14 Best WordPress SEO Plugins in 2019

WordPress SEO plugins will help you automatically add meta tags, load pages faster, correct redirection mistakes, optimize images, etc. Free and premium versions of the most popular WordPress plugins for SEO in 2019 are listed down below.

Why do you need WordPress SEO plugins?

SEO of your WordPress website can be partially or completely improved with plugins. There are also similar solutions for other CMSs, like OpenCart and Joomla. SEO plugins will help you to:

• Create XML sitemaps;
• Automatically transliterate and create URL aliases;
• Create AMPs;
• Set up server-side redirects correctly;
• Add title, description, keywords meta tags;
• Optimize image names and sizes;
• Use cache to load your website faster;
• Add the nofollow attribute to the external links to not lose any of the link juice.

Useful WordPress SEO plugins 2019

Your choice of plugins depends on which WordPress version your website is built on, its load time, the number of media files and other parameters you want to optimize. You can use free versions or premium ones, with a wider range of features.

Complex SEO plugins for Wordpress in 2019

Yoast SEO (WordPress SEO by Yoast) — comprehensive solution developed on the basis of multiple plugins.

Yoast SEO plugin:


This plugin has been installed more than 5 million times and translated into 40 languages.

Free features:

• Creating XML sitemaps;
• Setting canonical URLs to prevent duplicate content;
• Title and meta description templating;
• Tools to write SEO-friendly texts;
• Snippet preview;
• Integration with Google Analytics.

Premium features:

• The News SEO, Video SEO, Local SEO, and WooCommerce SEO extensions;
• 1-year free access to tech support;
• Tools to control the keyphrases, optimization for synonyms and related key phrases;
• Automated internal linking suggestions;
• Social media preview: check what your page will look like when you share it.

All in One SEO Pack — another popular multifunctional WordPress plugin for SEO.

This plugin has been translated into 57 different languages and installed more than 2 million times.

All in One SEO Pack:



Free features:

• XML sitemaps;
• Google AMP support;
• Open Graph protocol support: lets you decide what information to display when someone shares your page on social media;
• Built-in API so that you can use other plugins to extend your site's functionality;
• Automatically notifies search engines about changes to your site;
• SEO Integration for e-Commerce websites;
• Automated title optimization;
• Automated meta tag generation.

Premium features:

• Advanced support for WooCommerce;
• SEO of the categories and tags;
• A Video SEO module;
• Access to the Premium support forums and knowledge center.

The SEO Framework — another plugin available in free or premium versions.

This one has been installed more than 90 thousands times and translated into 16 languages.

The SEO Framework:



Free features:

• Breadcrumbs for Google — a trail of links, starting with the main page, followed by subcategories and the current page;
• Creating XML sitemaps and automatically notifying search engines about the changes to your website;
• Automated title and description generation in accordance with the Google SEO guidelines;
• Automated support of the Open Graph protocol for improved social sharing;
• Automated generation of canonical URLs to prevent duplicate content;
• Empty categories are not indexed, etc.

Premium features:

• Number of the sites that can be connected at the same time — doubled;
• Access to premium extensions;
• API access.

Read also: The 10 most important SEO strategies for your WordPress blog in 2019

Plugins for specific SEO tasks in Wordpress in 2019

W3 Total Cache

The plugin that reduces website load time via features like caching:

• Improves search engine result page rankings, especially for mobile-friendly websites and sites that use SSL;
• Helps to load previously viewed pages almost instantly via browser caching;
• Increases website performance;
• Reduces page load time;
• Compresses HTML, CSS, JavaScript, etc.;
• Supports AMPs;
• CDN.

Redirection

One of the most popular WordPress plugins (translated into 15 languages, installed more than a million times). It'll help you:

• Track and prevent 404 errors;
• Improve your site ranking;
• Create any type and number of redirects;
• Redirection is compatible with PHP from 5.4 and upwards.

Google XML Sitemaps

The plugin that's supposed to create special XML sitemaps which will help search engines index your site better:

• It has been installed more than two million times;
• Translated into 23 languages;
• Compatible with all kinds of WordPress generated pages from 3.3 upwards.

