The 18 SEO Plugins for WordPress (incl. 3 Expert Tips)

 The 18  SEO Plugins for WordPress (incl. 3 Expert Tips)

There are around 1,000 SEO plugins in the WordPress repository alone.

There are also hundreds of premium plugins, all of which promise better rankings….

But which of them are really recommended? Which tools do you really need and which ones can you safely do without?

To answer these questions, I have put together my 21 favorite plugins for you.

Plugins that help you enormously with the on-page optimization of your WordPress website and can take a lot of work off you.

I have tried all the plugins myself and have been using some of them for years.

Among them are a few real insider tips!

And no, in case you’re wondering:

Yoast SEO is not included (anymore).

But more on that in a moment…

1. General SEO Plugins

Before you install specific plugins for fine-tuning, you should install a general SEO plugin.

A general plugin adds the most important SEO functions to WordPress, such as:

• Set meta title and description
• Creating a sitemap
• Setting robots meta tags (noindex, nofollow etc.) for individual posts, post types and taxonomies in WordPress (translated: you want to be able to control which pages end up in the Google index and which do not)

1.1 Rank Math

Yoast SEO has long been the undisputed top dog among SEO plugins.

Those days are slowly coming to an end.

On the one hand, Yoast SEO has shot itself out of the loop due to several things in recent years:

• Poor performance (which is why I disable features like the text link counter and link suggestions by default)
• Missing out on important SEO developments (e.g. Yoast SEO Premium has only been counting different spellings of a keyword as one keyword since version 10, introduced in March 2019.)
• Some creepy development bugs (e.g. with the launch of Yoast 7.0, the setting for redirecting media URLs was accidentally set to No )
• Most recently, a dubious promotion on Black Friday 2019 (where a banner ad was displayed all over the WordPress dashboard. Ugh!)
• A premium version that is too expensive (especially for agencies, there is a 40% discount for 100 licenses, but Yoast SEO Premium then still costs €4,345 per year)

On the other hand, a new deer has entered the territory:

The Rank Math plugin from MyThemeShop.

And that’s what it’s all about!

Because the still quite young plugin (launched in November 2018) offers all the functions that Yoast SEO Premium offers (yes, that’s right, the premium version!).

With a small but subtle difference:

It’s completely free and doesn’t cost €79 per year!

It offers even a bit more than Yoast SEO Premium, such as: B. a module for local SEO, settings for rich snippets and an interface to the Google Search Console.

Rank Math also offers more settings for advanced users:

So you can e.g. For example, set the meta tags introduced in September 2019 to control maximum text length, preview video length, and preview image size.

Or set whether empty category and tags should be automatically set to noindex or not.

What I also find great about Rank Math :

It is possible (by adding a small filter ) to specify more than 5 focus keywords, which was the final reason to leave Yoast:

2. Load time optimization

The loading time of a website has been a ranking factor since 2010 .

In recent years, however, it has gained in importance. Because the proportion of users who surf via (usually slower) mobile devices has grown steadily and has long since overtaken the proportion of desktop users.

In the following I will introduce you to 6 plugins for loading time optimization that have it all:

2.1WP Rocket

WP-Rocket is currently the best all-in-one plugin for optimizing your loading time and your core web vitals .

I’ve tested various other optimization plugins (such as NitroPack or Flying Press) but get the best results with WP Rocket.

Not only does it offer an excellent page caching feature (with preloading), but also many other features to improve the performance of your WordPress website:

• Summary and minification of HTML, CSS and JS
• Loading Critical CSS (one of my favorite features)
• Disable emojis and embeds
• Summarize Google Fonts
• Controlling Heart Beart
• Lazy loading for images, videos and iframes
• Database cleanup
• Remove unused CSS (since version 3.9).

And yes, not only on desktop, but also on mobile:

In addition, my pages achieve very good values ​​for all three Core Web Vitals (CLS, FID and LCP):

And no, of course WP Rocket is not a must.

You can also achieve many of the functions through a combination of your own entries in the .htaccess (for gzip, browser caching, etc.) and free plugins, such as e.g. B. Autoptimize and Cache Enabler .

But, if you want to save yourself the hassle and prefer to install just one plugin instead of three, four, or five, then WP Rocket is for you.

2.2 EWWW Image Optimizer

Images that are not optimized can have a major impact on the loading time of your own website.

This is neither good for visitors nor for the ranking!

EWWW Image Optimizer fixes this by automatically compressing (sometimes reducing their size by 40 or 50 percent) all PNG and JPG files you upload to WordPress.

In addition, you can use the EWWW Image Optimizer to bulk optimize all the images you have uploaded in the past. Even images that are not in the WordPress upload directory, such as B. images integrated into the theme or in your own image directories!

2.3 Autooptimize

Autoptimize is one of the best free plugins to reduce the size and number of your website requests.

To do this, Autoptimize combines the CSS and JavaScript files that are loaded by the theme, plugins or WordPress itself into fewer files. In addition, these are reduced in size by the plugin removing unnecessary spaces or comments from the files.

The loading time can be significantly reduced, especially in the case of overloaded themes with a large range of functions (e.g. Avada , Enfold or other ThemeForest themes).

