By default, WordPress is a content management system that lends itself to SEO. But that does not mean that configuring your WordPress installation is enough for your website to rank well in Google. The basic version only covers the most fundamental SEO requirements. To go further, there are SEO plugins for WordPress, some free and others paid, that will help you optimize your website..
The WordPress SEO measures, which can be implemented with the basic version, provide, in combination with a caching plugin (to improve performance), a good foundation for a WordPress project. A WordPress SEO plugin should also add the following SEO optimization features :
If you plan to make important changes to your website, we recommend that you make a backup copy of it first. There are many WordPress plugins to back up your entire website.
The WordPress repository contains countless plugins for web page SEO optimization. But which plugins are recommended and offer all the important functions? We present three WordPress SEO plugins that help search engine optimization:
With its 5 million active installs (as of June 2020), Yoast SEO is one of the most popular SEO plugins. This is due, among other things, to its user-friendly interface and wide range of functions . Even the free version allows you to implement the most important SEO functions. If you want to go further, you will need the Premium version. The installation is carried out as with any other plugin. Once installed, the free version of the WordPress SEO plugin offers the following features:
Yoast SEO offers a setup wizard that helps with basic setup and makes setup easy for SEO optimization, especially for newbies..
In the menu option? Appearance in search ?, you can see which pages are indexed by Google and what the corresponding meta-titles and descriptions are like . In particular, taxonomies such as keywords and categories often have the same content. If you configure the WordPress SEO plugin correctly, you can avoid duplicate content and the consequent ranking penalties.
Indexing settings and metadata for individual posts or pages can be made directly on the corresponding page . For this, you just have to display the Google preview section in the Yoast SEO plugin on the corresponding page:
Below meta-title and description , you will find a color bar. Yoast SEO uses a semaphore system to indicate if the metadata is configured correctly or if it can be improved . Additionally, the preview provides a good first impression of how the metadata appears in search results..
In? Advanced? see if the post is indexed in Google. There you can also indicate a canonical URL and advanced meta robots .
In the free version of Yoast SEO, you can specify an emphasis keyword to optimize the page. Only the Premium version allows you to enter similar keywords and synonyms. Also in this case, Yoast SEO shows how well the page is optimized with a semaphore system:
To avoid so-called keyword stuffing (excessive density), you should use the directions in the free version only as a rough guide, as Yoast SEO does not take into account synonyms or similar keywords.
For keyword analysis, there are useful keyword tools, such as Keyword-Planner, Google Suggest, or Google Trends, that assist you in analyzing to determine the correct keywords.
With the Flesch Reading Ease Score , the WordPress Yoast SEO plugin determines how difficult the content is to read. In addition, it evaluates the length of the paragraph and the sentence, as well as the distribution of the subtitles. For this, Yoast SEO also uses the traffic light system.
The Rank Math extension has been gaining popularity since its introduction in November 2018, and it's not without reason: as a free WordPress SEO plugin with probably the most features and a user-friendly interface at the same time, it has earned trust of users in a very short time.
Like Yoast SEO, Rank Math offers a setup wizard that guides the user step by step through the basic settings.
If you have been using Yoast SEO until now, you can use the configuration manager to import all the above settings into Rank Math without a problem .
When it comes to UI design, Rank Math's keyword analysis is very similar to Yoast SEO's. However, with Rank Math you can directly enter multiple keywords and an unlimited number of synonyms .
It has some disadvantage: the readability analysis of the texts is not as complete as that of Yoast SEO. However, it is a good general guide to optimizing the page. Additionally, the free version of Rank Math offers even more configuration options than the premium paid version of its competitor Yoast.
All in One SEO Pack is a lightweight plugin for WordPress that nonetheless offers many highly relevant features. The advantage of this plugin is, above all, the integration of social media functions and the greater flexibility of XML sitemap settings. If you can do without readability and keyword analysis, All in One SEO Pack is the right choice.
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