There are so many SEO plug-ins, extensions and add-ons out there that it can be intimidating to figure out which ones are actually worthwhile. Keeping up with SEO best practices in 2020 is already time- consuming; who has the time to test the plethora of tools promising to make the job easier?
We do! 🙋🙋♂️
So without further ado, here are the most popular plugins, extensions and tools to boost your website SEO and attract more inbound traffic.
WordPress Plugins
Let's start with a few SEO plugins designed specifically for the world's most popular content management system: WordPress.
Yoast SEO
Yoast SEO is the most popular WordPress SEO plugin on the market. It offers full website optimization that can make SEO newbies seem like seasoned pros.
Simply install Yoast SEO to your WordPress site, and you’ll be able to add SEO titles and descriptions to all your content. It can even analyze your existing content and give you suggestions to improve your copy to boost SEO. Yoast SEO automatically creates an XML sitemap for your content to make it easy for search engine crawlers to scan information on your website.
There’s both a free and a premium version of Yoast SEO, so you can choose the package that’s right for your business.
SEMRush
Like Yoast SEO, SEMRush is another plugin designed for WordPress. Not only can it analyze your content and offer suggestions, it can also perform keyword research. You can see which keywords your competitors are ranking for, and SEMRush will give you tips on how to beat them!
MonsterInsights
MonsterInsights is a plugin that brings all the data from Google Search Console right to your WordPress dashboard. See where your website visitors are coming from, what they’re looking at and track your WooCommerce SEO by seeing which products visitors interact with and where you’re losing customers.
All of this data is brought straight to you without any coding or technical knowledge and displayed in an easy-to-understand format.
All in One SEO Pack
As the name suggests, All in One SEO Pack is a comprehensive set of SEO tools for your WordPress website. Unlike its main competitor, Yoast SEO, All in One SEO Pack offers access to more add-ons so users can customize the features they need, making it the more affordable option.
While they’re both great tools, All in One SEO Pack is an alternative to Yoast. You need only one SEO plugin for your WordPress website.
Browser Extensions
Next, let’s look at a few extensions that can be applied directly to your browser to promote simple, easy SEO.
SEO TextOptimizer
SEO TextOptimizer is a free extension for Chrome that tells you what content you should add or remove from your website to make it rank higher on search engines. This is a helpful tool for coming up with new content ideas. Even if you don’t want to download the extension, you can type in your website’s URL for a quick analysis of your content without giving up contact information.
MozBar
MozBar is a free Chrome extension that allows you to look at the SEO metrics of any page on the internet. You can view page and domain authority, compare links, highlight keywords, and expose page elements for a complete SEO audit of any website. All SERP analysis details can be exported to Excel and saved for review later.
Use this extension to boost the SEO of your own page or to see what your competitors are up to. You might be able to use some of their own tactics against them.
BuiltWith
Want to see which plugins, extensions and tools other sites are using? BuiltWith is a free extension that shows you exactly what a website is built with. With the click of a button, you can see which widgets, frameworks, advertising, hosting, analytics, and document standards are used by any website.
This is a great way to discover new technology and find tools to benefit your own site. While it might not benefit SEO directly, it can help you find the most popular SEO tools used by other brands.
Serpstat Plugin
Serpstat is another free extension that can give you detailed SEO analytics right from your web browser. You can get information about keywords, trends, meta tags, page visibility, and online traffic. It’ll also show you the top ten keywords for which your page ranks the highest on Google.
In addition to SEO analysis, Serpstat will shows your page’s load speed. A faster page speed is beneficial to both SEO and user experience.
User-Agent Switcher
Different web browsers have different ways of viewing your site. It’s important to make sure your website looks great for everyone. Not only will it make for a better user experience, it’ll also help to boost your search engine rankings.
User-Agent Switcher is a free extension that can mimic other user-agent strings. In other words, you can see what a person using Firefox sees while you’re using Chrome—all without downloading a new browser. You can also see what your site looks like on iOS or Android mobile devices. Use this information to optimize your website content for more users.
Analytics Tools
Our final recommendations are SEO tools that anyone can use to plan and monitor their SEO strategy and performance.
Google Search Console
Who better to give you SEO advice than the folks who invented it? Google Search Console is a free tool that lets website owners monitor and analyze their Google search results. If Google ever has trouble crawling your site, you’ll get an alert along with helpful tips to fix the issue.
You can also see which keywords your website is ranking for and its average rank. Use this data to optimize your existing content or to come up with ideas for new content.
Google Keyword Planner
Do you ever have trouble coming up with keywords? Google Keyword Planner is a free tool that gives you access to the largest database of keyword insights. Use it to see how many people search for specific keywords, the number of results shown, and the difficulty of ranking for those keywords.
Use Google Keyword Planner to find high-volume keywords with advertiser interest along with less popular keywords with which you can easily outrank most other sites.
💡Pro tip: While Google's Keyword Planner is free, you do have to create an AdWords account and an ad campaign in order to access this tool. Don't worry: you don't have to publish or spend money with the ad campaign; you simply have to create one.
Increase Your Website’s Visibility with SEO
These tools are good ones to help your SEO efforts. However, if you're interested in some real-life SEO assistance, we're here for you!
We offer strategic SEO services customized to fit your unique goals. Simply get in touch through the contact us link at the bottom of the page or submitting your question through the "Get a Quote" button at the top of the page. We can't wait to help.
Did we miss one of your favorite tools? Let us know in the comments! 👇
