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Are SEO Plugins even Helpful? Ep. 583
SEO plugins like Yoast and Rank Math offer useful features but add site weight and may not be necessary once you understand on-page optimization fundamentals well enough to audit pages without them.
Key takeaways
- SEO plugins add code weight that slows site performance, so remove any you are not fully using.
- Features like sitemaps, schema, and Search Console integration have real value, but the keyword-scoring audit may not improve rankings.
- Longer SEO descriptions can work better because they are more descriptive and help search engines understand the page.
- If you are not in the top three positions, the SEO effort is barely worth it, so aim to outperform everyone.
- Limit plugins to around five or ten maximum and keep back-end code as clean as possible.
I don't really use the SEO plugins for SEO.
About this episode
Matthew Bertram talks about his experience with plugins and whether you should use them or not, as well as their advantages and pitfalls. He shares personal stories and announces a Small Business SEO Coaching Program! More details to come.
Questions this episode answers
Do SEO plugins like Yoast or Rank Math actually help your site rank better?
According to Matt Bertram, the plugins provide useful features such as sitemaps, schema, breadcrumbs, and Search Console integration, but he does not believe entering a target keyword into the plugin itself makes a page rank better. He uses them less and less as he relies on off-page tools and his own process instead.
What is the downside of using SEO plugins on a WordPress site?
SEO plugins add code weight that slows site performance. Matt Bertram moved away from Yoast because it was heavy, and he recommends keeping plugins to around five or ten maximum. He also notes that tools running on the site use resources and can hurt speed, similar to an unused Facebook pixel.
When should a small business owner use SEO plugins?
Matt Bertram compares plugins to training wheels: helpful when you are still learning what to look for on a page. Once you understand on-page fundamentals well, you can audit a page directly and may not need the plugin's scoring algorithm to guide you.
In their words
If you're not in the top three positions, it's like not even worth it to do SEO.
Matt Bertram
Terms defined in this episode
- Crawl budget
- The amount of crawling a search engine allocates to a site. The exact budget is unknown, but site owners can send signals via sitemaps and Search Console to suggest which pages to prioritize.
- Schema
- Structured data markup that SEO plugins like Yoast and Rank Math can add to pages to help search engines understand page content.
- Meta keywords
- A now largely ignored HTML tag that once told search engines what a page was about. Google has stated it does not use it, and overuse led to spam, as noted in a Yoast article referenced in the episode.
- Semantic search
- A search approach where engines interpret the meaning and context of content rather than matching exact keywords, influencing how descriptive meta content should be.
Full transcript is being added.
This episode answers
Matthew Bertram
AI keynote speaker · Owner & CEO, EWR Digital · President, ModalPoint
Matthew Bertram is an AI keynote speaker, creator of DIG™ (Digital Information Governance), and owner and CEO of EWR Digital. He helps energy and industrial leaders win visibility in AI search (GEO and AEO), is President of ModalPoint and CMO of the Oil & Gas Global Network, hosts The Best SEO Podcast, and has authored eight books including LLM Visibility. More about Matthew Bertram.
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