The number of SEO plugins for WooCommerce listed on the WordPress Plugins Directory is massive: spanning 49 pages, there are a total of 980 plugins to choose from.
It can be both daunting and confusing sifting through such a massive list, particularly for new users. Luckily, it is not necessary to have a million different SEO plugins to build a good WooCommerce site on WordPress. In fact, having too many plugins reduces site speed and can affect the performance of your store.
In fact, less is more when it comes to selecting the best tools and plugins for WooCommerce.
WordPress plugins and tools make it simpler to apply basic SEO concepts to optimize your WooCommerce store for search engines, rank higher in search results, and expand your business.
While plugins can make it easier for beginners who lack the technical know-how to improve the functionality and look of their website, plugins do not replace human input. SEO plugins automate many tasks that would normally require a sizeable amount of time to input manually.
A handful of the most popular plugins will be discussed in this article. It is worth mentioning that this list is largely subjective and the process of selecting plugins that meet your individual needs (and budget) depends on many variables.
Yoast SEO Plugin
With more than 5 million active installations, Yoast SEO is known as one of the best WordPress SEO plugins and it is a good place to start when building a website. Yoast SEO is used to perform various on-site technical optimizations, in one plugin. Owing to the wide variety of features, the Yoast SEO plugin eliminates the need for several bulky (and often conflicting) plugins.
Features
A few of the most noteworthy features of Yoast SEO include:
- Step-by-step configuration wizard to help you set up technical SEO settings right away
- Faster loading times
- Title and meta description editing
- Automated technical SEO improvements
And for the more Tech Savvy users, a full list of features can be found on their website.
All in One SEO Plugin
The All in One SEO plugin is another one of the most popular plugins for WordPress. Its popularity is largely due to the combination of its beginner-friendliness and comprehensive features. Eliminating the need for several plugins, which can slow down your store, is a major benefit when it comes to selecting plugins. This WordPress plugin is an amazing tool to use for eCommerce websites.
Features
Some of the best features of the All in One SEO plugin include:
- WordPress SEO setup in less than 10 minutes
- Smart Meta Title & Description with features such as automatic SEO generation and dynamic smart tags
- SEO Audit Checklist that helps you improve your site’s SEO
- Competitor Site SEO Analysis
W3 Total Cache Plugin
The W3 Total Cache WordPress plugin allows you to create static versions of your post and pages. This will result in faster load speed and an improved user experience.
Smush Plugin
Smush is a free WordPress plugin that is used to automatically compress and optimize images on your website. This allows your website to load faster without reducing the quality of images. Using the Smush plugin is a breeze. Images are optimized as they are uploaded to WordPress and older images are easily optimized in bulk (up to 50 images at a time on the free version – but there are no daily limits).
Really Simple SSL Plugin
The Really Simple SSL plugin will make your site load over HTTPS in three easy steps. The plugin works by automatically detecting and configuring your settings to enable SSL.
To use this plugin, you will need a valid SSL certificate. An SSL certificate informs users that your site is secure to browse. Although this plugin is unnecessary in cases where the site database already has a search-replace run from HTTP to HTTPS.
The benefit of using this plugin is that it will help you rank in search engines, as HTTPS is one of Google’s known ranking factors. The downside of using this plugin is that it is heavy on bandwidth and can impact the speed of your site. To reap the most benefit from this plugin, it is best to deactivate it and run occasional checks only.
Broken Link Checker Plugin
The Broken Link Checker WordPress plugin helps monitor and test all the links on your website to identify and fix broken links. This will ultimately help to improve your search rankings, website traffic, and user experience for your WordPress eCommerce site.
Redirection Plugin
Redirection is a simple WordPress plugin that allows you to easily redirect requests to another page on your WooCommerce store or website by implementing 301 redirects. It is incredibly easy to use: all you need to do is enter the source and target URL and click the “Add Redirect” button.
This is a handy feature to have in place after rebuilding a website, as it ensures a seamless transition to your new domain. This ensures that users will be able to reach your new URL instead of being presented with a 404 Not Found Error.
Conclusion
We hope you found this article helpful, and that it will help you in selecting the right combination of SEO plugins for your website. Whether you are rebuilding your eCommerce store and need to redirect traffic to your new URL, improve the load speed of your site, or are building a website for the first time, we are confident that these plugins will help you on your journey. WordPress plugins are a great way to quickly and effortlessly improve many aspects of your WooCommerce site, but it is still crucial to invest time and effort into other aspects of SEO.
If you enjoyed this article or found it helpful, check out more e-commerce marketing content on the inSyte blog or listen to the inSyte Podcast.
This article was brought to you by Syte.
We’re a specialist e-commerce digital marketing agency dedicated to driving up your bottom line.
If you need any help building your WooCommerce site, or selecting the right SEO plugins to complement your WordPress Website and improve your rankings, feel free to reach out with the form below or check out our case studies page to see what we’ve been able to do for our clients.
