ahrefs | The Blog Pros

May 24, 2023

10 Best Long Tail Keyword Generators (Compared)

Are you looking for the best long-tail keyword generators?

Long tail keywords are more specific search terms that users may try to narrow down their search results. Using them in your content can help you bring more traffic to your website.

In this article, we’ll show you the best long-tail keyword generators to find content ideas for driving traffic and conversions to your website.

The best long tail keyword generators for beginners

What Are Long Tail Keyword Generators?

Long tail keyword generators are online tools that help you find specific search terms or keywords related to a topic or phrase.

If you are starting a blog or making a website, then creating content around long-tail keywords can help you bring traffic to your site.

Long-tail keywords often show the user’s intent to make a purchasing decision and can help bring more targeted traffic and sales.

The easiest way to understand long-tail keywords is by using Google search itself. The search box will start suggesting long tail keywords as soon as you start typing.

long tail keyword suggestions in Google Search

You’ll also find more long-tail keyword ideas in the search results.

For instance, you’ll see the ‘People also ask’ section. This shows questions people are asking that are relevant to the search term you entered.

At the bottom of search results, you may also see a Related Searches section.

This will show further topics and related keywords which may not necessarily be long-term keywords but could further expand a search.

Google Search will give you a general idea of commonly used long-tail keywords related to a given search.

However, there are other third-party tools that can help you dig deeper and find more useful keyword ideas.

That being said, let’s take a look at some of the best long tail keyword generators on the market.

1. All in One SEO for WordPress

All in One SEO for WordPress is the best WordPress SEO plugin on the market. It allows you to easily optimize your WordPress website to get more search traffic.

You’ll need All in One SEO to optimize your content for focus keywords as well as any long tail keywords you find.

The best part about using it is that you can generate long-tail keywords right inside the WordPress admin area.

First, you need to install and activate the All in One SEO for WordPress plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Note: You can also use the free version of All in one SEO. It does allow you to generate keyword ideas but you’ll need pro version to add and analyze your content.

Simply edit the post or page you want to optimize and scroll down to AIOSEO Settings.

From here, look for the Focus Keyphrase section and enter your main keyword as the Focus keyphrase. After that, you need to click on the Get Additional Keyphrases button.

All in One SEO will then bring up a popup and ask you to connect with your Semrush account.

Don’t worry, you can sign up for a free Semrush account and use that as well.

Once you are connected, All in One SEO will fetch and display long tail keyword ideas that you can use.

Simply click on Add Keyphrase button to include one.

You can now start optimizing your content to cover new long-tail keywords you added.

All in One SEO is the most comprehensive SEO toolkit for WordPress. It has powerful custom sitemaps, advanced redirects, SEO titles and descriptions, multiple keyphrases, and full Schema support.

Pricing: Free version. The premium plans start at $49.60 per year.

2. Semrush

Semrush is the most powerful search marketing platform on the market. It comes with powerful keyword research tools that allow you to easily find long-tail keywords.

When looking for long-tail keywords, you can sort them by search volume, keyword difficulty, cost per click, and other matrices.

Semrush helps you easily track SERPs and your site’s performance for different keywords. You can also see do the SEO competitor analysis and find which keywords are generating the most traffic for your rivals.

Semrush also has a free plan which is good for finding long-tail keywords. However, the paid plans give you access to incredibly powerful tools and are totally worth the premium price tag.

Pricing: Limited free plan. Paid plans start at $119.95 per month.

3. Ahrefs

Ahrefs is another popular search marketing platform with a powerful set of tools to help you grow search traffic.

It comes with a powerful Keywords Explorer tool that helps you find long-tail keyword ideas. It shows keyword difficulty, search volume, estimated clicks, and more.

You can also see top-ranking pages for a keyword and see what other keywords that particular page rank for. This gives you a more in-depth list of long-tail keywords to target.

Apart from keyword explorer, Ahrefs comes with keyword monitoring, site audit, technical SEO analysis, and detailed competitor analysis.

They also have a free Ahrefs Search Console tool, which is similar to Google Search Console with a few extra features.

Pricing: Starting from $99 per month.

4. Answer The Public

Answer The Public is a search insights tool popular among SEO professionals and marketers. It allows you to enter a keyword and see the questions users are looking for on search engines.

This gives you long-tail keyword suggestions with practical ideas on how to make your content more comprehensive for a wider audience.

Simply enter your main keyword or topic in the search field and it will generate a chart of questions. You can mouse over a question to highlight it.

Less popular questions have a lighter background color and more popular questions will be highlighted with a slightly darker color.

Charts are organized in questions, prepositions, and comparison queries. Below the charts, you will also see the questions in list format.

Answering some of these questions in proper FAQ schema can help your content appear in Google rich snippet results.

Pricing: Free for over 500K searches per month. Paid plans start at $99

5. Google Keyword Planner

Google Keyword Planner is a keyword research tool provided by Google for advertisers to find keywords. It is an immense resource for marketers even if you don’t want to run paid advertisements.

Simply click on ‘Discover new keyword ideas’ and enter your main keyword. Keyword Planner will then fetch a list of keyword ideas related to your main keyphrase.

You can see average monthly searches, changes in search volume over recent months, advertiser competition, and more.

The keyword planner data does not provide keyword difficulty range like Semrush or Ahrefs.

However, you can assume that keywords with higher search volume and advertisement costs would have tougher competition.

Pricing: Free

6. Question DB

Question DB is another free and simple search insights tool. Similar to Answer The Public, it allows you to see the questions users are asking for a keyword.

You can view the results in questions or keywords format. The results are not formatted in any specific order and there are no other metrics to compare them with.

For instance, you wouldn’t know how many people are looking for a long tail keyword or question. You’ll have to use other tools to find this information.

Pricing: Free

7. KWFinder

KWFinder is another excellent tool for generating long-tail keyword ideas. Unlike Semrush and Ahrefs, KWFinder focuses on keyword research.

It offers comprehensive keyword analysis with search volume, historical data, keyword difficulty, and visits.

You can search for specific geographic locations and languages. You can also track keywords and monitor your SERPs.

Pricing: $29.90 per month

8. Keyword Tool

Keyword Tool is another useful tool for keyword research and finding long-tail keyword ideas for your business.

It sources keyword data from autocomplete feature in Google, YouTube, Bing, and more. You can narrow your search with location and language filters.

The basic keyword tool is free but only provides a keyword list. You will need to subscribe to the pro plan to see search volume, competition, and CPC cost.

Pricing: Free. Paid plans start from $69 per month.

9. Google Trends

Google Trends helps you compare search trends over time. It is not exactly a long-tail keyword generator but can help you see user interest in search terms over time.

You can also compare multiple keywords to see which one has more searches. It can also be used to compare brands, products, people, and more.

Below that you can also get a list of related queries and clickable maps to see interest in different regions.

Pricing: Free

10. LSIGraph

LSIGraph is another highly useful content planning and keyword research tool on the market.

It helps you easily find low-hanging long-tail keywords with opportunity scores. This helps new websites quickly find keywords that are easy to rank for.

Each keyword also shows user intent, this allows you to sort your keywords by user intent when planning your content strategy.

Pricing: Starting from $29 per month.

We hope this article helped you find the best long tail keyword generators. You may also want to see our article on how to improve your organic click through rate or check out these Google Search Console tips to drive more search traffic.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post 10 Best Long Tail Keyword Generators (Compared) first appeared on WPBeginner.

