Which WordPress SEO plugin is best?
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For most sites, Yoast SEO or Rank Math: both are free for the essentials, with 10+ million and 4+ million active installs and 4.8 ratings on wordpress.org on 27 October 2026. Rank Math's free version includes redirects, a 404 monitor and internal link suggestions; in Yoast, redirects and internal linking suggestions are Premium. Yoast is the most widely used, and both include llms.txt tools and a bulk editor. AIOSEO suits plans by site count, SEOPress a flat $149 a year for unlimited sites, and The SEO Framework or Slim SEO a quiet, automatic setup.
Yoast or Rank Math: which should I pick?
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Pick Rank Math if you want redirects, a 404 monitor, 16+ schema types, internal link suggestions and one-click imports in the free version, and you're fine connecting a free Rank Math account, which you can skip at first. Pick Yoast if you want the most widely used plugin (10+ million active installs against 4+ million) with readability feedback, and you accept that redirects and AI tools are Premium. Both include llms.txt tools and bulk title and description editing, and both rate 4.8 on wordpress.org. Yoast Premium is $118.80 a year per site, and Rank Math PRO is €7.99 a month billed annually (renewing at €8.99).
Can I use two SEO plugins?
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No, not two full SEO plugins. Two plugins both print titles, meta tags, canonical URLs and schema, which duplicates them. Slim SEO Pro and Squirrly are the exceptions: Slim SEO says Pro is designed to complement any SEO plugin, and Squirrly says it runs beside others in a compatibility mode. Import your settings into the new plugin first, then deactivate the old one. Rank Math imports from Yoast, AIOSEO and SEOPress in one click, SEOPress imports from more than ten plugins, and Yoast and The SEO Framework (through its free Transport extension) have import tools too.
What do the free versions leave out?
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Yoast's free plugin has no redirect manager, and its AI tools are Premium ($118.80 a year per site); free users get a few trial Sparks. Rank Math's free plugin includes redirects and a 404 monitor, and PRO adds a 500-keyword rank tracker and 20+ schema types. AIOSEO's Local SEO starts at Plus, its Internal Link Assistant at Pro and rank tracking at Elite. SEOPress's schema editor, redirect manager, 404 monitoring, site audit and AI generation are PRO (from $49 a year).
What should I set up first after installing one?
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If your plugin has a setup wizard, run it and say whether the site is a person or an organisation, with a logo and social profiles; that feeds your schema. In Settings, Reading, make sure "Discourage search engines from indexing this site" is unticked: WordPress says it adds a noindex, nofollow robots tag. Then open your plugin's sitemap and submit that one address in Search Console. Yoast and Rank Math use /sitemap_index.xml, AIOSEO, Slim SEO and The SEO Framework use /sitemap.xml, and SEOPress uses /sitemaps.xml. Import settings from your old plugin before deactivating it, and check one post's source for a single title tag and a single canonical.
Do SEO plugins help with AI search?
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A little, mostly through llms.txt and AI-crawler rules. Yoast (free LLMs.txt management and, in Premium, a bot blocker), AIOSEO (an llms.txt generator), Rank Math (an llms.txt generator, documented in its knowledge base though not on its wordpress.org page), SEOPress (llms.txt, which its pricing table and changelog mark as PRO) and Squirrly (llms.txt, llms-full.txt and AI-bot robots rules) offer them. Google's AI optimization guide says Google Search itself doesn't use llms.txt or similar AI text files, so treat it as optional; our llms.txt explainer covers who does read it.
Which is cheapest over three years for one site?
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Using each vendor's listed first-year and renewal prices, ex VAT, for one site: SEOPress PRO $147 ($49 a year, renewing at the same price), Slim SEO Pro $177 ($59 a year, same renewal), AIOSEO Basic $247.50 ($49.50 the first year, then $99 twice) and Rank Math PRO €311.64 (€95.88 the first year, then €107.88 twice). Yoast Premium is $118.80 a year per site, $356.40 over three years if the price holds. SmartCrawl Pro is $150 if its $50 a year holds (its renewal terms aren't stated), and The SEO Framework's paid extensions are $84 a year for 2 sites ($252 over three years), though the free plugin covers the basics. We left Squirrly out because its pricing page is unclear about billing. All are our arithmetic.
Which is the fastest SEO plugin?
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Rank Math, AIOSEO, The SEO Framework and Slim SEO all describe themselves as fast or lightweight, and we haven't benchmarked them. Test on a staging copy with PageSpeed Insights before and after you switch.
Does an SEO plugin write content for me?
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Some can write parts of it, but treat the output as a first draft. AIOSEO's AI Content Generator and Rank Math's paid AI plans can write FAQs and full articles. Yoast Premium's Content Planner suggests five post ideas and builds a starter draft. Yoast Premium, SEOPress PRO (with your own AI provider key, or its AI credits plans) and Slim SEO (with your own key) write titles and descriptions. Our Autopilot publishes articles to WordPress and rewrites titles on pages already ranking, alongside whichever plugin you use.
