| 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)
Hey but yoast plugin is some what confused, i mostly use All in one SEO plugin for my wordpress blogs. I want to know is that All in one SEO plugin is good or not?
Hey Apurva,
All in one SEO is also good.
Which is the best SEO All in One Seo or Yoast?
Hey Akhil,
Both are equally good. However, I personally use SEO by Yoast.
How to add schema markup to wordpress
@Akhil, I use SEO by Squirly comes highly recommended by some great digital marketers. This allows you to customize specify your optimized schema on each post. It’s worked well, but I’ve been wondering what other people are using… have you tried anything for your schema yet?
I’ve installed broken links checker. This is certainly one of the best plugin to have. I had more than 2000 broken links on my WP blog.
I don’t know how bad broken links are for SEO but I’m sure Google doesn’t like broken links.
Hello Harsh, I love your article. I see that you didn’t mention SEOpressor in this post. I’m currently have conflicted feelings. I’ve used SEOpressor, but I feel that it focuses on SEO too much. I’ve modified one my posts to meet SEOpressor’s guidelines. However, once I glance at the post, it feels robotic. It felt like it was written for a search engine than a human. When I’m using Yoast’s SEO plugin, I feel more comfortable writing. I need your opinion. Which is important, readability or SEO? By the way, you remind me of my cousin. Keep doing the great work.
Sincerely,
Salmenn Arick
@Salmeen I understand the issue. There is a fine balance in optimizing your articles and posts to be search engine friendly as well. Although, my experience has been to first focus on writing a good article. Once I have something I know people will enjoy and share, then I go back and begin to focus on making it more search-engine friendly. This way, I can find a good balance. If you are too search-centric you’ll get found, but your bounce rate will go up, and higher bounce rates will eventually lead google to negatively impact your search listing.
Hey Harsh,
Wanted to thank you for all the useful posts that you have been adding.
I had developed a site where the Yoast SEO was incompatible and l used for the first time the All in One SEO plugin.
l still cannot find any differencies between Yoast and the other team that developed the latter plugin.
Thanx
I have been using the All In One S.E.O and must say I’m quite happy. In fact, I have indexed a Brand New Blog within a few hours of activating it. In my opinion, you will not regret using the All in One S.E.O
Thanks for this. Started using Yoast and never looked back. really like it and the frequent updates.
Hey Harsh,
Wanted to thank you for all the useful posts that you have been adding. Was really confused about the plugins for SEO till I came across this 😀
I have been using SEO plugin by yoast it’s really awesome. It is very flexible, I love using SEO by yoast.
Thanks for sharing with us your wonderful article regarding this SEO plugins.
But can I use multiple SEO plugins? Will there be any bad effect in my SEO?
Hey as a best practice you should only use one. Using multiple plugins really doesn’t serve too much of a benefit, especially since you can only have a singular meta title or description. Google probably won’t handle duplicate meta tags too kindly and if your meta tags in each plugin were different — i can almost guarantee they’ll penalize you for being “over-optimized”.
Those plugins are good but I dont know why Yoast WordPress SEO Plugin gives problem for my sitemap xml and i am not able to use other sitemap any advice for that
@Shankar
What problem/error are you getting when using XML feature of Yoast SEO plugin?
Hello, I notice that Jatepack new version Introduce sitemap. So i think because of that Yoast seo site map get these Error.
Great article, really appreciate the list you provided us. I’m going to get the internal link and friendly image plugin now 🙂
Thanks! I need to try out these plugins for my blog Mr. Harsh Agarwal.
I think SEO friendly images is a good one.
I already ditch all-in-one SEO and replace it by using Yoast plugin since they have better options compare to all-in-one.
And same with you, Harsh…
I also recommend everyone to try SEO smart link plugin. Its a very powerful tool to help you manage your non-existing pages. Remove all the hassle for you automatically… (And minimize emails from people about your site having 404 errors) lol…
is there any different between yoast seo free and yoast seo premium ??
Thanks
In yoast seo premium you’ll get a extra feature A redirect manager which will allow you to manage and create redirects from your word press blog.You can easily redirect your old URLs to new one’s and this is a common issue in word press blog.This is the easiest method to resolve redirect issue of a word press blog.
Please help me i am not able to create Google xml sitemap for my site and after creating how to use xml file in website.
Hey, what issue are you facing? It is just that you can activate the feature in Yoast SEO and it generates it for you. 🙂
Awesome article , as a newbie , my search for a good SEO plugin + a good XML sitemap gen. ended here . Many useful plugin packed up inside a single one. Again, thanks for such an informative article .
@Arnab
Welcome to ShoutMeLoud. You gotta checkout our other post to know what more you are missing. 🙂
Hey Harsh thanks for these WordPress SEO plugin list. As per your guideline I am using SEO by Yoast and this one is amazing SEO plugin.
Regards
Sweety
Hi,
I guess I’m using all the plugins listed here. Yoast seo is my favorite plugin and I’m using it on all of blogs.
Very effective post.I am also using maximum of those plugins.I have one question about the SEO plugin by Yoast.Kindly tell me its free service really work?Is there any specific process for using it?
Hi I am new to this. need to ask this question so I don’t mess up.
Are you saying that I can use WordPress Yoast seo plugin and also WordPress all in one seo pack at the same time?
Thank you,
Derral
@Derral
You should not use both the plugin at the same time. Use SEO by Yoast only.
Hi Harsh, thank you for sharing this informative piece of work. I have been using yoast plugin since last few years. The plugin is simple, yet covers all the essential features required to optimize the blog for search results.