March 17, 2023

8 Best Online Content Optimization Tools for WordPress (in 2023)

Are you looking for the best online content optimization tools for WordPress?

You can increase the search traffic to your WordPress website or blog by optimizing your online content. Luckily, there are plenty of easy-to-use tools you can use to make your content more readable and rank higher on search engine results pages.

In this article, we’ll share the very best online content optimization tools that experts use to grow their website traffic.

8 Best Online Content Optimization Tools for WordPress

What Is a Content Optimization Tool?

When you optimize your posts for SEO, you can improve your search engine rankings and consistently get more traffic to your WordPress website.

That’s why we created a handy checklist of tips to optimize your blog posts for SEO. This is a list of all the steps we use on our own blogs, such as keyword research, crafting effective titles, internal linking, improving readability, and much more.

But even using our checklist, optimizing your content is a lot of work. Luckily, there are handy online tools that can recommend specific steps you should take to improve your content so it ranks higher on search engine results pages.

That being said, let’s take a look at the best online content optimization tools for WordPress.

1. All in One SEO

All in One SEO (AIOSEO) is the best SEO plugin for WordPress websites. It’s beginner-friendly and at the same time, comes with advanced optimization features, and gives you SEO insights from your WordPress dashboard.

Once you finish setting up All in One SEO, it will automatically perform an SEO audit so you can see the overall SEO health score for your website.

It will also give you a detailed report with practical suggestions to improve your SEO score.

AIOSEO will also help you find semantic keywords for your focus keyword, and the headline analyzer tool will give your headline a score and offer tips to make your headline even better.

The plugin’s Link Assistant offers suggestions for relevant posts you can link to and the anchor text to use. Simply click the ‘Add Link’ button, and the link will automatically be added to your post.

All in One SEO will also automatically analyze readability issues and make suggestions for you in the analysis section. It also lets you take your XML sitemaps to the next level and allows you to add schema markup for your WordPress website.

Pricing: Starts at $49.50 for the Basic plan that supports one site. You can also get started using the free plugin which offers fewer features.

2. Semrush SEO Writing Assistant

SEO Writing Assistant is a content optimization tool created by Semrush, one of the best SEO tools on the market. You can use it to check your content in real-time for SEO suggestions and improve the overall SEO score of the content on your WordPress website.

You start by entering a focus keyword to generate content templates based on the top 10 results for that phrase. After that, you will be given scores on readability, SEO, originality, and tone based on rival results.

Next, you look for ways to improve your content. For example, you can use Writing Assistant to optimize your article headline, include recommended keywords, adjust the article length, make sure the tone sounds natural and casual, and check for plagiarism.

We show you how to do all of this step-by-step in our guide on how to use the SEO Writing Assistant in WordPress to improve SEO.

Pricing: Starts at $119.95/month for a Pro account. A free trial is available.

3. Surfer SEO

Surfer SEO helps you write articles that read well and rank high. It helps you structure your posts, provides a list of relevant keywords you should include, and offers a content score and real-time feedback on how to optimize your content.

This software offers many of Clearscope’s features at a more affordable price. For example, when you paste your content into the app, it will give you a content score, show you which keywords you are using and which you aren’t, and display an outline of the post’s structure.

Surfer SEO also offers an audit showing actionable steps to improve your content, a keyword research tool, and a page speed comparison so you know whether you need to improve your page’s load time.

Pricing: Starts at $49/month for the Basic plan when paid annually. This plan supports two users. There is a 7-day money-back guarantee if you are not satisfied.

4. Clearscope

Clearscope offers a wide range of tools that helps you optimize your online content. For example, it can show you the keywords you should use, the questions you need to answer, how to structure the article, how long the post should be, and how to improve readability.

You create a report by typing in a query such as a post title, and Clearscope will analyze relevant content from your competitors to determine which keywords should be included in the post and much more.

Next, you can paste the contents of your article to see how it can be improved. This will show you the length of your post compared with the typical length of your competitors’ posts and the readability level.

You’ll see a list of important keywords, and those you have already included will have a checkmark next to them. In the top left of the screen, you will see a content grade, and you can improve your grade by adding keywords that are not already in the post.

Clearscope also has a Keyword Discover tool. After typing in a keyword, you will see related keywords, questions that are asked related to that keyword, and which keywords are trending.

Pricing: Starts at $170/month for the Essentials plan which is for one user. Business and Enterprise plans have custom pricing. You can request a free demonstration of the software.

5. Frase

Frase is an affordable content optimization tool that identifies relevant content you should include in your post and provides a smart outline for your content.

Once you write or paste your content, smart insights will pop up on the right of the screen. It will also be given a content score so you can see how much it needs to be improved.

The app can autocomplete or rewrite sentences for you using artificial intelligence, suggest transition words that add interest to your writing, and recommend topics to include in your post by analyzing the most popular Google search results.

Pricing: Starts at $12.66/month for the Solo plan when paid annually. A 7-day free trial is available.

6. MarketMuse

MarketMuse is another excellent content optimization tool, but its pricing makes it more suitable for enterprise-level companies than small businesses. It offers applications to help you research, compete, optimize, and more.

You’ll see a personalized difficulty score of your existing content so you can see how your content competes with articles on other sites. It uses natural language rather than keywords to suggest content you should add to your post.

It also offers tools that perform keyword research and competitive content analysis.

This will show you the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors’ content in a chart so you can add content that they are missing.

Pricing: Starts at $600/month for the Standard plan, which supports one user. You can add additional users for $99/month each. The Premium plan costs $12,000/year, and there is also a limited free plan for one user so you can test the software.

7. Ahrefs

Ahrefs is an excellent keyword explorer and rank tracker tool and comes with a site audit tool to optimize your entire website.

Using the Keyword Explorer, you can come up with keyword ideas by simply typing a keyword into the search box. You’ll then see a whole list of keyword suggestions.

Its Rank Tracker feature lets you add the keywords you want to track to your Ahrefs dashboard. It shows you an overview of your search engine rankings. You can see your visibility percentage, average position, traffic, SERP features, and changes in position.

You can also use Ahrefs to see the keywords that your competitors are ranking for, so you can create new content pieces targeting keywords related to those subjects.

The Content Explorer feature finds the most popular content for any keyword or topic. You can see why those posts rank higher and replicate their strategy in your own content.

Pricing: Starts at $99/month for the Lite plan. Pay annually and get two months free.

8. Headline Analyzer (Free)

Headline Analyzer is a free tool that helps you evaluate your headlines and improve the copy to make it more engaging and click-worthy. It provides data-driven insights and suggestions for creating irresistible SEO titles.

It can be tricky for beginners to come up with a headline that instantly captures your users’ attention and gets them to click your website link. This is where you can use the headline analyzer tool.

All you have to do is enter your blog title, and the Headline Analyzer will give it an overall content score along with suggestions on how to improve it.

The tool will also tell you if your title needs to be longer or shorter to make sure it displays properly on SERPs (search engine results pages). It even shows you a preview of how your blog will appear in Google search results.

Pricing: Absolutely free.

We hope this tutorial helped you find the best online content optimization tools for WordPress. You may also want to learn how to increase your blog traffic, or check out our list of the best WordPress landing page plugins.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post 8 Best Online Content Optimization Tools for WordPress (in 2023) first appeared on WPBeginner.

