WordPress SEO plugins makes on-page optimization a bit less complicated. Finding good ones though can be tedious, so here's a list of plugins no money can buy

1. iblo gzo ne .co m http://www.iblo gzo ne.co m/2013/02/best-wo rdpress-seo -plugins-fo r-2013.html
The Best WordPress SEO Plugins For 2013
Having recently written some of the best SEO practices f or 2013, it is time
to take a look at some SEO plugins that can help us make our lives a bit
easier when it comes to search engine optimization. Hands down, and to
get started, one of the best choices to work with your blog or website, is
by using the WordPress CMS platf orm. WordPress of f ers the f lexibility
and ease of use that I have yet to see beaten.
Why is WordPress Good f or SEO?
WordPress is a great platform and takes care of about 80 – 90% of
the mechanics of SEO according to Matt Cutts (Google Spam Chief). While this is true, it does
not mean that you can’t improve it further and this is where the SEO plugins come into play.
They help your site go that extra mile for those added “technical” optimizations.
Will t hese SEO plugins t ake me t o # 1?
SEO plugins f or WordPress serve only to help you get about the “technical” stuf f and help search
engines better understand what your site is about. It also allows f or semi-automation of certain tasks,
which otherwise would be virtually impossible or dif f icult to perf orm. However, please be inf ormed that
making use of these plugins will NOT guarantee you T OP rankings. T hey will however help you achieve
better placements on SERs (search engine results), in comparison to those who do not.
T here are so many “inf ormation” out there that can steer you away f rom believing that there is an easy
route to #1. T his is not true. T here are however some “quick SEO wins” that you can implement right
now, to make things move a bit f aster.
Finally, a quick reminder, WordPress plugins are great and makes our lives a lot easier, specially f or the
non tech savvy like me. I know it does help me a great deal, however, you should know that there is a
downside to “over using” plugins, so you may want to use check your WordPress perf ormance
(recommended read) once in a while to avoid causing you some problems with speed loading issues and
your web hosting.
So let’s go to it! T his post is somewhat long (really long), so perhaps you may want to bookmark it, just
in case.
The Best SEO Plugins For WordPress
T here are many SEO plugins available out there (f ree and paid), and you should always do some
research f or more inf ormation. T he ones that I will be recommending here are all f rom credible sources
(credible developers and on the WP repository), 100% free and tested. I use them either here, on my
other websites and clients sites.
So, let’s recap a bit what the best SEO practices dictates f or on-page optimization (summarized version).
Content Optimization (Titles, Descriptions, Alternate Tags)
Page Speed (and uptime)
Usability (UI and UX)
Other (Schema – Microdata, Authorship, Social Engagement)

2. With that said, here are some plugins to address each of those situations mentioned above:
Cont ent Opt imizat ion Plugins
WP SEO by Yoast – For the second consecutive year, this is my SEO plugin of choice. I’ve said it bef ore,
but I’ll say it again, Joost de Valk (developer) created an all-in-one plugin that is simply f antastic. It
addresses so many things that it will take me a whole post in its entirety, just to go through each of the
f eatures that this plugin of f ers. Really, this is not your ordinary plugin. Just see the f eatures it of f ers,
and you’ll know what I mean. Oh, did I mention that it is f ree!
In any event, this is one of the best reasons I recommend this plugin.
It helps you write better content
Using the snippet preview you can see a rendering of what your post or page will look like in
the search results, whether your title is too long or too short and your meta description makes
sense in the context of a search result. This way the plugin will help you not only increase
rankings but also increase the click through for organic search results.
Bef ore you install this plugin though, you should know that with so many f eatures, comes the need to
understand how it works and what each of the f unctionalities can do f or you. Conf igure it wrong and
unpleasant things may happen. I theref ore highly recommend you going through the “T he Def initive Guide
To Higher Rankings For WordPress Sites” written by Joost. Everything you need to know on how to use
the plugin is there.
All-In-One SEO (AIO) – While WP SEO is my new f avorite, AIO is the one that I started using f irst and
have been loyal to it f or sites that I have it installed. T he main dif f erence between these two plugins is
simplicity. I f ind AIO to be simpler to conf igure, in comparison to that of Yoast.
Don’t get me wrong, this is a very good plugin (downloaded over 13 million times and counting), and while
simple is powerf ul (perhaps a better choice f or the novice – you can later upgrade to WP SEO if you
want). T he only thing is that if you choose to go this route, I also recommend installing other plugins to
complement with it (not needed on WP SEO). See below f or more inf o.

