46:9 Supernatural search engine optimization

WordPress tools to try before you die. Sorry about that. Time for the next tool.

Welcome to another episode of WordPress tools to try before you die, our awesome series where we look at specific problems. We define the solution that we as an agency would put in place in the guise of an amazing WordPress tool. And then finally we share with you our use cases. You then have the opportunity to share with us what your solution to the problem would be. So be sure to stay tuned right to the very end so that you can join in with the conversation.

Let’s jump straight into today’s problem and that is SEO management. Specifically, for us as an agency, how can we manage the SEO process end to end whilst not costing the earth with a solution that is not overpowering, doesn’t slow the site down and doesn’t have a ridiculously steep learning curve? For this, you would assume the solution would be Yoast. And don’t get me wrong, we’ve used Yoast for many years and right now Yoast is powering at least 600 client websites. However, we are not a fan of Yoast.

There are many reasons, including costs, usability, and for us with our code base, we seem to have to fight Yoasts sometimes every few iterations. Therefore, for us as an agency, our solution for a long time now has become SEO Press. This was a recommendation by Pete Everitt. I’ll put a link in the Show Notes to his podcast in the Show Notes and this is certainly a plugin that if setup right, is out of your way but does a great job. There is a free version of SEO Press for us.

However, we use SEO Press pro mainly for the extra features such as the redirection, managing structured data types and also white labelling so that we can just get a lot of the clutter out of the client’s way. Most of the options are pretty much set and forget. However, the most used features for us would be the on page SEO. This allows us to manage the SEO and also to analyse the content with SEO management. As you’ll expect, you can control your title, the meta description, you can also see a little Google snippet preview.

You can also control your OG images, etc. For social media, you have your meta robot settings and again you can control redirection that we mentioned earlier. The content analysis is pretty impressive and whilst it doesn’t beat an actual SEO expert, it at least gives you the ability to set up your target keywords and it will then review your content and tell you what’s missing from things like header, one structures to not enough information or not enough repetition etc. It’s pretty powerful and quite impressive. It also has the option to inspect with Google and just on that you’re going to have to connect with the Google API.

But the SEO Press documentation is really detailed. They give you everything you need step by step screenshots to set up anything that may normally look pretty complicated. And finally, let’s jump back into the WordPress admin. You can turn on or off anything that you need. So you don’t need everything activated.

If you don’t need image SEO. If you don’t need local business. If you don’t need breadcrumbs. If you don’t need the WooCommerce integration or the easy digital downloads integration. The Google news sitemaps URL rewriting can hardly even say URL anyway any of that.

You can just turn it off if you don’t need it. It’s out of the way. So let’s jump into those use cases and in many cases you can use the free version for basic SEO. It will cover most everyday websites needs if you’re just running a simple blog etc. Where the pro use case comes in for us, like we alluded to earlier was things like managing the schema, setting up local business, breadcrumbs, URL rewriting and white labelling.

We therefore use this with a WooCommerce website allowing us to also manage the product schema. And another use case would be Trailblazer FM which is a content rich content heavy website where I need to ensure that everything looks good when shared on social media. I also need to make sure everything is indexed, I need to make sure that I’ve got access to my Google analytics and I also need to make sure that the content I create is on par, that it’s actually delivering value and it’s readable by the search engines. So now it’s your turn. What would your solution be for SEO for a WordPress website?

If you use SEO Press, what are your use cases? Let us know in the comments, just check the show notes for the link and let’s have a conversation over on Trailblazer FM. Did you know? You can also tell me your opinion, your thoughts, your feelings in person. Because this year on the 10th of November 2022 we are getting together in person here in the UK for two days.

It is Agency Transformation Live. Day one will be an awesome conference with amazing speakers and day two will be an in-person mastermind where with the combined brain power of the room, we help each other define those small achievable actions to our success. So be sure to check that out over on agencytransformation.live. Folks, if we don’t see you in the comments, if we don’t see you at the event, let’s see you in the next episode.