Top 10 WordPress plugins to look out for
There are thousands of Plugins in the market that can help you reach the next level in generating SEO friendly content. This can confuse the users who are looking for the right plugins for their website. Here is a list of top 10 wordpress plug-ins that you must try:
- Yoast SEO
Unarguably, one of the most popular SEO plugin available on WordPress, it helps in creation of better content and also optimization of the website. Some of the most popular and commonly used features of Yoast are:
- Page Analysis Tool
- XML Sitemaps Functionality
- Technical WordPress Search Engine Optimization
Yoast make sure you are doing the right thing at all times by helping with the Page Analysis Too. It can easily point out the images without an alt tag or without the primary keyword for the article. The length of the post and that of title and meta description is also checked by Yoast. There are plenty of other intimations as well such as checking keyword density, appearance of keyword in the first paragraph, readability of the post etc.
- W3 Total Cache
The speed of your WordPress website has a direct bearing on the search engine ratings. Google has confirmed that speed is a ranking factor, so it becomes imperative for your website to be lightning quick in response. W3 Total Cache plugin helps in this regard. Top companies like Mashable and AT&T are already taking help from this plugin. Thorough features such as controlling or ‘minification’ of third party Java Scripts and caching of pages, this plugin sure gives your website an excellent start.
- WPtouch Mobile Plugin
While in the past it would not have mattered if your website mobile friendly or not, it makes a vast difference in the present time. Google has also floated an update to make your website more mobile friendly. It is because people are hooked on to their mobile sets more than ever and also because having a mobile friendly site has a beneficial effect on your search engine rankings. Here is where the WPtouch Mobile plugin comes in the picture. It eases this concern by automatically adding elegant mobile theme for visitors that visit your website through mobiles. We can customize the appearance of the blog.
- Google Analytics by MontserInsights
Google Analytics by MontserInsights comes with a huge list of features and is very popular plugin that you must try. It has had approximately 11 million downloads. Some of its features are:
- Simple installation using Google Analytical API
- Ability to use the Universal tracking code
- Internal and outbound link tracking
- Access to interest reports and demographics report
- Access to data metric dashboard within WordPress
The major advantage of Google Analytics by MonsterInsights is that it can easily review the Analytics data from the dashboard of your WordPress. This saves you from navigating between Goggle Analytics and your website time and again. So if you want to save time and review your stats in a more efficient way, this plugin is the way to go.
- Broken Link Checker
With an overload of content, it becomes difficult to manage all of it. This is an area where Broken Link Checker comes into play. As the name tells, this plugin identifies broken link and things such as missing images from your blog. It just checks that everything is in place on your website so you can concentrate on the other important aspects. Some notable features of this plugin include:
- Monitoring of links in pages, posts and comments
- Detection of any link that is inactive
- Provision of an option for links that are broken to appear different.
- Provision of option to stop the search engines from following the links that are broken
This plugin boasts of around 40000 active installs and is worth checking out.
6. Google XML Sitemaps
Google XML Sitemaps helps in autogenerating a sitemap so that all of your content is indexed. Once this plugin is installed, every piece of content that you create is registered on the sitemap and gets indexed automatically. XML sitemaps are specifically generated to help the spiders of the search spiders. Hence, the development of sitemaps helps in efficient crawling. It also helps in placing the web pages under different categories. A sitemap report is very beneficial in monitoring the traffic sources, improvement of your content and generation of more traffic. Also, XML sitemaps helps in tackling content duplication issues.
7. All in One SEO pack
This is an alternative to the Yoast SEO. It offers easy-to-use solutions for many of your SEO relate problems. Simple to use, this plugin comes with a lot of default settings that are often the best ones. XML Sitemap and Google Analytics Support, Automatic generation of Meta Tags, Automatic optimization of titles for all search engines, avoidance of duplicate content, ability to override any setting are some prominent features of the All in One SEO pack.
8. All in One WP Security & Firewall
To get additional security other than one offered by WordPress, look no further than the plugin called All in One WP Security & Firewall. It comes with many security tools like “Stop User Enumeration”, Password strength tool, Detection of other accounts that have an identical display name and log in, etc. It also shows security points score so you can have an overview of the tightness of the security of your website.
9. Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARPP)
This plugin has been designed to keep people longer on your pages and to offer a powerful user experience by lowering the bounce rate. It is a known fact that showing the related posts is a sure-fire way to enhance the page views. This plugin does just that. It helps in displaying all related references such as the media, pages and posts to the users on the current entity. This plugin also offers several templates for related posts.
10. SEO Optimized images
Use of optimized images in website is very important in improving search rankings and to help attract traffic through image search feature. The guidance of SEO Optimized Images plugin helps in dynamically inserting SEO friendly title and alt attributes to each image.
While all the above mentioned plugins might not be meant for you, you can definitely choose the ones that suit your needs and thus better your website.