August 4, 2021

Semrush vs Ahrefs vs Moz – Which One is Better? (Pros and Cons)

Are you comparing Semrush vs Ahrefs vs Moz?

Semrush, Ahrefs, and Moz are the top three SEO tools on the market. They allow you to do keyword research, competition analysis, track SEO rankings, monitor backlinks, and more.

In this guide, we’ll compare the pros and cons of Semrush vs Ahrefs vs Moz to find out which one is better.

Why Use an SEO Tool for Your Online Business?

An SEO tool helps you improve your website’s performance on search engines. Choosing the right SEO tool helps you get more traffic from search engines and grow your business.

Following are just a few things that you can do with Semrush, Ahrefs, or Moz.

Track Your Search Engine Rankings

All three platforms allow you to easily track your search engine rankings. You can simply add your website URL to see how your site is doing in search. You can also manually track keywords and monitor your search rankings.

Optimize Your Content for Higher Rankings

All three SEO software tools help you optimize content for higher rankings. They include site and content audit tools that provide easily actionable tips to improve your SEO.

Track Competitors

You can also spy on your competitors just as easily as you would monitor your own website. You can see who is linking to your competitors, what keywords they are ranking for and then beat them on all those keywords.

Find Keyword Ideas

Struggling with keyword ideas to get more traffic? All top SEO software tools help you find keyword ideas with higher search volumes that you can easily rank for.

Track Backlinks

These SEO software help you track backlinks to any URL on your website or your domain name. You can see who links to your website and improve your link-building strategy with real insights.

These are just the top advantages of using an SEO software tool for your website.

Depending on which platform you choose you would also get many other features such as keyword ideas for paid advertising (PPC), Social Media analysis, local SEO, content marketing tools, keyword research, on-page SEO, and more.

That being said, now let’s take a look at each one of these top three SEO platforms and how they stack up in terms of features, ease of use, and pricing.

1. Semrush

Semrush is one of the best SEO tools on the market. It was founded in 2008 as a Firefox SEO extension called SEO Digger, which was later renamed SeoQuake, and then became Semrush.

Semrush offers an incredibly powerful all-in-one platform to manage your search and content marketing strategy under one roof.

Let’s take a look at some of the Semrush features.

Semrush Features:

Keyword research tool – Find keyword ideas and track your performance on any keywords.
Competition research – Spy on your competitors, see their organic and paid keywords, and top content. Not sure about who your competitors are? Simply enter your own domain name to find out your competitors.
Local SEO monitoring – Manage your listing, perform a site audit, track search position, and more.
Comprehensive advertising monitoring – PPC keyword tool, domain monitoring, advertising research tool, and more.
Social Media – Directly post ads to social media platforms, track social media postings, and research social media ads.
Content analysis tool – Check your content for SEO performance with practical tips to improve it.
Beautiful reports – You can generate and download beautiful reports for individual projects. You can also create custom reports for different domains, URLs, or Keywords.

When it comes to features, Semrush is the most comprehensive SEO software on the market.

Ease of Use:

Semrush offers a ton of data which could be overwhelming for a new user.

Luckily, it offers the most easy-to-use dashboard that just works. There is a search bar at the top where you can just add any domain, keyword, or URL to get started.

On the left, you get all the tools in a neatly organized layout. Each section comes with its own dashboard that works similarly to the main search tool. For instance here is the content marketing dashboard.

Semrush offers a robust help center with tons of how-to guides and tutorials to help you get started. They also a knowledge base and Semrush Academy where you get access to dozens of SEO courses.

Semrush Pricing: Starting from $99.5 / month

Our Rating: A+

Semrush offers the most comprehensive SEO software toolkit on the market. The data behind Semrush’s platform is massive which gives you access to incredible insights into search engine marketing.

Most importantly, we find Semrush to be the most beginner-friendly SEO tool. Once you enter a URL or keyword, it gives you all the information you need in an easy-to-understand format.

WPBeginner users can use our Semrush coupon to get a 30-day free trial.

2. Ahrefs

Ahrefs is another top SEO tool on the market with a comprehensive toolkit. Founded in 2010 as a site explorer tool, Ahrefs has grown into a full-fledged SEO platform for businesses, agencies, and SEO professionals.

It comes with all the features that you would get with any other SEO software in a simpler interface and tons of learning resources.

Ahrefs Features:

Site Audit – Ahrefs comes with a powerful site audit tool that you can use to optimize your website
Site Explorer – Spy on your competitors’ websites with Ahrefs site explorer tool. Unlock their top keywords and content and learn why they rank higher on those search terms.
Keyword Explorer – Find out keyword ideas for your domain name and track your search performance on different keywords.
Content Explorer – Find the most popular content for any keyword / topic. See exactly why they rank higher and replicate their strategy in your own content.
Clicks data – Ahrefs provides click data for keywords which helps you understand not just search volume but an estimated click rate too.
Keyword Tracker – Easily track SERPs for specific keywords. You can filter the tracking by geographic location, desktop and mobile.

Ahrefs provides all the tools you would want in your SEO toolkit. However, it lacks PPC advertising data for keyword research. It also lacks social media monitoring tools when compared with Semrush.

Ahrefs Ease of Use:

Ahrefs is very easy to use out of the box. They offer a simple dashboard with all the tools neatly tucked into different sections.

Navigating around each tool is quite easy and you can find on-screen help as you explore different areas. They also have an instant help icon on each page so you can get to the support team much quicker.

Ahrefs has an extensive library of articles, how-to guides, video tutorials and SEO resources. These come in handy if you are unfamiliar with a specific tool and want to learn how to make the most out of it.

Ahrefs Pricing: Starting from $99 per month.

Our Rating: A

Ahrefs offers a complete toolkit to manage SEO for your website and online business. It is easy to use and offers more proactive help across the platform than other tools. It does lack social media monitoring and PPC campaign features offered by Semrush, which may be a deal-breaker for some users who want to track those inside their SEO platform.

3. Moz

Moz is another popular contender for the best SEO software toolkit on the market. Founded in 2004 as an online community called SEOmoz which later became a consultancy agency and then an SEO toolkit.

They offer a professional toolkit for small businesses, SEO professionals, and agencies.

Let’s take a look at some of the features of Moz and see how they stack up against the competition.

Moz Features:

Keyword research tool – Moz offers an easy-to-use keyword research tool. Simply enter a domain name to get the top-ranking keywords.
Site audit tool – Perform a complete site audit to see how your website is doing in search. The tool shows you errors, crawl issues, and makes actionable recommendations
On-page SEO – Get content optimization tips for keywords and URLs, find similar topics, and follow a step by step guide to improve existing content
Backlink research – Moz comes with a link tracker tool that allows you to monitor your website’s backlink.
Generate reports – You can download the automatic reports or create your own custom reports. Moz also provides templates to easy generate reports for domains, URLs, and keywords.

Moz offers all the basics that you will need to manage your website’s SEO. However, it lacks many features included in the other two platforms.

Ease of Use:

Moz offers a similar dashboard to the other two SEO tools mentioned above. Upon login, you get a quick overview of your projects with charts and a summary.

Different SEO tools are organized in a sidebar column. Each section comes with an easy interface that makes it easy to understand and follow along.

The platform also has an extensive help section with detailed how-to guides, tutorials, and articles.