3. Page Speed Plugins
Google and other search engines are obsessed with speed. A f aster internet means better user
experience. According to several reports that are widely available on the internet, user no longer have the
patience to wait f or a long time f or a page to render. Mine you that long here means “seconds”, and any
site that takes more than 10 seconds (that’s a lot already) to load is nearing the borderline of loosing
traf f ic. T hese plugins and some more, will help you tame that “need f or speed” issue. I highly recommend
using some or a combination of them, specially if you are on a shared hosting environment. Go this way
f irst bef ore going to the expensive route. T hey really help a great deal.
WP Super Cache / W3Total Cache – T hese plugins are highly recommended as they reduce page
speed load time by serving cached version of your f iles. Essentially, these plugins generates static html
f iles f rom your dynamic WordPress blog. Af ter a html f ile is generated your webserver will serve those
f ile instead of processing the comparatively heavier and more expensive WordPress PHP scripts. T his
improves the user experience (UX) of your site by increasing server perf ormance, reducing the download
times. Better UX, good f or SEO.
Which one would you choose? Depends, test one or another and see f or yourself . Some plugins can be
incompatible with one or the other.
jsDelivr Free Public CDN – JsDelivr (sponsored by MaxCDN), is a web service f or webmasters and
developers. Almost none of the plugin developers allows direct linking to hosted versions of their
plugins on their server because they cant handle such traf f ic. So the users always have to download the
plugins and host them on their own servers.
What jsDelivr of f ers is the possibility to the developers to of f er direct links f or the f iles of their plugins
without worrying about bandwidth and high server load, and to users the ability to of f load their websites
f rom the javascript/css/images that the plugins use, ef f ectively making them a lot f aster.
CloudFlare / Incapsula – T hese f ree CDN services are awesome, and the plugins ensures that your
WordPress website runs optimally when using either one of those services. Make use of them if you are
really having problems with your page speed loading time. If you are on a shared hosting environment, I
highly recommend using them. Read more about CloudFlare and Incapsula, here and here. Here are some
videos to see how to install Incapsula and CloudFlare.
WPSmush.it – A handy little plugin that compresses your images to make they are served f aster. Good if
your site is image heavy or if you use plenty of images. Nothing to do, just install and activate. If you
already have lots of images, you may want to run the “bulk compress now” f eature. It could take a long
time though.
Web Hosting – Yeah, makes sense, does it not? What else can I say. If your site is “not available”, what
will users see? If users don’t see it, most likely, search engine bots will not either, so there you have it.
User Experience (UI, UX, Mobile)
With the ever growing amount of users using their smartphones, mobile devices, etc., it is important to
have now more than ever to ensure that your site is also compatible with these type of devices.

