Looking for the top SEO WordPress plugins to enhance your website? Look no further than Matt Diggity’s video where he recommends essential plugins for setting up your SEO game. From well-known plugins like Rank Math, which covers various optimization tasks, to lesser-known ones like Pretty Links for link cloaking, Matt covers a range of plugins that will surprise you. And he doesn’t stop at just SEO plugins; he also discusses security plugins like Word Fence and backup plugins like Manage WP to keep your website safe. So stick around to the end of the video to discover the last plugin that has saved Matt countless times.
In this video, Matt Diggity shares his perfect WordPress SEO plugin setup, starting with plugins voted highly in a poll and then delving into more obscure but essential ones. He emphasizes the importance of on-site SEO and how plugins act as the superchargers to your website’s performance. However, Matt also cautions against installing too many plugins as it can slow down your site. So be selective with the plugins you install, and let Matt guide you through the essential ones that will take your website’s SEO to new heights.
Rank Math
Rank Math is an essential SEO WordPress plugin that covers various optimization tasks and offers a range of features to enhance your website’s performance. One of its notable features is the schema generator, which allows you to easily create schema markup for your web pages. Schema markup provides structured data to search engines, helping them understand your content better and improving your chances of appearing in rich results.
Another feature of Rank Math is its XML sitemap generation. XML sitemaps are vital for SEO as they help search engines crawl and index your website effectively. With Rank Math, you can automatically generate XML sitemaps without the need for any additional plugins or manual coding.
Rank Math also offers an intuitive interface that allows you to adjust and optimize your titles and descriptions for each page or post. Additionally, you can bulk edit these elements, which is particularly useful if you have a large website with multiple contributors. Overall, Rank Math is a highly recommended plugin that provides comprehensive SEO optimization capabilities for your WordPress site.
Elementor
Elementor is a powerful page builder plugin that allows you to customize and design beautiful web pages without any coding knowledge. With its drag-and-drop editor, you can easily arrange elements, customize fonts, add images, and create tables. Elementor offers a wide range of customization options, giving you the flexibility to create unique and visually appealing designs.
One of the standout features of Elementor is its responsiveness. Any content you create with Elementor automatically adjusts to different screen sizes, ensuring your website looks great on desktops, tablets, and mobile devices. This is essential for providing a positive user experience, as Google prioritizes mobile-friendly websites in its search results.
While Elementor does add some additional code to your website, it is considered one of the fastest page builder plugins available. Its performance optimizations and caching capabilities help mitigate any potential slowdown, making it an excellent choice for creating dynamic and engaging web pages.
Auto Optimize
Auto Optimize is a free plugin that optimizes your website’s code for faster loading times. When a webpage loads, there is a significant amount of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript code that needs to be processed. Auto Optimize, as the name suggests, automatically optimizes this code to improve performance.
One of Auto Optimize’s key features is its ability to bundle and reorder JavaScript and CSS files. By combining multiple scripts into one file and removing unnecessary code, Auto Optimize reduces the number of server requests, leading to faster page load times.
Auto Optimize also supports lazy loading for images. Lazy loading means that images only load when they are visible on the user’s screen. This feature saves bandwidth and improves loading speed, especially for websites with many images.
Overall, Auto Optimize is a valuable plugin for optimizing your website’s code and improving its performance. And the best part? It’s free to use!
WP Rocket
If you’re looking for a plugin to significantly boost your website’s speed, WP Rocket is a top choice. While WP Rocket is a paid plugin, its caching and optimization features make it well worth the investment.
Caching is a technique where web pages and their assets are stored temporarily on the user’s device or a server, allowing for faster loading times on subsequent visits. WP Rocket automatically enables server and browser caching and optimizes your website’s code to reduce the time it takes to load.
Furthermore, WP Rocket pre-loads web pages, images, and scripts, improving the overall loading speed and providing a seamless user experience. With this plugin, your website visitors won’t have to wait long for your content to appear, increasing user satisfaction and potentially lowering bounce rates.
WP Rocket also offers additional features such as image lazy loading, database optimization, and minification of files. These optimizations further contribute to faster loading times and improved performance.
If speed is a priority for your website, consider investing in WP Rocket for optimal caching and optimization capabilities.
EWWW Image Optimizer
Images play a crucial role in website design, but they can also contribute to slower loading times if they are not optimized properly. That’s where the EWWW Image Optimizer plugin comes in.
EWWW Image Optimizer automatically resizes and optimizes your images, reducing their file size without sacrificing quality. By optimizing images, you can significantly improve your website’s loading speed, which is essential for both user experience and search engine rankings.
