There are several popular WordPress SEO plugins available right now. Two of those plugins are Yoast SEO and SEOPressor Connect. But which of the two should you use for your WordPress blog in 2021? Or perhaps neither of these two are worthy of your attention. Read more to find out.
I've been a long-time fan and user of the Yoast SEO plugin. In fact, I installed Yoast SEO in my blog at the very start back in 2010.
Here's the thing:
Generally, I'm pretty loyal when it comes to the tools and services that I use in my business and websites. Rarely will I change something that has been working for me perfectly fine.
This is to say that the WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin has been an amazing tool over the years, and the improvements just keep getting better with each update.
That being said, I'm always curious and up for trying out new tools.
Way back in good old 2012, when I originally wrote this comparison post, I tested a totally different SEO plugin called SEOPressor, (Before it transitioned into SEOPressor Connect).
I had read a lot of positive reviews about SEOPressor beforehand, and so I decided to purchase the plugin to use on a new blog project I was working on in the background.
Oddly enough, that blog project was the one you're on right now, Magnet4Blogging. This blog was meant to be a testing platform for new themes and plugins. It was never meant to be anything more than that. Funny how things work out, right?
Yes and no. No, I wasn't losing my mind paying for a plugin because I've always invested in tools for my business. I believe it to be a good strategy for continued growth.
However, I was mad for paying a whopping $50 for the darn thing. SEOPressor cost me a small fortune, to say the least.
Was it worth it?
Well, kind of. I'll explain later.
At the time of purchasing SEOPressor for $50, Yoast SEO was completely free. There wasn't a premium option for the plugin like there is now.
I installed the plugin into my WordPress blog, and I was incredibly impressed with all of the features and options that the Yoast SEO plugin didn't have at the time.
But, fast forward to 2021, a whole 9 years later. Is SEOPressor any better? Has the Yoast SEO plugin evolved into something smarter?
Both of these plugins have come a long way and in their own respect, have achieved great things.
SEOPressor has gone through a number of revisions. And shortly after the launch of SEOPressor 5.0 came SEOPressor Connect, the membership plugin we've come to know today.
SEOPressor Connect (Affiliate link) is now in version 6.2 I believe, and it's only available via a single subscription plan of $9 per month.
As for Yoast's SEO plugin, we have a premium version of the plugin to contend with.
The great thing to come out of my purchase of SEOPressor back in 2012, was that I was automatically given access to the new membership plugin at no additional cost. In other words, I was able to continue using the plugin on the blogs that I had SEOPressor installed on without paying the $9 per month. Which was great.
Over the years, I've enjoyed the benefits of using both SEO plugins and I love them both. Which is probably useless for you since you're probably here to find out which plugin you should use on your blog, right?
Here's what I'm going to do.
I'm going to compare both the paid version of Yoast SEO with SEOPressor Connect membership. Since SEOPressor does not have a free version available.
I'll also talk about another plugin that I've switched to called Rank Math SEO Pro (Aff link) and explain why I think this is the next-gen WordPress SEO plugin.
OK, let's do this.
Let's start with SEOPressor Connect (Aff link).
Actually, before we dive into the list of features, let's first look at the benefits of using this premium SEO plugin.
Now, I want to dive a little bit deeper into the SEOPressor Connect plugin options and features list.
As I mentioned earlier, SEOPressor Connect is now available on a single subscription plan priced at just $9 per month.
For that monthly fee, you'll be able to use the plugin on multiple domains. Yes, that's right, meaning it's a multi-site license.
This makes SEOPressor extremely cost-effective and very competitive at only $108 per year.
So, here's what you get:
SEOPressor Connect offers improved on-page analysis. It takes into consideration common things like word count, content readability, keyword density, LSI, and more.
Much of these features, by the way, can also be found in both the free and premium versions of the Yoast SEO plugin.
I love the optimization suggestions on where and what to improve on with SEOPressor Connect.
In addition, the plugin responds very quickly as you work with it. There is very little lag, in fact. This was one of the issues that concerned me when using previous versions of the plugin.
When you're working on your content using SeoPressor Connect, there is no need to keep saving your work to see the changes. You're optimizing in real-time and you simply refresh the analysis tool itself. When you're happy with everything you can go ahead and save changes you've made to the entire post or page itself. See the image to the right.
This was one of the features that originally sold me the plugin back when it was in version 5.0. The over-optimization feature is still present in the new version, I'm happy to say.
So, what is this feature and what can you use it for?
Well, as you may know. Google can penalize any website if they believe it to be violating their user-guidelines. In this case, having too many over-optimized pieces of content.
For instance, posts and pages that have been stuffed with keywords, excessive anchor text links, etc. So, this little feature lets you know when you've over-optimized your page with a warning. See below.