Pricing: Starting from $99 per month

Our Rating: B+

Moz offers a robust platform to manage your website SEO. However, it lacks many of the features available in the other contenders on the list. For instance, advertising tracking, social media monitoring, content optimization tool, and more.

Bonus Tool: All in One SEO

All in One SEO for WordPress is the best WordPress SEO plugin on the market. It is the perfect companion for the top 3 SEO software mentioned above.

It helps you easily optimize your WordPress website for SEO. It is beginner-friendly and works out of the box for users who don’t have any technical SEO skills.

All in One SEO Features:

TruSEO On-Page Analysis – All in One SEO gives you an on-page SEO score as you create content on your website with easy tips to improve SEO before publishing it.
Rich Snippets – Comes with complete Schema markup support that allows your website to appear in rich results.
XML Sitemaps – Advanced XML sitemaps for your WordPress site that you can easily configure
Local SEO – Comes with Local SEO support to improve your site’s performance in local searches.
Ecommerce SEO – All in One SEO works out of the box for eCommerce websites.
SEO Audit – Perform a site-wide SEO audit with an actionable checklist

For more details, see our complete guide on how to setup All in One SEO for WordPress.

Ease of Use:

All in One SEO is incredibly easy to use. It comes with a setup wizard that walks you through the basic setup regardless of skill level and SEO expertise.

It integrates with your WordPress website. This allows you to make SEO an integral part of your routine and prepare your content for SEO as you work on your site.

It gets out of your way and allows you to focus on creating content. At the same time, advanced users can configure settings and use a more hands-on approach to tweak SEO settings for different parts of their site.

Pricing: Starting $49.50 per year (free version available)

Our Rating: A+

We recommend using All in One SEO for WordPress on all websites. It helps you easily manage on-site SEO and works really well with any of the top 3 SEO software mentioned above.

Semrush vs Ahrefs vs Moz – Which One is Better?

We found Semrush to be the best SEO software tool on the market. It outperforms the competition in terms of features, ease of use, and value for money.

For site owners, we recommend using Semrush with All in One SEO. This gives you incredible tools to manage both on-site and off-site SEO.

Our second choice would be Ahrefs. While it is missing a few features offered by Semrush, it is still a great SEO toolkit.

We hope this article helped you compare the pros and cons of Semrush vs Ahrefs vs Moz. You may also want to check our complete WordPress SEO handbook or follow our guide on how to track conversions on your website.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post Semrush vs Ahrefs vs Moz – Which One is Better? (Pros and Cons) appeared first on WPBeginner.

April 13, 2021

How to Check Website Traffic for Any Site (7 Best Tools)

Do you want to check website traffic for any site, including your own?

Checking website traffic allows you to see how well your site performs and how it compares to your competition.

In this article, we’ll show you how to check website traffic for any website using various online tools.

Why Should You Check Your Website Traffic?

By checking your website stats, you can easily see how your website is performing.

Your website traffic data will show you where your traffic is coming from, how visitors engage with your site, and what digital marketing strategies are working.

If you want to get more email subscribers, more sales for your online store, or just more traffic overall, then you need to regularly check your website analytics.

By tracking your site’s traffic, you’ll know where your site currently stands and what you can do to improve.

Why Should You Check Your Competitor’s Website Traffic?

Analyzing your competitor’s website traffic statistics can reveal a lot of helpful information such as:

The pages and posts bringing your competitors the most traffic
Which keywords your competitors are ranking for
The channels that are driving them the most traffic

All of this information can be used to improve your content marketing strategy, link building, keyword research process, and more.

By understanding what brings your competition the most traffic, you’ll be able to target those same keywords and topics to generate more traffic for your website.

Best Tools to Check Any Website Traffic (including Competitors)

There are a lot of free and paid traffic checking tools that you can use. Each one has unique features that set them apart.

Most experts use multiple tools to check website traffic estimates for their competitors. We always recommend readers to try at least two different tools to analyze web traffic stats.

By using various tools, you’ll be able to fill in the gaps and get more accurate traffic stats for any website.

As your WordPress site and budget grow, you can invest in multiple tools to gain more insights and dominate your market.

Having said that, let’s take a look at the best tools to check how much traffic a website gets.

1. SEMRush

SEMRush is an all-in-one traffic analysis and competition research tool. It’s the best tool for analyzing and monitoring traffic for any website.

We use this tool at WPBeginner for keyword research, tracking keyword rankings, and a lot more.

Once you enter a competitor URL, you’ll get a detailed breakdown of your competitor’s total traffic.

You’ll be able to see important website metrics like the volume of monthly traffic over time, traffic distribution by country, the keywords that bring them the most traffic, and more.

The Traffic Analytics tab gives you the number of unique visitors, total visits, average visit duration, number of pageviews, and the bounce rate the site receives.

This feature is like looking into your competitor’s Google Analytics account.

Another excellent feature called Bulk Traffic Analysis lets you analyze traffic levels for multiple competitors at once.

Depending on your pricing plan, you can compare up to 200 websites. This gives you a big picture view of your niche, the websites getting the most traffic, and any traffic opportunities you can act on.

You’ll also find detailed traffic analytics reports that give you information like which sites are sending the most referral traffic, which pages on their site are the most valuable, and which locations bring them the most traffic.

You can take advantage of the 14 day trial, or the limited free plan which gives you access to basic website data.

If you want full reports, then the premium plans start at $119.95 per month, which gives you full access to competitor traffic sources, rankings, social media, and more.

2. SimilarWeb

SimilarWeb is an online website traffic checker that gives you an overview of your competitor’s traffic and which channels are the most valuable.

Instead of just providing traffic from search, you’ll get detailed reports of a website’s entire traffic strategy.

Once you run a website through the tool, you’ll get a breakdown of the overall traffic, including a country by country report.

You’ll get engagement metrics like bounce rate, number of pages viewed per visit, average visit duration, and the top traffic sources for that website.

Beyond organic search traffic, you’ll find what paid keywords bring the website traffic, what social channels are the most valuable, and the display networks the site uses to monetize.

Finally, you’ll get a detailed breakdown of the site’s audience, what kind of other sites they’re interested in, the top referring sites, and a list of competitor sites for you to research further.

The free version of the tool provides you with useful traffic data. If you require more detailed reports, then you can create an enterprise account with custom pricing.

3. Google Search Console

Google Search Console is a free tool from Google that lets you analyze your search engine traffic.

This tool gives you a complete picture of how your site is viewed by the search engines.

It shows the number of impressions, clicks, click-through rate (CTR), and the average position of your keywords in the search engines.

This helps you understand what keywords you’re ranking for and the search volume they’re bringing in. This information can help you improve your traffic.

For example, if you find that you’re ranking in position 11, then you can optimize the blog post to try to move it to the first page of the search results.

You can also see which pages are indexed, if any errors are present, and more.

Once you add your site to Google Search Console, you can start viewing your website data.

The easiest way is to connect your Google Search Console account with All in One SEO. For more details, see our guide on how to add your WordPress site to Google Search Console.

You can also use the MonsterInsights tool, mentioned below, to view your keyword rankings inside the WordPress admin area using Google Search Console data.

For more details, see our guide on how to see keywords people use to find your WordPress site.

4. Ubersuggest

Ubersuggest is a free and premium tool from Neil Patel that offers a ton of useful website traffic data.

