The Yoast SEO WordPress plugin is certainly a popular and good option for numerous reasons. Even so, it has plenty of viable alternatives you might not know as much about.
Other SEO plugins for WordPress provide different advantages such as a more preferable user interface, an easier learning curve, a faster or more automated setup, unique reporting, and more.
The best WordPress SEO plugins are always evolving with exciting new features, and one of these top seven Yoast alternatives below might catch your interest:
1. Rank Math
Screenshot from Rankmath.com, October 2021Known as the “Swiss Army Knife of WordPress SEO,” Rank Math is a powerful, oft-recommended WordPress plugin with tons of helpful features to improve your website’s online visibility.
It has smart automation and website analyzing features that will save you a ton of time. Combine this with a user-friendly design and easy-to-use setup wizard, and it all makes implementing Rank Math and optimizing your site a breeze.
While Yoast only lets you optimize your posts or pages for one feature keyword, Rank Math lets you optimize for unlimited keywords (five by default).
It also now comes with rich snippets integration with support for over 16 different types of schema markups, Google Analytics and Console integration, an LSI keyword tool, and much more.
You can easily migrate your settings from Yoast or other WordPress plugins.
Many users also prefer the clean user interface compared to other plugins.
RankMath has the ability to perform a complete SEO audit on your website and even has specific features to target local SEO, so your site can stand out from the rest.
The developers have designed Rank Math to be quick, which is a critical priority. The free version is robust and all you really need.
But if you want additional support, the ability to track up to 500 or more keywords, or to use it on client websites, a paid version is available.
The paid version starts at $59 per year for solopreneurs, bloggers, and individuals, and $199 per year for businesses.
If you’ve been using Yoast or other plugins all this time, Rank Math is definitely worth trying out!
2. All In One SEO
Screenshot from Aioseo.com, October 2021All in One SEO (AIOSEO) was the first SEO plugin for WordPress, created in 2007. It has generated a huge following of over 2,000,000 users since then for good reason.
It provides a convenient setup wizard and settings on one page, which is preferable to some who find plugins with multiple configuration areas (like Yoast) confusing and time-consuming.
The settings are divided up according to features, so it’s easy to know where to click if you want to work on your site’s homepage, title, display, etc.
As one big advantage, it’s excellent for all experience levels including total beginners while being powerful and robust for SEO.
And it works very well for a vast range of websites from services, to ecommerce, news websites, and other types.
The free version provides excellent features and can suffice for a complete SEO plugin, including custom meta tags, XML sitemaps, basic schema markup, and much more.
The paid version starts at $49.50 per year with higher tiers depending on the level of support needed and additional features you might want like 404 error tracking and multi-site support.
Overall, it’s a great alternative to Yoast and worth trying at least once to see if you prefer its features and interface.
3. SEOPress
Screenshot from Seopress.org, October 2021SEOPress is an all-in-one, white label SEO plugin for WordPress that will help your website stand out in the SERPs in no time.
The installation wizard helps you get the plugin set up for your site within minutes. It works well for a full range of businesses including bloggers, small businesses, agencies, and SEO experts.
In general, SEOPress works by:
- Helping you easily manage your titles, snippets, and meta descriptions.
- Build XML and HTML sitemaps to help your site become more visible to Google.
- Track what your visitors are doing with Google Analytics.
- Improving your social media content sharing.
They offer both a free and paid version, and the paid version is incredibly affordable (only $39 a year!).
The paid option offers WooCommerce and local SEO optimization features, schemas, CSV metadata import, and other features.
SEOPress is rated 4.9/5 by WordPress users, and it’s easy to see why.
4. SEOPressor Connect
Screenshot from Seopressor.com, October 2021SEOPressor Connect is a paid WordPress SEO plugin that powers over 23 million WordPress websites.
Their dashboard presents all your SEO data clearly in one place, so it’s quick and easy to identify and remedy any errors.