Of course, this feature is useless to you if you don't care what Google thinks. But I'm safely guessing that you do care, and if you want your content to continue ranking well in their search engine, then the over-optimization warning is useful.
In comparison with Yoast's single focus keyword (Free version), this was another feature that caught my attention. But then again, we are talking about a premium plugin here.
Originally, SEOPressor Version 5.0 allowed gave users the power to optimize for multiple keywords and phrases. This is essential if you want your content found in the search engines for other relevant keyword searches. This feature is still very much present in version 6.2.
You could probably try and optimize for multiple keywords using the free version of the Yoast plugin by changing the focus keyword each time you've optimized for it, however, that would be quite time-consuming, to say the least.
Keep in mind that the premium version of Yoast SEO does provide extra features to optimize and rank for multiple keywords.
Now, this I really love with SEOPressor Connect (Affiliate link). You can get real SEO insights using the tools provided in your website audit dashboard to help you optimize for SEO sitewide.
Features include SiteWide SEO audit, SEO score manager, and trends.
As the world moves more towards the Semantic web, helping you to improve search relevancy for your content is becoming increasingly critical.
SEOPressor has built-in tools to help you control how the internet sees your site, without you having to touch a single line of code. Pretty cool stuff, right?
This is a great improvement to the SEOPressor Connect plugin (Affiliate link), something I don't think the previous versions had, though, I could be wrong.
You now have access to tools to help you to create XML sitemaps, control robot rule settings such as 301 redirection and canonical URL, customize Facebook OpenGraph and Twitter Card and more, all without needing additional plugins installed on your WordPress site.
In addition, the Link Manager is a pretty useful feature by itself. It allows you to build and manage a flawless link structure for your blog. Again, a critical step towards helping you create a more user-friendly website.
You can easily identify broken links quickly so that you can fix them promptly. See the image below.
This is just another awesome feature that I love in SEOPressor Connect. It allows you to analyze other keywords or phrases closely related or linked to your target keywords.
This is super useful for helping you create content that flows naturally and is readable by humans. And of course, to create content that will rank for relevant keywords that users might use to find your content on Google.
The Meta options in SEOPressor Connect are spot on. You have complete control over title tag, meta description, canonical URL, 301 redirect, and robot rules.
For social optimization, you can enable and customize Facebook Open Graph and Twitter Cards for each post or page. Although, if you're using a social plugin like Social Snap, you won't need to touch any of these options.
The latest version of SEOPressor, again which is version 6.2 at the time of updating this post, now offers two important options under advanced options.
You can turn off "Automatically Perform Analysis On Page load".
Why would you want to do this?
Because before now, the automatic analysis feature would be responsible for issues like slow page load and server loads.
While these features improve the performance all around, using other features like Site Audit and Link Manager still comes with high resource usage. I would personally recommend using these features when you need to.
OK, so I've just gone over a few of the key features in SEOPressor Connect, there are simply way too many additional features for me to list here. You'll have to go and check them all out for yourself (Affiliate link).
I want to be completely honest with you here.
I did think that the older versions of SEOPressor were good. Yes, some of those versions had a few flaws and bugs here and there, but it would seem that some of these have been addressed in version 6.2.
SEOPressor 6.2 is a big leap forwards and I only hope the plugin continues to improve. That being said, you might try it out and think completely the opposite.
I've not even mentioned things like having the ability to do homepage, site-wide, and local SEO.
You'll no doubt observe for yourself that SEOPressor Connect has a lot of options, built-in tools, and features to offer. It really is a complete on-page SEO solution for WordPress websites.
Recommended reading: Check out my full SEOPressor Connect tutorial here.
OK, so let's now take a look at some of the key features of the incredibly popular Yoast SEO plugin. We'll look at the free plugin first, then the premium.
Let's start with some good old stats!
WordPress SEO by Yoast has been downloaded over 5 million times from the WP repository. It has over 25,000 five star reviews. There are two good reasons for these two stats:
Yes, there is a premium version of this plugin available, as I said earlier, which I'll talk more about in just a moment. For now though, here's what the free version has to offer -
The snippet editor allows you to create the perfect and most compelling search engine search result listing possible.
As you make changes in the snippet area, you'll instantly begin to notice your SEO score improving, based on how you incorporate your focus keyword into your content and snippet content.
The beauty with this is that you can see how your listing will appear in Google before you actually make your post live. This should encourage you to not just think about the SEO aspect of the listing, but how humans read the snippet itself.
Recommended post: How To Make Your Blog Post Stand Out In Search Engines
With the free version of the Yoast SEO plugin, you're able to optimize for only one main focus keyword or key-phrase. The premium version allows you to optimize for more.
Like the SEOPressor plugin, the content analysis feature allows you to easily check your content to see how well it's optimized for various ranking factors against your focus keyword.
