All in One SEO and Yoast are probably the two most used SEO plugins on WordPress websites. Which one you choose will depend on how you work and which feels most comfortable to you. They both do an excellent job of getting your website ranked so try each and make your choice.
I have used both of them and, for me, All in One SEO is easier to use and has more flexibility when it comes to setting the options. It is now my choice for all my websites.
HOW IT WORKS
Like all SEO plugins, the purpose of All in One SEO is to help webmasters get the best search results they can get for their content. They do that by giving you a place to write the titles and descriptions you want the search engines to see and then adding them correctly in the HTML meta code on your page.
You are still responsible for doing good keyword research and writing good titles, content and descriptions. The plugin is just an aid but, ideally a very useful one. All in Ones SEO fills the bill in that sense.
MAIN FEATURES AND CAPABILITIES
All in One SEO can do a lot of things that are all aimed at getting your website ranked higher by the search engines. Features include:
INSTALLATION AND SETUP
Installation of the free plugin is normal. Just click Add New under Plugins then type “all in one seo pack” in the search box and hit return. Click Install when the plugin comes up.
Activate the plugin on the following page and the installation is done.
You will see two places where you can access the setting now. In the left sidebar you will see a section for All in One SEO and in the top menu bar will be SEO. Hover your mouse over one of them to see the settings available. I would start with Feature Manger.
You can just activate all of the modules while you are here. That way all the settings will be available to you.
For the most part you can just leave the default General Setting alone until you have a specific reason to change them but here are a few you should change now.
In the Home Page Setting Section add your site name it the Home Title box and a short description in Home Description box. You can also add a few good keywords separated by commas. Those question marks in the circles will give you a little help. Most of them also have a link to more complete documentation.
Scroll on down to the Webmaster Verification section and enter your verification codes for Google, Bing and, Pinterest (if you have one). If you don’t know where to find those refere to the documentation which is very good.
In the next section you should add your Google+ ID if you have one. More important is to add your Google Analytics ID and make sure Use Universal Analytics is checked. This Google tool will be a great help in collecting stats about how your site is doing so take the time to set up your account and add the code now.
Finally, move down to the Noindex Settings block and click the box by “Use noindex for pagenated pages/posts. This will prevent extra pages from being indexed and help keep your index compact. These pages get created as your archive grows. You end up with /page/2/ etc. There is no point indexing these and checking the box will prevent it.
You can skip Performance and move to XML Sitemap settings. Assuming you set your Google and Bing verification codes, you can make sure that file name prefix just says “sitemap” and that Notify Google and Notify Bing are checked. Just leave the rest set to defaults unless you have a good reason to change them.
The Social Meta module of All in One SEO is a powerful tool and you should make use of it. I wont go into the detail sin this review but I did write a post about it that you can access by clicking here.
Robots.txt, File Editor and Importer & Exporter are tools you can use later as needed. The documentation is there fir you to read.
Referral spam is junk traffic that can mess up your Google Analytics numbers. You can read more about it in this Wikipedia article.
Be careful with Block Bad Bots. It seems like a good thing to check but some people have reported getting locked out of their own sites after turning it on. Use with caution!
That is it. All in One SEO is ready to use
USING ALL IN ONE SEO DURING CONTENT CREATION
Now that you have the setting done the plugin will go off and do it’s thing – automatically adding meta data where appropriate and feeding info to the search engines. Your job is to give it the data you want to be seen. You do that as you edit each post or page.
Look below the WordPress Visual Editor and you will see the All in One SEO Pack settings area. For most of your content all you need to do is enter the title you want, a short description and a few keywords.
The other setting in this box will only apply in special situations. There will be times when you don’t want pages indexed by the search engines. Those might be your privacy policy, affiliate disclosures, landing pages and so on. For these just click the NOINDEX and NOFOLLOW boxes to exclude them.
It is just that easy to set up the on page SEO for each pieces of content. The meta data will be added in the correct places in the header when you publish the content.
THE GOOD AND NOT SO GOOD
WHO IS IT FOR?
All in One SEO pack is an excellent choice for every WordPress user who wants better rankings from Google and the other search engines. It will help you get your website seen by more potential visitors.
PRICING
The basic All in One SEO pack plugin is free to use. The pro version does include a few extra features and some additional training and support but I have nut yet found it neccessary to upgrade. The free version does what I need and does it well.
If you do need the extras in the pro version the cost is $39 plus a monthly support fee of $10. That gets you:
CONCLUSION
All in One SEO is my choice for all my website. I use the free version and have not found any reason to pay for pro. I like the settings interface and the simplicity on setting up the on page SEO for my content.
I have used Yoast and it does have on feature that All in One SEO lacks. For each piece you write, Yoast shows you colored lights that help you optimize the SEO within the content. This is helpful and will teach you a lot about on page SEO.
My main problem with it is that I don’t really agree with all the suggestions Yoast makes. For example, I try to use my main keyword 2 or maybe 3 times in a piece of content. Yoast is looking for a higher keyword density. Other things like using the keyword in the first paragraph and in a heading tag I think are too restrictive. Still, many people use and like Yoast so my opinion isn’t necessarily the same as most.
Both Yoast and All in One SEO are great products and both will improve your search engine optimization. I recommend that you try both and choose the one that you prefer using.
