A Comparison of the Best Premium WordPress SEO Plug-Ins

When WordPress was created in May 2003, it was initially a platform built for bloggers and people wanting to showcase their content to the world. As time has moved on, and the quality of a WordPress plugin has improved, the platform is now being used for a lot more than just blogging.

Companies of all sizes have adopted a WordPress site and make use of the vast array of SEO tools to amplify their reach on search engines. Whether it’s a business trying to sell products online, one that is offering services or anything else, WordPress SEO plugins offer great value to companies trying to extend their customer base.

When first starting a WordPress website, there is a wide range of free SEO tools available to choose from. They provide useful assistance to a business trying to improve their ranking on search engine results pages. However, the premium SEO plugins for WordPress offer even more in-depth features.

Choosing the right one for your website can be challenging, though, as they all offer many benefits and features that amplify your WordPress site. To decide which WordPress SEO plugin is best for you, we must first delve into what they are and how they help.

What is a WordPress plugin?

A WordPress plugin is a piece of software that essentially ‘plugs in’ to your WordPress site. You install and manage your plugins from your WordPress dashboard. They can add new functionality to your website or improve an already existing feature that enhances the performance or look of your WordPress site.

The vast range of different WordPress plugins available allows a company or an individual to create anything from an e-commerce store to a portfolio showcasing creative work or offering professional services.

There is an enormous choice of WordPress plugins that are all completely accessible via the WordPress dashboard.

Like design templates, there are free plugins available and premium plugins that range in price depending on their size, features and benefits.

Deciding on the right plugin can be tricky, but at Paramount Digital, we know all about the very best WordPress SEO plugins that can enhance your performance on search engines.

Is WordPress still the best for SEO?

For many businesses and individuals, WordPress SEO plugins have helped produce excellent results on search engines. It’s difficult to say whether WordPress is better than Shopify or any other platforms regarding search engine optimisation, but they do offer excellent features and ease of use for beginners and experts alike.

Choosing WordPress depends on how you would like to build your website. The platform does offer an excellent range of SEO plugins – both paid and free versions – that make it relatively easy to understand search engine optimisation.

Would Google rank a WordPress website higher than other platforms?

The algorithm that Google uses to rank websites on its search engine results pages does not offer preferential treatment to WordPress or any other platform.

However, it’s the most popular website-building platform in the industry. According to data from W3Techs, 43.1% of all websites online are built using WordPress.

This is likely because of the ease of use to design and build a website with the many readily available plugins.

What are the best WordPress SEO plugins?

When searching for the best WordPress SEO plugins, a lot of options will be displayed and if you’re not familiar with the platform, you may end up downloading and installing one that doesn’t offer you the best service or features.

There are a few big names that you should look for when installing your own WordPress SEO plugin, and they are:

• Yoast SEO
• Rank Math
• All In One SEO
• SEOPress

What is the best WordPress SEO plugin?

If you’re an individual looking to create your own e-commerce WordPress site, or a start-up company just making your first steps in the digital world, you may want to try the free plugin of each of these SEO tools.

All four of the above WordPress SEO plugins offer free versions. However, while they’re a good starting point, if you want to achieve truly great results on search engine results pages, you should consider the premium versions.

Free SEO plugins are great for beginners, but they’ll only take you so far.

If you want to find the best SEO plugin, you’ve come to the right place. Paramount Digital knows all there is to know about the best WordPress SEO plugins, so let’s delve into what makes each one great – and decide which one is the ideal choice for your WordPress site.

What is Yoast SEO plugin?

The Yoast SEO plugin is often the go-to option for many small companies and individuals building a website on WordPress.

The free version has produced excellent results and great usability for many years. It offers advice and tips on how to improve your SEO score for content and any given page, including the meta descriptions and title, word count, and much more.

The premium model is where the Yoast SEO plugin truly shines bright, though. It offers a range of additional tools, such as suggestions for internal linking opportunities and a redirect manager.

Both of these tools are useful for building an impressive site structure, which goes a long way to producing high-ranking positions on search engines.

