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WordPress is one of widest platform used by the website developers to develop small, medium and even large scale websites in certain cases. As cited by WordPress, 36% of the websites are built using their platform around the globe which is a huge number. Websites have become a 24-hour salesman for modern businesses and to get more business from the website you’ve built, you need people coming to your website and for that, you need to get traffic which should be consistent. In order to achieve this, SEO is the best Inbound marketing strategy to apply on a website and this is where WordPress SEO Plugins make your life easy.
Plugins are a fantastic way of extending or adding features to your website built on WordPress. They make your life easy and allow you to add functionality which you like. WordPress itself has its own official plugin directory where plugin developers upload their plugins for the users to download and use. Plugins are generally categorised under 2 categories i.e. free and freemium. Free plugins would allow you to use the entire functionality with no extra charge whereas freemium plugins would allow you to use certain functionalities of their plugin for free and for complete usage you would have to pay them a yearly fee.
The 3 WordPress seo plugins chosen here are purely on the basis of their features, ease of use, no.of active installations and their ratings submitted by the user on the official wordpress.org plugin directory.
Yoast SEO
Yoast SEO was founded in 2010 by Joost de Valk and since then they have grown pretty big. You ask any WordPress website developer or an SEO executive in this field of having less than 3 months experience he/she would have definitely come across Yoast SEO plugin. With more than a team of 80+ people working to keep this plugin working out, there is seriously a big deal for every member of the WordPress community. With their motto of SEO for everyone, I would say they are doing pretty well to live up to the motto of their product. Yoast SEO is a freemium plugin where you get limited features to use for free and if you go for a subscription you get to use the complete product and also 24X7 support. Let us see what they offer in the free version and also in the paid version which is of $89 / year for 1 website installation.
| Yoast SEO Feature | Yoast Free Version | Yoast Paid Version |
|---|---|---|
| Keyword Optimisation | You are allowed to check 1 keyword or phrase for the page about its optimisation | Multiple keywords optimisation status can be checked |
| Outdated Content | If you are using the free version you would have to check it manually or use the google search console to do that | The smart algorithm of Yoast will do it for you |
| Page Previews | Only for Google SERPS | Google SERPS and All Social Media Channel |
| Readbility | Available in FS Score | Available in FS Score |
| Interlinking Suggestions | You will have apply your brains | Suggestions are provided by Yoast’s Algorithm |
| Breadcrumbs Control | Available | Available |
| Canonical Tags | Available | Available |
| Edits for Robots.txt, htaccess, sitemap updates | Available | Available |
| Content Insights | No | The Paid Version can provide you insights on your content for which keyword it can rank for |
| Redirect Manager | Not Available | Available (Allows you to implement 301 Redirects and even you can set REGEX for the redirects |
| Focus Keyword Export | Not Available | Available |
| 24/7 Support | Not Available (Support available via wordpress plugin support discussion forum on FCFS basis) | Available |
| Ad Free | No | Yes |
| WooCommerce SEO | No | No (Need a separate Extension) |
| Video SEO | No | No (Need a separate Extension) |
| Local SEO | No | No (Need a separate Extension) |
| News SEO | No | No (Need a separate Extension) |
| Schema Implementation | Yes | Yes |
| LSI Keyword Tool Integrated | No | No |
| Track Keyword Ranking | No | No |
| Google Search Console Integration | No | No |
| 1 Click Import From AIOSEO | Yes | Yes |
| SEO Warnings | Yes | Yes |
| SEO Failed Test | No | No |
| Custom Post Type Support | No | Yes |
| Bulk Edit Titles & Descriptions | No | Yes |
| Google Keyword Suggestion | No | No |
| Choose Pillar Posts & Pages | Yes | Yes |
| Google Schema Markup Types | No | Yes (Supports Article, How to and FAQ’s) |
| Open Graph Implementation | Yes but with limitations | Yes |
| Modify Global Metadata | No | Yes |
| Strip Category Base | No | Yes |
| Search Engine Verification Tool | No | Yes (Bing, Baidu, Yandex, Google) |
Yoast SEO Other Plugins
The only thing I don’t like about Yoast SEO is that you have to buy different extensions for different objectives.
- Video SEO: In order to video seo in WordPress using Yoast SEO you have to purchase a separate SEO Extension which Yoast provides named as Video for SEO
- Local SEO: If you are looking to excel in Local SEO for a business serving locally to their customers than you can go for Local SEO Extension
- News SEO: if you are optimising for News website you can opt for News SEO extension
- WooCommerce SEO: I guess Yoast should move this with their premium version as WooCommerce is the largely used e-commerce plugin nowadays. Currently, they are offering is it as a separate extension
You would be thinking that this can be a costly affair if you buy everything separately. Well, Yoast does provide you with an option for going with their complete bundle which is for $199 billed annually excluding VAT in which you save about 40% if you buy everything separate.