The plugin used to not run so smoothly and often broke the design. However, Autoptimize is now compatible with most themes and plugins!

If using Autoptimize does lead to display errors, you can usually fix this by experimenting with the settings.

For example, you can exclude certain CSS files from minification and merging, or, if necessary, turn off minification/merging of either CSS or Javascript files altogether.

2.4 Regenerate Thumbnails

Regenerate Thumbnails is one of the default plugins that I have installed on each of my WordPress websites.

You can use it to regenerate the images generated by WordPress in different sizes. This is extremely useful when you change your site’s theme or change the image sizes in your theme settings (e.g. your featured image).

Regenerating ensures your images are the right size:

Neither too small, which can make the images look silly, nor too big, which can have a negative effect on the loading time.

2.5 Cache Enablers

Page caching is one of the most important measures to increase the loading time of a WordPress website.

This is because caching causes WordPress pages to load statically rather than dynamically.

And that brings enormous advantages, especially for large websites with many posts, menus and plugins. This is because there are significantly fewer database queries when the website is loaded.

For beginners, I recommend Cache Enabler because the plugin doesn’t require any further settings, unlike bolides like W3 Total Cache.

Download, activate, done!

2.6 Insider tip: perfmatters

Many plugins and themes come with a nagging problem:

They load their CSS and Javascript globally. That also means on the pages where it is not needed.

A prominent example is the popular Contact Form 7 plugin.

As a rule, it is only integrated on the contact page. However, it is also uselessly loaded in blog articles, categories and on all other pages where it is not integrated.

The small but ingenious plugin perfmatters can help :

The built-in script manager allows you to enable or disable loaded javascript and css either globally, specific to a certain post type or for a certain URL.

In addition, perfmatters offers various settings to remove superfluous functions or unnecessary scripts that are loaded by WordPress itself:

And yes, in case you’re wondering:

perfmatter also works very well in combination with WP Rocket, Cache Enabler or Autoptimize!

3. Internal Linking and Outbound Links

Good on-page optimization involves checking outbound links (e.g. you shouldn’t link to pages that generate an error code) and good internal linking.

The following plugins can help you and save you a lot of work:

3.1 Insider tip: LinkWhisper

For me , LinkWhisper is now part of the standard repertoire of my WordPress websites.

It is used to find broken links and posts that are not well linked internally.

And that makes it better than any other plugin.

With the clear dashboard you always have an overview of all possible link statistics and problems:

In the Internal Links Report, a sortable table is created with the number of incoming internal links, outgoing internal links and outgoing external links for all your posts (optionally including pages or categories):

By clicking on the numbers, a list with all links or linked articles opens.

Simple but awesome!

3.2 Broken Link Checker

You can use the Broken Link Checker to find out if there are any websites on your site that are throwing an error code, e.g. B. because the linked page no longer exists.

This saves you having to manually search the entire site for broken links, which can be a pain, especially on large sites with many posts.

The plugin also offers a major advantage over external broken link checkers and site audit tools, such as: B. Screaming Frog or OnPage.org:

Not only can you find broken links, you can also fix them right away.

3.3 Contextual Related Posts

The display of related posts, i.e. thematically similar posts, ensures better internal linking and can sometimes increase the length of time visitors stay on your website.

Some themes support such a function by default.

For themes that can’t do that, there’s the Contextual Related Posts plugin , which I’ve been using for years.

It harmonises with most themes, supports custom post types, does not let the loading time explode and offers many setting options.

And it’s also free!

What more do you want?

3.4 Breadcrumb NavXT

As the name suggests, Breadcrumb NavXT lets you embed breadcrumbs (also called breadcrumb navigation) into your WordPress website.

Breadcrumbs not only ensure greater user-friendliness, but also ensure that your pages and posts are internally linked to the appropriate anchor texts more often.

3.5 Redirects

404 errors are (in most cases) not good. Neither for visitors nor for your Google ranking.

Because if e.g. For example, if a backlink points to a subpage that returns a 404 error, the PageRank that flows to your site via that link will be lost.

This, in turn, means your page loses authority and potentially relevancy for certain keywords.

Even internal links that go nowhere are not exactly user-friendly (and therefore also bad for the search engine).

And sure, that might not be a bad thing with a few links.

But if you e.g. B. changing your complete or a larger part of your URL structure, which happens more often than you think, can have fatal consequences for your rankings.

Therefore, you should forward 404 errors with a 301 redirect, i.e. a permanent redirect (unless you want a page or blog article to be permanently unavailable, of course).

You can do this via .htaccess , but it’s easier with the WordPress plugin Redirection .

Not only does it allow you to easily add redirects from the WordPress admin, but it also logs all 404 errors from your website.

4. Indexing

Here you will find all the plugins that help index your WordPress website.

4.1 Insider tip: Instant Indexing for Google

The Instant Indexing for Google plugin also comes from the developers at Rank Math .

It has a simple but powerful function:

It ensures that your posts end up in the Google index in a flash!

To do this, the plugin uses the Google Indexing API, which automatically transmits your new posts to Google.

