Top WordPress Plugins You Need in 2021

There are many reasons so many companies and brands use WordPress. The advantages of using this content management system include:

• It’s user-friendly and can be easily installed and activated without any coding. At the same time, it has many advanced features for customization that more advanced users can utilize. 
• A large choice of themes that can be customized to your purposes. 
• You have complete control over the functionality and content of your site. This is in contrast to many site-building tools with more limited customization options. 
• Responsive. WordPress sites are accessible to users on all devices and operating systems. 
• Search engine friendly. WordPress makes it easy to optimize your site for search engines. Many of the plugins listed below will enhance your SEO (search engine optimization) even more. 

At the same time, if you want your site to reach its full potential, you need to incorporate the right strategy. On WordPress, this includes installing plugins that help you achieve your goals. There are an estimated 50,000 plugins for WordPress, with new ones being added all the time. How do you decide which ones are most suitable for your purposes? The following are among the most powerful and practical plugins worth considering.

Yoast

Yoast is one of the most popular WordPress plugins for SEO. It’s a powerful tool that’s been around for a long time and is constantly updated. Yoast has a free and paid version. The SEO premium version is $89.

• Access to lots of SEO resources and courses that are beneficial for all your content creation. 
• Suggests keywords to make your content more SEO-friendly. The premium plan lets you do this automatically. 
• Add synonyms and related keywords. 
• Set canonical URLs to avoid duplicate content. 
• Warning when content hasn’t been updated for six months (premium feature). 
• Internal linking recommendations (premium feature). 
• Readability check. 

Content Fusion

Content Fusion is a plugin created by seoClarity, a company that has a variety of SEO and content creation tools. seoClarity members have access to the plugin. Content Fusion is more than an SEO plugin. It’s a comprehensive content AI content writer that helps you optimize all your content for both readers and search engines.

• Combine SEO and content marketing. The AI-driven platform helps you find topics and keywords that are trending as well as those that are always relevant to your business and website. 
• Provides ideas for blog posts and other content.  
• Helps you win Google’s Answer Box, also known as Position Zero because it’s above other listings on Google’s first page. The Answer Box is also important for voice search optimization. 
• Keyword research. Access the world’s largest competitive data set. Research Grid lets you analyze the performance of any keyword or domain in real-time. Mobile-first search index lets you rank for mobile keywords. Identify content gaps, which are potentially popular and profitable keywords and topics you’re not yet covering. 

Rank Math

RankMath is a WordPress plugin that covers every aspect of search engine optimization.

• Rank Tracker. Easily see your rank for important keywords in real-time. 
• Keyword research. Rank Math integrates with Google Trends to help you find the latest popular keywords. 
• Position History. Track your rankings over time to identify which actions are having the most impact. 
• Know which keywords are ranking in posts. This guides you in creating future content. You can also make edits if your posts aren’t ranking for the desired keywords. 
• Schema Markup. With Rank Math, you can add schema markup to help search engines index your site without any coding. Build custom schema to any post with a few clicks. You can even import schema data from other URLs. 
• Google Analytics Integration. Analytics Module also shows important SEO data from Google Search Console. You can find out keywords that you rank, sitemap status, and other information from your WordPress dashboard. 
• Submit to Google News. Get more traffic by submitting your site to Google News. 

Rank Math has an impressive list of features and the above are only a sample. It’s also user-friendly, with a set-up wizard to guide you with installation. While you can download the plugin for free, most features require a paid plan. Pricing starts at $59/year, which lets you track 500 keywords.

SEOPress

SEOPress is another leading SEO plugin that you can download for free. There’s also a Pro version, which gives you advanced features on unlimited sites for $39/year.

Free Version

• HTML and XML Sitemaps. 
• Meta titles and descriptions. 
• Twitter Card — Meta tags make it easy to share your content on Twitter. 
• Content analysis for unlimited keywords. 
• Dublin Core — Meta tags used by governments and directories. 
• Generate meta tags for Woo Commerce. 
• Install Google Analytics in seconds. Link your Google Ads to Google Analytics.

Pro Version

• URL rewriting. 
• 4040 monitoring. 
• Edit Robots.txt and htaccess files. 
• Manage redirections: 301, 302, etc. 
• Google Analytics Enhanced Ecommerce. Track purchases, additions, and removals from shopping carts. 
• Google News Sitemap. 
• Video XML Sitemap to improve video indexing. 

SEOPress also has a separate plugin for off-site SEO called SEOPress Insights. This plugin costs $99/year per site but is discounted if you buy SEOPress. With Insights, you can monitor backlinks and track your rankings.

Broken Links Checker

Broken links can harm your SEO and cause you to lose visitors. The larger a site is, the more difficult it is to keep track of broken links. Broken links can occur when you link to a page that was taken down or whose URL changed. You can also get broken links if you change your website’s URL. Aside from frustrating users, broken links lower the value of your site in Google’s eyes. Broken Link Checker is a free plugin to help you manage this problem.

