Every day more than 1 billion searches are made on Google Images. In 2019, image search represented 20.45% of all searches in search engines. That’s why it’s crucial to optimize your images, and one step in doing so is to write SEO-friendly image alt texts.  

So in this post, we’ll show you 3 easy tips on how to write alt text for images for SEO. We’ll also cover what image SEO is and how to add alt texts to images in WordPress. 

Feel free to use the quick links to jump straight to the section you want:

• Image SEO: What Is It?
• What Is Alt Text for Images?
• How to Write Alt Text for Images for SEO (3 Easy Tips)
• Adding Alt Text to Images in WordPress

Since alt text for images is an important part of the overall image optimization process, let’s first discuss what image SEO is.

Image SEO: What Is It?

Image SEO, also called image optimization, is the process of optimizing the images on your website to make it easy for Google to find and rank them in image search. 

It entails several SEO elements, such as properly naming your image files, compressing your images to improve site speed, using lazy loading, serve your images via a CDN, etc. For more details, please visit image SEO: how to best optimize your images in WordPress.

Adding images to your content can entice people to click through to your website. That way, you’ll also increase your organic traffic and rankings in search engines.  

For instance, would you be able to resist clicking on these adorable puppy pictures?

Didn’t think so…

You get the point!

Images Give Context to Your Content 

Images also give context to your content. The saying “a picture is worth a thousand words” wasn’t invented for nothing.

Images are crucial to visually describe your content and make it more engaging to your visitors. No one wants to read long pages with only text.

However, simply adding them to your content isn’t enough. You also have to make sure that users and search engines find them.

That’s why optimizing your images should be part of your ongoing SEO strategy. And adding alt text for images is an important step in the optimization process.

But what’s alt text for images really, you may ask? Let’s take a look at that next.  

What Is Alt Text for Images?

Alt text for images is an HTML attribute that’s added to the image tag. Basically, the image tag is used to show images on your website, and the alt text describes them.

If your image can’t be displayed on your website, your visitors can still understand what the image is about from reading the text. Alt texts are also used by screen-readers to help blind people to understand the image.

Here’s an example of alt text in the HMTL code:

<img src="puppy-playing.jpg" alt="Adorable puppy playing catch" />

The alt text is the text after the alt= tag.

Now that you know what an alt text is, let’s take a look at how to write alt text for images for SEO next, so you can start ranking your images on Google.

How to Write Alt Text for Images for SEO (3 Easy Tips)

Writing image alt text for SEO is a process you do to help search engine crawlers to find and rank your images in image search. Search engine crawlers, also called spiders, are robots that search through all content in search engines for new updates and changes. 

When adding SEO-friendly alt text to your images, it helps Google to understand what your images are about and show them in the image search results. This will help you get more clicks and organic traffic to your website.

Alright, let’s dig in a bit deeper on how to write image alt text for SEO.

1. Include Your Focus Keyword

Use your focus keyword or keyphrase in the image alt text where it’s appropriate. The focus keyword/keyphrase is what you want searchers to find your content for. Including it in your alt text improves your chances of ranking in Google’s image search on that keyphrase.

However, don’t cram your focus keyword into every single image’s alt text since Google penalizes keyword stuffing and might see your site as spam.

Google states that:

“When choosing alt text, focus on creating useful, information-rich content that uses keywords appropriately and is in context of the content of the page. Avoid filling alt attributes with keywords (keyword stuffing) as it results in a negative user experience and may cause your site to be seen as spam.” 

Google Images best practices

This means that you should only include your post’s focus keyphrase if it’s easily included in your alt text and describes the image. If it doesn’t match your description, try using a semantic keyword instead.

For example, if your post’s focus keyphrase is “writing image seo alt text”, you might use “optimizing image alt text for seo” in your alt text instead. 

Best of all, AIOSEO analyzes your Focus Keyphrase and checks so you’ve used it in your image alt texts. It also checks so that you’ve used it in other important SEO metrics like the SEO title, meta description, etc.

With AIOSEO, you get access to all the advanced and powerful SEO tools and features you need to optimize and drive more traffic to your website.

That said, let’s move on to the next tip.

2. Be Descriptive 

The image alt text should describe your image and be specific. Always consider your users since the user experience is Google’s top priority.

Use both the image’s subject and context to guide you. A good exercise is to imagine that you’re describing the image to a blind person. How would you best describe it so he/she would understand what your image is about?

For example, how would you describe this image?

A non SEO-friendly image alt text would describe it something like this:

<img src="image1.jpg" alt="cake" />

It doesn’t say what the image is about, just that it’s some sort of cake in the picture. 

On the other hand, a SEO-friendly image alt text would describe the image like this instead:

<img src="chocolate-brownies.jpg" alt="Delicious chocolate brownies with extra glazing" />

Even though this image wouldn’t be displayed on your site, visitors would still know that the image is showing delicious chocolate brownies with extra glazing on them. 

3. Keep It Less Than 125 Characters

Keep your alt text less than 125 characters long. Too long alt texts (like in the example below) are difficult to read and not optimal for search engines either.

<img src="alt-text.jpg" alt="This is a very long alt text, which isn't user friendly, and will most likely be cut off by screen readers" />

Keeping it less than 125 characters will ensure it’s not going to be cut off by screen-readers as well.

Also, don’t start your alt text with “picture of…” or “image of…”. This is unnecessary information since both search engines and screen readers will identify that it’s an image from the HTML tag.

To learn more, please check out our post on image SEO: how to best optimize your images in WordPress. You’ll learn everything you need to know to maximize your rankings in image search on Google and other search engines.

Before we leave this topic, let’s take a look at how to add alt text to images in WordPress.

Adding Alt Text to Images in WordPress 

Adding alt text to images is super easy when using the WordPress block editor.

To get started, simply scroll down in the post or page you’re editing and click on your image so it gets marked with the blue frame. Then, go to the Image Settings in the right column of your post editor and type in the alt text in the Alt Text (alternative text) field. 

That’s it!

Do this for all your images, and don’t forget to click on the Update button to save your changes when you’re done.

Note: Alt texts aren’t visible on your site, but will be shown if your image can’t be displayed. 

And there you have it!

We hope this post helped you understand how to write alt text for images for SEO. Remember that the more images you optimize with alt texts, the better chances you have of ranking them in image search. You’ll also improve the overall user experience and keep visitors glued to your content.

If you want more awesome tips on how to boost your rankings on Google, check out our posts on best SEO practices and 30 SEO hacks guaranteed to grow your traffic. 

Not using AIOSEO yet? What are you waiting for? 

Tracking URL redirects lets you troubleshoot your 404 errors or broken links and immediately fix them before they hurt your rankings in search engines. 

In this post, we’ll show you how to track URL redirects in WordPress. We’ll also cover why you should track website redirects and how to use the redirect checker.  

Feel free to use these quick links to jump straight to different sections:

• What Is a 301 Redirect?
• Why Should You Track Website Redirects?
• Easily Track URL Redirects in WordPress
• Checking Your Redirects

To begin, let’s explain what a 301 redirect is and when to use it.

What Is a 301 Redirect?

A 301 redirect is the most common type of redirect and is a permanent move of an URL. It’s a setting that automatically sends your website visitors to a different URL than the one they landed on. 

Technically speaking, it’s a code that tells a web browser that the page it’s trying to load is deleted or moved. The 301 redirect tells it to navigate to a different page of your choice instead.

Best of all, when a redirect is set up properly your visitors often won’t even notice they’ve been redirected to a different page.

When to Use 301 Redirects

301 redirects are used when:

• You’ve changed the URL of an existing web page
• You’ve deleted old content on your site and want to redirect visitors to your new page
• You’ve redesigned your website and are moving it to a new domain

So now that you know what a 301 redirect is and when to use it, let’s take a look at why you should track your website or URL redirects next.

Why Should You Track Website Redirects?

You should track website redirects to be aware of 404 errors on your website. That way you can redirect those URLs that no longer exist to a new URL and maintain your rankings in search engines.

A 404 error is the error page your website visitors see when one of your URLs is broken on your site. It happens when a page is deleted or moved without being redirected to a new one.

Having too many 404 page not found errors and not redirecting these can cause your rankings on Google to drop.

Here are a few ways not tracking and redirecting your URLs can hurt your SEO:

• Users Can Still Find Your Deleted Pages in Search Results: Your deleted pages are still indexed and users might end up on your deleted page, which doesn’t provide a good user experience.
• Your Bounce Rate Will Increase: When your users visit a 404 error page, they’ll immediately click away, which will increase your bounce rate and ultimately hurt your SEO. 
• You’ll Lose Worked-Up Backlinks: The backlinks you’ve managed to get to your website will be lost when your content is moved or deleted.
• Your SEO Rankings May Drop: When too many URLs are changed, it can take Google a lot of time to reprocess and rediscover them. This may result in drops in rankings.
• It Can Cause Search Invisibility: By not redirecting your 404 pages, you can lose visibility for your important content. That’s because Google has to spend time crawling your non-existing or unnecessary pages and may not index your important pages.