They also provide custom bundles according to your requirements which are as follows:
- Video SEO Bundle: Contains Yoast Premium and Yoast Video SEO Extension for $129 excluding VAT/year
- Yoast Local SEO Bundle: Contains Yoast Premium and Yoast Local SEO Extension for $129 excluding VAT/year
- Yoast News Bundle: Contains Yoast Premium and Yoast News SEO Extension for $129 excluding VAT/year
- Yoast WooCommerce Bundle: Contains Yoast Premium and Yoast WooCommerce SEO Extension for $129 excluding VAT / year
All in One SEO
All in One SEO (AIOSEO) is developed by Semper Plugins which started back in January 2007 and have come a long way and as on 16/04/2020 which has 2+ Million active installations for the free version and the latest version is 3.4.2. With continuous improvement and compatibility upgraded to PHP version 7, AIOSEO still needs to ramp its features if I compare to Yoast SEO. The best part with AIOSEO is that you don’t need to pay for the different extension and for the premium version with all the below features are of $79 / year for 1 website. If you are low on budget and can do some optimisation manually then I would say AIOSEO suits best for you.
| AIOSEO Features | AIOSEO Free Version | AIOSEO Paid Version |
|---|---|---|
| Keyword Optimisation | AIO SEO plugin has no such feature where it will ask you to put the focus keyword and check the optimisation | Not Available |
| Outdated Content | Not Available. It does not contain this feature | Not Available |
| Page Previews | Only for Google SERPS | Google SERPS and All Social Media Channel |
| Readbility | Not Available | Not Available |
| Interlinking Suggestions | You will have apply your brains | Not Available |
| Breadcrumbs Control | Not Available | Not Available |
| Canonical Tags | Available | Available |
| Edits for Robots.txt, htaccess, sitemap updates | Available | Available |
| Content Insights | No | Not Available |
| Redirect Manager | Not Available | Not Available |
| Focus Keyword Export | Not Available | Available |
| 24/7 Support | Not Available (Support available via wordpress plugin support discussion forum on FCFS basis) | Available |
| Ad Free | No | Yes |
| WooCommerce SEO | No | Yes Yes (No need of a separate paid extension) |
| Video SEO | No | Yes (No need of a separate paid extension) |
| Local SEO | Yes | Yes (with complete customisation) |
| News SEO | No | Yes (No need of a separate paid extension) |
| LSI Keyword Tool Integrated | No | No |
| Track Keyword Ranking | No | No |
| Google Search Console Integration | No | No |
| 1 Click Import From Yoast SEO | Yes | Yes |
| SEO Warnings | Yes | Yes |
| SEO Failed Test | No | No |
| Custom Post Type Support | Yes | Yes |
| Bulk Edit Titles & Descriptions | No | No |
| Google Keyword Suggestion | No | No |
| Choose Pillar Posts & Pages | No | No |
| Optimise upto 5 Keywords | No | No |
| Google Schema Markup Types | No | No |
| Open Graph Implementation | Yes | Yes (Only for FB and Twitter) |
| Modify Global Meta Data | No | Yes |
| Strip Category Base | No | Yes |
| Search Engine Verfication Tool | Yes | Yes (Supports Bing, Google and Pinterest) |
Rank Math SEO (Digital Wire’s Recommendation)
Rank Math SEO as mentioned on their website is the swiss army knife of SEO for WordPress. launched on November 19, 2018, have made tremendous progress in building their product and scaling it efficiently to such a large community. The plugin is developed by people who are behind building mythemeshop. With more than 200,000 Installations this plugin has turned out to be the game-changer in the SEO plugin industry. There are 2 major reasons for Rank Math beating all the plugins out there which includes the mighty Yoast SEO and AIOSEO. The first reason would be its pricing. As per 16 April, 2020 Rank Math SEO is free and gives complete control over all its features which one would have to pay if he is a Yoast User or AIOSEO user. The second reason would be out-featuring all the WordPress seo plugins in the market. Features provided by AIOSEO and Yoast in their premium version are all included with Rank Math in its free version. Below is the feature table of Rank Math SEO.
| Rank Math SEO Feature | Availability |
|---|---|
| Keyword Optimisation | Yes |
| Outdated Content | Not Available. |
| Page Previews | Yes |
| Readability | Yes |
| Interlinking Suggestions | Yes |
| Breadcrumbs Control | Yes |
| Auto Canonical URLs | Yes |
| Edits for Robots.txt, htaccess, sitemap updates | Yes |
| Content Insights | Yes |
| Redirect Manager | Yes |
| Focus Keyword Export | Yes |
| 24/7 Support | Yes |
| Ad Free | Yes |
| WooCommerce SEO | Yes |
| Video SEO | Coming Soon |
| Local SEO | Yes |
| News SEO | Coming Soon |
| LSI Keyword Tool Integrated | Yes |
| Track Keyword Ranking | Yes |
| Google Search Console Integration | Yes |
| 1 Click Import From Yoast SEO | Yes |
| 1 Click Import From AIOSEO | Yes |
| SEO Warnings | Yes |
| SEO Failed Tests | Yes ( Tells you whether if there are any critical issues on the website) |
| Custom Post Type Support | Yes |
| Bulk Edit of Meta Data | Yes |
| Google Keyword Suggestion | Yes |
| Optimize Upto 5 Keywords | Yes |
| Choose Pillar Posts & Pages | Yes |
| Google Schema Markup Types | Yes (16 Schema Types are supported |
| Open Graph Implementation & preview | Yes (Supports FB, Twitter, Pinterest, Youtube, Soundcloud, LinkedIn, Google+, Tumblr, Myspace for SERPS) |
| Modify Global Meta | Yes |
| Strip Category Base | Yess |
| Search Engine Verification Tools | Yes (Binge, Baidu, Alexa, Yandex, Google, Pinterest, Norton) |
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