WordPress is a Content Management System that powers almost 39.5% of the total number of sites, according to 2021 data. WordPress SEO plugins play a critical role in helping millions of webmasters optimize their websites and improve visibility across search engines.

There are several WordPress SEO plugins available (some are free, while others are paid), but choosing the best SEO SEO plugin for WordPress can be quite intriguing.

In this blog, we are going to highlight the best WordPress SEO plugins for 2021 to help you make the best decision. But first, let’s throw light on the crucial aspects you should consider when activating one.

 

• Clean and Efficient Code – A useful SEO plugin must have a clean code, free of unnecessary CSS and JavaScript entities.

 

• A Wide Range of SEO Features – The best SEO plugin for WordPress must have more than one feature. This includes but is not limited to Canonical Tags, 301 Redirect, and Sitemap generation.

 

• Detailed Documentation – This helps the users understand how it works and the features it has.

 

• Excellent Customer Support – A good SEO plugin must have 24/7 customer support along with a plugin support forum comprising dedicated users.

 

• Regular Updates – Getting regular updates from the developer is absolutely necessary for you to make use of the latest WordPress features on offer.

 

• Compatibility – It must be compatible with a range of other WordPress plugins.

Now that you know the characteristics of the best WordPress SEO plugins for 2021, let’s discuss those that abide by these parameters –

 

1. Rank Math – Rank-Math is the best free SEO plugin for WordPress 2021. It’s a complete package that comes with an on-page analysis tool, Google search console integration, 404 monitor, redirections module, a sitemap module, and keyword recommendations.

The hassle-free setup wizard makes it a popular choice among SEO enthusiasts of all skill levels. The best part about this plugin is that it does a detailed on-page SEO analysis of the posts and provides recommendations based on statistics for the focus keyword you want to rank on SERP.

 

2. Yoast – Judging by the number of downloads, this is the most popular free WordPress SEO plugin. It comes with a host of features that make on-page optimization an easy affair. Its ability to generate sitemaps and linking up the same with Google Webmaster for verification and content readability analysis makes it one of the best plugins for SEO in WordPress.

 

3. All In One SEO Pack – If you’re looking for a smart and efficient plugin that will help you to optimize your posts and pages, then the All In One SEO Pack can be a great choice! With this plugin, you can create XML Sitemaps, to ensure easy crawling and indexing of search engine bots.

It also supports accelerated mobile pages, making it an effective plugin even for mobile search optimization. Additionally, it supports Google Analytics and helps the user keeps track of their inbound traffic.

 

4. SEO Ultimate – SEO Ultimate is one of the best SEO plugins for WordPress free, in terms of optimization package. The title tag rewriter and Meta Description editor feature allows users to edit title posts for improved on-page SEO.

Additionally, the deep link Juggernaut is an anchor text-driven internal linking feature that allows users to create deep links between related posts. The only drawback is that it doesn’t offer support on WordPress forums. So, every time there is an issue, you need to fix it by updating it, which is sometimes tedious.

 

5. The SEO Framework – SEO Framework is the best SEO plugin for WordPress free, providing automated SEO solutions. It allows users to optimize the content on the site for enhanced value across search engines.

The best part about this plugin is that both amateurs and experts can seamlessly use it. Some of its core features include creating a canonical URL to prevent duplicated content with full Domain Mapping, subdomain, and HTTPS support, and also supporting custom posts such as bbPress and WooCommerce.

 

6. SEO Squirrly – SEO Squirrly has been developed to help those who are not skilled in SEO. It allows users to create high-quality content that is friendly to both human and search engine bots. This again helps site owners improve the ranking of the site on SERP.

Best of all, it provides users with weekly statistics and reports of their website, copyright-free images, and email alerts regarding WordPress site about anything that requires immediate attention.

 

7. All In One Schema.org Rich Snippets – All In One Schema.org Rich Snippets is a free WordPress plugin that generates a summary of a website’s page on SERP. It also shows star ratings, author photos, and an image along with other details.

The best part about this plugin is that it provides engaging snippets with images, star ratings, price, and author descriptions, to make it easy for webmasters to outrank competitors.

