Are you using a WordPress website and confused with plugins that are essential for WordPress SEO? As a beginner, it is a totally confusing and overwhelming process to choose a perfect WordPress plugin.
If you have just started and are confused to use plugins then this is the right place for you because I am going to share about Essential Plugins for WordPress SEO which will skyrocket your blog traffic after using it.
WordPress made our life so easy in blogging or online marketing. Anyone can create a website easily without any technical background. And WordPress Plugins are just like Butter on Bread. You can modify your website according to your needs without any technical support, only with the help of Plugins.
When you create a website then your primary goal is to be visible on Google so that you can receive traffic. This happens when Google ranks our website on the first page. Before ranking a website, Google considers some of the most important technical factors such as User experience, Site Speed, On-page SEO, Mobile-friendliness, Internal link structure, Structured Markups, and much more.
Maybe you are thinking how can I do all this technical stuff? But don’t worry, here WordPress plugins will help you to do this.
I am going to share the best WordPress SEO Plugins that will help you to Skyrocket your blog traffic and rank easily on Google’s first page.
Hold tight my friends and let’s deep dive into Plugin Ocean.
Before that, if you are just starting your blogging career and confused about selecting a perfect niche then Just read my “How to choose perfect blogging Niche” post.
10 Must-have Plugins for WordPress SEO to Escalate Your Website Traffic
Before installing a plugin I want to suggest you some precautions. Because too many Plugins can slow your website and Google never loves a slow website. It can penalize you and outrank your website.
What precautions I should take?
You have to take care of some basic aspects at the time of installing a WordPress plugin:-
- Compatibility:- Always check first whether Plugin is compatible with your WordPress version or not.
- Lots of Downloads:- Only install a plugin that has lots of downloads.
- Frequently Update:- Before installing just check Plugin updates. Has it been updated recently or not?
- A Better Description:- Check the description before downloading. In the description, you just check whether they have mentioned everything according to your needs or not.
#1. W3 Total Cache Plugin
For a website, Load time is a super important factor which decides that How long a user will stay on your website. If the user closes the browser quickly because of slow load time it will increase your Bounce rate. And always keep in mind, Google never loves a website with a higher bounce rate.
Nowadays mobile users are increasing rapidly. Google also gives preference to those websites which is mobile-friendliness. It doesn’t matter whether you are using 4G, 5G, or LTE networks, if your website will load slowly, the user will never come back to your website or always close it quickly.
But you don’t have to worry. The W3 total cache Plugin increases your website speed as fast as possible. It also improves your load time and helps you connect with CDNS.
Benefits of using W3 Total Cache Plugin:-
- Improve SEO page Ranking for Mobile-Friendly and SSL-used websites.
- It increases your website speed 10 times faster
- Increase your conversion rate
- It renders your web page so quickly
- It decreases your page load time
#2. Smush Image Compression
Image is another factor that increases your load time and makes your website slow. If you use a high-quality image then it occupies more space on the server. And when any request comes from the server on your website your website will load slowly.
Image is an important factor to make your website engaging. If you are not using an image then first open your website and add some images.
But image size will always affect your website speed. And if you try to compress it with any software or online then it looks fuzzy or pixelated. Which creates a bad experience for users.
Smush image compression is the best plugin for compressing images and saves some space on the server. It reduces image size but keeps its quality and sharpness as it is.
Benefits of Smush Image Compression:-
- Lossless compression compresses unused data without losing the quality of an image
- Lazy loader, it defers offscreen images
- Bulk Smush, compresses 50 images in one go.
- It resizes an image, detects incorrect image size, Automated compression
#3. Yoast SEO Plugin
Yoast Seo is the most popular plugin for On-site SEO. It can help you to improve WordPress SEO and your search ranking and bring your blog to Google’s first page. This plugin is the number one recommendation by all veteran bloggers. It pleases both visitors and search engine spiders.
If you want to write killer content with perfect SEO which Google loves then this plugin helps you till the end. Yoast SEO suggests everything which can make your blog perfect for Google Search Results such as SEO title, meta description, meta keywords, Alt tags for images, a custom title for your site, and much more.
Benefits of Yoast SEO plugin:-
- Allow you to add SEO titles, meta descriptions, keywords, and key phrases.
- Custom title for your main website, Archives, category, and tag pages.
- It adds open graph metadata, sitemaps, and a ping search engine for any update.
- It sets a canonical URL to avoid duplicate content.
- Analyze your content and SEO for a blog post.
- The premium version suggests automatic interlinking and adds related synonyms for keywords.
Yoast SEO plugin guides you in every aspect of site SEO. It saves you lots of money for site auditing. I always thank this Plugin to make our life easier in blogging.
#4. SUCRUI
In this online world, Hacking is a common threat to every website. If you have installed Wordfence Plugin then you can check your weekly report. In that report, you can see how many attacks are happening on your website.
Once your website will get hacked then your ranking and traffic both will go down. It is very difficult to recover after getting hacked. So website security is the most important thing for keeping your ranking up.
There are Many Good Plugins out there that can help you to be secure. First, you can use Wordfence Plugin with the premium version, and second, you can use the SUCRUI security plugin.
SUCURI plugin helps you to Audit, malware scanning, and security.
