After 2 solid weeks of thorough online research on which WordPress SEO plugin should I be using for this site, I’ve finally narrowed down to (just) 2 candidates :

1. WordPress SEO by Yoast

2. All in One SEO Pack

If you’re here for something like “top 10 WordPress SEO plugins” – no, that’s not what you’ll find here. Instead, I’ll show you the way I analyse and select the WordPress SEO plugin that I’ll be using for WillTan.com. And trust me, in the case like WordPress plugins, I’ve the habit to use only the best. The best one which I’ll be using for this site is …. drumroll … WordPress SEO by Yoast. And here’s why :

Head over to WordPress.org’s Plugins and search for “SEO” sorted by Most Popular, you’ll see both WordPress SEO by Yoast and All in One (AIO) SEO plugins stand out of the crowds with over 8+ million and 17+ million downloads respectively.

Based on the number of downloads, AIO SEO Pack seems to be the one you should be using. In fact, AIO SEO Pack is the top 10 most popular and downloaded WordPress plugins, alongside with SEO by Yoast who happened to be in the top 10 too.

Notwithstanding the sheer downloads AIO SEO Pack chalked up, the Average Rating of WordPress SEO by Yoast outshines AIO SEO Pack with an average rating of 4.7 (with over 3K ratings) versus 3.8 out of 5 stars (with 1.5K+ ratings) respectively. Also note the proportion of the 1 stars vs 5 stars between both SEO plugins. Hence, in terms of user feedback and reviews, WordPress SEO by Yoast got an upper hand.

The general verdict is that based on (1) personal preference, (2) needs and (3) level of SEO skill, one will not get wrong by using either one of the above. However, not giving up on determining exactly which ONE should I be using, I skimmed through tons of reviews, especially the 1 stars, on both plugins.

It seems that the major issue for those giving 1 star is – the SEO plugin hurts their sites more than it should help. Some even claimed and warned against using WordPress SEO by Yoast (or AIO SEO Pack) with drastic drop in ranking and some reported their host suspended their sites because the SEO plugin used up too much of the shared hosting resources.

Emerged another camp pledging that NOT installing an SEO plugin is the best strategy, after all, WordPress is supposed to be optimized and Google loves WordPress. NOT TRUE. No doubt. WordPress is the best blogging/CMS (content management system) platform but its default codings of WordPress is not exactly SEO optimized. See this post – https://www.seochat.com/c/a/website-promotion-help/wordpress-seo-without-a-plug-in/.

So the first decision is to decide to SEO with or without SEO. Weighing the pros and cons, the quick decision is it’s still an edge to SEO with plugin. Next comes the same original question – WordPress SEO by Yoast or All in One SEO Pack? Again, judging on the comments and feedback on tho

se 1-stars, it seems that the key lies in proper configuration and customization of ie. WordPress SEO by Yoast.

The final verdict – the SEO plugin of choice is … final drum roll … WordPress SEO by Yoast. And go through the tutorial :

https://yoast.com/articles/wordpress-seo/ thoroughly so as to properly set up the plugin for optimal result. I’ll probably come up with my own version of customizing this plugin, so stay tuned