With that said, let’s show you how to easily track URL redirects in WordPress next. 

Easily Track URL Redirects in WordPress

With All in One SEO’s Redirection Manager, you can easily track your URL redirects and check so they’re working properly. 

AIOSEO offers the simplest way to track and perform redirects without needing to have any server knowledge. Not only that, but it also offers many more advanced and powerful SEO tools and features, such as:

• Breadcrumbs navigation — to help users and search engines better navigate your website.  
• Unlimited SEO Keyphrases — optimize your content on unlimited keyphrases and add related keywords in a single click.
• Analyze Your Competitors’ SEO  — analyze your competitors’ SEO and check their top keywords. 
• Rich Snippets Schema — add schema markup to your pages and get more clicks and traffic with Google rich snippets.
• Local Business SEO — boost rankings for all your Business Listings, and get featured in Google’s Knowledge Panel and Google Maps.
• …and more.

Alright, let’s dig in!

Enable Redirects on Your Website

To get started, you first need to enable redirects on your website. To be able to do this, you need to get the AIOSEO Pro or Elite license, and then download and install the plugin. For detailed instructions, see our guide on how to install All in One SEO.

If you’ve never installed a plugin before, please visit WPBeginner’s step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

After installing AIOSEO’s Redirection Manager, you navigate to Redirects in the All in One SEO menu and click on the Activate Redirects button.

This will take you to the Redirects screen. Here you’ll first see the Add New Redirect option, where you can redirect your URLs. 

If you’ve never created a redirect before, you can check out our beginner’s guide on how to add 301 redirects in WordPress.

That said, let’s take a look at how to track your URL redirects next.

Tracking Your URL Redirects

When using AIOSEO’s Redirection Manager, you won’t need any additional redirect tracker. It’s all there for you to easily track and manage your redirects.

So if you scroll down beneath the Add New Redirect setting, you’ll see the Redirect Table, where you can view all your redirects. 

Here you can easily keep track of all the redirects you’ve made on your website. And you can easily Enable or Disable your redirects by using the toggle to the right.

Tracking Your 404 Error Pages

To start tracking your 404 error pages, you first need to make sure that the 404 Logs setting is enabled, which we’ll show you how to check next.

Enabling 404 Logs

To enable your 404 logs, go to Redirects and click on the Settings tab.

Then, scroll down until you see the Logs section. To start logging or tracking your 404 errors, click on the 404 Logs toggle so it turns blue.

Setting the Log Retention

You can then set how long you want to track your 404 errors. Simply click on the drop-down menu to the right of the 404 Logs toggle and choose your time frame.

Tracking and Redirecting Your 404 Pages

Now that you’ve set up logging, you can start tracking your 404’s and easily redirect them to the new page of your choice. 

All your 404 pages will appear in the 404 Logs tab.

And to redirect them, simply click on the Add Redirect link to the right, and add your new URL.

Understanding the 404 Logs Tab

In the URL column, you can see the 404 page that someone has visited on your website. 

Just like in the Redirects Table, the Hits column shows how many times it’s been visited. You can also see the date the URL was last visited in the Last Accessed column.

And to view the log details, simply click on the Additional info icon in the right menu.

If you want to delete your log entries, you simply click on the Delete or trash can icon in the same menu.

Checking Your Redirects

AIOSEO’s Redirection Manager comes with a built-in redirect checker. This allows you to quickly check if your redirects are working properly. 

Just click on the Check Redirect link, and it’ll show you the page you’ve redirected to.

It’s quick and easy! Exactly the way we want it to be to manage your SEO using the best SEO plugin for WordPress, AIOSEO.

We hope this helped you learn how to easily track URL redirects in WordPress. Now, use the redirect tracker to track and manage your redirects. And make sure to fix your broken links before they hurt your rankings on Google. Don’t forget to use the redirect checker to check that your redirects are working properly.

You may also want to check out our post on how to easily find and fix 404 errors and how to set up bulk 301 redirects in WordPress.

A quick question before you go…

Did you know that optimizing your content on long-tail keywords can help increase your organic traffic, improve rankings on Google, and boost conversions? Check out our post on how to find long-tail keywords and see for yourself.

Not using AIOSEO yet? What are you waiting for!

Image attachment pages can hurt your SEO since Google and other search engines consider them “thin content”. They only show the image you’ve uploaded to your post or page, which isn’t useful for either users or search engines. 

So in this post, we’ll show you how to easily disable image attachment pages in WordPress and redirect them back to your images. We’ll also explain what an attachment page is and why you should disable it on your WordPress website. 

Feel free to click on these quick links to jump straight to different sections:

• What Is a WordPress Attachment Page?
• Why You Should Disable Image Attachment Pages
• Easily Disable Image Attachment Pages in WordPress

What Is a WordPress Attachment Page?

A WordPress attachment page is an automatically generated page that shows a single media file, such as an image, zip file, movie, or PDF document.

Whenever you upload an image or other media file when editing a post or page, the file is “attached” to that page. (On the other hand, if you upload a file directly to the Media Library, it’s not attached to any post or page.)

The automatically generated attachment page will display the media file and its title, metadata, and possibly also comments.

You can view attachment pages by clicking on Media in the WordPress dashboard menu. Click on the image, and scroll down to the View attachment page link and click on it to view the attachment page.

Why You Should Disable Image Attachment Pages

You should disable image attachment pages in WordPress because they are of little value and can hurt your SEO. The only thing these pages do is to show a larger version of your image, and most WordPress websites don’t need them. 

They also include minimal text content, which search engines consider to be low quality or “thin content”. This will ultimately hurt your SEO rankings since user experience is Google’s top priority.

That’s why you should disable image attachment pages on your site, which we’ll show you how to easily do using the best SEO plugin for WordPress, All in One SEO (AIOSEO). 

Easily Disable Image Attachment Pages in WordPress

Fortunately, you can easily disable your image attachment pages on your WordPress site with All in One SEO. 

AlOSEO is a complete SEO plugin that comes with many advanced and powerful SEO tools and features:

• Smart XML Sitemaps — automatically generate a WordPress XML sitemap to notify all search engines of any new updates.
• Unlimited SEO Keyphrases — optimize your content on unlimited keyphrases and add related keywords in a single click.
• Rich Snippets Schema — add schema markup to your pages and get more clicks and traffic with Google rich snippets.
• Local SEO — boost rankings for all your Business listings, and get featured in Google’s Knowledge Panel and Google Maps.
• Redirection Manager — get access to easy and quick management of your 301 redirects and 404 errors. 
• …and more.

Alright, let’s dig in!

Manually Disable Attachment Pages

To get started, you first need to install and activate AIOSEO on your WordPress website. If you haven’t installed a plugin before, please visit WPBeginner’s guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Once you’ve activated AIOSEO, it automatically turns off attachment URLs. But you can also manually turn them off by visiting All in One SEO » Search Appearance and click on the Image SEO tab.

Then, make sure that the Redirect Attachment URLs option is set to Attachment.

As simple as that!

Now your attachment pages will be redirected to the image itself. This means that whenever someone visits the URL for your attachment page, they’ll see the image instead. And this is also our default setting which we recommend using.

Redirect Image Attachment to Parent Post 

If you want to redirect an image attachment to your post in WordPress, you simply set the Redirect Attachment URLs setting to Attachment Parent. 

When using this setting, your attachment pages will be redirected to the post or page that the image is attached to. 

So whenever someone visits your attachment page, they’ll see the post or page where the image was uploaded to instead of the attachment page.

Note: If you’ve uploaded an image directly to the image library (not attached it to any post or page) and you’ve selected the last option, your website visitors will still see the attachment page. 

Show Attachment Pages in Search Results

If you still want your media attachment pages to appear in search results you can set this setting to Disabled instead.

That’s it!

We hope this blog post helped you learn how to disable image attachment pages in WordPress. Use these tips, and you’ll ensure that your image attachment pages won’t show up in search results. Best of all, Google won’t penalize you for creating “thin content”.  

Before you go, if you want to learn how to optimize your blog post like a pro, you should check out our blog post SEO checklist or SEO best practices. 

And if you want to increase your organic traffic at record speed, you should check out 30 SEO hacks guaranteed to grow your traffic.

Not using AIOSEO yet? What are you waiting for?

Using SEO-friendly permalinks or URLs can help your website rank higher in search results. That’s because the user experience is Google’s top priority, and it also helps search engines to better understand what your page is about.

So in this post, we’ll show you the best WordPress permalink structure for SEO. We’ll also cover if it’s safe to change your permalink structure and how to safely redirect your changed URLs.

Feel free to use the quick links to jump straight to different sections:

WordPress Permalink Definition

Since we’re going to talk about permalinks in this post, let’s first explain what it means. Permalinks are basically another word for URLs or links in WordPress and are short for permanent links. 

We’ll use both the term permalink structure and URL structure throughout this post, which are the same. With that said, let’s take a look at what an SEO-friendly URL is and what it can look like next.

What Is an SEO-Friendly URL?

An SEO-friendly URL includes your target keyword and explains what the page is about. It’s also easy to read by both users and search engines.

To quickly summarize, an SEO-friendly URL should:

• Include your target keyword
• Be relevant and describe what the page is about
• Not include dates or years
• Be easy to read and use hyphens instead of underscores
• Use HTTPS-secured URLs
• Can include a custom structure

More importantly, you should first and foremost think of your website visitors since the user experience is Google ‘s top priority.

In fact, Google states that:

“URLs with words that are relevant to your site’s content and structure are friendlier for visitors navigating your site.”

So if you consider these factors when creating your permalink structure, you’ll improve your chances to rank higher in search engines. That being the case, let’s take a closer look at the best WordPress permalink structure for SEO next.

Best WordPress Permalink Structure for SEO

The proper use of an SEO-friendly permalink structure does not only help improve your SEO rankings but also increases click-through rates and makes it easier for users to share your content.

On the other hand, using symbols, numbers, and special characters in your permalinks makes it difficult for users and search engines to understand what the page is about. 

That’s why it’s important to make your URLs easy to read and descriptive, so people know what’s in store for them when clicking on the link.

That said, to make sure you’re using the best permalink structure for SEO, there are a few things to consider. So let’s dig in… 

1. Add Your Target Keyword in the URL

A target keyword is a word or phrase that you hope people will type into a search engine to find your page.

For example, it can look like this in Google’s search:

Luckily, you don’t have to guess what target keyword to use if you perform keyword research. To learn more, check out WPBeginner’s post on how to do keyword research for your WordPress blog.

That said, adding your target keyword in the URL can help you rank on that keyword. Even though the ranking signal is minor when it comes to keywords in the URL, it’s still a ranking signal. And you want as many people as possible to see your content right?  

More importantly, it describes your content and helps users and search engines to easily understand what your page is about.

However, if you haven’t decided on a target keyword for your page, you should simply use words in your URL that best describes your content.

3. Don’t Use Dates or Years in Your URL

You shouldn’t use dates or years in your URLs because they easily expose dated material. The sad reality is that nobody is interested in something that was written in 2011, even though it’s still relevant information.

Even though you may regularly update your content, the URL will still show the original publishing date, which will make your content look old and outdated. On the other hand, not adding dates and years makes your permalinks last year after year. 

So if your URL includes dates and looks something like in the example below, you can easily edit this in your WordPress settings.

https://example.com/2021/05/28/sample-post/

To change your permalink structure, you simply go to the Permalinks settings page in your WordPress Settings. Next, change the Day and name setting to Post name instead.

Your URL or permalink will then include your post’s title and look like this:

https://example.com/sample-post/

Best of all, this is the default permalink structure in WordPress, which is also preferred by Google and other search engines.

However, big news websites are the only sites where adding the date would be appropriate since you may need to categorize your content based on relevance and dates.

4. Use Hyphens Instead of Underscores 

It’s always better to stick with how WordPress does things and what Google prefers, which is to use the traditional hyphen to separate words in your URLs. Underscores can be difficult to read.

To better illustrate this, we’ll use the best WordPress SEO plugin, All in One SEO (AIOSEO’s) meta box, which gives a nice-looking preview of how your permalink will look on your page.

For example, here’s a WordPress permalink structure that’s using the preferred hyphens between words:

And here’s the same link using underscores:

Even if you like underscores better, we recommend using hyphens since that’s the preferred structure by both WordPress and Google.

5. Use HTTPS-Secured URLs 

HTTPS has mostly to do with security but is important for SEO as well. In fact, Google has stated that HTTPS-secured sites have a ranking advantage since security is another of its top priorities.

Here’s an example of an URL using HHTPS:

https://example.com

The HTTPS, in the beginning, indicates that an SSL certificate has been added to your site to protect your website data and make it secure.

HTTPS is the new standard, so if your site isn’t secured yet, we recommend that you switch over to HTTPS as soon as possible. For more details, please visit WPBeginner’s guide on how to easily move WordPress from HTTP to HTTPS. 

6. Include Categories on Large Sites

If you have a large website, then you can use WordPress-specific tags to categorize your URLs.

For instance, you may be running an eCommerce website and want to add the product category to your URLs to make it easier for users to see what type of product the page is about.

Like in this example:

https://www.example.com/store/category/kitchen/appliances/blenders/blend-jet/

This URL has both the main category “kitchen” and two subcategories “appliances” and “blenders” in it, which makes it super clear what type of product the page is about.

To include categories or other variables in your URLs, you need to go back to the Permalinks settings page and choose the Custom Structure setting.

Using a custom structure like “/%category%/%postname%/“ is a good way of categorizing your URLs based on the category and post title of your page. Or you can use any of the tags to add your own custom permalink structure.

In addition, including categories in your URLs can also help you rank for them in search engines. For example, here’s one of our categories for “Announcements” in Google’s search results:

When users click on this category link, they can easily view all of our announcements. This offers another way to promote your content in search results.

However, when adding categories to your URLs you should make sure to make them relevant to your content. Also, think carefully before creating them since changing your categories, later on, will break your links.

Editing Your WordPress Permalinks on Individual Posts and Pages

If you want to edit your URLs or permalinks on your individual posts or pages, we’ll show you how to easily do that next. 

To get started, simply go to the post or page you’re editing in the WordPress block editor, and scroll down to the Permalink setting. 

Here you can easily edit your permalink and shorten it to include your focus keyword. Once you’ve finished editing your link, you just update your post or page.

Examples of SEO-Friendly vs Non-SEO-Friendly URLs 

To recap and better illustrate what we’ve talked about in this post, we’ll show you examples of SEO-friendly vs non-SEO-friendly URLs.

To begin, here’s an example of an SEO-friendly URL:

https://aioseo.com/seo-best-practices/

It includes the post’s target keyword, which is “seo best practices”. And it clearly describes what the page is about. The hyphens between the words make it easy to read and it also uses HTTPS for security.

Best of all, it looks good in Google’s search results, which will attract more clicks:

On the other hand, a non-SEO-friendly URL would look something like this:

http://www.example.com/news/article/0,,30200-1303092,00.html

You can figure out that it’s a news article page, but you have no idea what the article is about and neither would search engines. Also, it wouldn’t look good in search results and fewer people would click on it.

Besides, a longer URL slug doesn’t entice people to share your content.

Lastly, it doesn’t use an HTTPS-secured URL either, which can hurt the chances of ranking in search engines since it’s not considered a secure site.

Is It Safe to Change Your Permalink Structure?

If you’ve already published your page or post, we recommend not changing your permalink structure. 

Permalinks mean permanent links and should stay so!

Changing them can hurt your SEO and cause your rankings in search engines to drop. 

You’ll also lose out on your referral traffic from people who’ve shared your content on social media. As well as all backlinks you’ve managed to get to your site.

Imagine the work it takes to recover all of that!

However, if you still need to change your permalink structure on your website, we’ll show you how to safely redirect your old URLs to your new ones instead. 

Safely Redirect Your Changed URLs

With AIOSEO’s Redirection Manager, you can easily redirect your old URLs to your new ones using 301 redirects or other redirect types.

By redirecting your old URLs to your new ones instead of directly editing them, will help you maintain your rankings on Google.

Also, you won’t risk that your website visitors would end up on a 404 page not found error, which would be bad for the user experience. Or even worse, click on your biggest competitor’s link instead.

To learn more, please check out our beginner’s guide on how to add 301 redirects in WordPress. And you may also want to check out how to easily find and fix 404 errors. 

That’s all for this post!

Now you know the best WordPress permalink structure for SEO. So, go ahead and implement these tips and watch your SEO rankings and user experience improve before you know it. 

Also, using SEO-friendly URLs will likely encourage more people to share your content on social media, which will boost your referral traffic as well.

Before you go…

…why don’t you check out how to write meta descriptions that’ll boost your click-through rates or how to integrate social media into your website.

Not using AIOSEO yet? What are you waiting for?

Well, now you can! 

Today, we’re thrilled to introduce All in One SEO’s new Breadcrumbs feature. Now you can easily display breadcrumbs navigation on your website and get full control to customize it while also boosting your SEO. 

Best of all, AlOSEO offers several ways to implement the breadcrumbs navigation on your site (including fully customizable templates), so let’s dig in deeper…

Display Breadcrumbs Navigation on Your Site 

A breadcrumb is a small text path, often located in the header, which helps users see where they are on your site and retrace the steps back to the homepage. With our new Breadcrumbs feature, we made it super easy for you to display hierarchical breadcrumbs navigation on your website.

Here’s an example of how it can look:

As you can see, it helps you get a quick overview of where you are on the site and you can easily click your way back to the homepage. For more details, check out the video or keep reading.

Are Breadcrumbs Important For SEO?

Breadcrumbs are an essential part of SEO because they help search engines and users understand how your website is structured.

You’ve probably already heard the story of Hansel and Gretel and how they used breadcrumbs to retrace their steps and get back home, which is basically how Google and users use them as well.