Benefits of SUCRUI Security Plugin:-
- Helps in security activity auditing
- It monitors your file integrity
- Scan malware daily
- It monitors all blacklisted attacks
- It creates a strong website firewall
I use this plugin to secure my website. It helps me to protect my website from all attacks. Daily I see more than 5 attacks on the workforce list. Thanks to SUCRUI.
#5. AMP for WP
AMP for WP makes your website mobile-friendliness and accelerated mobile pages. Nowadays mobile users are everywhere in this world and they are increasing rapidly.
Google also focused on AMP-ready websites.
If you want to rank really high then you have to make your website faster for mobile users.
AMP for wp is the best plugin to accelerate your web page. This plugin supports each and every extension on the WordPress site.
Benefits of AMP for WP plugin:-
- You can easily add Analytics
- Place ads with 6 ad placement slots
- You can change/extend the AMP design anytime
- You can add new features to your needs.
#6. A3 Lazy Load
We all use images to make our site look engaging and attractive. But I have already discussed that images reserve more space on the server and increase website load time and make your website slow. Either you compress images or use a plugin but still, it slows down your website speed.
A3 lazy load plugin helps to load images as people scroll. It does not allow you to load all images at once when the user browses your website. It loads one by one as per scrolling. This feature speeds up your site page load and provides a better user experience.
For a mobile-friendly website, this plugin is best to use. You can also increase your website ranking. This plugin works to lazy load images, videos, gravatar, widgets, and much more.
#7. Really Simple SSL
In online business, our first concerns are always about being secure. Otherwise, the website can be hacked anytime and you will only know when your traffic goes down.
And it takes more than two months’ time to recover.
Google always recommends that a website should have an SSL certificate. Nowadays 90%+ websites ranked at the top has SSL installed and enabled. It helps you to increase your ranking.
If a website has no SSL then some browser notifies users that ‘ hey this website is not secure’. It can cause a higher bounce rate.
But how will I know if my website has SSL enabled or not?
You can just check your Address bar in the left upper corner. If your website is secure with SSL then a green LOCK sign will appear before HTTPS, and if it is not secure then there is no LOCK sign.
Be sure that your host provider gives you a free SSL installed on the WordPress website. But if you have no SSL certificate enabled then the Really Simple SSL plugin is the best option.
Benefits of Really Simple SSL:-
- Automatically set up and configure a website to run over HTTPS.
- Enable Http transport for an entire website
- Scan Mixed content and fixed it.
- It redirects every incoming request to HTTPS.
Use this plugin and keep your site secure and improve your search ranking my friends. Security is the most important thing in every aspect of life and business too. This Plugins also improve your WordPress SEO.
#8. Insert Header and Footer
If you have no technical background in coding then it is a confusing and overwhelming process to put some code in your theme header or footer. Although you can access all coding files through cPanel it can be the biggest risk for the site. It can cause a site crash. So please don’t ever try to edit the original coding file without coding knowledge.
Insert Header and Footer make your life simple and save you lots of time. You can easily add any code snippet in the header or footer.
Google Analytics, Facebook pixels, and Pinterest provide you with a code snippet to add to your header and footer. You can simply add by using this plugin. You can change your Custom CSS also.
Benefits of Insert Header and Footer:-
- Add header and footer code in the theme easily
- Insert Google Analytics code into your site theme
- You can add Custom CSS to the theme
- Add Facebook Pixel code to your website
- Insert any type of code or script into your theme.
#9. UpdraftPlus
The backup of an entire website is essential and the most important part to keep your data safe. Keeping a backup works for all your investments.
Maybe your bad day comes, and your website gets hacked, or crashed by any update, bad plugins, security issue, or anything that happens, then this backup will save you all money hard work, and time. If you don’t want to lose your money then keep a weekly backup.
The UpdraftPlus plugin helps you to take a manual backup, daily or weekly. You can configure it for automatic backup also. This Plugin sends you an email for your backup file weekly.
UpdraftPlus is the most popular and high-rated plugin and is very easy to use. It also saves your backup in clouds such as Dropbox, Google Drive, Amazon S3, FTP, Updraft Vault, and many more.
Benefits of the Updraft Plus plugin:-
- Backup and restore automatically
- Many cloud options to backup
- It is a faster and more lightweight plugin
- Database encryption, Advance reporting, and more features in the premium version
#10. Jquery Pin it Button
If you want to drive traffic to your blog then you have to make it shareable content. And google gives preference to sharable content. For beginners, google takes almost six month time to rank a post if it is properly optimized with keywords.
For every blogger, Pinterest is the biggest source of traffic. You can read more about Pinterest in my Social media category.
You can drive a hin good amount of traffic within three months by making your pin shareable. So that people can easily print it on their boards.
Jquery Pin it Button is the best plugin to make your Pin shareable. It simply adds a Pin It button to every image on your blog. If any visitor comes to your website and likes your pin, then they can easily save it by the red color PIN it button on the Image.\
Final Words to say
WordPress Plugins have made this blogging world so easy for everyone. Anyone can start their own blog and build an online business. But for each and every blog ranking and traffic is the most important factor to run the business or blog. Use these plugins for WordPress SEO today and Skyrocket your blog traffic within a month.
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Please share more valuable plugins which can help in WordPress SEO. We would love to hear from you in our comment box.
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