Mass transmission of URLs to Google is also possible with the plugin.

4.2 XML Sitemap & Google News

You no longer need a separate sitemap plugin, since Yoast SEO and Rank Math already have excellent sitemap functions.

However, XML Sitemap & Google News offers something that Rank Math and Yoast SEO do not (in the case of Yoast, at least not without a paid add-on):

A sitemap for Google News, which is essential for your articles to appear in the news.

5. Keyword research and monitoring

The following plugins allow you to do keyword research and/or keyword monitoring in WordPress directly in the dashboard:

5.1 banana content

Jonas Breuer’s bananacontent plugin extends general SEO plugins such as Yoast SEO or Rank Math with useful functions such as e.g.:

• Keyword research directly in the WordPress dashboard
• Internal link options
• Influencer search for link and share requests
• An overview of linked external content
• weekly reporting of your own rankings
• Keyword monitoring with ranking history

The plugin is kept very simple and is also suitable for beginners.

For example, keyword research looks like this:

With the competitor analysis, you can see which backlinks your competitor’s articles have.

bananacontent’s data is provided through API interfaces to MOZ, APImetrics or KeywordTool.io.

So it allows you to use the data and features of professional tools that together would cost over €100 per month.

With bananacontent you are already there from 29 € per month.

I openly admit:

I prefer to use external tools because I don’t like my WordPress dashboard and editor being too cluttered.

However, if you want to save money on keyword research, monitoring and backlink checker, bananacontent might be something for you.

You can test it for free for 30 days .

5.2 Rankie

Rankie is a relatively unknown keyword monitoring plugin from ValvePress.

It allows you to track rankings for specific keywords in a domain (your own and third-party domains!) and see which keywords you’ve moved up or down for over time:

That doesn’t sound stunning in itself, as many other tools and services can do the same, such as B. Dynapso, SISTRIX, Xovi, SERPWatcher or Linkbird.

However, it is significantly cheaper:

You pay $21 once and then you can use it indefinitely .

6. Rich snippets and structured data

Here you can find all WordPress plugins that will help you get rich snippets in Google search and enrich your content with structured data:

6.1 LuckyWP Table of Contents

A table of contents plugin has become essential for WordPress SEO.

On the one hand, tables of contents increase the clarity of articles (especially long ones) and give readers the opportunity to jump to the content that really interests them.

On the other hand, jump mark links are picked up by Google and displayed in the search results.

Either as sitelinks under the search result or as a link in the meta description like in this example:

As a table of contents plugin, I have long recommended TOC+ or its fork Easy Table of Contents .

The problem with the former, however, is that it hasn’t been updated since 2016. The problem with the latter is that it negatively affects the loading time due to too many CSS and Javascript files and an icon font.

That’s why I’ve recently recommended LuckyWP Table of Contents :

It’s super lightweight, offers just as many customization options, is compatible with Gutenberg and is updated regularly.

The only negative thing I noticed about the LuckyWP Table of Contents is that umlauts are transliterated incorrectly (the plugin makes o, u and a from ö, ü and ä instead of oe, ue and ae).

That’s why I recommend using the following filter, which you have to add to the function.php of your theme:

6.2 WP Recipe Maker

WP Recipe Maker by Bootstrapped Ventures is our recipe plugin of choice.

We have been using it for all of our recipes on Faminino for a long time .

The trick is:

With WP Recipe Maker, recipes not only look nicer in the post, but are also displayed more prominently in Google search results thanks to structured data.

On the one hand, the plugin enriches your snippet with star ratings, recipe data (e.g. the preparation time) and a recipe image:

On the other hand, thanks to the structured data, it also appears at the top of the search in the recipe carousel:

6.3 Scheme Pro

Schema Pro by Brainstorm Force (the makers of the Astra Theme) is a great all-round plugin for adding structured data to your WordPress website.

It supports a total of 11 different scheme types:

• Review
• Local business
• Article
• service
• product
• Course
• Recipe
• person
• job posting
• software applications
• Book
• events
• VideoObject

What sets Schema Pro apart from other schema plugins is its ease of setup and clarity.

The plugin comes with a setup wizard that guides you through the general setup step by step:

The trick is that with the setup wizard, you can not only set schemas for a single page or post, but for hundreds or even thousands at the same time!

You can include or exclude individual posts, post types, or taxonomies:

It couldn’t be easier, right?

7. Other SEO Plugins

Here are other useful SEO plugins that don’t fit into the other categories:

7.1 Hide SEO Bloat

You want to continue working with Yoast SEO and not switch to Rank Math?

Then use it in combination with Hide SEO Bloat !

The plugin can hide Yoast SEO ads, superfluous elements and annoying notifications in the WordPress dashboard, such as: e.g.:

• The “Issues” and “Notifications” boxes
• The Yoast Recommendations for You sidebar
• The “Upgrade to Yoast SEO Premium” box at the bottom of all Yoast settings pages
• The problem counter in the menu
• The menu item with the Yoast icon in the top menu

You can choose which elements of Yoast you want to remove and which you want to keep.

8.FAQs

Here you will find answers to frequently asked questions about SEO plugins: