| SEO Plugins | Key Features | Direct Link |
|---|---|---|
| RankMath SEO | ✓ All-in-one WordPress SEO plugin ✓ Lightweight, clean, and simple user interface ✓ Free version with premium features | Download |
| Yoast SEO | ✓ Powerful and the most popular SEO plugin ✓ Manages meta values, sitemap, and breadcrumbs ✓ Controls indexing and focus keywords for on-page SEO | Download |
| Broken Link Checker | ✓ Monitors, detects, and fixes broken links ✓ Easy-to-use dashboard for quickly fixing links ✓ Helps maintain a search engine-friendly website | Download |
| Schema Pro | ✓ Improves SEO with schema markup ✓ Supports various schema types ✓ Integrates with Yoast SEO plugin | Download |
| SEO Writing Assistant | ✓ Optimizes pages for target keywords ✓ Assists in enhancing content for better ranking ✓ Checks your writeup for plagiarism | Download |
| Image Optimization For SEO | ✓ SEO friendly image optimization ✓ Inserts title and alt tags in images ✓ Increases traffic from image search engines | Download |
| Easy Table of Contents | ✓ Automatically adds a table of contents posts ✓ Simplifies navigation for readers ✓ Supports the Rank Math plugin | Download |
| Image Compression | ✓ Reduces image size without compromising quality ✓ Enhances page loading speed ✓ Saves bandwidth and improves website performance | Download |
| Caching | ✓ Improves site loading speed through caching ✓ Lowers server load and reduces response time ✓ Enhances overall site performance | Download |
- Looking to make your WordPress site search friendly?
- Wondering which are the best SEO plugin for WordPress that you should install?
We will get to that in a moment but before that…
I had earlier shared 30 must have WordPress plugins that I use on ShoutMeLoud. I hope you read the post.
For today’s post, I have something new – a compiled list of the best WordPress Plugins for SEO.
Why you should listen to me?
As a professional blogger, I keep an eye on new SEO techniques that are working and let go of those, which does not work.
Using the plugins listed below, I’m able to drive more than 1 million page views every month.
In this list, you will find the best free SEO WordPress plugins and some premium plugins that you can use for your blog. We will talk about:
- Rank Math SEO
- Yoast WordPress SEO Plugin
- Broken link checker WordPress plugin
- Rich Snippet WordPress plugin
- SEMRUSH
- SEO Image Optimizer
- Easy Table of Contents Plugin
- Image Compression plugin
- Cache plugin
Do read the descriptions carefully to understand what the plugin does and use it if you are not using any other plugin for the same purpose.
You can learn about these WordPress SEO plugins below, but before that, let’s look at some of the frequently asked questions:
In 2024, Yoast SEO does the maximum heavy lifting when it comes to WordPress SEO. However, there are other SEO plugins that help in completing every aspect of WordPress SEO.
It is ok to have two SEO plugins from different categories. For example, one for On-site SEO and others for speed or image SEO. However, it is not recommended to have two plugins that do the same job. For example, there is no advantage of using Rankmath or All in one SEO along with Yoast SEO. In fact, it may create SEO issues for your WordPress website. When in confusion, use the comment section below to resolve your query.
WordPress by default is quite search friendly in comparison with other platforms. However, using these WordPress SEO tools and plugins, you could aim for the first page of Google search.
This is not true, as Google is impartial to any CMS or blogging platform.
I will also link to my previous review of individual SEO plugins so you can learn more about them and decide which SEO plugins are appropriate for your blog.
If you think any WordPress SEO plugins are missing from our list, do let us know, and we would be happy to review them and possibly add them to our list.
Best SEO Plugins for WordPress (Updated for 2024)
1. RankMath SEO
RankMath SEO is a young SEO plugin for WordPress, which has gained immense popularity for its features. This standalone plugin is good enough for all your WordPress SEO needs. It took me a while before I could start recommending RankMath SEO plugin to ShoutMeLoud users, as the plugin was new. Now, since this plugin has proven itself to be worthy, now it is recommended as the #1 SEO plugin for WordPress.
RankMath plugin is free to use at the time of writing, and it incorporates many features which are typically offered in the paid version of SEO plugin.
The plugin is lightweight, and lets you enable/disable modules to ensure it does not add unnecessary load on your web server.
With a strong community-driven approach and a pro version coming out soon, this plugin should be your first SEO plugin for any WordPress based website.
2. Yoast WordPress SEO Plugin
With over 5+ million downloads, Yoast is the first SEO plugin that every WordPress user should be installing. This single plugin takes care of many aspects of your WordPress site SEO.
In fact, if you have been using a separate WordPress sitemap plugin, redirection, and a few other features, you can stop using them with Yoast SEO.
These are the benefits of using the Yoast SEO plugin:
- You can Add meta value to the homepage
- Add meta value to a single post
- You can set canonical tags
- Set custom breadcrumbs
- Optimize your article for social media sharing (image, title & description)
- Generate sitemap file
- Edit robots.txt and .htaccess
- Control indexing of your WordPress website
- Set focus keyword and optimize for on page SEO
- Let you add Q&A in Google SERP
Watch the video to understand how to use the FAQ schema feature:
Note: Meta values are meta title and meta description.
Here is a detailed tutorial on how to set up Yoast SEO plugin.
Do you know what is even better?
You can download this plugin for free from WordPress repo here.
There is a pro version of Yoast SEO as well which adds a few extra features such as :
- Redirection
- Yoast Internal linking (Helps in better linking of your blog)
- Incoming and outgoing internal links (Video)
Here at ShoutMeLoud, I use Yoast Premium and if you have the budget and need these extra features, opt for the pro version. If not, the free version is pretty good too.
Here are a few popular alternatives for Yoast SEO:
Even though these alternatives are popular, Yoast SEO is still the best SEO plugin for WordPress in 2024.
3. Broken link checker plugin
A simple and powerful plugin that continuously scans your WordPress site for broken links. It offers an easy to use dashboard from where you can quickly fix those broken links.
It helps in finding and fixing all internal and external broken links (404 links). 404 links are nothing but dead ends for search engine spiders. It is highly advisable to remove or fix such links.
4. Schema Pro WordPress plugin
I have talked about Rich Snippet a few times, and I can’t stress enough on the importance of it. I have seen a lot of bloggers and marketers not taking advantage of easy-to-use schema markup plugins for WordPress to show rich snippets in WordPress.
In fact, by adding Schema, you help search engine to understand more about your content, and it’s highly recommended for On page SEO.
Using an excellent rich snippet plugin for WordPress will help you get better visibility in the search engine.
Remember those star ratings in the search engine?
See the screenshot below:
Using Rich Snippets will help you get better CTR and traffic.
SchemaPro is the most updated Rich snippet WordPress plugin and it is also compatible with the Yoast SEO plugin. It supports the following schema type:
It is easy to configure and can be used on any existing or new WordPress website. It will also help you get the Knowledge graph for your website in Google search.
5. SEMRUSH: (SEO writing assistant)
SEMRUSH is one tool I have been using for the last five years, and this has been of immense help from the phase of keyword research to optimization and also for tracking keyword ranking.
SEMRush used to be a web-based tool, however recently it launched a WordPress SEO plugin called “Writing assistant“, and this plugin alone could improve your content SEO to a great extent.
Here is how this plugin works:
The plugin lets you optimize your pages for your target keyword. It scans the existing top 10 ranking pages on Google, and suggests what you are missing on your content (Ex: Words, word limit), that could boost your ranking.
6. SEO Image Optimizer
By optimizing your images, you can drive a significant amount of traffic from image search engines. Even here, at ShoutMeLoud, almost 1% of traffic is from image search engines, and that is a LOT.
This plugin adds ALT attributes to your images, though you need to take care of the image name. If you upload images with names like image002.jpeg or DSC001.jpeg, STOP NOW!
That is a huge mistake.
I suggest you make it a point to start giving your images more useful names right away.
For example, in this post, I have given the name “WordPress SEO” to the image I used.
7. Easy Table of Contents plugin
This is one WordPress SEO plugin that every content based WordPress website and blog should use in 2024. This plugin helps you add jumplinks in Google search.Â
The best thing about this plugin is, after initial configuration, it automatically adds a Table of content in all existing and in new articles. Watch the video tutorial to understand how to configure EasyTOC plugin:
Speed Optimizer plugin for better user experience:
One of the least talked about things when talking about WordPress SEO is user experience. Apart from a robust design, the speed of your WordPress site makes a lot of difference in overall SEO optimization. Google has been emphasizing for years that user experience is one of the most integral parts of overall SEO.
They have also made it public that the site loading time is now one of the search engine ranking factors. So, for you, it’s crucial now to optimize your site for speed.
If you have never taken a speed test for your WordPress site, this is an excellent time to do so. Visit this site and enter your domain name to complete a speed test.
This is why in this section of WordPress SEO plugins, I’m sharing some of the top plugins (under various categories) to improve your blog loading time.
8. Image Compression plugin
Images are an integral part of our WordPress site. On average, I use three images in every blog post which increases the page size by 400kb+.
On a desktop, this may be alright, but on a 3G or 4G connection, it’s of utmost importance to offer a fast page.
Image compression is one technique that reduces the overall size of the image without compromising the quality of the image.
This technique alone (especially for image-heavy WordPress sites) can make a noticeable impact.
ShortPixel is the plugin that you should be using for this. It automatically compresses the new images and also gives you an option to compress old once.
You can find the comparison of image compression plugins here.
I have talked about some of the top image compression plugins earlier; you can read the detailed guide here.
9. Cache plugin
Caching is a well-known technique to make your WordPress site load faster.
There are many well-documented case studies and research out there.
Using a cache plugin also helps in lowering the load on your server, thereby improving the overall performance of your WordPress site.
These days many popular hosting like SiteGround, and WPEngine offer inbuilt caching, and you may not need an extra plugin that I have mentioned below.
However, if you use any other hosting which doesn’t offer an inbuilt cache, you can pick either of the two cache plugins that I have mentioned below. Both of them are easy to use.
If you are looking for more recommendations, here is the list of best WordPress cache plugins.
I hope the information in this article helps you improve. If you think we have missed any essential or helpful SEO WordPress plugins, do let us know in the comments section.
Which other WordPress SEO plugins do you use? Feel free to recommend that should be added to this exclusive list.
A few other articles that you might be interested in:
- Best Keyword Research Tools For SEO: 2024 Edition
- How To Write SEO Friendly Content (Beginner To Advanced)
![9 Best WordPress SEO Plugins & Tools For Higher Ranking [2024] via @denharsh](https://i0.wp.com/www.shoutmeloud.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Best-WordPress-SEO-Plugins.jpg?fit=1280%2C720&ssl=1)
Hi Harsh, in my blog the recent traffic’s 40% is from the Social Media and I am using WP Social SEO booster the free version, but since most of the traffic of my blog is from the social media I am willing to use the Pro version of this plugin. I checked out and the price is 47$. By any chance would you be having any coupon code for WPSocial prchases? I am sure it’s worth it but you know a little less is always good for everybody. Please let know. Also I have checked the discount coupon code page of Shout Me loud https://www.shoutmeloud.com/wordpress-discount-coupon-codes here. But did not find anything helpful. Thanks.
@Prabhudatta
It’s indeed a good plugin and even I purchased it without any coupon-code. For now, I don’t have any coupon to offer WP Social SEO booster plugin.
Thank you Harsh. I have bought it now, however have not seen any change in the traffic. May be it is just cooking the food now, once cooked the smell will come. 🙂 Hoping for the best. Thanks!
@Prabhudatta
To make it work you need to work on two things:
1) Right catchy title- Remember title on Social-media works differently than the title for Search engine.
2) Right image: Use the right image which makes your post stand out when shared on social-media.
Thanks @Harsh, thank you very much.
@Harsh, Great Advice!!
wow nice list bro, as per SEO i prefer “The All in one SEO Plugin” and as per anything new ama love to use , i would try WP SOCIAL SEO BOOSTER WORDPRESS PLUGIN, i dont know if its paid, or as promising as you wrote ,but am sure its worth giving a try, and ama try it on my blog asap.. thanks Harsh i always love your articles.
Hello Harsh,
We have been using WordPress SEO by yoast and its amazing.
While using social SEO pro, we have experienced performance issues. What would you recommend instead of that ?
Great list man!
I’m going to look into the SEO smart link WordPress plugin. Very interesting.
What’s your opinion about stopping those lousy Russian back links? Should I even bother stopping them with htaccess?
Very nice Harsh you have explained all the plugins very well.Most of the plugins in your post are new for me but i will surely use those in my website.
Hello Harsh,
I am using Yoast for my Website, and its just awesome.
Thanks for such a wonderful post.
Yoast WordPress SEO Plugin is by far the best SEO plugin for wordpress
Good plugins to improve the SEO of the blog Harsh.
I’m using SEO by yoast and broken link checker. Will check the details of other WordPress plugins which you’ve listed here. Thanks for sharing these useful data for us.
Thanks! I need to try out these plugins for my blog Mr. Harsh Agarwal.
I think SEO friendly images is a good one.
Also, one question – isn’t the SEO Smart link plugin useless now, i mean in the recent wordpress updates i’ve seen that you can interlink posts by using keywords and then just searching for the relevant article in your posts library?
you have explained all the plugins very well. but i am still confused in ‘all in one seo pack plugin’ and ‘wordpress seo plugin’ by yoast. which one is best to optimize our website? i was using wp seo and then i have shifted to all in one seo pack. now i m confused which one should i use to better optimization. can you help me out?
I like Yoast more than All in One, it’s much more friendly to use but I’m biased because it was the first SEO plugin that I downloaded. Thanks for sharing!
Great collection of useful SEO plugins, some are new to me like broken link checker plugin that’s a useful one. I am going to try all soon.
Thanks for sharing.
Hey Harsh first of all thanx for nice post.
I have a question, for my blog I use All in One Seo and recently bought SEOPressor, Now will they both work together?? Because both have Meta, Social Seo & Rich Snippet Settings. Mainly i’m concerned about meta settings.
hello..my coach.i used all in one seo pack and you suggest for yoast plugin but i also read on ur blog that all in one seo is compulsory plz tell me can i remove all in one seo pack without any afraid plz..
Hi Harsh Agrawal, Nice list bro. But am very confused to select the plugin which to use for my blog between this both All in One SEO and Yoast WordPress SEO. Can you please say which plugin is better and simple to use.
Nice list, it will definitely help to get more SEO advantages. I was using Platinum SEO plugin and now shifted to Thesis, but now confused how to shift the all data on thesis like All in one seo.
Suraj there are few plugins in WordPress repo which will help you to migrate platinum seo or all in one SEO data to Thesis theme…Let me try finding it…
Can we use SEO Data Transporter plugin for that?
Suraj yah plugin looks good:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/seo-data-transporter/
Harsh, Great informative post!
– I have used Broken links plugin as you said, will use the online one to remove dead links. I am sure i will be have 100’s of dead links across the posts.
– I have purchased Scribe SEO. Learned few things when evaluating the post and found out that some things if we put in our mind and tune our mind then it is easy to get SEO Score.
– Thanks for introducing to the keyword density. I was looking for some free tool which can do the job what Scribe SEO does. It caluclates the keywords and it measures anything less than 5.5% as good more than that is bad.
– Using the above, I may drop Scribe SEO from next month onwards 🙂
SEO Smart Link is my favorite one, because it helps in internal linking. I recommend this one to all bloggers, because doing manual internal linking can take a lot of time. This plugin will not only boos your search engine ranking of the articles but also save time.
Most of the plugins you have mentioned in your post are new for me.Surely I’ll use those SEO plugins in my blog.Thanks for your great post.
I am using SEO friendly Images, SEO smart link WordPress plugin, All in One SEO WordPress Plugin. i am going to try Keyword density checker. Thanks for this great list Harsh
Keyword density check is a great plugin..useful for finding most used keyword in your post..
Give it a shot and you might love it..
Also try insight WordPress plugin..which is also good!!
of all these plugins, i love All in One SEO a lot..
Yah that’s the first plugin every1 install if nt using Thesis theme…