Whether you are a new website owner or an expert web developer, having an SEO plugin gives you a certain amount of confidence in your overall website performance regarding search engine optimization. For tasks related to on-page SEO, mobile optimization, analytics, and other different SEO related features, SEO plugins will be able to point you in the right direction about what to do as an administrator of a website.
However, although SEO plugins are great, please remember that YOU MUST ONLY USE 1 SEO PLUGIN!!
We will link to each individual support forum in this comparison below. You will see when you visit those links that these plugins have near-perfect 5.0 scores. This is an excellent sign in our books.
Yoast
This plug-in is pretty good even without the paid version, but of course, like anything else, the paid version is better. This plugin is a little bit easier for none developers, but I would still recommend only having a developer use it, especially if it’s a big site or a site with authority. Just make sure to have it connected to Google Search Console.
Since this plugin is quite simple, it does not consume much resources, and you will most likely won’t need to communicate with support.
- Lightweight and works well with any web hosting
- The FREE version is great!
- The paid version is recommended
- Developer is a must
- Support is not needed on a regular basis
- Yoast WordPress Support Forum
All In One SEO
This is a great plug-in even without the paid version for sizeable websites. However, like always, we should just allow a developer to manage the plugin. Otherwise, you will encounter issues because this is a very powerful plugin with plenty of features that most other plugins won’t have, even on the paid version. However, it is very resource-consuming and does not work fast enough on shared hosting plans.
- Works well on a VPS or higher
- FREE version is sufficient
- Paid version is recommended
- Developer is a must
- Support might be needed if your site is complicated
- All In One SEO WordPress Support Forum
RankMath
(The clear winner – sorry, we’re biased based on our case studies)
Generally, all plugins mentioned in this article work well. However, after trying a lot of different SEO Plugins, we found a sweet spot with RankMath. We even use this on our own website! About its usability, this plugin might be more advanced than other plugins mentioned above simply because of the powerful features it provides. For this reason, we advise only to give your web developer access to this plugin because, like any other plugin, it can do damage if wrongly configured.
If you use the free version of RankMath, you can improve your website without worrying if it’s your first time using it. With the PRO version, their support team is GREAT! They’re very responsive, and the ticketing system is well thought out. Their website and blog also has plenty of videos, tutorials, and documentation. Their YouTube channel is also updated whenever there are new SEO best practices to guide beginner and experienced users alike. The plugin is very resource-consuming, BUT only when it runs tasks, so it should be fine 99% of the time.
- Resources & Performance: VPS or higher unless you use the FREE version
- FREE version is sufficient
- The paid version is recommended
- Developer is a must
- Support is needed on a regular basis
- RankMath WordPress Support Forum
Don’t Want to Use an SEO Plugins?
For all of you minimalists out there, I wanted to write an article about handling SEO without an SEO plugin. After some research, I realized that it is not needed if your website is structured well. However, it will benefit your website’s initial growth quite a lot IF your content is helpful to users, with some exceptions.
The reason you won’t need it is actually because search engines are designed to provide unique results even without schema.
The exceptions would be:
- International websites
- Websites with multiple languages
- News sites
- Video infested websites
- Ecommerce
Yes, if you run an eCommerce site, you better have a plugin. It will be MUCH easier to dominate search results.
For shared hosting, use Yoast. But RankMath’s free version is worth it as well! Any PRO version will do very good unless you are using shared hosting.
If you have a custom-built website or a portion of your website is custom-built, you will need to be very involved in SEO efforts due to the lack of automation. Also, as your website grows and syntax changes and evolves, you will need to update and revise existing markups and codes constantly. Therefore, as Matt Cutts explains, a CMS is crucial for website owners who wish to succeed on search engines due to simplification and automation.
Just in case you do not use WordPress, these resources and tools would be crucial:
- https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/software-app
- https://schema.org/SoftwareApplication
- https://search.google.com/test/rich-results
