Top 5 WordPress SEO Plugins For On Page Optimization

One of the most profound benefits of using WordPress.org is that it has millions of useful plugins that help you optimize your website’s performance on the internet. Search engine algorithms are constantly evolving, making WordPress SEO plugins for On Page optimization highly beneficial. Plugins are easy to take for granted, but without your own web developer or software engineer, these are modifications that you’d need to code into your website by hand.

Even if you have the skills, search engine optimization (SEO) can be remarkably complex and time consuming. WordPress SEO plugins are updated to work with the latest tools and algorithms to help your website place in search results. Some of these plugins do this more effectively than others. Luckily, I’ve tested them out so you don’t have to.

Here are the top 5 WordPress SEO plugins for on-page optimization available:

Rank Math

One of the newest and most competitive WordPress SEO plugins available, Rank Math has come out of the gate at top speed. It’s fast, light, and amazingly comprehensive. Also, it’s 100% free. All functionalities. This gives it a huge edge over its competitors.

Pros

• Setup Wizard is easy to use and can convert settings from Yoast
• Excellent UX and UI design
• SEO & content analysis tools with 1/100 grading
• Optimize up to 5 keywords per post
• Suggests long tail keywords to optimize for
• Open Graph (Card previews for Facebook & Twitter)
• Schema.org rich snippet markups (14 kinds)
• Google Search Console Integration
• External link manager tool
• Includes image & video SEO optimization
• XML sitemap
• SEO website audit tool
• 404 error monitoring tool
• Redirects (301, 302, 307, 410, and 451)
• WooCommerce integration
• Role manager settings
• 24/7  customer support
• 100% Free

Cons

• Newer and less widely used
• Fewer integrations than more established plugins
• Minor bugs & errors

Yoast SEO

Yoast SEO is an incredibly popular WordPress SEO plugin with over 5 million active downloads. Created by Joost de Valk, Yoast has been considered the golden standard of SEO since shortly after its release in 2010. The Free version of Yoast contains a great toolbox for beginners, but their more complex ranking improvements are only included in the premium version of Yoast. If you’re already using the premium version, consider yourself fully optimized.

Pros

• Setup Wizard with SEO Import/Export functions
• On-page Keyword Optimization
• Content analysis scoring
• XML Sitemap & Page Exclusion Options
• Breadcrumb navigation
• Open Graph
• Social sharing metadata settings
• Built-in robots.txt and .htaccess editor tool
• Permalink structure options
• AMP extension
• Woocommerce extension
• Quickly and regularly updated
• Lots of apps and plugins work well with Yoast

Cons

• Premium version requires annual license subscription per site
• Only Premium version has link redirect functionality
• Ads in free version
• Free version only allows one focus keyword per post
• No Google Search Console support
• Only Premium version allows Local, Image, and Video SEO optimization
• Site audit tool is handled on another site
• Schema.org rich snippets only available to premium users
• App support available only to premium users

Ahrefs

For those of you familiar with the SEO research tool Ahrefs, you’ll be thrilled to know they’re coming out with an Ahrefs WordPress SEO plugin shortly. I’m placing bets that this may be most competitive tool for professional business use.  The Ahrefs WordPress plugin will sync with your premium account and give you carefully researched data right there on your webpages. I will be testing and reviewing as soon as it’s released. Stay tuned.

Pros

• Research-forward focus keyword suggestions
• Long tail keyword planning

Cons

• Requires premium membership to Ahrefs
• Hasn’t been released yet

SEOPress

SEOPress is without a doubt one of the most competitive tools on the market. Even market leaders like Yoast and Ahrefs don’t have some of the advanced functionality available in this plugin. Only problem is most of it is only available by purchasing a pro account. SEOPress contains an impressive scope of free tools, and even their Pro account is only $39/yr for unlimited sites. If you have to go pro, this is a great choice.

Pros

• Installation Wizard & Import/Export Settings
• XML & HTML Sitemap
• Google Knowledge Graph
• Open Graph
• SEO & Content Analysis
• Google Analytics & Tag Manager Integration
• UX and UI friendly
• Pro account is good for unlimited sites
• Renewal fee for pro license is locked in at $39, even with future price increases

Cons

Some functionality requires a yearly subscription

• Google XML Video Sitemap
• Google Structured Data Types
• Custom schemas (manual or automatic)
• Google Local Business
• Google Suggest
• Dublin Core
• Redirections 301
• Robots.txt
• htaccess
• Breadcrumbs
• Google Analytics Stats in Dashboard
• Google Page Speed
• WooCommerce
• Easy Digital Downloads
• Google News Sitemap
• 404 monitoring
• SEOPress BOT
• Manage default WordPress RSS
• URL Rewriting

All in One SEO Pack

Created back in 2007 by Michael Torbert and Steve Mortiboy, the All in One SEO Pack was one of the first extremely robust plugins for WordPress SEO. In the early days, it combined several different WordPress SEO plugins to create a single light tool that revolutionized on page optimization. All in One SEO Pack implemented the use of meta keywords, which became outdated after Google discouraged keyword stuffing. With many updates and revisions, the All in One SEO Pack still remains one of the most downloaded SEO WordPress plugins of all time.

Pros

• XML sitemap
• Permalink optimization
• Open Graph Metatags
• Import and Export SEO data
• Google AMP support
• Schema.org markup
• Performance manager
• Can activate specific functionalities manually
• Robots.txt
• Bad Bot blocker
• Built-in API for Developers
• Single Pro license can be used on multiple sites

Cons

• No SEO or content analysis tools
• Plugin focused on metatags
• Redirect functionality doesn’t exist
• Pro license subscription needs to be renewed annually
• Only pro license supports WooCommerce optimization
• Category SEO options limited to Pro subscription
• Only pro license supports video SEO optimization
• Poor UX and UI

It’s important to remember that your website only needs one WordPress SEO plugin active at a time. Having more than one active SEO plugin will slow down your site, create duplicate content, and may even break your site. Make sure you deactivate your active SEO plugins if you want to test out another.