WordPress by itself has tons of SEO (search engine optimization) built in, but it is felt and I agree that it is not enough to fully maximize the efficiency of your blog. The next plugin I install is All In One SEO Pack. There are many other plugins, but this is the one that has remained the most popular and the one that I choose to use on all the free WordPress themes.
All In One SEO Pack can be used as is without changing any settings, but for the optimal results, it allows you to optimize your blog in two specific ways. Using the best title, meta description, and keywords make it easier for visitors to find your posts in search. The first area is site wide settings that you can access from the All in One SEO Pack settings in menu and for each post in your blog by making a keyword optimized title, meta description, and targeted keywords that are all specific to the post and will be used in the search engines. Keep it simple, but make it keyword rich. The title can be different than the title of the post and often this is the best way to ensure your blog posts are found.
Here are some features of the All in One SEO Pack as found on the download page:
- Google Analytics support
- Support for Custom Post Types
- Advanced Canonical URLs
- Fine tune Page Navigational Links
- Built-in API so other plugins/themes can access and extend functionality
- ONLY plugin to provide SEO Integration for WP e-Commerce sites
- Nonce Security
- Support for CMS-style WordPress installations
- Automatically optimizes your titles for search engines
- Generates META tags automatically
- Avoids the typical duplicate content found on WordPress blogs
- For beginners, you don't even have to look at the options, it works out-of-the-box. Just install.
- For advanced users, you can fine-tune everything
- You can override any title and set any META description and any META keywords you want.
You can download the plugin here