Changes happen in real-time as well here, so as you create your content around your focus keyword you'll see more of those green blobs appearing.
The Yoast plugin comes with built-in advanced settings for meta robots and canonical URL, yes the free version has this!
With built-in social optimization tools for Facebook OpenGraph, Twitter, and Google+, you can ensure your content makes the most impact on social media.
Note: If you're using a social plugin like Social Snap, you need not bother with the social options in either the Yoast or SEOPressor plugin. The social features in Social Snap will wipe the floor with both SEO plugins.
Once again, these are just some of the built-in options and features you get with the free version of Yoast SEO.
You've probably noticed that whilst the paid-for SEOPressor Connect plugin has a ton to offer in terms of features, benefits, and usability, even the free version of Yoast SEO is pretty darn hard to beat.
Not to forget that, with the premium version of Yoast SEO, you get a host of additional features including a redirect manager, ability to optimize for multiple keywords, and premium support.
So, the verdict is in - WordPress SEO by Yoast is the clear winner here, right?
Continue reading:
The site-wide options in the free version of Yoast SEO are what make Yoast SEO such a great all-round plugin.
While I love the site-wide SEO options in SEOPressor Connect too, some things are definitely missing or lacking in that plugin.
One critical feature missing in SEOPressor Connect, for me, is the ability to no-index sub-pages of archives.
You can do this in Yoast, along with many other things, including stripping 'category' from 'category' permalinks, changing permalinks and RSS settings, etc.
If those small things matter, not just for your website's SEO, but usability, then Yoast is the plugin to go for.
Let's talk about the cost of using either of these two plugins.
Yoast SEO has a free version with lots of great features.
If you want a redirect feature, optimize for multiple keywords and premium support you'll have to fork out $69 for the premium version.
Plus, if you want to continue receiving updates and support for the premium features, you'll have to keep paying $69 each year.
That's not bad, considering the SEOPressor Connect subscription would cost you $108 per year, right
The maths is simple, the premium Yoast plugin is the one to go for...
But wait.
The $69 you pay for Yoast only gives you a license for 1 website/domain.
Can you feel that kick in the backside??
If you want to use Yoast Premium on more sites you'll have to purchase more licenses. This can be quite costly if you have more than one blog.
SEOPressor Connect, on the other hand, has all the built-in features of the free and premium versions of Yoast SEO, and a few additional features.
The price you pay for SEOPressor is a one single monthly subscription fee of $9 ($108 per year), and that gives you a license to use SEOPressor for multiple domains/websites.
So, based on 'value' alone, SEOPressor Connect is the clear winner. But, I'll leave that for you to decide, because you see, at the end of the day it comes down to pure preference and what you need for your SEO.
Oh no! I did it again... I gave you another middle of the road comparison review!
Wait, wait! I'm not done yet.
I will say that each of these two plugins is great in their own respect and have a lot to offer.
OK, so here we go:
I don't use either of these plugins anymore. At least not on Magnet4Blogging, or my creative services company website at Fabrizio Van Marciano Dot Com.
I now use a plugin called - "RankMath". RankMath is lightweight, lightening fast, and it's the most intuitive SEO plugin out of them all.
That being said, I still use Yoast SEO and SEOPressor on a few small niche websites and Amazon Affiliate sites.
Look:
Both of these plugins are great and will serve you well. I would go as far as to say that Yoast's SEO plugin is a lot more user-friendly.
The SEOPressor plugin, on the other hand, is a little more complex and takes a little bit of time to learn about all of its features and options. But it's worth doing if you want to make the most of it.
So which would I personally recommend?
Any of them. There's no clear winner here. Even though one plugin may be more popular than the other, either of these two will serve you well.
I know this is probably no help to you, and I could have saved you the time reading this post. However, I wanted to provide you with the options and benefits before you committed yourself.
But seriously, both of these plugins are exceptional in their own rights.
But...
If I had to kill off one plugin. If I really had to choose only one: It would be the SEOPressor Connect plugin.
Why?
Because I like a few of the features that's not in the free Yoast plugin: The link manager feature, and the over-optimization tool, auditing tools, new advanced options. etc.
Of course, if you were looking for a free plugin to use, then Yoast SEO free version would be the only choice of the two. Looking further afield, I would consider taking a look at RankMath too.
I hope you've enjoyed reading this little comparison review post, I've been as honest as I can about using both of these awesome SEO plugins.
If you're using either one of these yourself, do let me know what you have experienced.
Which is YOUR favorite SEO plugin?
Affiliate Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links to SEOPressor Connect. This means if you click on the affiliate link and make a purchase of SEOPressor, I may earn a small commission, at no additional cost to you. Thank you for your continued support.
