increase traffic. This may sound like a hard and time-consuming thing to do. But no worries it has actually been made easy for you.

The Best WordPress SEO Plugins

We will review the best WordPress SEO Plugin for your business. The functionalities and features of each plugin will be highlighted to help you better determine which one is the best choice for your business. Let’s get going!

1. Yoast SEO 

Rank – 4.9/5

Yoast SEO is the most popular WordPress SEO Plugin. Yoast SEO is a complete optimization tool for your site. It is considered the top WordPress SEO Plugin. This plugin comes with the ultimate optimization tool to bring traffic to your site. It currently has over 25,500 five star ratings.

This plugin is extremely user-friendly. The interface is nice, and they have great updates. With this plugin, you can easily make your site not only stand out but to rank high on search engines.

With this plugin, you have access to a community forum, blog, and premium support options through the Yoast website. There is also Yoast SEO Premium which provides you more advanced features.

Key Features of Yoast SEO

  • The ability to adjust the titles and meta descriptions on your website to use better keywords for optimization.
  •  When you type keywords, you can automatically analyze how well they are optimized
  • The plugin does a readability check throughout your site. This recommends using lists, headers, or shortening your text.
  • You will receive alerts for duplicate content
  • Every two weeks this plugin is updated
  • If you decide to go Premium, you will have access to free support, content insights, and a redirect manager.

Pros of Yoast SEO:

  • Great optimization – everything you need in one package
  • Enhances readability of your content
  • The plugin allows you to preview posts on search engines
  • You can easily customize post sharing
  • Includes webmaster tools verification

Cons of Yoast SEO:

  • You cannot define canonical URLs
  • Slow site speed & security threat to your site
  • In order to have access to advanced SEO settings you need the premium version

2. Rank Math

Rank – 4.8/5

Next on the list is Rank Math. It is quite similar to Yoast. This plugin allows you to take full control of the SEO on your site. This plugin is lightweight, and it integrates with Google Search Console to deliver information directly to your WP dashboard. It will inform you of how well your keywords rank and your overall search engine impression.

The Rank Math plugin is equipped with:

  • Local SEO
  • XML Sitemaps
  • Automated Image SEO
  • Internal Link Building Recommendations
  • 404 Monitor

Key Features of the Rank Math Plugin:

  • Clean user interface with easy to navigate options
  • Each page on your site goes through SEO Analysis that is based on 40 factors
  • 404 monitor lets you know where users see errors on your site.
  • The plugin comes with Redirection, this allows you to send users that receive a 404 error to other pages on your site.
  • Breadcrumbs are included with the plugin
  • Rich Snippets support is included (6 different types of snippets)

Pros of Rank Math:

  • Easy to use UI/UX
  • Webmaster Integration
  • Rich Snippet
  • Inbuilt Schema Support
  • Free

Cons of Rank Math:

  • Limited documentation
  • Inexperienced users may have difficulty using
  • Minor errors

3. SEO Press

Rank – 4.7/5

SEO Press includes all the features needed for an SEO plugin. Users like this plugin because they can have access to the premium version of the plugin for a reasonable price, and this is one of the reasons it is ranked on this list. The setup of the plugin is easy and caters to beginners. There are advanced control tools if you are more experienced.

Key Features of the SEO Press Plugin:

  • Meta title and descriptions
  • Open Graph tags to improve social network sharing
  • XML sitemaps for images and content
  • Redirects

Pros of SEO Press:

  • Use on unlimited domains for one price
  • Analyzes your content for multiple keywords
  • Offers full nofollow management

Cons of SEO Press:

  • Does not provide a direct social media sharing button
  • Updates are not on a regular schedule

4. All in One SEO Pack

Rank – 4.6/5

If you are looking for a high-quality WordPress SEO Plugin, this is a great option. The All in One SEO Pack provides an easy to use interface. If you don’t have any experience that is okay, you don’t need it with this plugin. All you need to do is be able to fill your data into the fields. This plugin is so easy to use, you could get by without changing anything with certain inputs on the plugin. Convenient!

