Website owners cannot afford to ignore search engine optimisation because nearly all internet activity begins with a search engine. Plus, nearly half of all ecommerce traffic comes from search. While it’s possible to generate leads using a winning PPC campaign, most internet users today don’t pay much attention to ads they see in search results.
If you’re running a business and want to drive traffic to your site, you must put a priority on SEO. If you happen to have a WordPress site, there are some great SEO tools and plugins you can install that will help you out. Below are some of the most effective plugins to consider using.
The SEO Framework
This WordPress plugin is designed specifically for smaller businesses as opposed to major corporations. When integrated with WordPress the UI blends in nicely, looking and feeling as though it was there from the start. This plugin’s goal is to help your content rank better and it’s chock full of features you’d expect from a top SEO plugin. For example, you can set custom titles and meta descriptions for your content and see where your content is falling short in relation to SEO.
The SEO Framework plugin is a great tool to have in your arsenal if you aren’t all that SEO-savvy because it’s easy to use and is focused on simplicity.
Yoast SEO
The Yoast SEO plugin for WordPress has been a favourite choice for longer than a decade, with millions of websites installing it. This plugin helps you identify and avoid duplicate content so you’ll never have to worry about being slapped by Google. It also offers templates for titles and meta descriptions, which will make your pages look better in the search engine result pages.
One of the most loved things about Yoast SEO is that it makes managing sitemaps easy. This plugin will automatically generate a sitemap, once you enable XML sitemap functionality. Your sitemap will update as you add new content and ping search engines once your fresh content is there.
Broken Link Checker
Considering that Google penalises for broken links, the Broken Link Checker plugin for WordPress is a must-have. If you’re like most people, you probably have lots of internal and outbound links. While you can keep an eye on your own site for broken links, doing the same on other websites is something that’s out of your control. Broken Link Checker will keep tabs on your links and notify you when it finds a broken link. Then it’s easy to remove, edit, or dismiss the problem altogether with just a few clicks. This is a great SEO tool to use that will also provide benefits to your visitors and nobody likes clicking a link to a page that’s not there.
All in One SEO Pack
With well over 3 million active WordPress installations, All in One SEO Pack is a very popular choice. This plugin has a nice, easy-to-use dashboard that’s clean. The free version of this plugin should suffice if you’re a startup or have a basic blog to maintain. There are two paid upgrade options to choose from if you’re running several sites.
Once you’ve installed this plugin, you can begin to optimise your site through the general settings, which all come with a tooltip that provides info on their purpose. The free version works with custom post types as well as the standard blog posts and pages. You’re also given the option of optimising your online store and your products for search engines. You can also integrate your site with Google Analytics and Webmaster tools if you’d like.
If you have a WordPress site and are serious about doing well online, you should definitely be taking advantage of some of these SEO plugins. There are many more SEO plugins and tools out there if these don’t meet your requirements. The value of WordPress SEO plugins can’t be underestimated so check out all your options!
Just getting started with your site? Read about our start up SEO tips.