If you run one of the 70 million websites built with WordPress, you
are likely concerned about SEO, and overwhelmed by your options. These
days, there is no shortage of plugins built to assist with SEO and
social sharing, but it’s hard to find the gems in a sea of widget
madness. Read on for advice on which are truly helpful in boosting your
search engine efforts!
WordPress SEO Basics
Before you start installing a plethora of plugins, you’ll want to
tackle a few basic SEO tasks on your WordPress site. These are
must-haves for Google-friendly sites, and are a great place to start
your strategy.
1) Map Out Your Site’s Structure
All you need to create an easy to follow site flowchart is a great MindMap tool. Mind42
makes an excellent one, and it’s totally free too. The tool will help
you create a site guide that compartmentalizes navigation sections and
lets you see a snapshot of the entire flow.
2) Setup Your Permanent URL Structure
First, set your preferred permalinks format in the WordPress
settings; you’ll have several options to choose from, but none are
completely SEO friendly. To rectify this, download the WP No Category Plugin, which will then remove the <word>/category sections of your URLs. This makes them clean, concise, and keyword rich.
3) Specify Which Folders Can and Cannot Be Crawled
Chances are there will be sections of your site that you would rather
not allow search engines access to. To manage this process, create a
Robots.txt file in the top-level directory of your site. For full
instructions on how to add one to your site, visit the ‘Robots.txt
how-to guide’ (http://www.robotstxt.org/ robotstxt.html). Once created,
you can specify any folders that search engines will thereby ignore, and
keep others from spying on this private content as well. It’s also a
great solution for hiding duplicate content. Don’t forget that users can
still access the pages through the direct URL.
4) Create a Sitemap
Many of the tools listed below will help you quickly generate a sitemap. When this is complete, don’t forget to submit it to Google Webmaster Tools and Bing Webmaster Tools as a request to start crawling your content.
The Best WordPress SEO Plugins for Wordpress
1) SEO Ultimate
This puppy is a meta data powerhouse, with access to controls for
descriptions and keywords, Google Webmaster Verification, and
integration with Google Analytics. If you have a lot of pages with
separate titles, Ultimate will help you manage all this data with ease.
2) Local Search SEO Contact Page
Perfect for those just beginning their quest for great SEO, Local
Search allows you to add all business information to your site’s contact
page, and will also include an embedded Google map, which links to your
Google+ Local account.
3) WordPress by Yoast
Yoast helps determine what your current SEO score is, and in tandem,
lets you monitor the areas that require some improvement. Yoast will let
you know if your keywords are missing from title and H1 tags, and looks
at your content and metadata too. This tool is rumored to be the
most-used WordPress SEO plugin, and for good reason. It assists in
setting up XML sitemaps, helps you map out all title and description
templates, and truly enables you to stay on top of all the SEO
must-do’s. If you only have one SEO plugin, this should be it. It’s
regularly updated too, which is a big bonus.
Top SEO-Friendly Image and Content Tools for Wordpress
1) SEO Friendly Images
This plugin does exactly what you’d expect – ensures all your images
have alt attributes, title tags and all other relevant search engine
data. There’s also a premium version that unlocks a myriad SEO features,
like XML sitemap generators and custom settings.
2) SEO Content Control
If you’ve got a lot of content on your site, you need this tool to
help you identify the weakest links. Options for SEO Content Control
include viewing a list of all pages/posts that have lackluster (too
short) text, missing meta data, and missing keywords.
Must-Have Analytics Plugins for Wordpress
1) SEO Rank Reporter
Rank Reporter is an awesome tool that allows you to monitor your
Google ranking through your WordPress dashboard, and it’s updated every
three days. This plugin will help you assess if and when more SEO
improvements are needed. When your ranking slips, you can use the other
tools to identify why this may have occurred, and then set out to
address each one.
2) Google Analyticator
If you’re a fan of Google Analytics, download this plugin now and
integrate the data directly into your WordPress dashboard. You’ll be
able to view your top performing pages, referrers, and keywords, among
many other invaluable metrics.
Top-Notch Social Plugins for Wordpress
1) Sociable
Sociable is a superior sharing plugin that is jam-packed with
customization options. It features an excellent default setup,
with the options to use all your own personal icons and images.
It’s super easy to connect to most WordPress themes, and makes
your social sites immediately accessible to your users.
2) Social Media Tabs
This one is a unique plugin that allows you to add a social media
widget to your site in a tabbed format, showing data from your major
social sites. It currently supports Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest,
Google+, YouTube, Flickr, and RSS.
You are now armed with a gaggle of excellent, functional and
easy-to-use WordPress SEO tools. Go forth and enjoy your increased
rankings!
Article by Tina Courtney-Brown in SPN
Top SEO Plugins for WordPress Sites
