What’s good about WordPress is that its themes are designed with search engine optimization (SEO) in mind, providing clean and organized site structures search engines love. Its intuitive and user-friendly content management system also allows businesses to manage their websites effortlessly to keep them fresh and engaging for search engines and visitors alike.
The best part is that WordPress websites benefit from an extensive library of SEO plugins, like Yoast SEO, All In One SEO and OptinMonster. These plugins guide businesses through content, website and performance optimization, which can help increase blog traffic and improve search engine rankings.
Whether you’re enlisting SEO services for WordPress or handling WordPress management on your own, it helps to know and understand the best plugins for your digital marketing needs. To help you get on the right track, we cover the following topics in the sections below:
• What Are WordPress Plugins?
• The Best WordPress Plugins for Boosting Blog and Website Traffic
• How To Use Plugins in WordPress: WordPress Plugin Best Practices
What Are WordPress Plugins?
WordPress plugins are add-ons that extend the functionality and features of your website. They enable you to do many things, from customizing your site and optimizing it for search to improving security and integrating social media seamlessly, among many others. They’re pivotal for creating a dynamic online presence tailored to your specific needs and goals.
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To be more specific, here are some ways plugins can be used on WordPress websites:
• Enhancing User Experience: Plugins can help you create a more engaging, faster and user-friendly website.
• Improving SEO: They can aid you in optimizing your content and site structure to perform better in search results.
• Social Media Integration: Plugins can connect your site to your social media pages. This lets you share content effortlessly and bring in traffic from these platforms.
• Performance Optimization: Need help with WordPress maintenance? Plugins can improve your site speed and reduce loading times, making improving online rankings and retaining visitors easier.
• Security: Plugins are available to strengthen your website against hackers and spammers.
• Analytics: You can track your website traffic analytics and user behavior with plugins and use the insights you gather to make data-driven decisions for growth.
Of course, if you’re looking to increase blog traffic and attract more visitors to your website, there are many plugins in WordPress for the job.
The Best WordPress Plugins for Boosting Blog and Website Traffic
Here’s a quick run-down of both simpler and advanced plugins that can help your blog and website perform better on search engines:
1. Yoast SEO
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Yoast SEO is one of the most popular WordPress SEO plugins, and with good reason. Its suite of tools enables users to perform actions that improve on-page SEO, such as adding meta titles and descriptions, generating sitemaps and improving posts with real-time content analysis feedback.
One highlight is the Content Analysis Section. This standout feature displays red, green and orange lights to indicate how well your content follows SEO best practices. This makes it easier for you to produce high-quality content consistently and rank high in search results.
Ultimately, it allows you to add “breadcrumbs” or internal links to posts and pages and create an easy-to-read overview of your site hierarchy. When integrated into your WordPress management strategy, Yoast SEO helps both users and search engines make sense of your website, resulting in better user experience and rankings.
2. W3 Total Cache
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As site speed is a Google ranking factor, a faster website can lead to better SEO rankings and, as a result, more website traffic. That’s where W3 Total Cache comes in handy.
W3 Total Cache helps with performance optimization and search ranking performance through browser caching. In simple terms, caching is the storing of website files like posts, pages, CSS and JavaScript in a visitor’s browser. When the user revisits the website, their browser retrieves the cached files instead of requesting them from the server again, significantly reducing the time needed to load the website.
Best of all, W3 Total Cache is compatible with other advanced plugins and performs well with any theme on your WordPress site.
3. Smush
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Smush is one of the best WordPress plugins for driving efficiency in your media files. Large images can slow down your website considerably, and that’s where Smush steals the spotlight.
The plugin automatically compresses your images without a noticeable loss in quality, ensuring faster page loads, which can help retain visitors and improve your SEO ranking. Best of all, the Bulk Smush option lets you optimize multiple images at once, saving you time and energy as you manage your media content.
4. All In One SEO (AIOSEO)
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You can do many things with All In One SEO without being an expert. It boasts a comprehensive set of tools you can use to add meta tags and metadata for social networks, track and fix broken links, generate XML sitemaps automatically and notify search engines of updates to your website – all without a steep learning curve.
All you have to do is install and activate the plugin. It will automatically implement measures to improve your content’s indexability.
