Do I Need An SEO Plugin For My Website? What Do You Need?

I’m not the biggest fan of SEO plugins, but they can help make your content more SEO-friendly to the search engines, such as Google. So do I need an SEO plugin for my website?

Although not required, it can help with optimizing your content. That way, it increases the chances of getting ranked on the first page of Google.

An SEO plugin is nothing more than a guide to help with your on-page SEO strategies. It’s especially useful when you’re just building a brand-new website.

In this post, I’m going to lay out a few reasons why SEO plugins can help with optimizing your content for search engines. 

Along with that, I’m going to set up one website through an SEO plugin I’m using now. These are only the basics to getting set up in the beginning.

These steps are taken directly from the Online Entrepreneur Certification (OEC) training through the Wealthy Affiliate platform. It’s lesson two of level two of the core training.

Note: We may include products or services that will be helpful to our readers. This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please review the affiliate disclosure page.

To get the full breakdown, be sure to check out my extensive review of Wealthy Affiliate. If you want to learn more and are interested in this platform, read “Is Wealthy Affiliate A Good Program? Wealthy Affiliate Review” to get all of the details. This review is well worth your time as you make your best decision.

1. Do SEO Plugins Work?
2. Improves On-Page Optimization
3. Efficient Technical SEO
4. Integrates With Social Media Posts
5. How To Get Your Website Ready For SEO

Do SEO plugins work?

A search engine optimization (SEO) plugin can ONLY help with getting your content ranked at the top of the search engines. 

Keep in mind that no SEO plugin can guarantee your website rankings.

Whether that’s using Yoast, RankMath, or All In One SEO, all of these plugins can only help with getting articles ranked.

In my experience, no single SEO plugin works better than the other. So think of these plugins as guides to helping you with your SEO campaigns.

Do I need an SEO plugin for my website?

Improves On-Page optimization

When doing SEO for articles on your website, you have control over optimizing your on-page settings. 

For example, the keywords you target can be placed anywhere you want, such as headings, paragraphs, and meta descriptions. 

Properly placing your keywords in these spots is what will help with on-page optimization.

SEO 101: Best places to insert keywords

One of my best practices to place keywords is in a few areas. They include the following:

• The main title of your post
• Within the first paragraph of your post
• Meta title
• Meta description

That’s all you need to do. You can place keywords elsewhere, but these four sections are key to optimizing your content.

On another note: Be sure to target only one keyword per post. It’s much easier to do, and you can still easily rank content by targeting one specific keyword.

If you place your target keyword in these four areas, that will help with on-page SEO. 

Also, it’s something that you have complete control over when building your website.

When you use a plugin, it can help avoid duplicate issues when publishing content. So be careful that you use only one target keyword for each article you write.

More efficient technical SEO

Although technical SEO is something beginners don’t need to master right away, knowing the fundamentals can help to improve search rankings.

If you know how search engines crawl and index your posts, that’s part of the process of technical SEO right there. 

The role of an SEO plugin can help generate XML sitemaps, such as automatically updating your posts. If you revise a post here and there, an SEO plugin can help update the XML sitemap.

Another benefit of having an SEO plugin is it can keep track of website speed, and whether your website is mobile-friendly for search users.

A website that’s fast and mobile-friendly will come a long way, and an SEO plugin can identify if that happens to be the case or not.

Integrates with social media posts

An SEO plugin can also help with keeping track of content posted on your social media pages. 

Most plugins can track social signals whenever the content is published on social media sites. Not only can it help with the search engine result pages (SERPS), but it can help increase click-through rates (CTRS) as well.

SEO social settings

Any SEO plugin can automatically generate open graph tags and Twitter cards. So when you post content on Facebook Or Twitter, that will be tracked automatically with the social setups.

Here is an example of one of my content posts set up through the SEO plugin I use. 

It’s easy to set up and convenient to have my content automatically ready to be tracked through my social accounts.

Do I really need an SEO plugin?

How to get your website ready for SEO

Now that I’ve gone over some reasons why an SEO plugin can benefit your website, I’m going to lay out a few simple steps to get your website set up for SEO success.

These steps are laid out from one of the core training lessons in OEC. The recommended plugin used is the SEO Framework. 

The SEO Framework is the default plugin because it’s simple to use, and it doesn’t come with a lot of upsells or marketing features.

Note on this plugin

Do note that the free version of the SEO Framework works just as well as the paid one, so there’s no need to upgrade.

The previous plugin Wealthy Affiliate went with was going in the “salesy” direction, so it was time to find a plugin that did not do any of that.

If you prefer to use another plugin, that’s completely fine. But for the purpose of this lesson, here’s how to get some SEO basics set up right away.

Setting up the SEO Framework on your website

Once you activate this plugin, go to the menu below (through the WordPress back office) and click on “SEO”.

The primary “layout” section you will be updating is the “HomePage Settings”. What you’ll be doing here is updating two main sections for your SEO work.

• Meta Title: The title of your website that will show up once ranked in Google and other search engines. You want to make the title interesting and eye-opening to a potential reader.

*Length: Between 40-60 characters- Keep under 60 characters

• Meta Description: This section explains the purpose of your website, and how it will help people as well. Be sure to be descriptive as possible.

*Length: Under 160 characters

There are a lot of settings under the SEO page, which can feel overwhelming. Just focus on updating these two key areas, and save those settings for now.

You can always come back later to change these two areas and the other settings. But when getting started, you only need to focus on these two components.

Other than that, your website is ready to go. Each page and post you publish will automatically be optimized for Google and other search engines.

What does an SEO plugin do?

Final Words

Using an SEO plugin can be beneficial to making your website more SEO-friendly. 

Through on-page optimization, better technical SEO, and easier integration with social media are a few reasons to have an SEO plugin for your WordPress website.

Getting set up with the basics of SEO is not difficult. What was laid out in this lesson in the OEC training is straightforward.

If you’re interested in getting a website setup through SEO, I encourage you to check out this lesson in general.

It’s a great way to see which plugin is recommended, and the quickest way to get a website ready for the search engines.

Your Turn: Do you think SEO plugins are useful?

I would like to get your thoughts on this topic. Have you been on the fence about whether to use an SEO plugin for your website?

Are you proficient enough to understand the ins and outs of SEO, or would a plugin help out your website?

Can an SEO plugin take out some of the nitty-gritty things you don’t need to worry about?

Will you take advantage of using any SEO plugin to make the most out of your website?

Feel free to share your thoughts by leaving a comment below. I look forward to reading your thoughts, and I’ll gladly respond promptly.

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Eric is the owner and chief editor of notimekillers.com. 

He takes great pride in helping people manage their time and grow their businesses. 

Eric is a firm believer in financial and time freedom, as he believes in financial independence and taking ownership of your time. 

“Time is your most important asset. It can be your best friend or worst enemy. How you use your time can shape the future you desire to have.” 

In his leisure time, Eric loves to write and read whenever possible. He enjoys going for long walks outdoors while doing in-home workout videos every week. 

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