WordPress is a CMS particularly known for its plugins and its legendary accessibility.
SEO is no exception when it comes to WordPress extension contributors.
In this guide I will indicate the best plugins to use for WordPress to improve your SEO. Indeed, a large part of SEO on WordPress relies on plugins.
I will also advise you on which types of plugin not to install in order to avoid overloading your site, and what alternatives exist to achieve the same results.
The essential WordPress SEO plugins
Some SEO plugins offer a fairly wide range of possibilities and settings, while others focus only on specific features. In any case, this guide will show you all the types of plugin you need to use.
Let us start with the generalist plugins, which can do (almost) everything:
- Yoast SEO — the most well-known WordPress SEO plugin and without doubt the most reliable
- Rank Math — the next-generation SEO Swiss army knife
- SEO Framework — for those who dislike paid plugins and SEO plugins that try to upsell
SEO tools for optimising site speed, which also help optimise Core Web Vitals — both Google SEO criteria:
- WP Rocket — the most powerful speed optimisation plugin for WordPress.
- Perfmatters — the speed optimisation plugin particularly appreciated for disabling plugins that are not needed on every page. For example, a slider plugin consuming resources on every page when it is only used on one. It can also do things similar to WP Rocket.
- Imagify — the plugin for optimising your image file sizes and thereby improving your site’s speed. Automatic conversion to WebP format, resizing of oversized images, and more.
SEO tools for intermediate to advanced SEO professionals:
- WordLift — an advanced plugin for SEO professionals working on semantic SEO optimisation, particularly around Knowledge Graph entities.
- Rel NoFollow Checkbox — a tool that automatically tags with a NoFollow attribute any link from your writers, comments, or external redirects, allowing you to disclaim responsibility and avoid any SEO problems linked to spam.
- Redirection — a tool for creating redirects if your pages have changed URL or no longer exist. Although I would prefer to handle redirects directly from a hosting provider.
- All in One Schema Rich Snippets — generate structured data easily, such as product data, for free.
Yoast SEO vs RankMath
Well, if you are a beginner, choose the Yoast SEO plugin.
I would say its main advantage comes from the fact that every article about SEO shows you procedures using Yoast SEO as the example. That is not negligible.
If you are an intermediate or resourceful SEO professional, or simply someone who is not afraid of change, you should in my opinion turn to Rank Math.
On the other hand, if your site has been using Yoast SEO for years, the switch may not be worth it. They are ultimately tools that do much the same thing, and many Rank Math features can generally be achieved with third-party tools that do not require direct access to your website.
SEO plugins I do not recommend
Do not overload your WordPress site while using plugins meant to lighten your pages.
Plugins are not always built in the best way, and this can also slow down the tasks you perform on your WP installation.
For this reason, I advise against the following plugins because smarter alternatives exist:
- AMP: you can forget this plugin
- Broken Link Checker: prefer using an SEO monitoring tool — including free ones such as Ahrefs or Semrush. Broken links will be sent to you when they occur or remain unresolved, along with other SEO issues on your website.
- Internal Link Juicer: automatic internal linking helper or manipulation plugins are a risky bet for a modern site that has already established an SEO strategy. On the other hand, once carefully planned and structured, going beyond 200 pages can make things overwhelming. That is why I prefer to recommend a tool like inlinks.net, which in my view is far more powerful if you feel the need. Unfortunately the tool is expensive, but it does much more than just that.
Essential SEO tools
Because your SEO is not limited to installing plugins on your WordPress site, here is a non-exhaustive list of SEO tools I recommend:
- Semrush / Ahrefs
- Inlinks
- Babbar
- OnCrawl