It’s straightforward to use and the interface is built for beginners. If you’ve never done keyword research or traffic analysis before, then this tool makes it incredibly simple.

The traffic analyzer feature gives you a detailed breakdown of your competitor’s traffic over time, the keywords bringing them the most traffic, and the most popular pages on the site.

All you have to do is enter the website URL you want to analyze and click ‘Search’.

The ‘Traffic Overview’ page gives you the total number of organic keywords the site ranks for, the organic monthly traffic, domain authority, and the total number of backlinks.

You can also dive deeper into each section of the traffic report. For example, you can expand the ‘Top Pages’ results to get a breakdown of each published page on the site and the estimated amount of traffic it brings in every month.

The results also give you the estimated number of backlinks, along with the number of Facebook and Pinterest shares. This data gives you a general overview of what you’ll have to do to outrank that page in the SERPs.

The free version of the tool gives you access to the last 3 months of data. Premium plans start at $29 per month, making it one of the cheapest tools on this list.

5. Serpstat

Serpstat offers a wide range of different SEO tools. What started as a simple keyword research tool has grown into an all-in-one website analysis tool.

Even though it’s packed with features, it’s still very easy to use. Just enter the URL and the tool will generate a traffic report.

There are traffic checking features along with backlink analysis, site auditing, and rank tracking tools.

The traffic analysis features give you all kinds of useful website data, including the organic and paid keywords that are driving traffic, the average number of visitors the site gets per month, and the pages that get the most traffic.

You’ll also find trend information, so you can see how the site’s rankings, traffic, and keywords are performing over time.

The free version of the tool gives you access to a portion of the total data that’s available for a domain name. Premium plans start at $69 per month and give you access to all of the data the tool provides.

6. Ahrefs

Ahrefs is one of the most popular SEO tools in the market trusted by brands like Netflix, Uber, and Facebook. It helps you see how much traffic your competition is getting and why they’re ranking so high.

Ahrefs crawls more than 6 billion web pages every day, with more than 200 million websites in their index. It’s a lot of data, but this gives you actionable insights to help you outrank your competitors and get more traffic.

The interface is very simple and user friendly. Simply enter the website URL in the search field and the tool will pull all available website information.

The search overview report gives you an overview of the organic search traffic a site receives, the domain authority, biggest competitors, and much more.

You can filter the report to view the traffic stats for the year, last 30 days, or all time.

Even though there’s a ton of data present, it’s easy to filter and find the website metrics you’re looking for.

Keep in mind that the traffic data only shows organic search data and not other sources like social media.

There’s a 7 day trial for $7, after that plans start at $99 per month. Considering the amount of data you have access to, it’s surprisingly affordable.

7. MonsterInsights

If you want to analyze your own traffic, then the only tool you should be using is Google Analytics. However, setting up Google Analytics on your own and analyzing your own data can be difficult.

We recommend using MonsterInsights, it’s the best Google Analytics plugin for WordPress and used by over 3 million sites, including Microsoft, Yelp, PlayStation, and more.

It allows you to easily set up Google Analytics in WordPress and view your traffic data directly in your WordPress dashboard.

You’ll be able to see your top performing posts, pages, landing pages, homepage traffic, and more. This helps you understand user behavior and makes it much easier to grow your WordPress blog.

Final Thoughts on How to Check Traffic on Your Website

There are all kinds of tools you can use to check your website traffic and competitor website traffic.

Checking competitor traffic will give you insights into your market and what you can do to get more traffic. While, monitoring your own website traffic will show you if your SEO, social media, and other traffic generation strategies are working.

The best way to check your own website traffic is with MonsterInsights. In a couple of clicks you can view your website traffic data directly in your WordPress dashboard.

If your goal is to do in-depth competitor research, and you want to check traffic on any website, then SEMRush is our top choice. Not only will it give you accurate traffic data, but it’s one of the best SEO tools in the market.

We hoped this article helped you learn how to check website traffic on any site. You may also want to take a look at our ultimate WordPress SEO guide, and our expert list of 24 must have WordPress plugins for business websites.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Check Website Traffic for Any Site (7 Best Tools) appeared first on WPBeginner.

October 31, 2019September 26, 2023

How to Find and Fix Broken Links in WordPress (Step by Step)

Everyone agrees that broken links are bad for user experience. But did you know that broken links can significantly hurt your WordPress SEO rankings?

Yes, it’s proven that having broken internal links on your website negatively impacts SEO.

In this article, we will show you how to easily find and fix broken links in WordPress so that you can improve your user experience and SEO rankings.

How to Find and Fix Broken Links in WordPress (Step by Step)

What Is a Broken Link?

A broken link, also known as a dead link, is a link that no longer works.

Broken links can happen for many reasons, but the most common reason is when a page is either deleted or moved to a different location, which causes the server to show a ‘404 not found’ error message.

On WordPress sites, broken links typically occur when moving a site to a new domain name or when deleting a post or page without proper redirection.

Sometimes, broken links can also happen due to a typo, and they can go unnoticed for months, if not years.

This is why it’s extremely important to regularly monitor broken links on your WordPress website and fix them so you can keep them from hurting your SEO rankings.

In this guide, we will share the top 5 methods to find broken links in WordPress. After that, we will show you an easy way to fix those broken links.

Here’s a table of contents for easy navigation:

Finding Broken Links in WordPress Using Broken Link Checker (Quick & Easy)
Finding Broken Links Using Semrush (Full Site Audit)
Finding Broken Links Using Ahrefs (Complete Backlink Profile)
Finding Broken Links Using MonsterInsights (Advanced Tracking)
Finding Broken Links in WordPress Using Google Search Console (Free)
How to Properly Fix Broken Links in WordPress
Bonus: Our Best Guides on Internal Links

Ready? Let’s get started.

Method 1: Finding Broken Links in WordPress Using Broken Link Checker (Quick & Easy)

The Broken Link Checker plugin by AIOSEO is an essential tool for making sure all of the links on your WordPress site are functioning correctly.

It regularly scans for broken links on your website, including internal and external links that result in a 404 error.

Unlike some other broken link checker plugins, it’s built as a SaaS service, so it won’t slow your website down. It also won’t be blocked by managed WordPress hosting companies like WP Engine because it uses an external private server to ping for broken links.

First, you will need to install and activate the Broken Link Checker plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Note: The free version of Broken Link Checker allows you to scan up to 200 internal links. You can upgrade to the Pro version to scan more internal and external links.

Upon activation, the Broken Link Checker Setup Wizard will start automatically to help you set up your account.

On the next page, you can choose to create a free account or connect to a plan that you already purchased.

To create a new free account, simply click the ‘Create a Free Account’ button. You will need to fill in your name, email address, and phone number. You will also need to enter your credit card details so you can be upgraded when you go over the free 200 link limit.

Connect Your Site to a Free Broken Link Checker Account or an Existing Account

If you already purchased the Pro version, then you can click on the ‘Connect to an Existing Account’ button. You will be asked to sign in to your account, and then you can click the ‘Connect’ link next to your plan.

The plugin will now start working in the background to find links in your posts, pages, and custom post types.

You can go to the ‘Broken’ tab to view the full report. The links are categorized into broken, redirects, and dismissed.

Find broken links and edit URLs with Broken Link Checker by AIOSEO

If you have been running your WordPress blog for a long time, then this report will include broken links to third-party websites as well.

