Sometimes, your WordPress site will require some sort of SEO tool to help search engines recognize and rank it better. Luckily, for just that type of goal, there are a few plugins I’d recommend and here they are:
- All in One SEO.
- And Yoast.
Either of these 2 plugins work very well to help your site. I personally use the first one and you need to keep in mind that you can’t use both at once, just pick one.
But once you do, I want to tell you 3 VERY important things you need to understand about these tools:
Point 1: These tools are not going to guarantee that you succeed with SEO.
People often make the mistake of thinking that just by installing a plugin such as the ones I suggested above is more than enough for their page to reach high rankings. This is a completely wrong way of looking at it.
These tools will simply NOT make your site rank better, they will only AID in helping Google identify what the site is about a little bit better. Ultimately, your rankings will be determined by a host of important factors such as these 5 ranking factors, and the plugins you install are not one of them.
To make this point very clear, I want to give you a simple analogy:
Imagine that you just began a new job and that you have hopes of reaching a high position in this new environment but nobody knows you and eventually, the things that WILL determine your success at this job is how hard you work and how much you accomplish.
But in order to help a little bit, you start the job with a ID tag on your shirt to help your bosses recognize you better. While that ID plays an initially important role in helping people, particularly your bosses recognize you, in the long run, your reputation on the job will not be determined by your ID, it will be determined, again, by the work you put in.
Applying this analogy to the site, it is simple:
- Your site, when you first start it is just like you are, when you start the job.
- The SEO plugin/s you choose to install merely plays a role in helping Google (the boss) identify the site.
- Ultimately how well your page does will be determined by how much work you put in, in this case, lots of high quality content.
Point 2: Do not stress doing what I call “overusing” these tools.
Let’s take one of the tools I suggested, the All in One SEO. I prefer and that one use the free version.
If you choose to install it, you will be greeted with A LOT of empty boxes to fill on the plugin page. Should you fill them all in?
Absolutely not, that’s overkill and it’s simply NOT necessary to do all of this, for the previous point I was making: These tools simply will not play that big of a role in your SEO results. You need to only fill in a few boxes and leave the rest blank.
Well that being said, what should you fill in then? Here are my suggestions, fill in the following areas:
1) Note, that there will be default things filled in for you.
For the sake of staying on point, leave everything that is set by default there AS IS. In this short tutorial, we will ONLY be filling in a few, select things (2 & 3 below).
2) Only fill in the following:
The title and description in the following area (this is an example of how I used it on one of my other sites, see the green check marks):
Now if you are a bit of an intermediate online marketer and/or have some experience, you may have noticed I used keywords in the above image. This is totally fine for your page, but use only 1 or 2 keywords, that apply to your site when you fill in these boxes, but make it natural, don’t stuff keywords in here, it is simply not going to help you and may even inhibit your SEO.
There also used to be a box where you can actually add keywords in. In the current version of this plugin, it is no longer available (and correctly so) because it simply wouldn’t make sense to fill in every possible keyword you can imagine.
On a side note, I’d like to add, that SEO plugins aren’t the only important ones you will want to have, here are others I highly suggest adding.
3) Use this plugin to enter your Google analytics code into.
This will help you track your page’s traffic flow and a lot of other information. There will be a section further down where you can enter what’s known as a UA code in.
While there are other sections on your page that you can enter a Google analytics code, if you do it through this plugin, I find it to be much more dependable and easier to put it into the plugin itself. If you’ve never done this before, here are simple instructions on how to install Google analytics :).
And that completes the necessary fill ins you should have when you start using this tool. Apply the same idea for Yoast (Although I am much more used to the All in One alternative).
Point 3: Do not overfill part 2.
Once you’ve installed one of the tools above or the other, you will notice that each time you write a new page or post, there will be a bunch of new boxes and options for fill ins available to you. For example:
Underneath your main area for writing content (that being the area for the title and right underneath it the body of the article you’ll write), there will be a whole bunch of blank boxes and options, some filled in, some not. Ignore them ALL, they will fill in automatically as you write your content, you need not do anything else.
Here is a 2 part example. In part I, I have a fresh, brand new post that I am about to write. If you scroll down underneath the box for where you write the body of your article, you will find the following:
But ignore ALL of this and the reason why is because once you start writing your title and the body of the article, a lot of these blank spaces will now be auto filled in. Here is what it looks like when it’s done:
Just a few quick notes:
1) When you install one of the above tools, they will basically automatically add an ID tag to any new post or page you put up. This will help with Google ranking.
2) You only need to worry about the title and content of the post/page you’re writing. The rest is filled in. However, you will want to use smart SEO tips to help the content rank better. This tool merely plays a role in reflecting the content you write, but if you write it in a way that’s bad for SEO, it will simply not help.
My final thoughts:
Remember, these plugins are in large point, only tools to help with your overall site. Again, understand that they will not magically make your site rank better, they will only help with the identity of it, so it’s your job as the person seeking to rank their page high to utilize the best approaches to do this and to use those tools to help with that goal.
Update: More SEO tools and plugins that will help your site grow…
Here is a list of 5 tools that I recommend using (some of which are the same as the ones recommended in this post), but they will help connect your site better to Google, as well as provide other great benefits.
I really like your description of setting up the all in one SEO. This is something that I really want to utilize. I have yet to add plug ins to my site but your suggestions are very fruitful. Content, work, content. You really seem to have this down well. I will be following you closely. Thank you.