Here are a few examples of why breadcrumbs are important for SEO:

• Google can Better Understand Your Site’s Structure: Breadcrumbs give Google another way of understanding how your site is structured.
• Increased CTR (Click-Through-Rate): Since Google may show breadcrumbs in its search results, it’ll entice more people to click through to your website.
• Improved SEO Rankings: Higher click-through rate correlates with improved rankings in search engines. The more people who click through to your website, the more Google will favor your site in search results.
• Lower Bounce Rate: Breadcrumbs can lower your bounce rate since they’re offering visitors an alternative way to browse your site.

Easily Add Breadcrumbs Site-Wide or on Individual Posts and Pages

Our Breadcrumbs feature adds a visual breadcrumbs navigation to your website. All you need to do is make sure it’s enabled and add a code snippet or shortcode to your site depending on where you want to show the breadcrumbs navigation. 

Implement Breadcrumbs Site-Wide

For instance, you can easily add breadcrumbs site-wide using the PHP code snippet. 

By copying the code and pasting it in your theme editor, the breadcrumbs navigation will be displayed on all of your pages. 

Like in this example, where we’ve added it in the header.php file:

To make it look like this:

Manually Add Breadcrumbs on Individual Post or Pages 

Sometimes you may only want to show breadcrumbs navigation on specific pages. That’s why we also added the option to show breadcrumbs on your individual posts and pages using a WordPress shortcode.

And to make it even easier, we also created a Gutenberg Block and Widget option as well. 

Before this update, you couldn’t customize the look of your breadcrumbs navigation, but now you can! Let’s show you what you can do…

Change the Breadcrumbs Separator

We know that your website’s design is important and you don’t want anything to ruin it. That’s why we made it possible for you to change the breadcrumbs separator. 

And there are many variations to choose from, so you can easily find something that fits your taste and design. 

Add or Remove Your Homepage Link

We also wanted to make it easy for you to add or remove your homepage link from your breadcrumbs navigation, so we added the simple option to switch it on or off. 

And of course, we also thought of website owners who want to add a different label than “Home” for the homepage in their breadcrumbs navigation and made it possible to change the homepage label to the text of your choice. 

Include a Prefix Before Your Breadcrumbs Navigation

If you’d like to add a prefix before your breadcrumbs navigation like “You are here”, “Navigation”, or “Index”, we’ve included this option too.

We added this feature so that you can explicitly show users what page they’re viewing within your website.

Show Blog Page

All of you amazing bloggers out there, pay extra attention to this!

If you’ve set a post page in your WordPress settings, you can show your blog page next to the homepage in your breadcrumbs navigation.

Like this:

It gives you another chance to promote your blog within your website. That way, users who enter your site organically through one of your posts can click on your main blog page and quickly get an overview of all of your blog posts. 

Set Your Archive Format

We also wanted to make it easy for you to set the taxonomy or format for your archives. 

So we added the “Post Type Name” smart tag by default, and gave you the option to enter your own text before it as well.  

Customize the Search Results Label

Just like in archive format, you can use the search results label as is or customize it with something like “You searched for” or “Here’s what I found for” to entice people to click on your link.

This gives your site a better chance to stand out in search results and attract more clicks. It also gives users a quick overview of your content to see if it matches their search query (what they’re searching for). 

Format Your 404 Error Label

Our Breadcrumbs feature even lets you format the 404 error label and add instructions of what action users should take if they visit a broken link on your site. This is crucial for your SEO and business since most users immediately click away from your site when landing on a 404 page. 

But now you can tell website visitors to contact you if they end up on a broken URL, which means that you can still get that sale!

Show or Hide and Link Formats

To maximize the customization of the breadcrumbs navigation, we even added the option to show or hide your archive, search, and 404 formats, as well as linking or not linking these.

We wanted to make customizing your breadcrumbs navigation a simple and hassle-free process. 

Did you think that’s it? Far from it! 

We know that most other SEO plugins (not mentioning any names;-) come with limited options to edit how your breadcrumbs will look on your site, and you’ll need to install a second plugin just to edit your breadcrumbs.

That’s why we added powerful and fully editable Breadcrumb Pro templates that are super easy to manage and that’ll take your breadcrumbs optimization to the next level.

Professional Default Breadcrumb Templates

To make it quick and easy for you to show professional breadcrumbs navigation on your site, we added default breadcrumb templates for content types, taxonomies, and archives. 

Best of all, you can use the templates as they are or edit them.

Full Control to Edit All Breadcrumb Templates

With our Breadcrumbs Pro feature, you get full control to edit all breadcrumb templates by using either preinstalled smart tags or directly editing the HTML code.

Edit Your Breadcrumbs Template Using Smart Tags 

Some of AIOSEO’s best features are the preinstalled smart tags that make your optimization process quick and pain-free. So, of course, we also added them for easy editing of the breadcrumb templates. 

All you need to do is click on the smart tag you want to use, and it’s added to your breadcrumbs navigation. 

And you can find an extensive selection of variables by clicking on the “View all tags” link or use the # symbol.

Show Paged Breadcrumbs 

Our Breadcrumbs Pro feature also gives you access to more advanced breadcrumbs functionality.

For instance, if you’ve split up parts of your content, it lets you show paginated breadcrumbs navigation. 

And you can also enter your own text before the page number format if you want it to show, for example, “Blog Page” and then the number. 

Include or Remove Unselected Taxonomy Terms

Finally, if you want to include or remove unselected taxonomy terms, you can easily do that by ensuring the “Include” button is marked blue.

With this option, you can decide to hide or show parent terms that aren’t explicitly selected in your posts. 

And that’s all for this release!

We bet you’re excited to get started with adding breadcrumbs on your website and watch your rankings and user experience improve… 

…so get your hands on AIOSEO and give breadcrumbs a try. It won’t take long until you’ll notice lower bounce rates from happy website visitors and more clicks from search results. Click here to get started with AIOSEO today!

As always, we’d like to thank you for your support and trust in making All in One SEO the best SEO plugin for WordPress.

Luckily we’re here to help you make your decision easier.  

In this post, we’ll compare Yoast vs Jetpack vs All in One SEO, and show you the major differences and where they break even. We’ll also give you our verdict of which of the three is the best SEO plugin for WordPress.

But first, let’s give you a brief introduction to our contenders.

Introduction Yoast vs Jetpack vs All in One SEO

To begin, Yoast and All in One SEO are complete SEO plugins for WordPress, while Jetpack offers search engine optimization only as a part of its main features.  

Yoast SEO started out as WordPress SEO by Yoast in 2010, and it was created by Joost de Valk. It offers a free version and a Pro version, as well as several addons.

Jetpack is a popular WordPress plugin. The main focus of this plugin is security, performance, and marketing, but it also offers basic SEO features. Jetpack offers a free version and paid versions depending on what you want to use the plugin for. 

All in One SEO (AIOSEO) is one of the original WordPress plugins on WordPress.org with over 3+ million active installations. It offers a free Lite version and 4 paid versions. 

Here are some of AIOSEO’s powerful SEO tools and features:

• Smart XML Sitemaps: That are automatically generated and are notifying all search engines of any new updates. 
• Semrush Related Keywords Integration: Add unlimited keywords and get suggestions of related keywords to improve SEO. 
• Automated Image SEO: Automatically set the image alt text and title attribute for all images. 
• Rich Snippet Schema: Get complete support for schema markup, so you can get more clicks and traffic with nice-looking rich snippets. 
• Local SEO: Get all the tools you need to improve your local SEO and rank higher in local search for all your business listings. 
• Redirection Manager: Easily manage your 301 redirects, track 404 errors, and fix dead-ends.  
• …and more.

That said, let’s take a look at the similarities and major differences between Yoast vs Jetpack vs All in One SEO.

Yoast SEO vs Jetpack vs All in One SEO Compared

Since this is a comprehensive post, feel free to use our table of contents to jump to the sections you want:

• Getting Started with Yoast vs Jetpack vs All in One SEO
• On-Page Optimization
• Social Media Integration
• Advanced SEO Tools
• Paid Plans and Pricing
• Support Free and Paid Versions
• Yoast vs Jetpack vs All in One SEO: Which Is Best?

And don’t sweat it if you’re a beginner. We’ll show you how easy it is to get started — you don’t have to be an SEO expert to use any of these plugins.

Getting Started With Yoast vs Jetpack vs All in One SEO

To get started with an SEO plugin, they have so-called configuration or setup wizards that’ll help you with your SEO settings. Let’s take a look at the differences in the configuration for our contenders.

Installation Wizards Compared

Yoast SEO’s installation wizard may feel a bit overwhelming. It has 12 steps and throws the beginner into a complicated and cluttered dashboard with more technical information than necessary when just starting out.

After installing and activating Yoast SEO, you’ll see an overview of the Yoast SEO Dashboard. And so far it looks okay. 

Under the General settings tab, you can find a First-time SEO configuration wizard. It’s after clicking on it, you may start feeling slightly overwhelmed. 

Overall, Yoast SEO’s configuration wizard feels technical and complicated.

When it comes to Jetpack, the plugin has a big disadvantage right from the start. 

To set Jetpack up, it requires that you create a WordPress.com account or use your Google account, which is an extra step that can feel complicated and an extra hassle.