Additionally, all new features that the Yoast SEO team create are all released first on the premium version, so you can get a headstart on any company using the free SEO plugin.

It also features a useful feature that reminds you to update and keep track of your best and most important content, allowing you to tweak it so you always have a good chance of ranking well on search engine results pages.

These features, and more, make Yoast SEO one of the very best WordPress SEO plugins.

What is Rank Math SEO plugin?

Another solid option when choosing between WordPress SEO plugins is Rank Math.

This particular WordPress SEO plugin is popular as it offers many of the same features as Yoast, and more. It’s ideal for people and companies writing content as it includes built-in suggestions that are based on widely accepted best practices for search engine optimisation.

If you’re searching for the best WordPress SEO plugin for content writing, you may favour Rank Math because it runs the copy through more than 20 different checks.

These include basic SEO, content readability and title readability such as sentence structure, tone of voice, and more.

As far as SEO plugins go, Rank Math is one of the best options with a support team that’s easy to contact for any assistance. Meanwhile, even the most inexperienced of people can learn the basic aspects of SEO to help their WordPress site rank.

What is All in One SEO plugin?

Like the Rank Math and Yoast SEO plugins for WordPress, All in One SEO is available as a free option or a premium SEO plugin.

There are two premium packages for All in One SEO, with the ‘basic’ package available at $99 per year and the ‘Pro’ version priced at $399 every 12 months.

There are large differences between the two payment tiers, with the basic package offering use for just one website, while the Pro version allows access to 10. So, a large company with multiple WordPress websites will favour the Pro model as it will allow more of their websites to rank highly on search engines with the one SEO plugin.

If you opt for the Pro version of All in One SEO, you’ll get smart schema markup, support for local SEO, image SEO, and a redirection manager that essentially works as a broken link checker.

Other features of this particular SEO plugin include a site audit checklist, which is particularly helpful with technical SEO, support with social networks, sitemaps and even a link assistant.

What is SEOPress SEO plugin?

Last but certainly not least, we have the SEOPress SEO plugin for WordPress.

As WordPress plugins go, this is one of the more favourable options thanks to its diverse range of benefits and features that make the life of any website owner or builder much easier.

Its free version does a lot of things that Yoast SEO, Rank Math and All in One SEO do, such as support for meta descriptions, title tags and sitemaps. It also helps to get your content indexed faster on Google and Bing, it optimises your content for social media and will provide detailed analysis of your written copy, providing tips and guidance on how to improve it for SEO purposes.

The premium version of SEOPress is when things get truly interesting, though. It offers access to OpenAI so you can use the power of artificial intelligence with your WordPress site and excellent compatibility with Google Search Console.

You can connect your WordPress site to Google Search Console and make use of detailed Google Analytics to better understand how your content is performing. This is useful for every type of website, from bloggers to e-commerce stores.

The premium version of the SEOPress plugin also includes Google Suggest which is an innovative new feature that offers real-time suggestions which guide users towards relevant information that enhances their search experience.

Premium also provides access to WooCommerce to help with online sales from your WordPress site, as well as the ability to easily edit the robots.txt and .htaccess files.

What is the best SEO plugin for WordPress?

After reading this in-depth review of the best WordPress SEO plugins, we hope you’ve come to a decision on which one is best for your skills and particular website.

As mentioned above, there are many options to choose from, and you may even opt for a different one than on this list. However, these above four offer extensive features and benefits that you may struggle to find on other SEO plugins for WordPress.

The decision you make may depend on what it is you’re looking for in your SEO plugin, and how skilled you already are with search engines.

Despite this, if you do require support with the SEO of your WordPress site, don’t hesitate to get in touch with Paramount Digital – a leading WordPress SEO agency.

With extensive knowledge and experience in managing the SEO campaigns of WordPress websites, we can enhance your business and help it rank highly on search engine results pages. Through the use of technical SEO, keyword research, and off-page and on-page SEO, we believe we can work with you to build up your business and provide brilliant visibility on Google.

If this sounds like something you’d be interested in, email us at marketing@paramountdigital.co.uk or give us a call at 01744 747474.