John
You can and should enable your all in one SEO when you start your website, even if it doesn’t have any content. Like I said, it’s just going to label your page and help Google find it, but it’s only the start, you will have to build it from there.
Great post, very helpful.
I have a question for you, do you think adding my blog keywords into the SEO Keywords section below my blog is a good idea? I just started doing it. I’m not entirely sure how useful it is, as you said, it’s not good to over do things.
I don’t use it at all. The reason being is that ultimately, you can put in all the keywords you want into that section, but if the content and title doesn’t match it in quality and in being low competition enough, it won’t do a thing.
Leaving it blank (which is what I do) is perfectly fine. The Google spiders will look at the body and title anyway and rank it for that.
I’m glad you touched on this subject. I was trying to decide which to use. I used to use Yoast but recently I’ve switched to All in One SEO.
Which do you recommend? Would you say one is better than the other? I had a hard time switching to AIO but I think it was because I was used to Yoast, not because it was better.
Hi, I think you missed my point: they are both good, but they do NOT make your site rank better. Stick to whichever plugin you like most. If you switched to the All in One, stick to it, it’s better than changing it back to Yoast at this point. But remember, these plugins play little to no role in ranking, they only help the content you make rank better, but the key is actually making the content.
Thanks for a really helpful post. I was probably one of those people thinking too much into the use of these tools. Although they are beneficial, the main thing that is going to rank is the quality of the content.
Can you please explain to me what the negative impact of using both of these plugins has? Also if there will be any lasting effect as until recently I have been using both.
I’m not sure if using both will do anything negative, it’ll be like having 2 name tags Lee, but I would just keep one. You can check on Google to see how it’s indexed your site by typing the URL of it and seeing what pops up.
If the All in One description pops up, leave that, if the Yoast one pops up, leave that. Other than that, as far as I know, making any changes, and/or deleting one will not change your website rank. Worst case, it’ll cause a temporary reindex which will stabilize quickly.
I had a situation like this when I started my site where I didn’t even fill in any SEO info on my plugin and began creating content. Then I later added it and it was fine. Again, the big point is the content, not the plugin, so you’re going to be OK.
I have not heard of Yoast but I have been using the All in One SEO plugin and I think it will definitely help with my posts being ranked.
I never payed much attention to the boxes that were located under my post description nor did I even realize that they filled themselves in but now it makes more sense to me. Thank you for the insight.
Hi Arie, remember, the plugins only help with identifying the content for Google, they don’t really help with rank, that’s why you have to build content, so do not make the mistake of only relying on the plugin.
Thanks, this post was very useful, i’m always finding ways i can improve my SEO and these plugins seem so simple and easy to use. I will definitely give them a try. I like how it can connect with Google analytics, it makes everything so much easier. Are these the only plugins that you need for SEO?
Yes, these are the only ones, the rest is up to the content you write and keywords you use Emma.
This was so helpful. I have been using All-in-One-SEO and was just about to install Yoast because so many others have recommended it. I am so glad I did not install it while AIOSEO is running. I was happy to see that all the stuff I left blank was left blank for a reason. I didn’t realize everything gets filled in as you write your post. Good to know. Thank you.
No problem, I assure you, not much would change even if you switched to Yoast, the big picture is that these plugins do not assure your site maximum SEO results.
Thanks so much for the insight! I’ve been trying to use both Yoast and All-in-One SEO, and they’ve been competing with one another and screwing up my websites. The images you included were really helpful too. I was able to refer to them as I was adjusting my settings in WordPress Dashboard. Thanks again!
No problem, do not use both those plugins on one site, pick one, minimally adjust it and set up the settings on them, but that should be it Matt.
Hi Vitaliy, at last some one’s writing an accurate article on SEO plugins.
Its really important that people who are new to this are told the truth about the somewhat limiting power of plugins and what they can do for your SEO efforts.
You have pointed out very clearly how to use the simple aspects of these plugins to get the best out of them.
Keep it simple is the message I get from your article.
I use the all in one SEO pack for its simplicity of use and try and write naturally in my blog, I think there can be a tendency to overthink, (on Page SEO) and get stressed out by keyword density and all manner of other SEO related strategies.
It rare to see an article on SEO that is simple and well explained. Many thanks for posting this.
Thanks Barry, I like the phrase you used about limits these plugins have because that is the absolute fact. They will simply not run or make your blog succeed, they will only add ingredients to make it happen.
Wow, thank you for sharing how to properly use the all in one! I use it too, but it’s so confusing with all the boxes and blanks! I never really knew what to do with them.
I’ve heard that using the same media images can affect your SEO too because Google thinks it’s duplicate content. Is there a way to turn off the media images inside the SEO plugin?
Thanks for your information and reminding us that it takes work and a plugin won’t fix our SEO problems!
That’s a good question Kayla, although to be honest, I have never heard of using the same images as being a cause for duplicate content penalties. What I would is just use a different image for each post to be safe. I have never heard inside the All in One where you can regular images/photos, I just always place them inside the body of my articles.
As a chronic “overfiller” this post was SO helpful! I always want to fill in as much information as possible, but it looks like I have been approaching this incorrectly. I’ll be using these tips with my next post.
I’m curious to know how do you choose the best keywords to use? I always tend to use as many as I can think of.
Thanks for the great post!
Hi Kristie, typically, the most searched traffic mixed with the lowest competition number is what I aim for, but if there are other keywords that are related to the one I use for an article, I will try to plug them into the article itself, not the tags section of the plugin, this is very important.