This plugin also offers various image optimization settings, giving you control over the level of compression applied to your images. You can also choose to convert your images to more efficient file formats to further reduce file sizes.
With EWWW Image Optimizer, you can ensure that your website’s images are optimized for fast loading, providing a seamless user experience while maintaining visual quality.
Pretty Links
Pretty Links is a handy WordPress plugin that allows you to cloak your links and track click-through rates. Link cloaking is the process of replacing long, complex URLs with shorter and more user-friendly links. This not only makes your URLs look clean and professional but also helps prevent link hijacking or affiliate commission theft.
With Pretty Links, you can create branded and memorable links that are easy to share and promote. Additionally, the plugin provides click-tracking analytics, allowing you to monitor the performance of your links and analyze the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns.
Whether you’re an affiliate marketer or simply want to streamline your link management, Pretty Links is a valuable tool for optimizing your website’s URLs and tracking user engagement.
Redirection
Redirection is a WordPress plugin that simplifies the creation and management of redirects on your website. Redirection is useful when you need to redirect users from one URL to another, especially when you’ve recently changed your website’s structure or reorganized your content.
With Redirection, you can easily set up 301 redirects, which are permanent redirects that inform search engines that the original URL has permanently moved to a new location. This maintains the authority and ranking of the original page while redirecting users and search engine bots to the new page.
In addition to creating redirects, Redirection also provides a monitoring feature that tracks 404 errors on your website. A 404 error occurs when a user lands on a page that no longer exists or has been moved without redirecting. By monitoring and fixing these errors, you can improve your website’s user experience and ensure that visitors find the content they’re looking for.
Redirection is a simple yet powerful plugin for managing redirects and maintaining good SEO practices on your WordPress site.
Contact Form 7
Contact Form 7 is a popular and widely used plugin for adding contact forms to your WordPress website. This free plugin offers a straightforward and lightweight solution for creating customizable contact forms that can be easily embedded on your pages or posts.
Contact forms are essential for providing a means of communication for your website visitors. They allow users to reach out to you, ask questions, request information, or provide feedback. By incorporating contact forms, you can enhance user experience and make it easier for potential customers or clients to get in touch with you.
Contact Form 7 provides a user-friendly interface for creating and managing your contact forms. You can customize the form fields, layout, and styling to match your website’s design. Additionally, the plugin supports spam filtering with the use of CAPTCHA and Akismet, ensuring that you receive legitimate inquiries.
Overall, Contact Form 7 is a reliable and versatile plugin for adding contact forms to your WordPress site, keeping you connected with your audience and enhancing communication.
Word Fence
Website security is paramount, and Word Fence is a comprehensive security plugin designed to protect your WordPress site from hackers and malware attacks. This plugin offers a range of features and functionalities to ensure the security and integrity of your website.
One of Word Fence’s primary functions is protection against brute force attacks. Brute force attacks involve hackers attempting to gain access to your website by trying different username and password combinations. Word Fence monitors login attempts and blocks suspicious activity, preventing unauthorized access.
Additionally, Word Fence scans your website for malware and identifies any malicious code or files that may have been injected. Regular malware scans help ensure that your website remains free of vulnerabilities and potential threats.
Word Fence also provides various firewall rules to protect your website from known security threats. These rules are regularly updated to stay ahead of emerging threats and keep your website secure.
With Word Fence, you can have peace of mind knowing that your WordPress site is well-protected against hackers and malware attacks, keeping your data safe and secure.
Manage WP
Manage WP is a backup plugin that offers an easy and efficient way to schedule automatic backups for your WordPress site. Backups are essential for safeguarding your website’s data and can be a lifesaver in case of accidents, errors, or security breaches.
With Manage WP, you can configure backup schedules to automatically create backups of your website’s files and database. These backups can be stored locally or in cloud storage platforms like Google Drive or Dropbox for added security.
In addition to backup capabilities, Manage WP offers other useful features, such as the ability to restore hacked websites. If your website falls victim to a security breach, Manage WP can help you easily restore your website to a previous backup, minimizing downtime and potential data loss.
Another handy feature of Manage WP is website cloning. Website cloning allows you to duplicate an existing website, which is useful for creating staging environments, setting up development sites, or creating templates for future projects.
Overall, Manage WP is a valuable plugin for managing backups, restoring hacked websites, and cloning WordPress sites. By incorporating this plugin into your website management routine, you can ensure the safety and availability of your website’s data.