If you search online for the best WordPress SEO plugins, hundreds of sites pop up with various plugins to try. I have pretty much tried them all. These are the three plugins that I prefer the most and they make it really easy to optimize your posts making them search engine friendly. If you are new to all of this and need the basics on what SEO is all about, make sure to check out the links at the end of the post.
1. WordPress SEO by Yoast
Every wordpress site should have this plugin, it is the most complete SEO plugin out there and I have tried several.
Here is a list of the plugin’s main features:
Post titles and meta descriptions
Robots Meta configuration
Canonical
Breadcrumbs
Permalink clean up
XML Sitemaps
RSS enhancements
Edit your robots.txt and .htaccess
Clean up head section
API Docs
Once installed, at the bottom of every post, you will see this screen where you can optimize each page by checking the usage of the focus keyword you choose against the various areas in your content. It is seriously one amazing plugin.
If this is all new and foreign to you, Joost de Valk (the developer) has created a step-by-step online manual to guide you. Joost man, you are a god. What are you waiting for, download it now!
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2. SEO Friendly Images
This WordPress SEO plugin automatically updates all images with proper ALT and TITLE attributes. Once you set your options, this SEO plugin will add the ALT and TITLE attributes for you, if they are not already set.
Why is it important to have the ALT and Title attributes for your posts? The ALT attribute describes your images to search engines, this is a key factor in matching up what a user searches for and your images. The TITLE attribute isn’t so much for SEO reasons as it is for visitors who will see this text when the mouse is over the image or if the image cannot display correctly.
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3. Google XML sitemaps
This is an easier way to generate an XML sitemap which helps search engines like Google and Yahoo to better index your blog. What does this mean? When search engines are sent out to find content that matches what a user is searching for…when these crawlers hit your site the sitemaps clearly displays the complete structure of your site, allowing them to retrieve the data more efficiently. The plugin will also notify search engines every time something new is posted on your blog.
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Links to Useful Information:
What is SEO? Read this complete online guide.
What is or are sitemaps?