When you find a broken link, you can either unlink it or edit it. If you unlink the text remains but is no longer a link. 

• Identifies missing images. 
• Search and filter links by URL or anchor text. 
• Monitors broken links in comments and custom fields as well as posts. 
• You can set it so search engines don’t follow any broken links on your site. 

W3 Total Cache

W3 Total Cache is a plugin that helps you improve user experience by increasing site speed. It also helps with SEO, as Google uses page loading speed as a ranking factor. The plugin caches web pages so they load more quickly when visitors return to your site. W3 Total Cache is especially useful for sites with a great deal of content such as images and videos that can slow down page loading.

• Improves overall site performance by at least 10x. 
• Higher search engine rankings. 
• Increases average time visitors spend on your site and reduces bounce rate. 
• Up to 80% bandwidth reduction. 
• Works with all types of hosting such as shared, VPS, and dedicated servers. 

Rel NoFollow Checkbox

Linking to other sites can either help or harm your SEO. This depends on the quality of the site (i.e. how valuable it is to Google) and how many links you have. Rel NoFollow Checkbox is a plugin that adds the rel=”nofollow” attribute to links to prevent Google from indexing it. This is a good strategy if you have affiliate links in your content, for example. It’s also useful if you publish posts from a variety of users who may be placing promotional links into the content.

Keep in mind that you may want Google to pay attention to certain links. Linking to authority sites can boost your SEO. Rel NoFollow Checkbox makes it easy by providing a checkbox that you can check if you want to disable the nofollow attribute.

All in One Schema Rich Snippets

A rich snippet is a summary of your website that users see in search engine results. They are useful for providing the most important information about your site. They often contain images, star ratings for products and businesses, and basic information such as prices and key features. All in One Schema Rich Snippets is a plugin that optimizes rich snippets so the most important elements are displayed.

• Supports multiple content types such as reviews, events, recipes, videos, articles, and products. 
• Helps you rank higher in the search engines. 
• Improves click-through rates by making search engine listings more appealing. 
• Creates more useful Facebook posts when users share your links to FB. 

Redirection

Redirection is a free plugin that lets you manage 301 redirections and fix 404 errors. Its functions overlap somewhat with plugins such as Broken Link Checker.

• Track 404 headers. 
• Migrate permalinks. 
• Import and export from other applications and plugins, including Rank Math and Apache.htaccess. 
• The plugin can be customized for different users with permissions. 
• Add HTTP headers to your redirects. 

MonsterInsights

MonsterInsights makes it simple to install Google Analytics on any WordPress site. GA is an essential tool for setting up tests or experiments and tracking metrics for your website. With MonsterInsights, you can integrate many vital Google Analytics functions with WordPress.

• Access reports from your WordPress dashboard. 
• Detailed SEO ranking reports. 
• Real-time stats within WordPress.
• Track ads and affiliate links. 
• Universal tracking across pages and devices. 
• Page-level analytics informs you of your most popular pages and posts. 

Enhanced e-commerce tracking for WooCommerce and other applications. 

MonsterInsights has a free trial as well as a Lite version that lets you install Google Analytics and track many useful metrics. Paid versions start at $100/year.

WordFence

When setting up your WordPress site, you need to think about security as well as SEO. Apart from anything else, if your site is ever hacked, it will most likely harm your ranking. WordFence is one of the most popular and powerful security plugins.

• Web application firewall blocks malicious traffic. Available with the free version. 
• 2FA (two-factor authentication) prevents non-authorized users from logging in. 
• The Premium version has a real-time firewall and IP blocklist. 
• Limits login attempts, protecting you from hackers. 
• Malware scanner spots any attempt to install malicious code or content.  
• Country blocking (premium feature). 
• Email alerts. 

You can use the free version on as many sites as you want. For more extensive, real-time protection, however, the paid version is worth considering. Premium licenses are $99/year, with discounts if you buy multiple licenses.

Choose the Best Plugins For Your Needs

Using the right plugins helps you get the most out of WordPress. While all of the plugins listed above are useful, you probably don’t need all of them. Consider your current needs, goals, and budget when considering plugins. If you’re on a tight budget, many plugins are free or offer a free version.

Resources:

yoast.com/ 

yoast.com/rel-canonical/ 

seoclarity.net/ai-content-writer/

rankmath.com/ 

neilpatel.com/blog/get-started-using-schema/

seopress.org/ 

wordpress.org/plugins/broken-link-checker/

wordpress.org/plugins/w3-total-cache/

wordpress.org/plugins/rel-nofollow/

wordpress.org/plugins/all-in-one-schemaorg-rich-snippets/

wordpress.org/plugins/redirection/

monsterinsights.com/ 

wordpress.org/plugins/wordfence/