You can quickly fix any broken links right inside of the plugin by clicking the ‘Edit URL’ link. Or, you can remove the link by clicking ‘Unlink.’ Once you are finished, don’t forget to click the ‘Update’ button.

Editing a Broken Link Using Broken Link Checker

Broken Link Checker will also give you ‘Status Details’ about each link when you click the Information ⓘ icon.

The information displayed includes how long the link has been broken, its HTTP status code, response headers, and more.

The plugin’s Settings tab lets you control which post types (posts, pages, custom post types) and statuses (published, draft) you want to monitor or exclude.

Broken Link Checker by AIOSEO will automatically scan your site every 3 days, so you won’t have to worry about broken links in the future.

Method 2: Finding Broken Links Using Semrush (Full Site Audit)

Semrush is one of the best SEO tools on the market. It allows you to easily monitor your website’s SEO rankings and overall health.

It also includes a powerful site audit tool that crawls your website to find common errors and prepare a detailed report for you.

First, you will need to sign up for a Semrush account.

It is a paid service, but they offer a limited free account that allows you to crawl up to 100 pages on one domain name. Paid plan limits start from 100,000 pages a month.

Once you are logged in, you need to click on the ‘Site Audit’ link from the left menu.

This will bring you to the Site Audit page. From here, click on the ‘Create project’ button at the top to add your website.

Adding a New Site Audit Project in Semrush

You will be asked to enter the domain name you want to audit, and then you need to click the ‘Create project’ button.

After that, you will be asked to configure the site audit settings.

Type a Domain for Your New Site Audit Project

Semrush will now begin crawling your website for the site audit. This may take a few minutes, depending on how many pages you selected for the crawl.

Once finished, you can click on your domain under the ‘Site Audit’ section to view your report.

Notice that the number of broken links is written in blue. That’s because it’s a link you can click to see more information.

You will see a list of broken links found on the crawled pages of your domain.

You can now click on the ‘Export’ button at the top right corner of the screen to download your crawl report. You will need it when fixing broken links on your website.

Method 3: Finding Broken Links Using Ahrefs (Complete Backlink Profile)

Ahrefs is an excellent all-in-one SEO tool for marketers, businesses, and SEO professionals. It offers detailed SEO insights into your own website or any of your competitors.

You can use it for keyword research, competition analysis, organic and paid keyword ideas, and site health monitoring, including broken links. With the Site Explorer tool, you will get a complete backlink profile of your website.

First, you will need to sign up for an Ahrefs account. Note that it is a paid service.

Once you are logged into your Ahref’s dashboard, you need to enter your domain name into the ‘Site Explorer’ tool.

The Site Explorer tool will now crawl your website to prepare reports. This may take some time, depending on how much content you have on your website.

Once it is finished, you will see an overview of your Site Explorer results. From here, you need to click on the Pages » Best by links menu and then sort your report by 404 status.

You can now export your report in CSV format to find and fix the broken links on your WordPress website.

Method 4: Finding Broken Links Using MonsterInsights (Advanced Tracking)

MonsterInsights is the best analytics solution for WordPress. It automatically tracks broken links and 404 errors on your website by using Google Analytics.

Using the plugin, you can set up Google Analytics without editing code. It also lets you set up link and button click tracking, eCommerce tracking, author tracking, and more.

To start, you will need to sign up for a Google Analytics account and connect it with your WordPress website using MonsterInsights. For more details, you can follow our detailed guide on how to install Google Analytics in WordPress.

Note: MonsterInsights is a premium WordPress plugin, but we will be using the free version for this tutorial. However, you can upgrade to its Pro version for advanced tracking features, dashboard reports, popular posts features, and more.

Once MonsterInsights is active on your website, the plugin will start to track broken links and show you a report in Google Analytics. However, it might take up to 24 hours before you see any data.

To find broken links, you need to create an Exploration report in Google Analytics. This will take information about your broken links from MonsterInsights and display them in a list.

Once you log in to Google Analytics, you will need to navigate to the ‘Explore’ tab and choose a Blank report.

Create a Blank Explore Report in Google Analytics

Now, under Exploration Name, you can type a name for the report, such as ‘Broken Links’.

Next, you need to click the ‘+’ button next to Dimensions.

Creating a New Explore Report in Google Analytics

You will see a full list of the available dimensions for your report.

You need to search for the ‘Page title’ dimension and check its box. After that, you should do the same thing for the ‘Page path + query string’ dimension.

Once you’ve done that, just click the ‘Import’ button at the top right of the screen.

Next, you need to import a metric. This time, you should click on the ‘+’ button next to Metrics and import the Sessions metric.

Import the Sessions Metric to Your Report

Now, you can add the items you imported to your report.

First, you need to drag both Dimensions to the Rows box in the second column. After that, drag the Sessions metric to the Values box.

Drag the Variables to the Settings Column

Next, scroll the second column down to the Filters section.

You need to click the box that says ‘Drop or select dimension or metric’. After that, click on ‘Page title’ from the menu.

Create a New Filter Using the Page Title

Now, under Conditions, you need to select ‘contains’ from the dropdown menu and then type the page title for your website’s 404 page, such as ‘Page not found’.

Tip: If you are not sure of the title of your website’s 404 page, then type a random URL after your domain name, such as https://example.com/xyz and then check your browser’s tab for the title.

Once you’ve done that, you can click the ‘Apply’ link.

On the right of the page, you will now see a report of all of the 404 errors that occurred during the report’s time frame. However, in most cases, the ‘Page page + query string’ column will be cut off so that you can’t see the full URL.

To see the URLs, you will need to download the data. Simply click the ‘Download’ icon at the top right of the page.

When you view the downloaded data, you will see that most of the URLs look like this:

/404.html?page=/error-page-url/&from=http://example.com/page/

The part of the URL that shows your broken links comes after ?page=. In the example above, this is https://example.com/error-page-url.

The part of the URL that shows the page containing the broken link comes after &from=. In the example, this is http://example.com/page/.

You can use this information to fix the broken links. We show you how to do that in the last section of this article.

To see this report in the future, simply visit the ‘Explore’ tab in Google Analytics.

Method 5: Finding Broken Links in WordPress Using Google Search Console (Free)

Google Search Console is a free tool offered by Google to help webmasters manage their sites’ visibility in search results. It also notifies you about errors, including 404 errors that are caused by a broken link.

First, you will need to set up Google Search Console for your website. For step-by-step setup instructions, see our ultimate Google Search Console guide.

After you have logged in to your Google Search Console account, just click on the ‘Pages’ link from the left menu.

Next, make sure the box next to ‘Not indexed’ is checked.

This will make sure that you will see any 404 errors that were encountered by users when visiting your website.

Google Search Console Pages That Aren't Indexed

When you scroll down to the section titled ‘Why pages aren’t indexed’, you will see one reason listed as ‘Not found (404)’.

When you click on this item, you will see a list of all broken links that caused a 404 error.

A List of Pages Not Found in Google Search Console

How to Properly Fix Broken Links in WordPress

We have shown you 5 different methods to find broken links in WordPress. Now, let’s talk about how to easily fix broken links in WordPress.

The best way to fix a broken link is to redirect it to another page.

For example, if you moved the contents of an article to a different address, then you will need to redirect it to the newer article.

Similarly, if an article does not exist anymore, then you will want to point users to a similar page that is closely related to the contents of the old article.

