Yoast SEO (aka WordPress SEO by Yoast) and the All in One SEO Pack are two of the most comprehensive and popular SEO suites available for WordPress CMS. Joost de Valk and Semper plugins must be rolling in ‘$’ signs by now.

In this post, I have taken the two plugins and put them against each other to determine once and for all, which one is the best SEO plugin for WordPress.

Here’s where things get interesting.

• Ease of Setup

Both Yoast SEO and All in One SEO Pack can be found in the WordPress.org Plugin Repository. And they are easy to spot. Both of them occupy top positions in the search results for ‘SEO’.

The point here is to compare how easy it is to setup and configure the plugin for a WordPress site admin/ SEO newbie.

Yoast SEO

The settings are cleanly distributed by pages and further into tabs, making it easy to understand and segment the different settings from one another.

All in One SEO Pack

Since it has almost as many different configuration options as Yoast, the plugin and its settings are pretty extensive. However they’re all clubbed together on a single screen with separate tabs, making it relatively more confusing for a beginner to wade through.

Both plugins have startup tutorials, documentation, and comprehensive user guides. So that bit at least is covered admirably.

• Features

The two plugins give each other a real tough competition in this field. Here I compare core features (free version features) of Yoast SEO and All in One SEO Pack.

Note that some ‘missing’ features in any one plugin is available in its premium version.

Verdict: If you are a beginner and/or WordPress eCommerce store owner, All in One SEO Pack will make life easier for you. For advanced SEO users, Yoast SEO is unbeatable.

• Additional Features

Although the two plugins are great even in their free versions, the beauty and sheer efficiency of pro is unsurpassable. Apart from the awesome premium support, quite a few smart features are available in the form of extensions/ modules/ plans for both Yoast SEO and All in One SEO pack.

Yoast SEO

I love this beast. Seriously, the damn plugin thinks of every single detail and provides for it. If you have the dollars to spend (and you should well hope that you do!), you too would love the extensions and features like:

• Redirect Manager: A feature you’d usually need a separate plugin for, Redirect Manager will let you easily redirect old URLs to new ones. Especially awesome during a domain/ brand revamp.

• Multiple Focus Keywords: If your post covers more than one subject in detail, this feature will let you select two completely different focus keywords for search engines to rank you on. Also works on synonyms for well written posts about a single topic.

• Social Previews: Check out how your posts will look once shared on Facebook or Twitter with this handy feature.

That’s not all. For additional price(s), you can buy premium add-ons for specific SEO requirements like:

• Local SEO: An absolute must for local businesses with a brick and mortar store who want to reach out to their customers and expand their business simultaneously.

• News SEO: Helps your site get indexed in Google News search. Must-have for news/magazine blogs.

• Video SEO: Perfect for vloggers and WordPress sites with rich media content (vodcasts, video embeds, and more).

All in One SEO Pack

After the awesomeness available at Yoast’s corner, All in One SEO Pack (pro) will definitely look lackluster to a newbie. But the premium version features are in fact remarkable. SEO Pack pro includes:

• Advanced WooCommerce Support

• Feature Manager (a combination of different SEO modules to suit everyone’s needs)

• SEO for Custom Taxonomies

• Support for Schema.org rich snippets and Google Knowledge Graph

• Advanced Google Analytics support (I, personally, am nuts for this one)

• Video XML Sitemap

• Social Media Integration (a free feature in Yoast, but never mind that)

• Access to Knowledge Center and screencasts by Semper Plugins team (looks like a bummer, but it really isn’t)

Endnote

Pro features and support are always worth their cost (why else would anyone buy it?), so there’s no point comparing apples and oranges for these two mammoths. However, the premium COST is something that might halt your steps if you are leaning towards Yoast. All in One SEO Pack pro is way friendlier to your wallet, as far as the feeedback from top WordPress web development companies are concerned.

Choose well.