Key features of the All in One SEO Pack Plugin:

  • You have the option to use the default setting or do your own customization
  • Google Analytics support
  • XML Sitemap support
  • Automatic optimization
  • Automatic generation of META tags

Pros of All in One:

  • Simple and easy to setup
  • The plugin helps you avoid duplicate content on your site
  • You can override any setting
  • You can use the advanced tools to control indexing
  • A lot of features offered in the free version

Cons of All in One:

  • No content analysis or SEO scoring
  • Does not have breadcrumbs navigation
  • There is no importing data from Google Search Console features

5. Premium SEO Pack

Rank: 4.6/5

Just like the other options, this plugin will help you to optimize your site for search engines. A minification tool comes with this plugin to help you to make your site quick. By speeding up the speed of your website, you can offer a better user experience.

This plugin offers everything you will need to optimize your site without any additional add-ons. If you are looking for a high-quality premium option, this may be your choice.

Key Features of the Premium SEO Pack Plugin:

  • The plugin is designed to help you improve the internal link building on your site
  • Optimization of images on your site
  • Rich snippet functionality – makes your posts stand out in search results
  • 301 redirects – this allows easy redirection of any page on your site.
  • Includes the sitemap required for your site
  • XML sitemaps for the videos on your site

Pros of Premium SEO Pack:

  • The Premium SEO Pack alone can handle everything you need to optimize your site
  • Includes Twitter Cards and Facebook Planner
  • Mass optimization of posts
  • Google Analytics, Title and meta, 404 pages, and a backlink builder is included.
  • Offers the SERP tracker – tracking search engine rankings of your keywords

Cons of Premium SEO Pack:

  • There are no RSS settings
  • No option for news SEO

6. W3 Total Cache

Rank: 4.5/5

The performance of your site is important to building the traffic to your site. Being prepared for the number of users that come to your site will add to the experience they have while on your site. Search engines love the user-friendly site. W3 Total Cache is a plugin that will improve the performance of your site.

Key Features of the W3 Total Cache Plugin:

  • Compatible with shared hosting
  • Transparent content delivery network (CDN) management with media library
  • Respective caching of pages by referrer or groups of user agents
  • Accelerated mobile page support
  • Secure socket layer (SSL) support
  • Caching of feeds
  • Caching of minified and compressed CDD and JavaScript

Pros of W3 Total Cache:

  • Improvements in search engine results and page rankings
  • Improvement in overall site performance
  • Better conversion rates and site performance
  • Instant repeat page views
  • Browser caching
  • Reduced page loading time
  • Up to 80% bandwidth savings

Cons of W3 Total Cache:

  • CloudFront charges
  • Doesn’t clear cache for custom post types archive
  • Frequent error messages
  • A large number of ads

7. SEO Squirrly 

Rank – 4.4/5

Trying to figure out how to use plugins can be confusing. The SEO Squirrly plugin was designed for users that have little to no experience. You do not have to be an expert to effectively use this plugin. It has a live SEO Assistant feature.

Key Features of SEO Squirrly:

  • You can input desired keywords to rank for SEO optimization. The plugin will give you suggestions in real-time on how to improve your post.
  • Content reports – great if you are outsourcing writers or using multiple writers. The reports give writers SEO insights based on what they wrote
  • A tool to analyze competitor’s content, to find ways to outrank other pages
  • You can track your progress on a weekly basis.

Pros of SEO Squirrly:

  • The plugin includes a strategy assistant
  • Provides users with a step-by-step framework for ranking business via focus pages
  • Settings assistant helps to correct SEO settings in your site
  • Blogging assistant helps you to write media-rich articles

Cons of SEO Squirrly:

  • Better training materials are needed. Easy to use overall, but the initial use may be difficult.

8. Ahrefs 

Rank: 4.4/5

The Ahrefs plugin provides backlink data. You can complete your SEO research in Ahrefs. This will help to increase your workflow speed and project management. This plugin also provides other tools that help with SEO.

This plugin is considered the go-to SEO toolkit for actionable data.

Features of the Ahrefs Plugin:

  • It includes a database of 6.9 billion keywords
  • The database keywords span across 170 countries
  • Ahrefs is able to scan 4.1 million pages per minute
  • 1.8 million new pages are discovered every day with this plugin
  • Content gap
  • Historical rankings
  • Clicks and clicks per search keyword metrics

Pros of Ahrefs:

  • Provides you the tools to make well-informed SEO decisions
  • You are able to track backlinks
  • With Ahrefs you can identify easy content opportunities
  • Ability to check technical issues
  • Provides you with the strategies that work best for you as it pertains to your competition
  • Excellent for gathering and exporting data

Cons of Ahrefs:

  • No capability to export graphs
  • There are no blanket reporting options. There are no blanket SEO reports provided with this plugin.
  • Simple report exporting is not a feature of this plugin

9. The SEO Framework

Rank – 4.3/5

If you are looking for a great SEO plugin for your small business, this is a good option. This plugin was built to cater to small enterprises. When integrated with WP the interface of this plugin blends naturally. It does not look out of place on your site.

