5 Must-Use Free SEO Plugins for WordPress Sites

Any website that aims to be more visible to its target audience needs SEO. This process, however, can be quite complicated, especially for the average WordPress users. There are so many concepts and metrics to keep track of—not to mention the frequent changes to the practice as a whole. Fortunately, SEO can be easy, thanks to some plugins for SEO for WordPress sites.

Most of these plugins cost money, but there are some that can be used completely free of charge. The question is: with the number of free WordPress plugins available, which ones are the best? How does a site owner decide which plugins to get in the first place?

Here is a compilation of some of the top WordPress plugins offered for free:

1. Yoast SEO

Yoast SEO is one of the best SEO plugins for WordPress, regardless if it is free or paid. It has all the right resources one website might need – from editing post titles and meta descriptions, to creating XML sitemaps. Its content analysis tool is the plugin’s most notable feature, as it allows excellent optimization for each page on your website. It also has the capability to verify Bing Webmaster Tools and Google Search Console.

Here’s a tutorial video to enable the WordPress SEO plugin by Yoast:

Source: Yoast YouTube Channel

2. All in One SEO Pack

Another comprehensive plugin is the All in One SEO Pack. Its core features are highly similar to what Yoast SEO offers. Where it stands out is its claim of providing integration with WordPress eCommerce sites. It is also noted for generating meta tags automatically. With over a million active users to date, it certainly makes the cut as one of the best WordPress plugins out there.

Source: WordPress.org

3. SEO Wizard

“Beginner-friendly” is a good way to describe SEO Wizard. This plugin simplifies many of the complex aspects of SEO and allows site owners to focus more on putting out quality content. Its on-page SEO functions are nifty, as keywords in meta tags are added automatically. Other notable features include auto-linking, redirect management, and robots.txt file editor. It can also create detailed reports on analyses of similar websites.

Source: WordPress.org

4. Broken Link Checker

If there is one thing WordPress sites tend to be full of, it’s links. Both internal and external links are present in just about every page of content you have, and it can get tricky to make sure everything is in proper working order. This is where Broken Link Checker comes in. It checks your entire site for 404 links so you can remove them more easily. It could get resource-heavy, though, so use it when traffic is low.

Here’s a quick tutorial on using the plugin:

Source: WP Learning Lab

5. WP Social SEO Booster

Last on this list is the WP Social SEO Booster. It works flawlessly with other SEO-related plugins like Yoast and All in One SEO Pack. What’s interesting about this tool is its focus on a particular niche: social optimization. It features seamless integration into Google Authorship and a string of optimization functions for Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. These features allow websites to make full use of content in social spaces. Given the huge role social signals play in SEO, a plugin like this is invaluable.

Source: WordPress.org

All these free WordPress plugins are convenient and easy to use. The best part is that there is no need to download every single plugin for your site. Take note of the functions that you would want to use and choose the corresponding tool that does the job. From there, SEO becomes less and less difficult, regardless of your level of expertise in the field.