The Best WordPress Plugins for SEO and Marketing
July 9, 2009 by
Matthew
Filed under
SEO & Rank, Wordpress
WordPress is one of the most widely used blogging and publishing platforms on the Internet. WordPress has a wide variety of plugins that gives sites a much-needed boost in the search rankings.
Plugins (or add-ons) are software modules that add special features or services to a larger system. These plugins are geared specifically for SEO and marketing functions.
WordPress is easy to use and is popular for its blogging features. Plugins are great SEO tactics but don’t forget to utilize other “on site” SEO techniques.
• Keyword Optimized Content – Pick a few keywords that will rank high in search engines. Don’t “stuff” keywords into your content or you’ll get low ranking or bumped out of search engines altogether. Keep posts to at least 250 words. Lengthy content will lose your readers.
• Find Your Niche – Pick a niche and stick with it. Another key SEO strategy is to keep your sites consistent – a niche blog covering ONE topic is going to rank higher than a “general” site covering hundreds of topics.
• Site Design – Make sure your sites are easy to navigate and are validated (get rid of bad code!) Search engines don’t like a lot of Flash or JavaScript so keep sites simple and clean. Get rid of dead links (update on a regular basis!)
The following sites feature BEST WordPress plugins for SEO and marketing purposes:
1. WP Post Ratings - Ratings filtered by different groups such as: popular by author, month, year, category, all-time, etc.
2. Google XML Sitemaps – Informs search engines (Google) about pages on sites that are readily available for “crawling.”
3. All in One SEO Pack – Automatically optimizes titles and meta descriptions for search engines.
4. Twitter Tools – Integrates Twitter accounts to WordPress blogs
5. FeedBurner FeedSmith – Track stats, clickthroughs, subscribers, etc.
6. Easy Tube – Takes control of video content (YouTube, etc.) by using one tag
7. Lightbox 2 – Changes settings (background colors, etc) and add “lightbox” effect to blog posts
8. Google Analytics for WordPress – Tracks and segments links from posts; tracks image search queries and Adsense clicks
9. Wordpress Global Translator Plugin – Automatically translates your blogs into 41 different languages (includes 4 translator engines such as Babelfish)
10. WP-Cache 2.0 – Efficient page caching system that makes your site FASTER and more responsive.
11. WP-PageNavi 2.20 – Adds advanced paging navigations to blogs
12. Spam Karma 2.3 – Automatically blocks spam on blogs
13. Subscribe2 – Notifies subscribed members each time a new post is made
14. Target Blank In Posts And Comments – Opens links in blog posts and opens comments in new windows – keeps visitors on your pages
15. cforms – Powerful form building plugin. Allows you to have multiple forms on same page
16. Popular Posts – Lists “most popular”/most visited posts on blogs – usually found on the sidebar
17. Subscribe To Comments – Commenters can sign up for email notices of entries– allows them to unsubscribe to certain posts or change notifications
18. Yet Another Related Posts Plugin – Gives lists of pages or posts related to current entry – subscribers are directed to other related entries/content
19. ShareThis – A simple way for users to add blog posts to social bookmarking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Digg, etc. or share via email
This is a Guest Post by Zeke Camusio who is a serial entrepreneur, Internet Marketing expert and founder of The Outsourcing Company, an Internet Marketing agency with offices in Aspen, CO and New York. Let’s Do It!, his blog, is read by thousands of people all over the world.
Instead of All in One SEO Pack, I recommend Wordpress SEO Master. Includes 4 modules ( META, Nofollow, NoIndex & AutoLinker )
The best plugin from your list is All in one SEO. I have been using it for years and its been working great so far. I like the fact that the developer keeps updating it and improving it.
This is a great list of essential ( in my opinion ) Wordpress plugins. I have used most of these in my many blogs, the one I always use is the All in One SEO Pack plugin. Thanks for this detailed list Matthew.
Nice list of Wordpress SEO plugins. Thanks a lot for sharing.
Awesome list of Plugins, currently I am only using “All in One SEO Pack” on my personal blog, but I may look into other plugins that might help me even more! Especially considering that the “All in One SEO Pack” is more automated, and I have less control over the SEO of the blog.
Till then,
Jean
i am already using most of the above suggested plugins and was looking for a social bookmarking plugin. i think “Share this” is a good one to have and also Twitter Tools. Thanx
Great list of plugins. I am surprised not to see Platinum SEO not on the list. I made the switch from all in one to platinum and I think it was much better..just my 2 cents.
These plugins looks good, but we can perform these functions by the tools already given in by word press. Why should we install these plugins?
Excellent list! It’s cool that I already have some of those things in place. Not only are they good for SEO, they’re just generally good for readers. On one of my blogs I’m using Platinum SEO pack instead of All In One SEO. I’ve seen a few reports saying platinum is more robust.
Great list. I also like Platinum SEO. It works great for our blogs.
I myself like to use AntiSpamBee. It has saved me from tons of spam a day. Besides that you got a great looking list here. Thanks for the share. =)
thanks for this collection, i am using few of them but i’ll try other plugins, u mentioned a plugin spam karma, i want to ask an question is akismet plugins is better or spam karma? sorry for bad english.
I am using Platinum SEO Pack in place of All in One SEO Pack.
I prefer All in One Seo than Platinium, but i think there isn’t a big differences.
I have been using it for years and its been working great so far. I like the fact that the developer keeps updating it and improving it.
Cool list, thanks for sharing. Some of them are must-have.
i have just recently started to use wordpress but i was not aware of its plugins, this post has a great list of plugins and narrows down on what type of plugins would be suitable for you, that is excellent. I want to know which is the best plugin for seo, i would really appreciate it someone can assist me. im going to bookmark this post and come back soon!
I’m with Zahid, in terms of ease and practicality, the all in one seo plugin is great. There are some great plugins around for wordpress, the difficulty is in sorting the trash from the gold.
Appreciate the post, thanks.
Thanks a lot for this useful list of tools!
I just downloaded Google analytics for wordpress and also all in one seo pack!
I was thinking i have already download that but it seems that i’m mistaken… ^^’
I am using All in one SEO plugin and its really great!
Thanks for the list, great share to me the related posts and the ultimate seo plugin is the more powerful for wordpress blogs.
I just wish there was something like cforms for blogger. It would be nice to have guests posts the easy way.
Hey, great list I use most of these plugins myself on my blogs. I could add the comluv plugin to your list
Is there a plugin that makes archives not be indexable by Google? Becasue my archive pages tend to get all the PR.