Key Features of the SEO Framework Plugin:

  • The plugin offers a colored scale to show your optimization for each post
  • You can receive notes on how to specifically improve certain pages on your site
  • The plugin gives you explanations on how to improve your site for SEO purposes

Pros of the SEO Framework:

  • The SEO Framework plugin is free
  • The plugin does not have any ads or upsells
  • It is lightweight

Cons of the SEO Framework:

  • The free version does not include keyword optimization
  • If you want additional features, you have to install Extension Manager

10. Broken Link Checker

Rank – 4.2/5

Content overload is overwhelming when you begin to create more. Being able to manage your site is key. The Broken Link Checker plugin tool is helpful to manage your content.

This plugin allows you to check your content for missing images and broken links. As you expand your reach and the level of content you produce, the Broken Link Checker helps you to keep an eye on your website.

Key Features of the Broken Link Checker Plugin:

  • The plugin monitors all links on your site
  • Detection of links that are no longer working
  • Customization of the appearance of broken links that show up in your posts
  • Prevention of search engines from following broken links

Pros of Broken Link Checker:

  • Simple to use and powerful
  • Checks all URLs from internal and external
  • Eliminates 404 errors
  • Provides you with a good SEO ranking

Cons of Broken Link Checker:

  • The free version is restricted to many features

11. Redirection Plugin

Rank: 4.1/5

On your site, there may be some instances where it is necessary to redirect a URL to other locations on your site. The issue with this is that you want to be able to keep the backlinks and other SEO aspects in place. The Redirection plugin assists you with that task.

Redirection is a very popular WordPress plugin. It is commonly used for 301 redirects. With this plugin, you can monitor 404 errors and customize them to redirect them to correct URLs.

Key Features of the Redirection Plugin:

  • Redirect Manager – ability to create and manage redirects in a quick manner.
  • Configured to monitor when post permalinks are changed and automatically create a redirect to the new URL
  • Conditional Redirects – you can redirect based on other conditions
  • Full Logging – A configurable logging option allows to view all redirects
  • Track 404 errors – the ability to keep track of errors that occur on your site and fix the problem.
  • Query parameter handling
  • Fine-Grained permissions
  • Fully featured import and export system

Pros of the Redirection Plugin:

  • The plugin is free with no premium version
  • You do not need Apache or Nginx knowledge. There are Apache and Nginx support.
  • You can create redirect patterns to match any URL
  • Query parameters can be matched and passed through to target URLs
  • Errors can be grouped to show you where to focus your attention

Cons of the Redirection Plugin:

  • In order to use this plugin, your WordPress must support permalinks
  • Limited documentation
  • Customers report not being able to work the plugin properly

12. Structured Content 

Rank: 4/5

The Structured Content plugin allows you to implement Google FAQs on your WordPress site. If you would like to add FAQ rich snippets on your WordPress site, this plugin is for you.

With this plugin, you are able to add flexible content boxes with JSON-LD microdata outputs. You will be able to beat your competition for higher rankings with this plugin.

Key Features of the Structured Content Plugin:

  • Ability to insert structured data elements multiple times in any post
  • FAQ can be inserted in simple dialogues
  • You have the option to decide if only the JSON-LD should be displayed in the source code, or if the content should be preformatted.
  • Includes a Structured Data Testing Tool form Google

Pros of the Structured Content Plugin:

  • Ability to test whether the information has been labeled correctly on your page
  • Content can be better understood by the algorithms of different search engines
  • Answers to questions from Google can be displayed as featured snippets
  • The plugin offers structured data elements

Cons of the Structured Content Plugin:

  • Can take a while to figure out how to use the plugin
  • More support needed

Overview

Now that you know more about some of the best SEO plugins on the market, you can determine which WordPress SEO Plugin works best for your business. Another key aspect to consider when choosing a SEO plugin is to make sure you have the right backup plugin to protect your website. One of the best things you can do is backup your WordPress site regularly. BackupBuddy helps you do this. No one wants to lose their important data, IThemes Security Pro is the best WordPress security plugin to secure and protect your WordPress site. Take action and make sure your site not only has the best content, but it is also the best protected.

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