SEO & WordPress: 7 Plugins for Better Websites

by on July 10, 2010

3nhanced.com

Among other things, I love WordPress as a site platform. It’s a beautiful thing for SEO, especially if you use the Thesis theme (hint, hint). WordPress is a:

  • Content Management System, allowing you to easily add, delete or edit pages, rearrange your site structure and add images or other types of content
  • Search Engine notifier, kindly updating the search engines when you add a page or blog.
  • Site and blog, giving you the functionality of both on one website, rather than having a separate blog installation.

    • What else? Let’s see… how about the 10,000 or so plugins that can help you make your website a better visitor experience? From SEO to image galleries, calendars to videos and more, the gallery of WordPress plugins spans almost every website need. Some are free, some are paid, but – with a few exceptions – they’re all worth looking at.

    Now, part of SEO is (at least in my mind) making sure your website is easy for search engines to read. Not only does it need to be visitor friendly, but the more you can do with your site to make it easy for the SEs, the better you’ll do. Yes, there are WordPress plugins for that, too:

    1. Redirection

    Purpose: To redirect one URL to another
    Why?
    Redirection creates 301 redirects, which is most especially useful in the dynamic, ever-changing world of site design and blogging. Old blogs become less useful, old pages may be removed. You may even change the URL of a few. From a simple-to-use dashboard inside of WordPress, you can quickly add any number of redirects for better site usability and searchability. No more 404s!

    2. Google XML Sitemap Generator

    Purpose: To keep your sitemap updated as the site/blog changes
    Why?
    Easy to use, quick to setup, the Google XML Sitemap plugin generates search-engine friendly sitemaps. You can update the sitemap with the click of a button. As well, you can remove any pages you don’t want on the sitemap, making it easy to manage and keep updated.

    3. NoIndex/NoFollow

    Purpose: To easily set no index, no follow or both attributes per page
    Why?
    The NoIndex/NoFollow plugin serves the purpose of completely blocking search engines from a page, such as in the case of a log in page, or non-indexation of a page, such as in the case of “thank you for ordering” pages. This is a valuable plugin, making sure the pages you don’t want being found by the general public aren’t in the SERPs.

    4. Broken Link Checker

    Purpose: To find and show broken links for easy retrieval/changing
    Why?
    This is an excellent tool in terms of SEO, search engine crawling and visitor usability. Broken Link Checker scans and notifies you of broken links, then gives you the option to remove the link, change or leave a line through it. Combined with the redirection plugin, this is a useful way to keep your site updated and let the search engines know the site is staying updated.

    5. Header-Footer

    Purpose: To add script to a single page
    Why?
    A lot of times with WordPress, certain java scripts may only be used on a single page, yet they sit in the header of every page. This adds unnecessary lines of code in the other pages. With the Header-Footer plugin, you can keep your global scripts global and your single page scripts on the single page. Ultimately, this means a cleaner (in terms of code) and faster website.

    6. WP Total Cache

    Purpose: Caching files
    Why?
    Two words: site speed. WP Total Cache gives you the options to minify your HTML, CSS and script files, reducing the overall file size of your site. In turn, this reduces the load time of your site. As well, the plugin caches your images and pages according to the times you set, which is comparable to adding a rocket booster on your car. Can you say fast?

    7. Google Optimizer

    Purpose: Creating pages with better performance
    Why?
    Even high performance pages can be better; Google Website Optimizer makes it easy to create tests, comparing one version of a page to another to see which performs better. With the Google Optimizer plugin, you can easily add the tracking scripts needed for this fantastic testing tool.

    Do you have a favorite WordPress plugin that makes it easy to keep your site updated? Tell us about it!

    Tagged as: CMS, SEO, Tutorial, Wordpress

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    { 8 comments… read them below or add one }

    Rebecca Hurst August 10, 2011 at 1:04 pm

    I certainly learned a lot reading this article, Thank you. I’ve been browsing around to try and find the best ways to get my site noticed, but it is certainly hard with the millions of websites already out there. I found a xml sitemap generator that was useful and free, if anyone was interested. Just go to http://www.freesitemapsubmit.com/

    Reply

    robert bloch March 2, 2011 at 2:38 pm

    Thank you so much for the interesting and informative article. As a person who is starting out I am always looking for as much good research as possible.

    Reply

    camping kaszuby July 23, 2010 at 2:38 am

    Thanks for useful info

    Reply

    Massimo Paolini July 22, 2010 at 11:55 pm

    That is a good list Gabriella, every recommended item is a necessity for most blogs. I’m also glad to see you didn’t put an SEO plugin, just use the right theme!

    Reply

    mbt fuaba July 21, 2010 at 7:46 am

    Thanks very good for report, I follow your blog

    Reply

    prestige car finance July 12, 2010 at 5:24 am

    thanks i didn’t know you could have he optimiser plugin for wordpress.

    i would also add the following;

    akismet – for catching spam commenst
    seo all in one – seo optimisation plugin

    Reply

    عرب صدى July 10, 2010 at 5:35 am

    very cool and useful article thank you , i also suggest adding SEO package to the list as one of the most important wordpress seo plugins

    Reply

    Gabriella
    Twitter:
    July 10, 2010 at 6:10 am

    Muhammad, marhaba afende! – This is as close as I can get phonetically with my Lebanese ;) Always nice to see you on this side of the world. Yes, you are correct, I will mention it to JR and make sure we add it to the list. Thanks for stopping by.

    Reply

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