Compared to Yoast SEO and All in One SEO, Jetpack’s setup wizard is nothing alike. You can’t find anything about the SEO features until you go to Settings and the Traffic tab, which isn’t optional if you first and foremost want to optimize your website.

In contrast to Yoast, All in One SEO’s setup wizard only has 4 steps that are straightforward and easy to follow. All in One SEO has worked on simplifying things and make it easier for users to set up their SEO settings.

After installing and activating AIOSEO, you’ll see the General Settings tab in the All in One SEO menu.

Here you can see an overview of the AIOSEO Dashboard, and you can launch the Setup Wizard with a single click. There’s also a video to watch that helps users understand the setup process before they start.

In the next step, you’re able to categorize your site, as well as set up the Home Page Title and Meta Description. AIOSEO makes this easy and beginner-friendly using smart tags with different variables for your homepage’s title and description.

For example, if you’d choose the Site Title smart tag, the name of your site will be added to the SEO title.

As you can see, All in One SEO has a much easier setup wizard, which helps beginners, as well as SEO experts, get started optimizing their sites in no time.

On-Page Optimization

On-page optimization is an ongoing process and one of the most important SEO aspects to rank your content on Google for different keywords. 

SEO Meta Box

All three plugins come with an SEO meta box to edit your SEO title and description on a post-by-post basis.

Except for that Jetpack only allows you to edit your SEO Description on individual posts and pages. The SEO title will be added based on the default settings. That’s bad news since you’ll need to also optimize your SEO title to increase your CTR (Click-Through-Rate).

The SEO meta box in Yoast SEO feels outdated. It has the least important option for SEO first: the focus keyphrase. Since Google mainly focuses on the search intent and user experience, keywords are now less important for SEO.

Also, Yoast only has variables for the title, page, separator, and site title. While AIOSEO has 22 different variables to choose from to simplify and speed up your optimization process.

In contrast to Yoast and Jetpack, All in One SEO’s General settings begin with a nice-looking Snippet Preview of your post or page’s SEO. 

And if you don’t want to use the smart tags, it also lets you type in the Post Title and Meta Description manually.

AIOSEO’s meta box is more logical since it starts with the most important elements and ends with less important ones, like optimizing for keywords.

On-Page Content Analysis

The content analysis is a great feature that analyzes your content against SEO best practices. For instance, it checks your readability, the number of internal and external links, and keyword density.

It also checks if you’ve used your focus keyphrase in the SEO title, meta description, and first paragraph of your content. 

Compared to Jetpack that doesn’t offer content and readability analysis, Yoast SEO provides a fairly detailed analysis of the page content and recommendations on how to improve your SEO.

But it’s nothing compared to All in One SEO’s content analysis. First of all, AIOSEO gives you a total SEO score (in the top right corner of your page), so you can get a sense of how well you’ve optimized your page.

And in the Basic SEO section, you can see what you’ve optimized well and recommendations of what you need to improve (errors will be marked in red).

On top of that, AIOSEO even analyzes your Title and offers immediate results on what you need to do better.

And by optimizing your title, you can drastically increase your CTR and drive more traffic to your website.

Readability Analysis

Did you know that blog posts that are easier to read often rank higher than posts that are difficult to read? It’ll also keep visitors on your page and lower your bounce rate.

Yoast SEO and All in One SEO are pretty similar when it comes to this tool.

They both offer a detailed Readability analysis and give suggestions of what you need to improve.

However, All in One SEO has another fantastic tool that Yoast SEO or Jetpack can’t compete with: the SEO audit checklist. Not only will it take your SEO efforts to another level, but it’s also a great tool for beginners who don’t know that much about SEO. 

It lets you analyze your website in seconds and identifies critical errors that could inhibit rankings in search engines. For more details, please check out our ultimate WordPress SEO guide.

Next, we’re going to look at an important SEO factor if you want your website to get indexed on Google, which is XML sitemaps. 

XML Sitemaps

If the search engines aren’t indexing and crawling your site, no amount of SEO can save you. So that’s why sitemaps are so important.

All our contenders offer built-in XML sitemap functionality. But Jetpack and Yoast SEO don’t offer the option to customize your sitemap or disable and enable it for certain content as you can do in AIOSEO. 

Let’s take a closer look…

Jetpack’s sitemap is simple, but the free version does give you the option to send a news sitemap to all major search engines, which is a pro feature in All in One SEO and an addon in Yoast SEO. Here Jetpack has the upper hand, but that’s pretty much it.

Like Jetpack, Yoast SEO’s Lite version also offers a basic sitemap with limited options to customize it.

On the other hand, All in One SEO lets you customize all your sitemaps, and even offers an RSS sitemap. This is a great feature since all your latest updates and author credits are automatically sent to search engines, and much faster than a regular XML sitemap. 

Additionally, the Pro version also includes automatically generated video sitemaps, news sitemaps, image sitemaps, etc. In Yoast SEO, you have to purchase these features separately as addons, which will add up. 

Alright, let’s move on to comparing social media integration for all plugins. 

Social Media Integration

Optimizing your social media is important because it can strengthen your brand and increase your referral traffic. You’ll gain more visibility online and can boost engagement, which will generate more sales for your business.

Jetpack offers a Social Previews section for Google Search, Facebook, and Twitter. However, you can’t optimize it or set your own Facebook thumbnail image or Twitter Card like in All in One SEO.

In AIOSEO, you can set your Facebook thumbnail and Twitter Card in the Social Networks tab. As well as in your AIOSEO Settings on your individual posts or pages.

If you’d like, you can also edit your title and description, as well as upload a featured image. 

Here’s an example of a Twitter Card when your content is shared on Twitter:

In fact, AIOSEO makes your content look great on social media. If you want to learn more, please visit our guides on how to add Twitter Cards in WordPress and how to fix the wrong Facebook thumbnail.

Yoast SEO’s Social settings let you enable Open Graph meta data and upload a featured image, but you can’t edit your title and description to maximize your CTR. 

Social Media Profiles

By getting your visitors to follow you on different social channels, you can stay in touch with them and easily bring them back to your site.

All in One SEO lets you add 11 social media profiles and let Google know about them, while Yoast SEO only allows you to add 8. In the Social Profiles section, you can simply paste in your links to your social networks.

It’s as easy as 1-2-3! For more details, you can check out our post on how to integrate social media into your website.

That being the case, All in One SEO is the obvious winner when it comes to social media integration as well. Yoast SEO doesn’t offer as many options to optimize your social media and Jetpack only comes with a simple social preview that’s not even editable. 

That said, let’s take a look at more advanced SEO tools for these WordPress SEO plugins.

Advanced SEO Tools

Advanced SEO tools help you further optimize your site for search engines without having to install any additional plugins.

To begin, Jetpack lacks advanced SEO features. However, it does offer tools to boost your website performance, which is important for SEO. 

Both Yoast SEO and All in One SEO offer key features like:

• Built-in robots.txt and .htaccess editor
• Import and export SEO data
• Breadcrumb navigation
• Canonical links
• Redirection manager

Even better, All in One SEO comes with more advanced SEO features, which we’ll take a look at next.  

Advanced Schema Markup 

With All in One SEO, you can add structured data to more than just articles and FAQ pages like in Yoast. In fact, AIOSEO also lets you add schema markup for products, recipes, apps, and courses. This will help you rank in the rich results on Google. 

Want to see how it can look?

Here are examples of product rich snippets for Apple watches: 

And who can resist these yummy recipes when recipe schema markup is added to your pages?

Not many! 😉

To learn how to add structured data in All in One SEO, please check out our posts on how to add product rich snippets or how to add schema recipe markup in WordPress.

Custom SEO User Roles

With AIOSEO, you also get access to User Access Control, which is an awesome tool. It allows you to manage access to important SEO features without handing over control of your website. 

This is important when running a big business with many employees that all have different roles within the company. 

Paid Plans and Pricing

While the free versions come with basic features, premium versions give you more control over your website’s SEO.

That said, deciding on a plan can be confusing, and we’ll try to help make your decision easier next.

Free Plans for 1 Single Website

When you’re just starting out, you can start with the free version of your SEO plugin to try it out. All plugins offer a free or Lite version.

AIOSEO’s free version has over 3+ million active installations and 1324 five-star ratings. This means that over 3 million smart website owners use All in One SEO to properly set up WordPress SEO to improve rankings in search engines.

Paid Plans for Several Websites

If you feel you want to use more advanced SEO tools on a single site, you can start with AIOSEO’s Basic plan for as little as $49 per year.

However, if you want to take your SEO efforts to the next level, you should consider buying the Plus version for $99.50 per year (up to 3 sites) or the Pro version for $199.50 per year (up to 10 sites).

Better yet, the Elite version is for business owners with up to 100 sites. And the Pro and Elite versions also offer 1 year of professional priority support.

Yoast is priced higher than All in One SEO for all its versions. Pricing for a single site license starts at $89 per year and moves up to $169 per year (for up to 5 sites). And yet, these plans don’t even include many of the advanced SEO tools that AIOSEO offers.

