There’s only 3 good ones that I’ve found. They are all full-featured, updated (as of this writing), and highly regarded.
1. The SEO Framework
This is the one I’m using currently on my site and I love it. Very clean and simple. All the necessary functions. Very fast, no bloat. And not obnoxious. It’s the newest one to the SEO plugins market and very refreshing. Added bonus is that it integrates very nicely with Genesis framework. You can see the intentions from the developer himself here.
It’s the latest newcomer to the SEO market and highly touted by developers who are tired of the other WordPress SEO plugins.
2. All in One SEO Pack
This one I would say is the next best SEO plugin for wordpress. It’s full-featured, designed nicely, and works well. For a long time, this one was compared against #3 and you saw endless comparison posts on “All in One vs YOAST”.
Back then when I followed the debate a couple years ago, All in One was the better plugin. It was written like a REAL SEO plugin, I felt. Whereas YOAST was this fancy free plugin trying to gain market share.
Even today, many people claim All in One SEO is better and faster, and that’s good enough for me.
- Pro version: https://semperplugins.com?ap_id=treeflips
3. YOAST SEO
The de facto standard! YOAST has grown through the years and now matured into this giant commercial behemoth of an SEO plugin. It’s prettiness and millions of features won over it’s public support and current mainstream position of being the #1 WordPress SEO plugin. Just about all levels of users, amateur and pros alike, will look to install YOAST as their preferred SEO plugin of choice today.
For the users that like YOAST, they like it for it’s giant list of features and compatibility with many themes and other extensions. They feel it’s this one amazing plugin that can do everything. They like that it’s easy to use for beginners and every little setting is explained.
So what’s the problem with YOAST?
- Here’s an example of why users move away from YOAST.
- Problems with YOAST.
- Someone even made a plugin to hide YOAST SEO bloat (Hide SEO Bloat), hahaha!
The users who don’t like YOAST will say that it’s bloated. Way too many features. Too annoying, with colors and dialogs and notices taking over your admin. Constant onscreen harassment around the content editor telling you every little thing to do. Slow performance, conflicts with other themes and plugins, and even sub-par SEO ranking performance. I would say this plugin is total overkill for experienced SEO experts.
4. SEOPress
There’s a new SEO plugin on the market. Free and high quality, super clean and lean. No bloat or annoying spammy ads. Many happy users that switched over to this from YOAST and it’s attracted thousands of installations in such a short time. Try it out!
5. Rank Math
I keep hearing about this one more and more. It’s got many fans but I haven’t tried it personally.
Do you really need an SEO plugin?
I personally don’t use them at all. They’re more for helping total newbies (or non-techie clients) decide what keywords to use and to remember all the little SEO things you can do for your site. But for me….I work on so many sites and also a former SEO expert myself, so I don’t need a plugin to give me common sense tips. My sites are super lean bloat-free and still ranking on 1st page of Google.
In the next review can you try slim seo? https://wordpress.org/plugins/slim-seo/
Thanks for sharing this. Will definitely do it for the update!
Hi Johnny,
Has your top-5 changed since you wrote this article? If it has, would you be able to share your thoughts for 2021?
Thanks!
I still don’t use any SEO plugins so I never bothered to check. Personally, I would use SEO Framework (first) and maybe All-in-One SEO (second). I think Slim SEO was another with good vibes. YOAST and RankMath are also popular, but definitely not my preference.
I suppose I could make an updated guide from the standpoint of a dude who doesn’t use them.