Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one of the most important things you should consider when building out your website. Using WordPress as your platform let’s you easily accomplish this through a combination of your chosen theme and plug-ins.

A quick word on WordPress themes and SEO – make sure to choose a SEO friendly theme, one that has clean and valid code. Most WordPress themes will say if they are SEO friendly.

Now, on to my top 3 picks of plug-ins for SEO.

Google XML Sitemaps By Arne Brachhold

XML Sitemaps tells search engines the contents of your website. Though Google was the first search engine to support XML Sitemaps they are now supported by most major search engines such as Bing, Yahoo (now powered by Bing) and Ask.

This plug-in is dead simple to use. Once installed you can leave the default settings and it will automatically generate a XML Sitemap and notify Google, Bing, and Ask of the new sitemap every time your WordPress site is updated. You can also configure it to notify Yahoo but, you will need a Yahoo Application ID.

Google Analytics for WordPress By Joost de Valk

Though it does not directly impact the source code of your site; it’s essential that you track and analyze your website traffic. For the price of free you can sign-up for a Google Analytics account and this plug-in enables you to install the tracking code without messing with the theme source code. All you need is your UA code from Google Analytics to enter into the plug-in settings.

All in One SEO Pack By Michael Torbert

After installing and enabling this plug-in your Meta Tags will be modified to be more search engine friendly by placing more content on the Meta Tags such as the Post Title with the Blog Title. You can configure these parameters in the settings page. It will also give you new window when editing your post or pages where you can specify the Meta Title and Meta Description for the web page. You can leave these blank and the plug-in will auto generate these for you based on the settings and content.