Instead, you have to buy the different SEO features separately, which gets quite expensive since they are $89 per year each. If you want access to all features, the price increases to $329 per year (for up to 20 sites).

Jetpack starts from only $2 per month for its Site Search plan. But apart from the SEO tools that are included in the free plan, it only offers instant search and indexing. 

However, upgrading to the Complete plan for $47 per month would also give you access to improved website performance tools, security, and CDN.

Well, that pretty much summarizes which of the SEO plugins should be your one and only choice!

But if you’re still not convinced, All in One SEO also offers a 14-day no-risk money back guarantee. So if your plan isn’t a good fit, you can get your money back. You don’t even need to give a reason for the refund.

Finally, let’s take a look at the support you’ll get from the Premium and Pro versions of our contenders.

Support Free and Paid Versions

Even though all three plugins are fairly easy to use and come with extensive free documentation and video tutorials, your free support options are limited.

But we didn’t say none!

Support for Free Versions

All plugins offer support for free users through WordPress forums.

As of writing this Yoast SEO vs Jetpack vs All in One SEO post:

• AIOSEO has resolved 101 out of 122 support threads (83%)
• Yoast SEO has resolved 609 out of 666 support threads (91%)
• Jetpack has resolved 351 out of 413 support threads (85%)

These are all support threads for the last 2 months. And the response time is 1-3 working days for all plugins.

Support for Paid Versions

If you pay for either of these plugins, you can access ticket support as well. Within 1 day, you can expect a response to the support tickets from both All in One SEO, Yoast SEO, and Jetpack’s support teams.

On top of that, AIOSEO gives you extensive documentation on how to configure all different SEO tools in its Documentation.

Yoast vs Jetpack vs All in One SEO: Which Is Best?

We’re finally at the verdict of this comprehensive blog post: Which SEO plugin for WordPress is the best?

We’d say that Jetpack isn’t worth using for the search engine optimization features alone. It can only take care of the most basic aspects of SEO. To Jetpack’s defense, SEO isn’t its main strength. Also, a comprehensive plugin like Jetpack can bloat and slow down your website. 

Yoast SEO manages your optimization fairly well. But if you want to dig deep into your website’s SEO and fine-tune it using many more advanced SEO tools and features, then All in One SEO should be your choice.

So if you’re looking for the best SEO plugin on the market, you should get AIOSEO! It can’t get much easier to manage your SEO and take your business to the next level. 

We hope this comparison of Yoast vs Jetpack vs All in One SEO helped you find the best WordPress SEO plugin for your website. 

Wait! Don’t leave without your special gift…

…get going super fast with our 30 SEO hacks guaranteed to grow your traffic. These quick and simple hacks will help you optimize your website like a pro in no time.

Not using AIOSEO yet? What are you waiting for? 

In this post, we’ll show you how to find long tail keywords and use them to increase organic traffic, as well as boost rankings and conversions. We’ll also explain what long tail keywords are and why they are important for SEO.

If you want to jump straight to a section, you can use these quick links:

What Are Long Tail Keywords?

Long tail keywords are longer phrases people enter in search engines when they’re looking for something specific. 

Often, they’re 3 or more words in comparison with short tail keywords that are usually 1 to 2 words. And they can help increase organic traffic, dominate search engine rankings, and boost conversions.

In fact, long tail keywords make up for 70% of search traffic. So if you want to get more organic traffic and improve your SEO rankings, you should definitely use long tail keywords in your content.

Here’s an infographic from OptinMonster illustrating long tail keywords and how they offer a higher conversion rate than short tail keywords and less competition.

As you can see, the longer the phrase, the more specific it is, and the fewer search results there’ll be when people type it in.

The competition is less and the conversion rate is higher. This makes up for great ranking opportunities!

Let’s give you an example of a long vs short tail keyword…

Long Tail Keyword Example

A person is about to purchase running shoes and is browsing Google. An example of a long tail keyword search would be: “buy running shoes for flat feet”. On the other hand, a short tail keyword search would be: “buy shoes”.

Did you see the difference?

Long tail search terms are not only longer, but have a very precise search intent, which is one of the most important rankings factors on Google. It tries to understand the intent behind every search query and matches it with the best results.

So using long tail keywords in your content will help you dominate the search results for less competitive search terms with a high search intent. 

On the other hand, short tail keywords are broader and provide information to users when they’re in the early stages of purchasing a product or searching for information.

That said, let’s take a look at why long tail keywords are important for SEO?

Why Are Long Tail Keywords Important for SEO?

Long tail keywords are important for SEO since they can help increase organic traffic, dominate search engine rankings, and boost conversions. They can also help less established websites to rank in search engines and get ahead of their competition.

Here’s a detailed look at why you should be using long tail keywords…

1. Long Tail Keywords Are Easier to Rank for on Google

Given the vastness of the internet and high competition on common keywords, long tail keywords are easier to rank for on Google.

That’s because they are so specific that not many businesses would be competing to grab the top spot on the search results of Google. They generally have a lower search volume, which makes them less targeted by the “big players” online.

For example, if you use a keyword research tool like Ahrefs, you can see that the search volume for the long tail keyword phrase: “running shoes for flat feet” has an average of 4.0K monthly searches. It also has low keyword difficulty, meaning how hard it is to rank in the top 10 search results for that keyword.

On the other hand, the short tail keyword: “running shoes” has an average of 120K monthly searches and keyword difficulty of 68, which means it has more competition and is harder to rank for on Google.

That’s why a better strategy is to target long search phrases with less competition and a more specific search intent. 

Another reason for using long tail keywords is that they can help you generate sales and grow your business, as we’ll explain next.

2. Long Tail Keywords Have a High Conversion Rate 

When a user is in the final stages of the buying cycle, it’s more likely that they’ll use long tail keywords to find exactly what they’re looking for and then make a purchase.

In fact, long tail keywords have 2.5X higher chance of converting than short tail keywords. This means that long tail keywords will help boost CTR (Click-Through-Rate) in search results.

So, if you’re looking to grow your business, you should definitely target long tail keywords as they’ll boost your conversion rate.

Now, let’s take a look at how to find long tail keywords next.

How to Find Long Tail Keywords?

Here are 3 quick and easy ways to find long tail keywords:

1. Use AIOSEO’s Get Additional Keyphrases by Semrush Tool

An easy way to find long tail keywords is by using the best SEO plugin for WordPress, All in One SEO (AIOSEO) and its get additional keyphrases by Semrush tool.

To get started finding these high-converting search terms, you first need to install and activate AIOSEO. If you’ve never installed a plugin before, you can check out WPBeginner’s step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Then, you need to scroll down in the post or page you’re editing to the AIOSEO Settings, and click on the General tab. 

After you’ve first added your Focus Keyphrase, you simply click on the Get Additional Keyphrases button.

This will open a new window with Additional Keyphrases by Semrush. And if you don’t already have a Semrush account, it will ask you to create one and connect AIOSEO. It’s super easy and straightforward!

Anyhow, here you can find examples of additional keyphrases and even see their search volume and trend straight from the screen. Here you can see that the search term: “nike running shoes for women” is a highly targeted long tail keyword that would be a good option to add to your content.

It still has good search volume and will be easier to rank for on Google than the short tail keyword: “running shoes”.

And once you’ve decided which keyphrase to use, you simply click on the Add Keyphrase button, and it gets added to your content.

As simple as that!

Best of all, AIOSEO even gives you an SEO analysis of how well you’ve optimized your long tail keyword in your content. 

As you can see, we haven’t optimized our content on this long tail keyword, but you get the point. The red bullet points are recommendations on what you need to improve to maximize rankings in search engines and drive more organic traffic to your site.

These tips are super useful if you want to boost your SEO and get ahead of your competition!

2. Look at Your Google Search Console Report

Another option is to check your Google Search Console report for the long tail keywords that are already bringing traffic to your site. This will help you find similar search terms that you can target or you can use the data to improve your existing content.

To easily do this, you can use the best WordPress Analytics plugin, MonsterInsights. It lets you view your Google Search Console reports directly inside your WordPress dashboard.

And when using the Search Console Report, you can see the top keywords that get the most clicks, impressions, CTR, and their average position.

As you can see from the above screenshot, almost all the top keywords are long tail keywords. These are the search terms that bring the majority of organic traffic and improve the CTR of your website.

The next step is to improve your existing content for these long tail keywords or find new similar ones. You can do that by using Google autocomplete, people also ask, or related searches.

3. Use Google Autocomplete, People Also Ask, or Related Searches

Another simple way of finding long tail keywords is by entering a short tail keyword or your main keyword in Google (don’t hit enter) and then look at the autocomplete suggestions.

These are more specific search queries that people look for and are related to your overall topic. 

For example, if you’d type in “keto diet” in Google, you’ll see these autocomplete suggestions:

This way, you can get many long tail keyword ideas to optimize your content on.

You can also look at the People also ask section. For instance, when you enter a search term on Google, you’ll notice a set of questions under a box called People also ask. 

Using Google, it’s easy to get long tail keywords ideas. 

