A search engine optimization plugin identifies ways to improve your web pages’ visibility (SERPs). Many of these tools also auto-fix, write code, implement changes, and monitor for optimization. To help search engines understand your content, an SEO plugin might suggest meta descriptions and title tags. Or they may find keywords that your competitors rank well for but your site does not yet. To control how your site is listed on search engines, you can use SEO software plugins for the WordPress CMS.
Major Features of SEO plugins
Some of the features to watch out for are:
- Control of duplicate content (Canonical URLs)
- Automatic XML Sitemap
- Compare/monitor rivals
- Easy set-up/ease of use
Control of duplicate content (Canonical URLs)
Content that is duplicated or nearly identical across an entire domain can be lost in the growth of websites. Even as a SME, you may have products or services that are so similar that you may have problems with duplicate content.
The problem is that search engines don’t know where to send traffic when similar content appears across the web (or even on a single site), lowering each page’s ranking.
That link should be considered the ‘final’ copy of the content by indexing and search services. To set up a page or post, a good SEO tool should ask you a few questions or let you enter a canonical URL directly into the code.
Automatic XML Sitemap
Sitemaps are diagrams of your website’s links. If you built your own site, you probably made one to lay out on the floor.
A sitemap generated by WordPress can be read by humans and computers alike. If you use a search engine, the computer scans your sitemap to see which pages are searchable.
For example, it can tell you when a URL was last updated, how often it is edited, and even whether to exclude it from search results. The process is much more efficient when a search engine uses your XML file to determine what to index rather than trawling your entire site.
No need to build or program XML sitemaps yourself with the best SEO plugins. A sitemap can be generated using a variety of services (WordPress includes one), but their quality varies, and using an SEO plugin to generate one eliminates the worry.
Compare/monitor rivals
The best blog posts ever written, unique product or service category names, and strategically placed keywords throughout your site are all for naught.
If you’re in a competitive industry, your SEO plugin should show you how your site compares to competitors’ sites.
Others make it a central tenet of their interface. Looking only at your own performance is only half the story, so we think platforms that put competitors first are the most valuable.
Easy set-up/ease of use
Like web development, SEO is a lot like that. But in a field full of arcane terms and complicated technologies, you might not know how to express what you want.
Choosing and implementing an SEO solution is, for most of us, a leap of confidence. To achieve the desired effect, the best ones must explain their functions and features in simple terms.
In addition, SEO is a fairly dark art. Changes in search engine algorithms and practices make the field unpredictable no matter how meticulously you plan your SEO profile’s setup.
It must constantly situate your SEO in the larger scheme of results across the entire web, not just keep things simple for non-techies (see above for the ability to monitor your results against those of competitors).
Choosing a SEO plugin for your WordPress site
A $100 top Google result is no longer a viable option. However, SEO has been sufficiently demystified that you can easily manage it for your own site.
With the right SEO plugin, a beginner WordPress site owner can easily establish good SEO practice for free.
To begin, assess your market position. Computer parts sellers face fierce competition from other sellers who are constantly seeking out the best keywords. Then SEO becomes less about beating competitors and more about getting visitors to find you in the first place.
These tools can help you build a better SEO profile even if you don’t have direct competitors. It is done by suggesting better keywords and content principles to attract search engines to your site.
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