Do you know if your WordPress website is search engine friendly?

If you aren’t sure, it might be time to reevaluate your search engine optimization situation. Even if you have already taken some actions to ensure you are including keywords, there are still some improvements you can make to ensure that your website is optimized for the search engines. Because search engines are the main source of traffic for most websites, even a small improvement can make a big difference in your bottom line.

One great way to do this is with plugins for your WordPress site. According to WPBeginner, a plugin is the “piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They make it easy for users to add features to their website without knowing a single line of code.”

Most plugins are even free so there’s no excuse not to add them to your website. However, with thousands of SEO plugins for WordPress, it can be difficult to choose which one is right for your website. Depending on your goals, there are different plugins like Toast or an XML sitemap to help you achieve your desired outcomes.

Here are the top five WordPress plugins that can help you change your website into a force to be governed with!

Yoast SEO

Yoast SEO offers both a free version and a premium version and it is one of the most popular plugins for optimization on WordPress. With over 2,000 reviews, it has an average of 4 out of 5 stars.

The free tool offers a Google preview and one keyword. However, it also has some incredible features like the readability check, which analyzes the content based on the Flesch Reading Ease score. It also scans the content to ensure that there is no duplicate content and it takes care of the technical aspects like robots.txt and permalink URLs.

The premium version has some additional features that can help improve your rankings like the content insight. It will show you the phrases or words you use the most in your content to help you see if they are matched with your chosen keywords. It also adds a redirect manager so you don’t lose any visitors on a 404 Not Found Page, consequently preventing any drawbacks from Google.

This helps improve your basic optimization because it scans your page to make sure your meta descriptions and tags, the content length, and even the images are up to par for your primary keywords.

It highlights what is great about your content and if there is anything you need to fix.

W3 Total Cache

W3 Total Cache is a plugin that helps you improve the speed of your website and the user experience. Because Google shows that site speed is considered when they are ranking sites, this is an absolute must.

It will improve your SEO by reducing download time and improving your website’s performance. This will help your site in the rankings, especially by improving your site to be more mobile-friendly and adding a 10x improvement in site performance. Also, by reducing the age load time, visitors will be more likely to spend more time on your site and visit more pages, increasing your rankings.

Redirection

Redirection is one of the most popular free plugins for WordPress redirect tools. This is also a 4 star plugin that it helps manage the 404 error tracking and the 301 redirections. By offering advanced tools, you can keep track of the broken links and orphan pages, or a page where the user is not directed where to go next.

The installation is easy and straightforward and most of that redirection is automatic. There are no performance issues to worry about with this plugin because it functions like a WordPress permalink.

It is much easier to use than .htaccess since most of the changes are automatic when the URL changes. It even handles the manual redirections more easily while providing the benefit of keeping track of any 404 errors.

WP AMPflier

It’s no secret that mobile has started to take over as the primary source to access the internet, even over the desktop. Google rewards a mobile optimized site that is capable of changing the format of the site according to the device it is being used on. It allows your audience to engage with the content easily, even on smaller screens.

AMP for WP is a highly rated plugin (4.5 out of 5 stars!) that is key for optimizing your WordPress site for mobile visitors. It’s an open source software that takes a minimalist approach so you don’t need to keep changing it on your website.

Once you see the /?amp at the end of your URL, your website has enabled AMP. It also has many customization options and analytics. The support team is also really passionate about who is using their products, ensuring that they answer your questions and help you solve any problems.

Rich Plugins Google Reviews

Rich Plugins is one of the best WordPress plugins to help you display your Google Reviews on your website.

Google reviews are vital to improving your SEO rankings with Google. Not only do they help improve your website’s visibility to Google, but it also provides testimonials for your potential customers.

Customer testimonials can be an incredible influential factor on potential customers because it provides an unbiased third party review, which the potential customer is much more likely to believe. Particularly in our day and age, reviews are important for the viewer before buying. One study found that 88% of customers will consult reviews before making a purchase and that 63% of consumers would be more likely to purchase from a site with reviews from previous customers.

Because Google seeks to provide the most relevant and helpful results for the user’s search, Google looks not just for what your business is about but how others perceive it. The average customer rating provides proof for your customers and helps with your rankings.

Rich Plugins offers a free plugin as well as a paid business and bundle option. The free version allows you to add up to 5 Google reviews and offers free support. The business option adds the features like Google Rich Snippets, more than 5 reviews, themes like a slider, badge, or list, and even short code support. The business plugin is great for the more advanced user.

Conclusion

Adding any of the above to your WordPress site can tremendously affect your Google rankings and SEO strength. It can be tempting to add every plugin available, but that can bog your website down. To prevent that, begin with our top 5 plugins described above.

Author Bio:

Joel House helps small to medium businesses grow their revenues through increased search traffic and SEO Rankings.  As the owner of Australia’s highest ranking SEO Agency, he has a burning desire to help small businesses with SEO that actually works. When he isn’t helping small businesses grow, he is furiously reading to stay on the cutting edge.