 

8. Smush Image Compression and Optimization – Smush Image Compression and Optimization is the best WordPress SEO plugins for 2021 for image compression. It is one of the few tested and proven image enhancement plugins for improving the speed and quality of a website. This plugin allows users to resize large images by setting a maximum width and height for web and post pages.

The plugin uses WPMU DEV’s super servers to reduce every image and remove unnecessary data without affecting the loading speed of the site. Best of all, it reduces the size of the file without degrading its quality.

 

9. Broken Link Checker – The Broken Link Checker is a trusted SEO plugin that analyses and detects broken links on a WordPress site. If it detects any, it notifies the user almost immediately.

Post-installation, the plugin starts analyzing the posts, bookmarks, and all other contents on your site for links. Going forward, it checks the status of each link to check whether it’s working correctly. On successful completion, the plugin will show the broken links in a separate tab on the WP admin panel in the tools category.

 

10. Rankie – WordPress Rank Tracker – WordPress Rank Tracker is a premium SEO plugin that helps users check the rank of their website on given keywords across search engines. To be precise, it’ll help you closely follow the keyword position.

Additionally, it updates the keyword’s rank positions every day and creates a detailed report for the users. The best part about this plugin is that it combines high-quality research tools and drafts a list of keywords that people are already searching online.

 

11. WordPress Ping Optimizer – WordPress has an in-built pinging mechanism whenever a new post is published. The ping services to be notified can be added to the settings section in the WordPress Dashboard.

The WordPress Ping Optimizer helps prevent a blog from being marked as a ping spammer. You may have noticed that the WordPress blog pings every time you click on the “Save and Continue Editing or “Save” button. This plugin helps prevent those unwanted pings.

 

12. W3 Total Cache – W3 Total Cache is a free and best WordPress SEO plugin for 2021 for improving user experience. The plugin works by enhancing the performance of the webserver during high traffic hours. Additionally, it helps reduce the download time using Content Delivery Network and boosts ranking on SERP.

According to a study, W3 Total Cache considerably helps improve the site’s performance and conversion rates as a whole. Most importantly, it saves near about 80% of the bandwidth through minify and HTTP compression of HTML, feeds, CSS and JavaScript.

 

13. Redirection – Redirection is a free WordPress plugin that helps users handle 301 redirections, track 404 errors, and organizes loose ends that are affecting a site’s visibility across search engines. This plugin also makes it easy for users while migrating pages from an old website to a new one, or changing the WordPress installation directory.

 

13. WooCommerce – All in One SEO Pack – This WordPress plugin has been developed to act as an extension of the All in One SEO Pack Plugin. Its plugin allows users to edit, add, and organize All in One SEO Pack Meta information.

 

13. Glue for Yoast SEO & AMP – This is the best SEO SEO plugin for WordPress for incorporating Yoast SEO into AMP pages. In other words, it ensures that every webpage of a WordPress site has a valid AMP code and the meta-data is applied correctly. The plugin also has rudimental styling in the form of link styles and colors, which gives your AMP pages the same look and feel as that of your main pages.

 

13. SEO Optimized Images – The SEO Optimized Images is the best WordPress SEO plugin for 2021 for adding SEO-friendly title attributes and alt attributes to all the images in a WordPress site. After installing and activating the plugin, a user needs to select a pattern, and the plugin will automatically switch the title tags and alt tags without modifying the database.

This means that if the users want their site to retain the initial look, all they have to do is deactivate the plugin. Additionally, this plugin allows users to add image name, post category, and post title in title and alt attributes of images.

 

17. EWWW Image Optimizer – It’s the best SEO plugin for WordPress free when it comes to optimizing images. The plugin helps site owners improve page speed through image compression. And, it’s a proven fact that page speed is a determining ranking factor of all search engines.

Consequently, an increase in page speed improves conversion rate and reduces bandwidth and server storage space. EWWW Image Optimiser also allows users to modify images that have been already uploaded and, in turn, convert them into a particular file format. The most exciting feature about this plugin is that it automatically compresses all uploaded images, without degrading quality.

 

18. Simple 301 Redirects – This plugin helps a user set up the 301 redirects from old pages to new pages and ensures link juice from all inbound links is effortlessly passed along with the page rank.

