One of the most appealing things about WordPress is the amount of customization it offers through its plugins. There’s a tool for just about anything you could want on your website, including plugins that work in the background. Plugins that improve your search engine optimization are useful, but we find that many people still question their effectiveness. Much as it is with anything else in the SEO world, the answer to those questions isn’t always straightforward. Today, we’ll clear up some misconceptions about WordPress-based SEO plugins.

WordPress Plugins work (But They Need Your Help)

Installing long list of SEO plugins to your website is similar to buying a new set of tools for your garage. They look fancy, and you can spend all day imagining what to do with them, but they won’t get the job done if you just let them sit their. Instead, you need to pick them up and get the work done with them. No matter what plugin you choose, there is no “automatic” solution that’s really effective, too.

It’s All About Metadata

Yoast, SEMrush, Rel NoFollow Checkbox, and LinkPatrol are just a handful of the available SEO plugins you can benefit from, but they need fuel. Metadata is that fuel, which is the background information about how your website shows up on search queries. It tells the search engine what your page is about, how it’s classified, what keywords should be associated with it, how it appears on the search page, and more. It’s up to you to determine which metadata (keywords) you want to include.

Each plugin performs a different function for SEO, so you must put in your chosen metadata for each one. Some plugins and website creation tools may automatically generate metadata and descriptions for you, but those won’t get you very far. At the very least, you should review the auto-chosen meta data’s validity before you go live. Generic websites are a dime a dozen, so you should  add in more information to make it stand out in search results.

Automation Makes Your Life Easier

Tailoring every single webpage sounds tedious, but that’s exactly what these WordPress SEO plugins are for. They make your life easier by automating some of the menial tasks. They also prompt you for the most relevant information, ensuring that often-forgotten aspects like image tags don’t accidentally get overlooked. This may not seem like much of a benefit, but if you’re optimizing a 200-page website, it can mean hundreds of hours saved on manual entry.

How your SEO setup should operate depends on what you and your website are attempting to accomplish. Online stores will have very different meta data when compared side-by-side with a  resource website. The bottom line is that WordPress SEO plugins do work as long as they’re tuned correctly. Go Digital WSI  can help you use these plugins to maximize your results; contact us for your own evaluation today.