You can do this by setting up 301 redirects.

The easiest way to fix broken links and set up redirection is by using the All in One SEO (AIOSEO) plugin for WordPress. It offers a powerful redirection manager that helps you track 404 error pages and create 301 redirects.

Note: We will be using the AIOSEO Pro version because it includes the redirection manager addon and offers multiple types of redirections.

First, you will need to install and activate the AIOSEO Pro plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you need to visit the All in One SEO » Redirects page and then click the ‘Activate Redirects’ button.

Next, you will need to go to the ‘Settings’ tab under Redirects and enable 404 logs. You can find the option in the ‘Logs’ section.

AIOSEO will also let you set the time period to record your 404 logs using the dropdown menu. We suggest that you select no longer than one month for smooth and optimal performance.

After that, go ahead and click the ‘Save Changes’ button.

You will now see a ‘404 Logs’ tab appear in the Redirects section in AIOSEO. Go ahead and click on the tab.

When you first enable the 404 logs option, there will be no data on this page. The plugin will only start to monitor and record 404 pages after enabling the settings.

However, once it’s active, AIOSEO will show a list of broken links on your website under the ‘URL’ column. It will also show you how many people visited the link under the ‘Hits’ column and the last accessed date.

You can now click the ‘Add Redirect’ button for any broken link you want to fix. When you click the button, you’ll see redirection options for your 404 error URL.

Simply enter the Target URL where you’d like to redirect your visitors and select ‘301 Moved Permanently’ as the redirection type from the dropdown menu. Once you’ve done that, you should click the ‘Add Redirect’ button.

You can now test this by visiting the old broken link, and you will be redirected to the new page.

Just repeat the process for all broken links on your website.

For more information, see our guide on how to set up redirects in WordPress for beginners.

Bonus: Our Best Guides on Internal Links

Now that you have found and fixed the broken links on your WordPress site, you may be wondering about other ways to use internal links to improve your site’s SEO. Here are our best guides on internal links:

We hope this article helped you learn how to easily find and fix broken links in WordPress. You may also want to see our guide on how to set up an SEO-friendly URL structure and our expert pick of the best internal linking plugins for WordPress.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Find and Fix Broken Links in WordPress (Step by Step) first appeared on WPBeginner.

October 18, 2019June 3, 2022

14 Best WordPress SEO Plugins and Tools That You Should Use

Often we’re asked about what are the best WordPress SEO plugins and tools that we recommend.

That’s because search engines are a major source of traffic for most websites on the internet. Optimizing your website for search engines can help you rank higher in search results and significantly grow your business.

In this article, we will share the best WordPress SEO plugins and tools that you should use. Some of these tools offer similar functionalities, so we will also highlight which ones are the best for specific use-cases.

Things You Must Know About WordPress SEO Plugins & Tools

When reading SEO WordPress tips or searching for “best free WordPress SEO plugins”, you will come across articles that feature several dozen tools.

This can be quite overwhelming for beginners and non-techy users.

The truth is that you don’t need dozens of top SEO tools to get higher search engine result rankings.

While most blog posts (including ours) will share the top most popular SEO plugins, it is extremely important for you to understand the use-cases of each tool.

For example, you never want to use more than one WordPress SEO plugin on your website. We will mention All in One SEO (formerly All in One SEO Pack), Yoast SEO, SEOPress, and Rank Math. You need to pick only one to avoid plugin conflict.

We’ll mention SEMRush, Ahrefs, and few other powerful tools, but you don’t need them all when you’re first starting out since they have a similar feature set. We will share what tools we use in our business, and which features are the best among each tool.

With that said, let’s take a look at our expert pick of the best WordPress SEO plugins and tools.

1. All in One SEO for WordPress (AIOSEO)

All in One SEO for WordPress (AIOSEO) is the best WordPress SEO plugin on the market. Used by over 3+ million users, it is the most comprehensive SEO toolkit that helps you improve search rankings without learning any complicated SEO jargon.

The free version of AIOSEO has all the essential features, but the pro version gives you everything you need to outrank your competitors.

It comes with the easiest setup wizard that automatically helps you choose the best SEO settings for your business. AIOSEO shows you TruSEO on-page analysis with an actionable checklist to optimize your posts and pages.

The on-page SEO checklist includes a smart meta tag generator where you can use dynamic values (current year, month, day, custom fields, author info, and much more) in your SEO title and meta descriptions. This means you don’t need to update a post just to change SEO titles.

All in One SEO (AIOSEO) dynamic meta title and description

AIOSEO also comes with Rich snippet schema markup, smart XML sitemaps (with advanced controls), SEO health check, and other useful features to grow your search engine visibility.

There is a built-in social media integration to add Open Graph metadata as well. This means you can choose which image or thumbnail you want to show when your pages are shared on social media websites like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.

All in One SEO for WordPress (AIOSEO) social media profiles

AIOSEO also comes with built-in WooCommerce SEO tools for eCommerce sites. This includes features like dynamic optimizations, individual product page optimizations, product image SEO, and other handy features to bring more organic traffic to your online store.

For more SEO savvy users, it includes full control of RSS feeds, Robots.txt editor, local SEO, breadcrumbs, Google News sitemaps, video SEO, advanced redirect manager, 404 tracking, IndexNow integration, and more.

For business owners, it comes with SEO user roles, so you can manage access to important SEO features without handing over control of your website.

Update: Recently AIOSEO added a Link Assistant which is a game-changer for internal linking. It helps identify link opportunities, gives you linking suggestions in real-time, and you can bulk-add internal links with just a few clicks.

Overall, All in One SEO (AIOSEO) is the most beginner-friendly and comprehensive WordPress SEO plugin on the market. It’s easy to configure and eliminates the need to install multiple plugins to do things on your WordPress site. It works perfectly for all types of businesses, eCommerce, blogs, news, and other websites.

As a WPBeginner user, you get 50% off AIOSEO Pro.

For those who’re on a budget, you can use the free version of AIOSEO to get started.

2. SEMRush

SEMRush is the best overall SEO tool on the market. Used by professional SEO experts, marketers, bloggers, large and small businesses, it provides a comprehensive set of tools to grow your traffic.

You can use it to find organic keywords and search terms that you can easily rank for. It also allows you to do competitive research and see which keywords your competitors rank for, and how you can beat them.

SEMRush SEO Writing Assistant tool helps you improve your website content to beat the top 10 results for your focus keyword. It integrates with WordPress, and this will help you write more SEO-friendly content.

You can also generate SEO templates and get easy search engine optimization suggestions for your content along with advanced SEO recommendations.

SEMRush seamlessly integrates with All in One SEO (AIOSEO) to help you find additional keyphrases for your focus keyphrase. You can see related keyphrases and their search volume right from WordPress. Then, you can add them to your content with the click of a button.

To learn more, see our complete guide on how to do keyword research for your website.

We use SEMRush for our websites because of their competitive intelligence and SEO rank tracker features.

3. Google Search Console

Google Search Console is a free tool offered by Google to help website owners and webmasters monitor and maintain their site’s presence in Google search results.

It alerts you when Google is unable to crawl and index pages on your website. You also get helpful tips on how to fix those crawl errors.

Most importantly, it shows which keywords your website is ranking for, anchor texts, average position, impressions, and more. You can use this data to find keywords where you can easily rank higher by simply optimizing your content. You can also use this keyword data to come up with new blog post ideas.

