If you have a WordPress website and are not using SEO, or search engine optimization, you are missing out on valuable traffic. 

Whether your visitors are looking for a place to eat, a place to shop, or someone to perform a valuable service, just about all of them start with a Google or Bing search. According to an article on SEO Tribunal : 

• 93% of all experiences on the internet start with a search
• Nearly half of all internet searches will be performed by voice by 2020
• Nearly all results found on page one of searches contain at least one image on the landing page.
• Almost 50% of all Google searched terms are for local results

So getting your SEO in order is a valuable way to increase your website’s traffic and possible sales/conversions. 

The tools detailed below and on the podcast are great if you’d like to do it yourself, but if you’re looking for something a bit more detailed, BeBizzy Consulting offers SEO technical and content solutions. Please give us a call if you are looking to take your website to a new level. 

Subscribe to the BeBizzy Break Podcast on iTunes and Stitcher Radio. 

WordPress Plugins Focused on SEO

WordPress has nearly 55,000 plugins in its repository. Finding quality plugins can be tough, but we talked about how to use and find plugins in a previous BeBizzy Break Podcast episode.

Luckily, we’ve gathered a list of the best and most popular SEO plugins in the list below.

Yoast SEO

Yoast is easily the most popular all-in-one SEO plugin for WordPress. It does a great job making sure your keywords, title and description fit within Google’s display guidelines. There’s also some intelligence baked into the plugin to check your page content to see if there’s duplicate content or if the content needs to be broken up into paragraphs or bulleted lists. A premium version is available that has free support, more insights into the content, and an automatic redirect system.

One word of caution. I have moved away from Yoast on several websites simply due to it occasionally conflicts with my Divi WordPress theme or some of the plugins I use. Yoast updates very often, as does Divi, so it’s tough to identify which one causes the issue, but on sites I update often, I no longer use Yoast.

[dcg_display_plugin_data name=”wordpress-seo” screenshots=”true”]

SEO Framework

BeBizzy Consulting’s choice for an SEO plugin where I choose not to use Yoast is The SEO Framework. One of the primary reasons I use it is an easy-to-use scale on the pages and posts dashboard which tell you with green/yellow/red whether or not your title and description are good, whether the page is indexed, and also deeper info like if the links on the post are follow/no-follow, if the page is redirected, or if bots are allowed to search the page.

Another reason I use SEO Framework is speed. It’s had some of the bloat that causes Yoast to slow down a site stripped out while still keeping the functionality. Extensions can enhance SEO by managing redirects, helping with Local SEO, article information, and een monitoring uptime. 

[dcg_display_plugin_data name=”autodescription”]

FYI, The SEO Framework just passed the 100,000 installation milestone. 

All in One SEO Pack

I had used All In One SEO Pack in the past and it did an acceptable job. It’s the original WordPress SEO Plugin and the dashboard is easy to use and follow, especially for new users.

Most of the features are available in the free version but there is a premium version with additional configuration options. It has most of the pieces available in the more popular Yoast and SEO Framework, but lacks a little on the deeper options, but a for a smaller blog or website it works great.

[dcg_display_plugin_data name=”all-in-one-seo-pack”]

SEO Pressor

SEO Pressor is an SEO audit and settings tool that helps identify and fix technical SEO issues. Use it to analyze Word Counts, Readability, broken links, schema building, and much more. 

Download Link : https://seopressor.com/

SEO Squirrly

SEO Squirrly is rapidly becoming a player in the WordPress SEO arena. It provides great information on your pages, posts, WooCommerce products and more. There are some Assisted SEO features that help you find hidden keywords that generate traffic and has little competition. And the SEO Live Assitant analyzes while you create content and gives you real-time SEO tips. I’m considering using this on a new site I’m building to see a bit more live-action information.

UPDATE : 8/8/19 – I was contacted recently by SEO Squirrly with some information and articles on recent improvements to the plugin. You can find out more about these upgrades by clicking the links below

• How Squirrly SEO Comes to Solve Common SEO Problems (https://www.squirrly.co/most-common-seo-problems-that-we-see-in-customers-sites-time-and-again/)
• How Do Generic SEO Plugins Work and Why Is Squirrly SEO Different
  (https://www.squirrly.co/how-do-generic-seo-plugins-work-in-wordpress-and-why-is-squirrly-seo-different/)
• 5 Reasons You Should be Excited about Squirrly SEO 2019 (https://www.squirrly.co/5-reasons-why-you-should-be-excited-about-squirrly-seo-2019/)

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Broken Link Checker

Quite simply, this plugin analyzes the content of your website and looks for broken internal and external links. It provides an easy-to-use dashboard to fix the links or even remove them from your content. 

[dcg_display_plugin_data name=”broken-link-checker”]

Rank Math

Another up and coming SEO plugin that claims it “… beats the competition with hands tied behind its back.” Bold statement, but reviews and information are heading that direction. Easy setup, integration of Google schema/rich snippets, multiple keywords, search console integration and more. 

And you can import from some of the other big SEO plugins to make the transition easy. 

[dcg_display_plugin_data name=”seo-by-rank-math”]

There are literally hundreds of other SEO plugins, either a full-SEO suite or to do specific SEO tasks and analysis. It’s important that you do SOMETHING with your site’s SEO, either by yourself, or a professional. 

If you are ready to start with your SEO strategy but don’t know where to start, give BeBizzy Consulting a call and we’ll start you on your way to getting found on the internet.

SEMRUSH

A system that is NOT a plugin, nor is it free, is SEMRush. SEMRush is a monitoring service that looks at your technical SEO, content, keywords, social media accounts and much more. It will also check your backlinks, broken links, search console info and a whole bunch of other items that are helpful if you know what you’re looking at. If you’ve already started your SEO journey, SEMRush can take it to the next level. If you have not started and want BeBizzy Consulting to monitor and use this information to manage your SEO, please contact us and we can add it to our stable of managed SEO clients. 

Have any questions or suggestions on WordPress SEO plugins? Leave them below, or send them to me @BeBizzy on Twitter!

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