Most damage is self-inflicted, at least in local SEO. A weak website makes it harder to be exposed In organic results and Google Maps resultsand to stay there. But if simple tasks are a PITA, or you spend too much time, effort, and money on features that stop working, or if your website Hacked You can’t take it out of the infirmary quickly. Too many plugins or the wrong plugin can cause all of these problems and more.
My advice is simple: install as few plugins as possible. If you go too heavy-handed, generally speaking, you’ll find it harder to create and improve pages in the long term, more plugins will conflict or stop working, and vulnerable plugins will sooner or later lead to hacking attacks. All of these things directly impact your ability to do effective local SEO and generate more revenue.
Of course, there are hundreds of excellent WordPress plugins. You’ll probably need at least some of these to keep your website functional, manageable, and beautiful. So I wouldn’t bash them at all. If you’re going on a trip, half of your duffel bag is going to be taken up by clothes, and those are non-negotiables. So what you need to determine now is (1) what else you should bring, and (2) how much extra space you should allow for easy rummaging and storage of souvenirs.
Which plugins are most useful for your local SEO? Here is my shortest shortlist:
1. yeastor rank mathematicsor All-in-one SEO. Either one is an extremely convenient way to specify and customize title tags on each page and build XML sitemaps. I don’t think the other features are useful, but these two are enough. By the way, if you don’t use Yoast or similar plugins, Google’s XML sitemap generator is a simple and hassle-free standalone plugin only Responsible for managing your XML sitemap.
2. Largest super menu. This is the best way to get all the pages you care about – i.e. Service page and Derived pages – Enter the main menu. This is important because internal links to these pages are crucial.
3. Redirect. If you rename URLs, deactivate pages, delete or add subdirectories, you need to be able to 301 redirect one page to another easily, quickly, and reliably, otherwise you will lose any backlinks, or existing ones. Backlinks. Other plugins do redirects well, but this one is my favorite because it’s simple and never seems to have a problem.
4. Duplicate page. Many of your pages will end up similar to each other, not even in content, but in layout. If you need to take the time to build each page Starting from scratch, you’re unlikely to build new pages at all, or you’re unlikely to take the time to make them rich and fully optimized. This plugin, or any copy or clone plugin you like, will allow you to create the page you want once and use it as a starting point for subsequent pages.
5. Nexus Whisper. I’ve been following your case become heavy exist internal linkpart of which involves constantly patrolling your pages (and photos), looking for links to other related pages (or post or video). The problem is that our mental site maps tend to be vague. It’s easy to forget that you have a page about that topic, or a post about that topic, or which one. Link Whisper can suggest specific internal links to add.
Honorable Mention field kitwhich is usually the easiest way to install Google Search Console. and it must be installed so that you can camping inside and learn about your local SEO situation real is doing.
If a plugin isn’t on this super-short list, it’s because (a) it’s more widely used, (b) I don’t find it useful, or (c) I just haven’t encountered it yet.
What about plugins I don’t recommend? At the top of the list is the cache plugin. Also, I’ve had serious problems with MonsterInsights, so here goes.
Local SEO is a matter of getting the basic things right over the long term. Don’t let the plugins you choose complicate things. Travel light and go further.