For more details, see our comprehensive Google Search Console guide for beginners.

Tip: You can use MonsterInsights to track your keyword rankings inside WordPress admin area using Google Seach Console data. We will cover this tool later in the article below.

4. Yoast SEO

Yoast SEO is a popular WordPress SEO plugin that allows you to optimize your WordPress website for search engines.

It lets you easily add SEO titles and descriptions to all posts and pages on your website. You can also use it to add Open Graph metadata and social media images to your articles.

Yoast SEO automatically generates an XML sitemap for all your website content which makes it easier for search engines to crawl your website. It also helps you easily import your SEO data if you have been using another SEO plugin.

Other features include readability analysis, Google and social previews, and faster load times for a better user experience.

For more details, see our complete guide on how to install and set up Yoast SEO plugin in WordPress.

5. Google Keyword Planner

Google Keyword Planner tool helps you generate your own keyword ideas from Google itself.

No one on the planet has more insights into what people are searching for than the search giant Google. This free tool is offered to Google’s advertisers for free and anyone can use it. Its main purpose is to show advertisers the keywords they can bid on for their advertising campaigns.

It also helps advertisers choose the right keywords by showing them an estimate of search volume, number of results, and difficulty level.

As a content marketer or blogger, you can use this data to find keywords with high search volume, high advertiser interest, and more importantly keywords where you can easily outrank all other sites.

Bonus: See these 103 Blog Post Ideas that your Readers will Love (Cheat Sheet).

6. Ahrefs

Ahrefs is an all-in-one SEO analysis tool for marketers, bloggers, and businesses. It is a popular alternative to SEMRush and offers a lot of similar tools and features.

It allows you to do keyword research, competition analysis, backlink research, SEO audit, monitor keyword rankings, and more.

It also offers a detailed content analysis tool that helps you improve content while targeting specific keywords.

While there’s a huge feature overlap, what Ahrefs does really well is backlink analysis. We can use it to see which sites are linking to multiple competitors, but not us. This helps us get more backlinks and build more partnerships.

They also help us identify which content multiple of our competitors are ranking for that we aren’t, so we can create content on those subjects to get more exposure.

Last but not least, Ahrefs helps us better identify duplicate content and keyword cannibalization which helps us merge and upgrade the right content to boost our rankings.

For the reasons above, we pay for both SEMRush and Ahrefs because they’re both good for specific use-cases.

7. SEOPress

SEOPress is another simple yet powerful WordPress SEO plugin. It includes all the features you would expect from an SEO plugin like meta title, description, open graph support, image and content XML sitemaps, redirects, and more.

It comes with a straightforward setup for beginners and advanced controls for more experienced users. It is comparable to other top WordPress SEO plugins on the market in terms of features and options.

The paid version of the plugin is cheaper than some other premium WordPress SEO plugins on the market.

Note: SEOPress is a WordPress SEO plugin. Remember, you only need one WordPress SEO plugin on your site.

8. Rank Math

Rank Math is another user-friendly WordPress SEO plugin that allows you to optimize your website for search engines and social media. It comes with a setup wizard and allows you to import data from other SEO plugins during the setup.

You can use it to easily add meta title, description, and Open Graph metadata to your blog posts. The plugin also allows you to generate an XML sitemap, connect Google Search Console, and control access to plugin features based on user roles.

Note: Rank Math is an AIOSEO alternative. Remember, you only need one WordPress SEO plugin on your site.

9. Schema Pro

Schema Pro allows you to add rich snippets to your website which makes it stand out in search results.

Rich Snippets allow you to make your website stand out in search results by showing star ratings below a review, prices below a product, image or video next to the description, and so on.

Top WordPress SEO plugins, like All in One SEO (AIOSEO) already add structured rich snippets data to your website. However, if you need more schema types or want to extend the functionality of your existing WordPress SEO plugin then Schema Pro is the way to go.

Schema Pro also allows you to use it alongside your existing WordPress SEO plugin by mapping the plugin data to Schema Pro fields.

10. KeywordTool.io

KeywordTool.io is one of the best free keyword research tools available right now. It allows you to simply generate keyword ideas by typing in a keyword. These keyword suggestions are gathered from Google’s autosuggest feature. It also shows you keyword suggestions from Bing, YouTube, Amazon, and more.

These keyword suggestions are a treasure of information. You can also get search volume, cost per click, and other data for each keyword by upgrading to their paid plan.

11. Redirection

Redirection helps you set up SEO friendly redirects in WordPress. It is a handy broken link checker that helps you easily fix 404 errors in WordPress by setting up redirects.

Broken links can affect your site’s SEO and create a bad experience for your users. If you have been running a blog for some time, then you should check your site from time to time for broken links and fix them.

There are multiple ways to easily find broken links in WordPress. Once you find a broken link, you may need to fix it by pointing users to the correct link or removing the incorrect link.

For more details, see our step by step guide on how to find and fix broken links in WordPress.

Alternative: AIOSEO Advanced Redirects is a powerful alternative to the Redirection plugin.

12. SEOQuake

SEOQuake is a useful SEO tool for website owners. It is available as a browser add-on for Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, and Safari web browsers.

It provides SEO related information for any website. This data includes page health, age, last updated, Alexa rank, and many other parameters. It is one of the most downloaded browser addons by SEO professionals.

Apart from that, the SEOQuake toolbar can show you all the same data search results when you type in a keyword. This information can be extremely useful if you are gauging competition for different keywords. You can even download search results in CSV format and prepare your own excel sheets of search data.

Alternative: Ahrefs SEO Toolbar

Bonus Plugins for WordPress Website Owners

These tools give you the additional advantage when optimizing your website for SEO. They do not advertise themselves as SEO tools but they are essential for every website and play a significant role in your website’s search performance.

13. WP Rocket

Site speed is a major factor in search rankings. That’s why you need to monitor your website speed & performance to make sure it’s not affecting your SEO.

The easiest way to boost your website speed is by enabling caching. WP Rocket is the best WordPress caching plugin on the market, which allows you to set up caching without diving into any technical stuff.

Alternative: WP Super Cache

14. MonsterInsights

Many beginners rely on their best guess to make their marketing decisions. You don’t need to do that when you can easily get the insights you need to improve your website’s SEO strategy.

MonsterInsights is the best Google Analytics plugin for WordPress. It allows you to easily install Google Analytics in WordPress and shows human-readable reports inside your WordPress dashboard.

It tells you where your users are coming from, your top content, what users do on your website, and more. It also allows you to track your eCommerce SEO by seeing which products are popular and where you are losing customers.

Bonus tip: See what other marketing data you must track on your website to grow your business.

Other Powerful Growth Tools:

Aside from the above plugins, we also recommend the following tools to increase your traffic and conversions from SEO visitors:

PushEngage – connect and engage with SEO visitors after they leave your website with web push notifications.
OptinMonster – convert abandoning visitors into email subscribers & customers.
Constant Contact – stay in touch with SEO visitors through email marketing.
WPForms – get more leads from your SEO traffic with #1 WordPress form builder.
SeedProd – create SEO friendly custom landing pages with drag & drop WordPress page builder (no coding needed).

We hope this article helped you find the best WordPress SEO plugins and tools for your website. You may also want to see our proven tips to easily increase your website traffic, and our comparison of best chatbot software to boost conversions.

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