4. Obviously, your site should be rendering well on dif f erent type of web browsers on desktop environment.
But this section will deal with how to make your site mobile compatible.
T here are some ways you can do that. Google recommends to Building Mobile-Optimized Websites, by
using responsive web design. Another way is to make use of WordPress plugins that works as a “cross-
platf orm” f or your site.
UppSite – One of the best options f or you to make your site mobile and deliver an outstanding user
experience to your audience. More than a responsive theme, UppSite’s plugin seamlessly turns your
existing WordPress site into an HT ML5 app that acts as a mobile website on any mobile browser. It also
let’s you publish native apps f or iPhone, iPad, Android and Windows Phone on the respective app stores.
You can install my Android app f rom Google Play.
You benef it f rom the comprehensive mobile reach UppSite provides, as well as f rom the native user
experience the plugin delivers that is tailored to the mobile device used. T his means easier navigation,
f aster page loading and better engagement with your content, which signif icantly improve the UX and
translate into better SEO. What is great about UppSite is that it works with any theme.
Here’s some screenshots on how my site looks like on an iOS and Android device. Clean and perf ectly
navigable.
You keep operating your site as is and the plugin automatically takes care of all the rest. You can get
started f or f ree and upgrade your account if you want more f eatures, such as advanced customization
and native apps.
WP Touch – Another good alternative to make your site mobile compatible. WPtouch automatically
transf orms your WordPress website f or mobile devices, complete with ajax loading articles and smooth
ef f ects when viewed f rom popular mobile web browsing devices.
Responsive Web Design
T here are many WordPress responsive themes now available f or f ree. While these are not plugins, I am
putting it here anyway, just f or you to know that it is important to improve users experience, specially if
you are just in the beginning.
Here are some you can look at. Responsive themes are great because they “suppose” to adjust itself
based on the users size of the screen. Note that I mention “suppose”, because I have tested some
themes but they don’t actually perf orm well. A quick test is to install a theme on a dummy site, put some
stuf f in there and “resize” the browser. See how it works.
See example below of my clients new non-f or-prof it website. Note how it f its nicely when the screen is
resized. Look at the menu f or example. It changes f rom f ull screen to, tablet view and smartphone view. In
case you are wondering the theme I used here is the Pytheas responsive WordPress theme (its f ree and
plenty of choices – just read the instructions caref ully).

5. Ot her SEO plugins
Schema Creator – T his is an awesome plugin. Provided by the creators of “Google analytics
conf iguration tool” and “Raven IM tools”, this Schema creator plugin is totally f ree to use. Cool!
Structured data is a way f or search engine machines to make sense of content in your HT ML. Google
and other search engines created a structured data standard called schema.org. If you’re like me, f inding

6. schema.org may be a little dif f icult to grasp at f irst. T his plugin helps you quickly build and get started
with schema.org microdata.
Alternatively, you can use the Data Highlighter in your webmaster tool f or teaching Google about the
pattern of event-related data on your website.
Google Authorship – Google authorship is something you should not take f or granted. If you are using
Google plus and want to easily control your Google Authorship, this plugin works f or single user
WordPress sites and multi-author sites. Each user has a new f ield to store their Google Prof ile URL,
then on each page and post the plugin will create the required link in the HT ML Head. Just don’t f orget to
link your Google+ prof ile back to your site. Here’s also an alternative way to set up your authorship.
Google XML Sitemap / Image Sitemap / Video Sitemap
XML Sitemaps are a way to tell Google, Bing and other search engines about web pages, images and
video content on your site that they may otherwise not discover. T hese plugins will generate a sitemap
f or your WordPress blog with all the URLs that are attached to your blog posts and WordPress pages.
Google XML Sitemaps
Google XML Sitemap f or Images
Google XML Sitemap f or Mobile
Google XML Sitemap f or Videos
Related Posts plugins
T hese type of plugins are responsible f or showing your visitors more related stuf f while on your posts.
T he objective is to of f er them more related posts, based n what they are interested in. T heoretically, if
they landed on your page about SEO, it is more than logical that they could be interested in other stuf f
you have about the same topic. Related plugins does that, it shows them more. Here are the ones I
recommend:
nRelate (several options)
LinkWithin (head over to their homepage, type in your URL and download the special plugin
generated f or your site)
Better WP Security – Yeah, you may be asking, what’s WordPress security got to do with SEO? Here’s
a quick answer – If your site gets hacked, it will most like be tagged as “unsaf e” on Google’s Advisory
list. If that happens, say bye, bye to rankings. Plus, its your site, and are you not interested in keeping it
saf e?
Social Engagement
Google and other search engines are taking into consideration signals f rom social channels. T he more
you get you get your brand and posts out there, the better. Also, building relationship and interacting with
like minded people is of utmost importance. T his is all good, but your do have to get f ound and make it
easy f or your user to share your stuf f on the sphere. T his is where Social plugins come into play.
Digg Digg
Share Bar
Shareaholic SexyBookmarks
by +DiTesco is a Business Consultant, an Online Entrepreneur and f ounder of iBlogzone. iBlogzone’s
main objective is to help you achieve success in your online ventures. iBlogzone does this by providing
internet users the necessary resources and tools to help you build a prof itable home based business.