In this post, we’re going to be covering what I consider to be some of the best SEO plugins for WordPress in 2024.
All of the plugins mentioned in this list are free to use and they will all help us to improve our WordPress SEO in various ways.
So, if you’re trying to increase your organic search traffic.
These are the WordPress SEO plugins I’d recommend taking a look at.
Best SEO Plugins for WordPress (2024)
You can click these links for more information below:
- Yoast SEO
- XML Sitemap Generator
- Really Simple SSL
- Broken Link Checker
- Pretty Links
- Phoenix Media Rename
- Media Library Helper
- W3 Total Cache
- Smush
- List all URLs
Not sure how to install plugins?
This post will show you how (opens in new tab).
Note: I don’t recommended installing ALL of these SEO plugins on your website at once. It’s better to pick 1 or 2 that you think will help you the most.
Plugin #1 – Yoast SEO
Yoast SEO is hands down one of the best SEO plugins for WordPress.
(especially when it comes to on page SEO)
This plugin can help us with things like:
- Keyword analysis
- Content length analysis
- Readability analysis
- URL optimization
- Image optimization
And we can also use Yoast SEO to add:
- XML sitemaps
- Canonical URLs
- Schema markup
If you’re only going to install one SEO plugin on this list, this is probably the one I’d recommend the most.
Related Posts:
Plugin #2 – XML Sitemap Generator for Google
This plugin generates an XML sitemap for our WordPress website.
An XML sitemap is a file that shows Google (and other search engines) a list of our most important pages and posts.
Which makes it much easier for them to crawl and index.
Having a sitemap is pretty important when it comes to SEO.
And this plugin will help us create one, in a matter of seconds.
Worth noting: if we have the Yoast SEO plugin installed (mentioned above), we don’t need this one as well. We can create a sitemap within Yoast.
Plugin #3 – Really Simple SSL
Really Simple SSL is a plugin that does exactly what the name suggests.
It makes it really simple to set up an SSL certificate on WordPress.
An SSL certificate encrypts data between a website visitor’s browser and the server, keeping it secure. (SSL = Secure Socket Layer)
After setting up our SSL certificate, the plugin will automatically redirect all of the URLs on our website, from HTTP to HTTPS.
Worth Noting: There’s no need to purchase an SSL certificate, a free one will work just as good for most types of websites.
Google have stated that having an SSL certificate will not affect our SEO all that much. But, then also hinted at it possibly being a stronger ranking signal in future.
But, a lightweight signal is better than no signal… right?
Plugin #4 – Broken Link Checker
The Broken Link Checker plugin will crawl all of the URLs on our WordPress website, looking for broken links.
Broken links = Any link that results in an error when clicked.
They are really bad for user experience.
(404 errors are probably the most common)
And having too many broken links can negatively affect our website’s SEO, resulting in lower search rankings.
This means that it’s super important we find any broken links we might have and fix them as soon as possible.
Manually finding these broken links can be pretty time consuming.
But, if we install the Broken Link Checker plugin, we can scan our entire website in a matter of minutes.
Worth Noting:
I’ll be honest, this plugin has pretty mixed reviews. But, I’ve personally used it multiple times in the past, without any problems.
If you’re having any issues with this plugin, try siteliner.com to find broken links instead. It’s a free online tool, with no sign up.
Plugin #5 – Pretty Links
Pretty Links is a plugin that lets us create custom redirect links on WordPress.
It’s usually seen as more of an affiliate marketing plugin, because we can use it for cloaking and tracking affiliate links.
In other words, we can turn a link that looks like this:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ABC1234?tag=demo-affiliate-link-20/
Into one that looks like this:
https://ourdomain.com/product-name/
Which obviously looks much nicer!
But, the Pretty Links plugin can also be a great help when it comes to WordPress SEO.
If we change or delete a page on our website, we can use the plugin to create what’s known as a “301 redirect link“.
301 Redirects are used for automatically redirecting users and search engines, from an old page URL to the new one.
(preserving the SEO value of the older one)
This post from Hubspot will explain 301 redirects in a bit more detail.
Plugin #6 – Phoenix Media Rename
Did you know the file names of our images can affect our website’s SEO?
(what we named the image before we uploaded it)
This is because Google can’t actually see the images we upload.
So, instead, they rely on an images title text to understand what it is.
The Phoenix Media Rename plugin allows us to change the file name of our images, after we’ve uploaded them.
(directly from the Media Library)
This is definitely a helpful plugin when it comes to WordPress SEO.
Worth Noting: We can change the image name on WordPress already, but we can’t change the actual file name (image.png, image.jpg, etc).
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👇 Best SEO Plugins for WordPress (Continued)
Plugin #7 – Media Library Helper by Codexin
This is another plugin that can help label our images better for SEO.
Media Library Helper gives us the ability to update our images ALT tags, captions, descriptions, and titles, all from within the Media Library.
This plugin can save save a bunch of time. ⏰
It’s also handy that we can see all of our other images metadata at the same time, which can stop us from overusing certain keywords and help make sure they’re all formatted the same.
Here’s a helpful resource from W3 School that shows the best way to write ALT tags for our images.
Plugin #8 – W3 Total Cache
W3 Total Cache is one of the most popular caching plugins for WordPress.
What is Caching?
Website “caching” is a technique that involves creating a temporary copy of our WordPress website, which can be quickly displayed to visitors.
So, instead of having to load the entire website from scratch when someone lands on our site, a preloaded “cached version” is shown.
(just while everything is loading up)
By enabling caching, we can significantly improve the speed of our website.
How This Helps SEO
Search engines, like Google, actually prioritize fast-loading websites when it comes to ranking them.
This is because they provide a better user experience.
When our website loads quickly, it enhances user satisfaction and reduces bounce rates… and Google likes this.
This post by Cloud Flare explains how caching works in more detail, if you're interested.
Plugin #9 – Smush
Smush is another WordPress plugin that can help us to improve our site speed.
Which in turn can help us to boost our SEO rankings.
(like the W3 Total Cache plugin above)
And it does this, by compressing our images down to a smaller file size.
Without affecting the image quality.
I really don’t know how it manages to do this. 😲
But, I do know from experience, that it can make a considerable difference to WordPress loading times.
Here’s a quick video of mine that will show you how to use the Smush plugin.
Plugin #10 – List all URLs
The List all URLs plugin enables us to instantly generate a list of all the URLs on our WordPress website.
(this includes pages, posts, and custom post types)
We can then use this list of URLs for:
- Auditing our site’s content.
- Identifying broken links.
- Manually creating a sitemap.
- Identifying duplicate content.
- Finding related posts to link to.
Which are all important aspects of WordPress SEO.
This is a very simple SEO plugin that I find myself using quite often.
Worth Noting: This plugin hasn’t been updated in over 2 years, but it still works just fine. Due to the nature of the plugin, I don’t think it would really need to be updated all that often.
So, that was 10 of the Best SEO Plugins for WordPress in 2024.
I really hope you enjoyed the list.
Will you be installing any of these SEO plugins on your WordPress site?
Let me know in the comments, at the bottom of this page. 💬
Until next time,
Martie.
Related Content:
You can also find more lists of free WordPress plugins here.
