WordPress sites have a seemingly endless supply of plugins for every website action under the sun. However, there are only a few top WordPress plugins for SEO (search engine optimization) that are worth mentioning—most notably SEOPress and Yoast. When it comes to choosing the best SEO plugin for your WordPress site, we prefer and recommend SEOPress.
The Benefits of SEOPress WordPress Plugin
SEOPress is an all-in-one SEO solution for WordPress. Generally, the features of SEOPress come included and you don’t have to go hunting for that one other plugin that will make everything work together. For marketing efficiency, you can’t beat a one-stop-shop. SEOPress Pro has a lot of integrations and plenty of features that make your job easier. Here are some of our favorite SEOPress features:
- Custom cookie bar – This is not nearly as delicious as it sounds, but it’s still good. You can pick where and how your cookie bar (the pop up that asks for permission to accept or manage tracking/cookies) functions on your site, and it allows you to flexibly configure your users’ cookie bar experience.
- GTM/scripts integration – According to SEOpress.org, you can “insert custom tracking scripts in seconds” making Google Analytics a cinch. Whether you include analytics by default or to wait for user opt-in is configurable in the cookie bar settings.
- HTML in addition to your XML sitemap – the XML sitemap is a must for search engine crawlers, but an HTML sitemap can be helpful for a real, live human being who’s lost on your site and needs to find their way to the page they need.
- Rule sets – You set the rules for defining global titles or meta titles, or you can have SEOPress do it for you.
- Allow schema markup to be assigned based on post type categories.
- Easy 301 redirects – You can set up redirects one at a time or by uploading rules in a CSV. SEOPress supports both permanent 301 redirects and temporary 302 redirects. Whether to pass on GET parameters to the redirected page is an option you’ll appreciate when running a Google campaign.
- Social sharing image selection – There’s a clear image hierarchy for OG (open graph) social images—so when you post on social media, the picture that’s chosen is based on a clear set of rules that can easily be overridden on a case-by-case basis.
- Easy to export and import – It’s simple to export your SEOPress configurations from one site and import them into another. Advanced SEOPress options make it easy to export (if moving from one site to another).
- Switching teams – SEOPress allows migration from Yoast to SEOPress with the push of a button.
SEOPress vs. Yoast
We know if you’re only looking at one option, sometimes the choice isn’t clear. Let’s play the comparison game (just for a moment). Yoast is highly popular as the #1 SEO plugin (according to their own website) for WordPress, but we’ve found SEOPress works better for us at Solid Digital currently. Beyond the benefits that we listed above, it also has a few other notable assets when you dare to compare Yoast vs. SEOPress:
Pricing
If you’re going the free route, zero dollars is zero dollars, but the free version of SEOPress is superior to the free version of Yoast, in our opinion. If you’re going premium or pro, Yoast costs $99/year for Yoast Premium, whereas SEOPress Pro costs only $49/year for a license with unlimited sites and priority support and automatic updates. Additionally, for our clients, we can offer clients our SEOPress license at no additional cost—that’s the beauty of unlimited sites.
Special Features
You want an SEO plugin for WordPress that will make things easier. SEOPress allows for a consolidation of the plugin stack you need for your site. It includes a broken link (Oops! 404!) report so you can zero in and fix the problems—even ones you didn’t know about—without breaking a sweat.
Number of Plugins Needed
SEOPress’ configuration doesn’t usually require extra plugins to manage everything. Think Christmas morning: a new remote control car with no batteries. Doesn’t feel festive or fun or useful. Choose SEOPress instead of Yoast, simply because you won’t have to get more plugins than you want or need. Less is more, because when you have too many plugins, you run the risk of compatibility issues with site or plugin updates, or worse: breaking the site. One example is local business schema—with Yoast you’ll need an extra (paid) plugin to manage that—SEOPress Pro already has it built in.
SEOPress and Elementor
This is the biggest reason we love SEOPress. Our love for Elementor’s drag + drop interface in WordPress (easy for marketing teams to update in house) influenced our ultimate decision—we chose a WordPress SEO Plugin that would play nice. Elementor and SEOPress are quite compatible, and it looks like the relationship will be around for a while.
In the most recent version of SEOPress integration with Elementor, for example, there’s an added capability to duplicate FAQ schema (which tells Google how to categorize and show the entry on the SERPS page) in just one click. It’s also simplified the user interface to make keyword adds easier and faster. Efficiency at its best.
SEOPress = Marketing Goals
Marketing teams have a lot to do. Pick your top SEO plugin for WordPress wisely.
Post-SEO Audit – When you’re trying to keep everything up to date, you could use a helping hand. An SEO audit can feel anxiety-inducing, with an imminent list of action items. SEOPress can help your team quickly and easily detect and fix issues with your SEO. Bonus tip: It’s even better if you can use SEOPress before you build your site, so you’re sure it’s structured in a way that will reach your audience through organic search.
Integrated Google tools – Look forward to using analytics codes without any issues. Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics, and Google Ads can all be integrated. SEOPress has a section for custom tracking and that’s where you can put all your favorite analytics tools, which are particularly nice for e-commerce.
Custom Image Options for social sharing link images –in SEOPress you can add all of your social accounts and it will optimize your content for social sharing, including custom image options with previews of how links will look when shared on a variety of social media platforms.
Maintenance and Upkeep – Someone has to do it. And after you’ve fully redesigned your website, it’s important to have an SEO plugin that helps automate some of that maintenance and upkeep. One less thing for you to manage or oversee. And a better chance that fewer broken links catch you by surprise. Also of note: SEOPress’ dashboard with SEO blog updates to keep you up-to-date on the latest trends and questions around search engine optimization.
Bottom line: In the battle of Yoast vs. SEOPress, SEOPress is clearer, more streamlined, and has more options. The top WordPress SEO plugin choice for us is SEOPress; and seeing it in action being used by many of our clients who also use Elementor with WordPress, if you are looking for some of the options we’ve metioned, we’d recommend it as your top choice, too.