The best part is it’s designed to be simple to use. You can personalize it to your WordPress maintenance needs, but AIOSEO generally requires minimal configuration to get started.
5. MonsterInsights
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One of the highlights of MonsterInsights is that it offers an easy-to-navigate dashboard directly in your WordPress admin area, enabling you to understand your audience through comprehensive Google Analytics integration. This plugin provides real-time stats, eCommerce tracking, data on user behavior on your website and insights about your traffic sources, allowing you to promote your brand on channels that drive the most traffic.
Armed with website traffic analytics data from MonsterInsights, you can also identify what content captivates your visitors, encouraging you to produce more of what works. This strategic content creation can consequently increase your overall website traffic.
6. OptinMonster
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OptinMonster is a lead generation plugin that helps WordPress websites convert abandoning visitors into subscribers and customers. Its exit-intent technology identifies when a user is about to leave your site and presents them with a targeted campaign.
Moreover, it has a drag-and-drop campaign builder that lets you create WordPress popups, slide-in (opt-in forms), spin-to-win coupon wheels and other strategies to turn exiting visitors into email subscribers. This makes OptinMonster one of the best WordPress plugins for driving repeat traffic to your blog and website with every email blast.
7. Ahrefs WordPress SEO Plugin
The Ahrefs WordPress SEO Plugin focuses on one single feature: the Content Audit. It helps you conduct an in-depth content analysis for improved search engine visibility. It also offers suggested actions based on metrics like keyword ranking position, traffic generated and number of backlinks.
Depending on a page’s performance, you’ll receive these recommendations:
• Do nothing if it ranks for its target keyword in the top 3 positions.
• Update it if it ranks for its target keyword within the top 3–20 and the target keyword is unique across all pages.
• Merge into another page if it ranks for its target keyword in the top 3–20 and the target keyword is not unique across all pages.
• Exclude from the audit if it does not rank for its target keyword in the top 20 but its traffic is above the median of all pages on the site.
• Rewrite it if it does not rank for its target keyword in the top 20 positions and receives low traffic.
The Content Audit enables you to understand the overall health of your content and, most importantly, make the necessary optimizations.
8. Semrush SEO Writing Assistant
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Semrush SEO Writing Assistant is a powerful tool that lets you optimize your website content for users and search engines directly in the WordPress editor.
It examines your content based on various parameters such as readability, tone, originality and SEO and provides recommendations to improve these aspects. Whether it’s identifying missing focus keywords in your article’s title or highlighting duplicate or plagiarized content, the plugin guides you through enhancing your content, improving your chances of performing well online.
How To Use Plugins in WordPress Well: WordPress Plugin Best Practices
Harnessing the power of plugins can significantly enhance your website’s performance and visitor numbers.
To ensure you get the most out of these tools, it’s essential to adhere to certain WordPress plugin best practices:
• Choose your plugins wisely. Select plugins based on quality reviews, regular updates and compatibility with your WordPress version. Also, you want to prioritize those targeting SEO, speed optimization and website traffic analytics.
• Maintain plugin health. Regularly update your plugins to safeguard your website from security vulnerabilities and to benefit from improved features and functionality.
• Avoid overloading. Too many plugins can slow down your site.
• Monitor performance. Use tools like Google Analytics along with your plugins to track their impact on your website traffic and adjust as needed.
• Get help from a WordPress website design company. Sometimes, the best way to ensure your plugins work together seamlessly is to enlist WordPress SEO services. Professionals can provide custom solutions to ensure your site is fully optimized for user engagement and search engine rankings.
Improve Brand Awareness and Increase Your Rankings With Thrive’s WordPress SEO Services
Building a WordPress website is only the first step in establishing an online presence. Make an impact and expand your reach by maximizing the plethora of plugins WordPress offers.
If you’re still not sure how to use plugins in WordPress, don’t let the steep learning curve delay your website project. The experts at Thrive are here to lend their expertise in maximizing the content management system to your advantage.
As a WordPress website design company, we don’t simply build sites. Instead, we offer everything from web design and optimization to WordPress maintenance and website hosting to ensure your business’s online platform is set up for success.
Want to learn more about our SEO services for WordPress? Contact us today and discover how we can help you enhance your online visibility and performance.