 

18. Google XML Sitemaps – This is the best free SEO plugin for WordPress 2021 when it comes to submitting a site for indexing. The plugin generates distinct sitemaps to help search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing index a website.

These sitemaps also ease the task of web crawlers to see and understand the structure of a website and send back signals to the search algorithms. The most exciting feature of this plugin is that it sends notifications to search engines every time the user updates a post or uploads a new one.

 

20. Pretty Link Lite – This is also a free WordPress SEO plugin that enables users to create pretty links, as well as cloak links automatically. A user can easily replace the links in their blogs with pretty links to improve the on-page SEO.

Additionally, it helps site owners track every hit on URLs and drafts a comprehensive report on the origin of the hit, the host, and the corresponding browser.

 

21. WP SEO HTML Sitemap – WP SEO HTML Sitemap is the best WordPress SEO plugins for 2021 for generating and submitting HTML sitemaps. The best part about this plugin is that it doesn’t require any corresponding plugin to work. It gives users overwrite, shortcode, prepend, and append options for posting on a sitemap page.

 

So, here was our list of the 21 best WordPress SEO plugins for 2021. Let us know in the comment section the plugins that you are already using, or are planning to install for maximizing your SEO efforts.

Best of luck with your SEO endeavors!

The COVID -19 pandemic has quickly led to a global economic downturn. According to leading financial institutions and market research firms, a global recession is knocking at the door, which may eventually lead to ‘The Great Depression that occurred post the Second World War.

Unarguably, the Coronavirus has severely affected businesses across industries. Companies all over the world, irrespective of their client base ad market capitalization, are now scrambling to figure out how to recession-proof their business affected due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Here’s a list of 5 tactics that will help you safeguard your business considerably from this global economic downturn.

 

1> Put an Automated Lead Machine

 

If you’re still not leveraging the power of automation, then now is the time you should think of integrating it with your system. During a recession, you’ll have to multiply your sales volume to balance the effect of Coronavirus on online business.

Without automation, it will be an arduous task. On the contrary, an automated, AI-powered lead-generating tool will clone your existing system and capture qualified leads for your business across industries. The most exciting part is that it will help you achieve your sales goal faster and is cost-effective too.

2> Put Customer Safeguards in Place

During these turbulent times, it’s best to put customers on contract. The best approach to this strategy is to talk with the customers and ask them about the impact of the Coronavirus on their marketing budget, and business as a whole. This way, you won’t end up losing your client base.

Establishing an open line of communication with your existing customers, and prospects will also help you plan better should they decide to discontinue the project or reduce their marketing budget. Alternatively, you can start sending out surveys to your clients to get a proper understanding of how they’re planning to deal with the effects of the virus on their business.

 

3> Focus on Industries That Have Served You Well

 

It’s not a great idea to test new markets in this economic landscape. The best way to handle the effect of Coronavirus on online business is by focusing on markets that have always given you positive results.

Delve deep into those industries and craft a unique strategy citing how your product(s) or service(s) will help your prospects thrive even during this turbulent phase. Speak to them on video calls and propose your strategy, stating how you and your team will make a difference and bolster growth in their business.

 

4> Continue Your Marketing Endeavours

Businesses across industries suffer from liquidity crisis during a recession. One common mistake that every company makes is to cut down their marketing budget to nil.

However, reports suggest that during a recession, marketing serves a huge purpose. In all probability, your competitors will cut down their marketing budget. Take this opportunity by keeping yours consistent. And if you’re facing a severe cash crunch; pursue low-cost marketing techniques, such as blogging, social media marketing, webinars, email marketing, and online newsletters.

 

5> Emphasize Networking

Before searching online or asking for suggestions, people tend to prefer doing business with whom they know or like. Make sure that your prospects know you and about your business.

A great way to do this is through the strategic use of social media. LinkedIn is a goldmine for both B2B and B2C industries. Add your existing, as well as potential clients to your profile and publish useful information related to their industries, to garner attention.

 

So, here were 5 ways to recession-proof your business from the upcoming economic downturn. Let us know what do you think in the comment section. Also, don’t forget to add your views if you feel we have missed some crucial points. Best of luck!