WordPress SEO Plugins

In a previous article covering Wordpress SEO, we had already mentioned how Wordpress has many built-in features that makes it search engine optimized by nature. However, in order to further improve the SEO (search engine optimization) of a Wordpress blog, many third-party developers have created additional plugins.

There are a host of seo plugins for wordpress that enhances the visibility of your Wordpress site. But in particular, we feel that the All-In-One SEO Pack and the Google XML Sitemap plugins are two that are a must have for any Wordpress site that is interested in SEO.

SEO Plugins for Wordpress

1. WordPress All in One SEO Pack WordPress Plugin

One of the most important features of the All In One SEO plugin is that it enables you to adjust the title tag and Meta tags on a page by page basis.

The title tag text is an important factor in search engine optimization. The title tag text should be the title of your page that contains relevant keywords for that page.

The All-In-One SEO Wordpress plugin has options to move the site name to the end of the title tag as opposed to having it at the beginning of the title tag. And you can even omit the site name from the title tag entirely.

Although, it is up to the individual webmaster and it depends on the type of site. But in general, the best title tag text would be just the title of the page such as "Health Benefits of Olive Oil". The next best is when the site name is appended at the end such as "Health Benefits of Olive Oil - The ABC Olive Oil Company". Usually, this is better than having the company name in front as in "The ABC Olive Oil Company - Health Benefits of Olive Oil". And the least useful is having just the sitename itself as in "The ABC Olive Oil Company".

The All-In-One SEO Wordpress plugin has many features to improve the SEO of your Wordpress site, but one of the most important features is this ability to let you adjust the title tag for each and every page. That is not to say that you have to type in extra information every time you make a post, or that it would create more work for you every time you post. If you don't customize the title tag text, the plugin will automatically customize the title tag for you based on the title of your post.

Besides the title tag, the All-In-One SEO plugin also adds fields under your post editor so that you can customize the Meta description and Meta keywords. Again, fill these in for each and every post if you want to have full control over these tags. But if you don't want to, just go to "Settings -> All in One SEO" settings and checkmark "Auto generate Description". Note that this is not check marked by default. So you may want to just checkmark that as soon as you have installed the "All In One SEO Pack". [ Download Link ]

2. Google XML Sitemap Wordpress Plugin

This is another Wordpress plugin that is a must have if you want to optimize your Wordpress site for SEO.

You want search engines spiders to be able to reliably index your site and to pick up any new pages every time it visits. Having an XML sitemap is the most reliable way to let search engine spiders do this job.

What is an XML sitemap and how do we get one? Just install and configure the Google XML sitemap plugin. Your site will now have a XML sitemap at http://example.com/sitemap.xml. This is the standard location that Google will go to find your sitemap. You can also indicate this location of the sitemap to other search engines by placing in a robots.txt file.

After installing this plugin, you will find the settings in "Settings -> XML-Sitemap". There you will find a link "rebuild the sitemap". Click that link to do it for the first time and to see that everything is working.

Now every time you create a new page or post, the plugin will automatically update this sitemap for you. [ Download Link ]