It lets you target up to three keywords per post or page along with a percentage SEO score to help you ensure the content is properly optimized. It also provides unique features like a keyword over-optimization warning.
Reporting features are excellent and intuitive, with a website SEO health meter that provides fast insight into how your site is performing. On-page SEO suggestions provide helpful and clear guidance on areas to improve.
Automated smart links help you build internal links to save time. LSI keyword research helps you improve your content to be easier for search engines to read.
Their newly designed algorithm was formulated based on an analysis of billions of rows of data, so it crawls your site almost as well as Google itself.
Unfortunately, there is no free version of SEOPressor Connect, but the paid version starts at only $9 a month so it’s affordable for most businesses.
5. The SEO Framework
Screenshot from Theseoframework.com, October 2021The SEO Framework sets itself apart from other WordPress SEO plugins because it’s largely automated and truly designed to make your life easy.
It automatically analyzes and optimizes many elements of your website that you would have to do manually if you were using other plugins.
It comes preconfigured, but you have the option to tweak the settings to meet your needs, and the intelligence built into it optimizes your website’s pages without you having to do anything (if you don’t want to).
It automatically generates page titles and descriptions that are sure to be recognized by Google.
Additionally, it’s unbranded so you won’t see the words “The SEO Framework” anywhere on your website.
The free version allows you to incorporate some extensions like Incognito, but if you want to link multiple sites, have API access, or premium extensions like Local SEO you’ll need to upgrade to their premium or enterprise plans.
If you want a plugin that is quick, automated, and doesn’t require you to learn SEO at all, this one is worth a shot.
6. Squirrly SEO
Screenshot from Plugin.squirrly.co, October 2021Squirrly SEO is an AI-powered WordPress SEO plugin that offers a different experience than most other WordPress plugins.
It’s another perfect plugin for those who would rather spend their time elsewhere in their business.
It pre-configures over 650 different features during installation to make your initial optimization as simple as possible.
An AI consultant also provides you with suggestions on how to further improve your website’s SEO.
The automation and AI features are time-saving and a good option for those who don’t have much time to spend on learning the ins and outs of SEO.
It’s designed for all experience levels, like most of these other plugins. Users love the fact that it’s so much easier to use than Yoast and other plugins with a higher learning curve.
Rated 4.6/5.0 by WordPress users, this is an interesting SEO plugin that is worth trying out if you are intrigued by some of the AI features and just want to save time on your SEO journey.
7. WP Meta SEO
Screenshot from WordPress.org, October 2021WP Meta SEO is another plugin designed for people who have little to no understanding of SEO.
The first thing this plugin does after being downloaded is to list all the major SEO problems that are currently on your website.
You can mouse over each issue and it gives you a basic description of what the problem is and how you can fix it; it doesn’t get much easier than that!
Features that make life easy include bulk meta tag and image tag editing, keyword suggestions, and an automated XML sitemap generator. On-page SEO suggestions are provided with an intuitive interface.
It also has a unique integration with Google Search Console, providing you with valuable Google website data and suggestions directly in the plugin.
Although the free version is feature-rich and can suffice on its own, you may want to upgrade to the paid version for $49 per year for multisite support along with dedicated customer support.
While this plugin is great for beginners, it also has enough features to impress even a seasoned SEO expert, and it has no trouble competing with the other plugins for top spot if you want something that’s simply easier to use.
Summary
Clearly, there are many other great options other than Yoast SEO for WordPress, and they are worth trying even if you love Yoast.
You might just run into your dream plugin with unique features, a smaller learning curve, or simply faster and easier usability that might pull you away from Yoast or whatever else you’re using at the moment.
More Resources:
- 7 Crucial WordPress Plugins for Blogs & Businesses
- 8 Awesome WordPress Plugins That’ll Make Your Site Mobile-Friendly
- WordPress SEO Guide: Everything You Need to Know
Featured Image: Sammby/Shutterstock