AMP on WordPress

Adds Accelerated Mobile Pages functionality to your site, creating its AMP version, and making it rank higher in the SERPs on mobile devices. Premium features:

• Automatically converts contact forms;
• Schema.org support;
• Google tag manager support;
• Advanced WooCommerce support;
• Analyzing user's data via Google Analytics;
• Managing of multilingual sites, etc.

Cloudflare

The plugin that integrates your site with a cloud network platform of the same name. This plugin hasn’t been tested with the latest 3 major releases of WordPress. It may no longer be maintained or supported and may have compatibility issues when used with more recent versions of WordPress. To install the plugin, you have to create an account on cloudflare.com.

This plugin offers a CDN, DDoS protection, and allows your site to load faster.

Smush Image Compression and Optimization

Resize, optimize, optimise and compress all of your images:

• Lossless Compression – Strip unused data without affecting image quality;
• Lazy Loader – Defer offscreen images with the flip of a switch;
• Bulk Smush – Optimize up to 50 images with one click;
• Image Resizing – Set a max width and height and large images will scale down as they are being compressed;
• Incorrect Size Image Detection – Quickly locate images that are slowing down your site;
• Directory Smush – Optimize images even if they are not located in the media library;
• Automated Optimization – Asynchronously auto-smush your attachments for super fast compression on upload;
• Unlimited & Free – Optimize all of your images up to 5MB in size forever (no daily, monthly, or annual caps);
• Gutenberg Block Integration – View all Smush stats directly in image blocks;
• Multisite Compatible – Both global and individual Multisite settings;
• Process All Your Files – Smush will process PNG, JPEG and GIF files for optimum results;
• Super Servers – Smush images with no slowdown using WPMU DEV’s fast, reliable Smush API.

MetaSlider

A popular tool for creating SEO-optimized slideshows:

• More than one million websites use this plugin;
• Compatible with PHP 5.2 and upwards;
• Includes drag and drop slide reordering;
• Supports caption, link, title text, alt text;
• Offers multiple slideshow types and themes.

Media File Renamer (Auto Rename)

This WordPress plugin that automatically renames media files for better SEO. This is an automatic renamer based on the Media title. When files are renamed, the references to it are also updated (posts, pages, custom types, and their metadata). If you want to lock or unlock the renaming process, click on a corresponding icon. Pro Version:

• Spider Blocker will block the most common bots that slow down your server:
• Only works with Apache server and mod_rewrite enabled;
• Compatible with WordPress 4.0 and upwards;
• The plugin uses Apache.htaccess file.

Nofollow for external link

This plugin hasn’t been tested with the latest 3 major releases of WordPress. It may no longer be maintained or supported and may have compatibility issues when used with more recent versions of WordPress.) — a simple WordPress SEO plugin that automatically inserts the Nofollow attribute into all external links:

• With this plugin, your site won't transfer any of the link juice to external links;
• You can set a list of exceptions so that the plugin doesn't add rel=nofollow and crawlers can access those sites;
• External links will open in a new window so that users remain on your website.

Lazy load by WP Rocket

A plugin that uses lazy loading to improve the loading time.

• This plugin displays images, thumbnails, and/or iframes on a page only when they are visible to the user, thus improving the loading time of the visible part of a page;
• Compatible with WordPress 4.7 and upwards;
• Compatible with PHP 4.6 upwards.

Wp-rocket.me is a paid version of this plugin that offers premium features for improving the performance of your site, such as page caching, CDN, Google fonts optimization, etc.:

Summary — Wordpress SEO plugins 2019:

• SEO plugins are effective tools which help you optimize your WordPress site and avoid any possible SEO mistakes;
• Plugins listed all have free versions, so you can download and test them for free;
• When installing plugins/extensions, check the already existing plugins, your WordPress and PHP versions, and, sometimes, the resource server, to avoid any potential conflicts.

Read also:

→ Redirects: 301, 302, 307 | How-To 301 guide
→ Essential on-site SEO factors