Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is one of the most important tools used by business owners and marketers alike to increase sales, boost visibility, and overall increase brand awareness.
SEO traffic differs from traditional ads and marketing because it’s considered organic, which is known to hold more weight with Google’s complex algorithm.
There are a variety of plugins available that you can use to boost your SEO ranking. Because there are so many subsections of SEO, it’s no wonder that companies are eagerly trying to develop more streamlined tools that are able to do more for the average user.
MonsterInsights
Once you have a grasp on your keyword and start publishing content, now it’s time to start analyzing and making changes. MonsterInsights is an easy to use tool that helps you track all of your SEO data in one place.
MonsterInsights connects seamlessly with Google Analytics to give you concrete results you can use to develop your SEO. You’ll be able to track data such as:
- View your top keywords
- View Outbound links
- Monitor website traffic
- Rank content by views
(Monster Insights Overview: https://www.monsterinsights.com/your-ultimate-guide-to-monsterinsights-dashboard-reports/)
You can also use this plugin to perform A/B testing on your content and keywords. Experimentation with data is the key to success, and this program gives you that much-needed access.
Google Keyword Planner
In order to boost your SEO rank, you first need to track down the keywords you’re going to use on your website and featured in your content. Google’s official Keyword Planner is designed to help you find words and phrases based on your niche.
Google Keyword Planner incorporates with Adwords advertising, but the info contained in this system is vital to any business owner or marketer who hopes to master SEO.
You’ll be able to find words based on or similar to your search query. Beyond the initial search, it’s possible to see the two deciding factors you’ll need to know before you choose keywords. The two factors are competition and search volume.
You can view these factors in the image below.
(Google Keyword Plan – Competition/Volume: https://moz.com/ugc/5-reasons-why-im-loving-the-new-google-keyword-planner)
Search volume, as the name implies, is the volume of searches for that word or phrase over a preselected period of time. You can also view the competition, which is how many people are currently ranking high with that word or phrase. Ideally, you want to choose words with a high search volume and low competition.
SEMrush
SEMrush is a plugin that you can use as both a research tool and as a way to check your own SEO usage.
As a research tool, SEMrush allows you to check the SEO insights on competitor pages. This is beneficial because you’ll learn what kinds of keywords people in your niche use, and how well they rank compared to the words you would like to use.
When you’re not digging into the competition, you can use this plugin as a way to help monitor your backlinks and check your own insights, including how well some of your articles are ranking based on your keywords.
Yoast SEO
As you’re writing your blog content and trying to rank your landing pages, it helps to have an idea of how your pages look in the eyes of Google and your readers. Yoast SEO is a plugin solution that comes with a slew of features, including the ability to write better content by using an easy to follow readability and SEO checklist.
You can go through and follow the advice on each of the checklists and watch your results change in real time. There are easy red, yellow, and green lights to let you know how well your content looks. The goal is to get double green lights, as this is the best ranking possible. The Yoast SEO plugin is intuitive and easy to use. Below, you can see how easy it is to create a keyword and check your status of the word in the post.
(Yoast SEO Keyword Sample Page: https://wordpress.stackexchange.com/questions/276976/with-the-yoast-seo-plugin-is-it-possible-to-make-the-meta-description-a-require/277108)
There are also tools with this plugin that give you access to meta tags and descriptions, which can help boost your rank and domain authority. Combine all of this with the ability to check for double links and put down breadcrumbs for the crawler, and it becomes obvious why Yoast SEO is one of the most downloaded plugins on WordPress.
Broken Link Checker
As you begin to rack up content on your website, you’re going to start amassing large amounts of links and images combined throughout your blog.
Without a doubt, there’s going to come a time when your links or images get removed, taken down by the original creator, or simply malfunction. When this happens, your SEO ranking could take a hit.
Luckily, the Broken Link Checker plugin is designed to help you resolve this problem. The plugin scans all of your pages and looks for broken links and images that are not functioning properly. You can use this plugin to correct the image or hyperlink on the fly or erase it to help maintain your rank.
Rel NoFollow Checkbox
If you’re trying to build up your site’s authority through SEO, you should consider the way you list external links to your page. The key is to add a nofollow attribute to the link, otherwise, some of your website authority may end up getting transferred to the linked website.
When you add links to your site via WordPress, the Rel NoFollow Checkbox plugin adds a small checkbox next to where you insert the link.
You don’t always have to put a nofollow attribute on your external links. However, it doesn’t hurt to consider whether or not the site you’re linking to is worth the authority you’ll sacrifice by unchecking the box. As you build relationships with other websites, this is an excellent leverage tool to help gain authority from people using your links.
Conclusion
As you develop your website and build upon the SEO you already have, you’ll soon discover that ranking high on Google can turn your website into a profit machine.
If you use these 6 plugins reasonably, you have everything you need to create new keywords, implement them on your website, check your competitors, track your progress in real time, and fix expired links and images as they expire.
SEO is a slow burn and it’s probably going to take some time before you’re ranking high on the first page of Google — but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. Keep publishing content, optimizing your keywords, and engaging with your audience and before you know it you’ll have an excellent popular website in your niche.