The All-In-One SEO Plugin is one of the most popular plugins ever made for WordPress. And if you don’t have it, stop reading this, GO GET IT, because you are the only one who doesn’t have it yet!

The All in One SEO Pack is your virtual Search Engine Optimizer. It does all the dirty jobs of adding Meta tags, the Title tag, adding Meta keywords, adding post Description, avoiding indexing of duplicate pages (like Archives and Category pages) and other SEO stuffs that a normal blogger won’t like doing. And the best part; it’s all automated.

If you are not too much concerned about SEO, then you may not have tweaked the plugin, even though you already have it installed. The default installation is powerful enough, but it gets better with some extra tweaks. Exploiting something is so much fun!

Tweaking the All in One SEO Pack

The SEO plugin consists of two parts: Plugin Options Page, and a widget on the Post Editor. See the screenshots below and you will get an idea of what each page is meant to be. If you haven’t done anything yet to these pages, its time to start doing something now.

Add a Home Page Title

The Homepage title is the one line description of your blog; it need not be the same as the name of your blog. Tell the visitors what your blog is all about here. Include the keywords that would bring you traffic over a long period of time. And keep it short; don’t make it longer than 70 characters. This Title Appears on the Search Results and on the Browser Window when you are on the homepage.

The Plugin Options Page

Add Description and Keywords

The Homepage Title is for the readers, but the Description and the Keywords are for the Search Engines. Describe your Blog to the Search Engines and most importantly, add the most popular keywords on your site to the Keywords Section. Adding too many keywords lessens the keyword weight of each keyword, so include only the most important ones here.

No Index all the Duplicate pages

Did you know that on the web, there exists at least three copies of every post your write? Well, the funny thing is that it’s right within your blog! You have one copy on the homepage, one on archives page, and yet another on the category page, not to mention the additional copies on the tag pages. Remember, Google hates duplicate content so better noindex the duplicate pages. (See the arrows)

Add Post Title and Description

The Widget on the Post Editor

The Second Part of this Wordpress SEO plugin is a widget on the Post Editor Page. Once the plugin is installed you will see the widget below every post of yours. Add the Title of the Post and a Description on this Widget. You have to do this every time you write a new post.  Adding a Keyword Rich, human-friendly hand-crafted description is important because Google uses this description on the Search Results page. So it acts like a Welcome message to a potential visitor. (See image below)

See the Description ( Below the title, in black )

Finally, Enter the Keywords

These are the keywords that go into the Meta keywords tag of the html of the page. It is said that Google no longer uses Meta keywords, anyhow, other Search Engines uses still uses them. Enter the keywords from the post here. If you do Keyword research, then this is the right place to enter the suggested keywords.

The SEO plugin is a quick solution to all your SEO needs. It’s a must have for every Wordpress blog.

Download All In One SEO Pack

Thanks to Anand and Girish for contributing ideas to this article.

Update:

When Canonical URLs were introduced, a new check-box was added in the settings page, just above “Rewrite Titles”. Keep that check-box titled “Canonical URLs” ticked.