And there’s even one more way…

If you scroll down to the bottom of the page, you’ll find more suggestions by Google in the Related Searches section.

Now you have many good search phrases to choose from.

Once you’ve checked that your long tail keywords have enough search volume, the last step is to create content and optimize it on your keywords so that you can increase organic traffic, SEO rankings, and conversions. 

And like you already know, AIOSEO helps you with that! 

With AIOSEO, you get access to the following powerful SEO features and more:

• Video and News Sitemaps — automatically generate a video sitemap or news sitemap and notify Google of all your new video content and news updates.
• Analyze Your Competitors’ SEO  — analyze your competitors’ SEO and find out what keywords they’re using to get ahead and gain an edge.
• Rich Snippets Schema — add schema markup to your pages and get more clicks and traffic with Google rich snippets.
• WooCommerce SEO  — easily optimize your product title and meta descriptions and boost rankings for your product pages.

And there you have it!

We hope this helped you understand how to find long tail keywords and increase organic traffic. As well as improve your rankings in search engines and dominate the search results. Use these quick and simple tips, and you’ll skyrocket your traffic and conversions on Google before you know it. 

Also, if you have a local business or are offering services locally, you should check out our local SEO checklist to learn how to rank in local search and on Google Maps.

Wait! Don’t leave without your special gift….

…get going super fast with our 30 SEO hacks guaranteed to grow your traffic. These quick and simple hacks will help you optimize your website like a pro in no time.

Not using AlOSEO yet? Get started today!

Optimizing your website to attract more local business can be a challenge.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Today, we’re super excited to announce that All in One SEO’s Local Business SEO addon now lets you optimize your site for multiple locations.

With our Local Business SEO addon, you can rank on Google for all your business listings, help customers to easily find your local stores, and attract more business from relevant local searches. This will help you get more customers, sales, and grow your business.

And the best part is that you don’t have to be an SEO expert to boost rankings for ALL your locations! AIOSEO does this for you by adding local business structured data to your website.

Let’s take a closer look…

Easily Add Structured Data for Multiple Locations

Now you can easily add structured data or schema markup for multiple locations to your website without having to be a code geek.

Schema markup allows your business to be displayed in the rich results on Google for relevant local searches, like this:

So…when people search for a business, for example, Publix in West Palm Beach, Google may show a Knowledge Graph card with the nearby locations for Publix.

That way you can help users easily discover your business locations that are closer to where they are. They’ll also get instant access to your business address and opening hours right from the Google Search results.

But to get these rich search results, you’ll have to add Google’s local business structured data to your website, which is quite tedious if you’re not a developer. And doing this for multiple locations is even more complicated and demands that you have coding experience. 

Well, not anymore!

With our multiple locations update, you don’t have to be a developer or risk breaking your site to dominate local search and increase visibility on Google Maps.

Create a Custom Landing Page for Each Location

AIOSEO also allows you to create custom landing pages for each of your locations, where you can add your business information and opening hours. It’s available for Business and Agency plans, and all you need to do is activate the Local Business SEO addon.

And then switch the Multiple Locations button to ‘Yes’.

A new post type will be added to the menu on the left called Locations. Here you can easily create a new page for your business location.

That wasn’t hard, right?! It gets even better…

Custom Landing Page Personalization

With this release, you can easily personalize your location landing pages by adding separate opening hours and business information for each location as shown in this example:

This way you can easily manage all your business locations, and their different opening hours and information.

But that’s not all!

Configure Opening Hours and Closed Label

You can easily add your opening hours and closed label in the default settings.

And like magic, this info will be added to your custom landing pages for each location. 

Professional Sidebar Widgets

We also made it super easy for you to display business information on your website using professional widgets. With a single click, you can add your business info, opening hours, or locations to your site’s sidebar or footer.

Here’s a list of available widgets you can choose from:

And here’s how an AIOSEO Local – Opening Hours widget would look like on your site:

That’s all for this announcement!

Optimizing your website for multiple locations will increase the chances of local searchers finding your stores and services. 

So go ahead and give it a try to optimize your website for the local search results.

This will also lead to higher click-through rates to your website, more conversions, leads and sales! 

One more thing…

…as we develop the best SEO plugin for WordPress, we’ll be back with more announcements. So stay tuned for upcoming announcements, because we have plenty more features planned for you. 

And if you haven’t done so already…

We’re here to end all confusion!

In this post, we’ll show you how to optimize your WordPress pagination. We’ll also cover what pagination is and how to deal with pagination SEO in WordPress.

Feel free to use these quick links to jump straight to the different sections:

Alright, let’s begin!

What Is Pagination?

Pagination is simply a numbering of pages, which is usually located at the top or bottom of your web pages. Most commonly, it’s used for main pages and where you need to split up your content in sections.

Here’s an example of how pagination can look like:

And the main purpose of paginated pages is usually:

• To allow users to scroll through products or services
• To sell products or services
• To allow users to scroll through posts or news articles

Not using pagination and keeping all your content on one page will make it difficult for users to navigate your site. And it can also cause long load times, which will hurt your SEO and increase the bounce rate. 

With this in mind, let’s take a look at when you should use pagination.

When Is Pagination Necessary?

Pagination is necessary when a site has several pages of content in a specific category or subcategory.

For example, your blog archive pages. Listing all of your blog posts on a single page wouldn’t give users a good experience.

Your visitors would have to scroll indefinitely depending on the size of your blog. And accessing deeper content would be close to impossible.

Another example would be an eCommerce website with a catalog consisting of several hundred products with different categories on a single page. 

Just trying to scroll that page would tire you out…

…and it would be “mission impossible” trying to view all sneakers to know you’ve found the absolute best pair.

Anyway, now you understand why not using pagination can hurt the user experience. So let’s take a look at how pagination can affect your SEO next.

How Can Pagination Affect SEO?

Pagination can affect SEO in the sense that it can limit the crawl depth of your paginated pages, cause issues with duplicated content, and slow down your site speed.

Let’s break this down a bit…

What Is Crawl Depth?

Crawl depth refers to how many pages a search engine’s bot will access and index on a site during a single crawl. For instance, a site with high crawl depth will get a lot more indexed than a site with low crawl depth.

If you’ve got a huge number of archive pages with pagination, it may limit the depth in which search engines crawl your paginated content. And the crawl budget (the number of pages Google will crawl on your site on any given day) for your important pages can become less. 

Avoid Slow Page Load and the White Screen of Death

On the other hand, not having pagination for your comment pages can reduce your site speed, which is a crucial factor for SEO.

Also, posts with a lot of comments can cause the white screen of death because it exhausts your server’s memory. Even when it doesn’t cause the ‘white screen of death’, posts with a lot of comments tend to load really slow.

Pagination SEO Title and Description Issues

On top of that, depending on the structure of your paginated pages, it’s likely that some pages may contain similar or identical content. 

Often you have the same SEO title and meta description on your pages with pagination. So in those cases, duplicate content can cause difficulties for search engines to determine your most relevant pages for a specific search query.

However, All in One SEO has an easy fix for that, which we’ll walk you through in the section: easily optimize your WordPress pagination.

But first, let’s take a look at how to deal with pagination and SEO in WordPress next.

Dealing With Pagination SEO in WordPress

WordPress automatically paginates your archive pages, but the way it does it isn’t good for SEO. Right now it canonical each page back to itself.

For example, /page/2/ has a canonical pointing to /page/2/. This you can easily fix using AlOSEO, which we’ll show you how to do in the section: setting no pagination for your canonical URLs.

Before we get to that, let’s first explain what a canonical link is.

What Is a Canonical Link?

A canonical link or rel=canonical is basically an HTML element that helps prevent duplicate content.

For instance, if you’ve several versions of the same content, you can pick one “canonical” version and point the search engines to it. This helps Google to know what version to index and crawl, which will improve SEO.

Pagination SEO Best Practices

According to pagination SEO best practices, websites should always canonical to the main category archive page to avoid duplicate content. In other words, your canonical URLs should always point to the main blog post page.

The same goes for your comment pages. You’d want search engines to prioritize and rank your main page so that users find your new and important content first.

That said, to avoid the risk of duplicate content, you can also add unique SEO titles and descriptions to your paginated pages. Let’s show you how to easily do this using All in One SEO (AIOSEO) next.

Easily Optimize Your WordPress Pagination

With AIOSEO, you don’t have to worry about pagination SEO. It automatically ensures that your SEO titles and descriptions are unique for your paginated content. It also gives you the option to customize them to maximize your SEO rankings.

This is how it works…

…when you have content that’s split across multiple pages, AlOSEO adds the word “Page” followed by the page number to the end of the SEO title and description.

That way, you don’t have to worry about confusing search engines with duplicated content.

For example, on our blog page, we show a Part 2 identifier in the SEO title for the 2nd blog archive page:

The page number is added automatically, but AIOSEO lets you customize the text before the pagination. 

All you need to do is navigate to Search Appearance in the All in One SEO menu, and then click on the Advanced tab.

Next, scroll down to the Paged Format section. The pre-installed + Page Number tag will add the number of the page to your SEO title and description to make them unique.

And if you want to change the -Part text before the Page Number tag, you can just type in your own text directly into the field.

That’s it!

Now, let’s move on to showing you how to remove pagination from your canonical URLs and have them point to your first page instead.

Setting No Pagination for Your Canonical URLs

Like mentioned, canonical URLs are an essential part of SEO and are especially important with WordPress. They make sure that search engines know what version to index and crawl when different URLs point to the same content.

AlOSEO lets you remove page numbers from the canonical URLs of your paginated content. This means that if you’ve split up your blog post into different sections or pages, you can point them back to the first section or page.

For example, page 2 of my “Hello World” post would normally have the URL:

 https://example.com/hello-world/page/2/

But with the click of a button, AlOSEO sets the canonical URL to point to the first page:

https://example.com/hello-world/

Note: Canonical URLs are purely for search engines and don’t affect what’s displayed to the visitor in the browser or the navigation of your site.

To get started, you simply go to Search Appearance in the All in One SEO menu, and then click on the Advanced tab.

Next, change the toggle to On, and it’ll remove all page numbers from the canonical URLs for your paginated content.

As simple as that!

We hope this helped you understand pagination SEO and how to optimize your WordPress pagination. Use these tips, and you’ll boost rankings for your paginated content, as well as improve the user experience in a heartbeat.

Remember this: The easier it is for users to find your content, the easier it’ll be for Google as well!

In addition, one of the easiest ways to increase the accessibility of your important content and help Google to find it is to make sure you’re using a good internal linking strategy.

For more awesome SEO tips, you can check out our SEO best practices checklist. You may also want to check out our image SEO guide to boost rankings in image search.

Not using AlOSEO yet? Get started today!

In this post, we’ll show you how to integrate social media into your WordPress website without having to be a techie using 5 simple ways.

Here’s a quick overview of what we’ll cover in this post. Feel free to click on these quick links to jump straight to different sections:

5 Ways to Integrate Social Media Into Your Website

There are multiple ways you can integrate social media on your WordPress website. And we’re going to show you 5 simple ways of doing just that:

1. Add Your Social Profiles to WordPress

Social media integration is important because it can strengthen your brand and grow your business. You’ll gain more visibility and can generate more leads for your business.

Also, by getting your visitors to follow you on different social channels, you can stay in touch with them and easily bring them back to your site.

With that said, the first step is to add your social media profiles to WordPress and let Google know about them. With AIOSEO, you can add up to 11 social media profiles, which will help you cover most social networks.

AIOSEO is a complete WordPress SEO plugin that lets you optimize your content for search engines and increase rankings with just a few clicks. It gives you access to all the powerful SEO tools and features you need to boost your SEO and dominate the search results.

To get started, simply navigate to Social Networks in the All in One SEO menu, and click on the Social Profiles tab.

This will open a window, where you can add all your Social Profiles. Simply paste in the links to your social media networks.

Once you’ve added your profiles, you click on the Save Changes button, and you’re all set!

The next step is to enable Facebook thumbnails and set Twitter Cards to boost engagement and drive more referral traffic to your website. Let’s show you how to easily do that next.

2. Enable Facebook Thumbnails to Boost Engagement

Did you know that posts with images get 39% more clicks and shares on Facebook? This means that more people are likely to click through to your website or share your content on Facebook.

It’s, therefore, important to make sure you’re showing the right Facebook thumbnail when your content is shared on Facebook.

Here’s an example of when we’ve set a Facebook thumbnail for one of our blog posts: 

If you’re not setting a Facebook thumbnail for your content, Facebook usually “guesses” the image, and it may not get it right.

Alright, let’s get started by first enabling Facebook thumbnails on your WordPress website.

Enable Facebook Thumbnails in WordPress

To begin, go to Social Networks in the All in One SEO menu, and click on the Facebook tab.

The first setting you’ll see is the Enable Open Graph Markup setting. Just make sure it’s enabled.

The next step is to choose which thumbnail that’s used when your content is shared on Facebook. And we’ll show you how to do that for your individual posts and pages. 

If you want to set Facebook thumbnail for your default content, you can check out our post on how to fix the wrong Facebook thumbnail in WordPress.

Setting Facebook Thumbnail on Individual Posts and Pages

To get started, scroll down in the post or page you’re editing to the AIOSEO Settings, and then click on the Social tab.

Next, click on the Facebook tab. This will open a new window, where you can add your Facebook Title and Description.

You can either write your own title and description or use the smart tags. For example, if you click on + Post Title, AIOSEO will automatically add your post or page’s title as Facebook title.

You can also type the hashtag character ( # ) in the field to display a list of available tags you can choose from.

Note: Remember to use a maximum of 70 characters for your title and 200 characters for your description.

Once you’ve added your Facebook title and description, you scroll down to the Image Source section. Click on the link, and it will display a drop-down menu with different Image Sources. 

Here you can choose the source you want to add your image from. For instance, if you choose the option Default Image Source (Set in Social Networks), Facebook will show the thumbnail you set for your default content. 

That’s it!

You’ve now enabled Facebook thumbnails on your WordPress website and set which image you want to show when your content is shared on Facebook. 

Now, let’s move on to setting up your Twitter Cards to drive more referral traffic to your website. 

3. Set Twitter Cards to Drive More Referral Traffic

Twitter Cards give you the power to share visual and engaging information to your followers without breaking the character limit and drive more referral traffic to your site.

They also let you control how your content looks when it’s shared on Twitter. In fact, you can pick the image and text that’s displayed, which means that more people will notice your content and click on it.

For instance, this is a Twitter Card when sharing WPBeginner’s post on how to start your own podcast on Twitter:

The large image makes it look visually appealing. And you can easily see what the content is about in the description. Without the image and description, fewer users would click on it.

You can also add video and audio content to increase your CTR (Click-Through-Rate) and shares even more.

Let’s show you how to set Twitter Cards for your individual posts and pages next. 

Setting Twitter Cards on Individual Posts and Pages

When editing your blog post or page, simply scroll down to the AIOSEO Settings, and then click on the Social tab.

Then, click on the Twitter tab next to the Facebook tab.

The option to Use Data from your Facebook Tab is set by default, but if you want to enter your own Twitter title and description, you can just uncheck this button.

If you do, it’ll open a new window, where you can add your Twitter Title and Description.

Here you can simply do the same procedure as for your Facebook title and description. 

The next step is to choose what Twitter Card Type to use for your blog post or page.

If you’ve set Twitter Card for your default content, you can choose the Default (Set under Social Networks) option. For more details, please visit or guide on how to add Twitter Cards in WordPress the easy way. 

If not, you can choose what Twitter Card you want to use. The Summary card displays a thumbnail image and the Summary with Large Image will show a large image for your content.

That’s it! 

You’ve now set how your content will look like when it’s shared on Twitter, which will help boost your CTR and referral traffic.

Next, we’ll show you how to add a social media review widget to showcase your customer reviews so that you can use social proof to grow your brand.  

4. Embed a Social Media Review Widget on Your Site

With the rise of social media accounts, there’s no reason for you to display faceless and nameless reviews on your website’s testimonials page. 

Instead, you can use the power of social media to create positive social proof for your brand. And a good way of doing this is by embedding social media reviews on your site. 

Here’s an example of Smash Balloon’s social media reviews feed on Twitter:

Using this social media feed on your testimonials page, you can display relevant tweets that mention your Twitter username to proudly present reviews from your happy customers.

The easiest way to do this is by using the Custom Twitter Feeds Pro by Smash Balloon. Check out this helpful tutorial on how you can add a mentions timeline to your website with just a few clicks.

And if your social media reviews are from Facebook, you can use the Custom Facebook Feed Pro plugin. It lets you embed real Facebook reviews on your WordPress sidebar, just like this:

This will help you showcase your customer reviews as social proof. It’s super easy to set it up too! To learn how you can check out Smash Balloon’s tutorial on how you can add a social media review widget to WordPress.

5. Add YouTube Video Testimonials to Your Content

Adding YouTube video testimonials to your content is a great way to boost conversions and generate more sales for your business.

It’s also a popular marketing strategy because of how effective it is. After all, 80% of marketers confirm that videos helped increase sales for their brands.

For instance, here’s a selection of video testimonials for the best lead creation plugin for WordPress, OptinMonster:

Watching these reviews will help new customers make a decision whether to try the plugin or not. The deal is that consumers are 83% more likely to trust peers over the brand itself, so video testimonials are a great way of establishing trust.

With the help of the Feeds for YouTube Pro plugin, you can easily embed YouTube videos on your site in 5 minutes tops. Just follow this beginner-friendly tutorial on how you can embed a YouTube gallery on WordPress, and you’ll have it set up before you know it.

There you have it!

You’ve now learned 5 ways to integrate social media into your website  — easily and hassle-free, even if you’re not techie! Use these tips, and it’ll help drive more referral traffic to your website, boost engagement, and build your brand at rocket speed.

Before you go, check out 20 ultimate SEO tips to help boost your rankings or learn how to optimize your blog post and images to maximize your SEO.

Not using AIOSEO yet? What are you waiting for?