Switching to the SEO Framework plugin?

I’ve been a big fan of the Yoast SEO plugin for many years. It does a great job of helping with the SEO (“Search Engine Optimization”) on WordPress-powered websites. I first shared it with you back in 2012 and I wrote this long post about how to use it in 2013. Even today we’re still using it on hundreds of websites that we manage. However, we’re starting to use The SEO Framework plugin more and more, and this post will explain why.

Speed

The big one is speed. The Yoast plugin isn’t particularly slow, but it’s become more bloated over the years. The SEO Framework doesn’t do quite as much as Yoast, but it’s roughly 1/10 the size of it. Keeping your plugins light is a big key to a successful website, and this plugin takes a big chunk out of that overhead on your site.

Simplicity

Yoast SEO has some very powerful features, but it can get overwhelming at times. The SEO Framework keeps things simple; it has all of the features I need, without all of the extra cruft.

Transitioning

While they have plans to add it “soon”, the SEO Framework currently cannot import your existing Yoast SEO settings. If you’ve spent years crafting your settings in Yoast, it’s likely not worth switching. At this point we’re only using The SEO Framework on brand new sites (or sites that haven’t had an SEO plugin before) so that we don’t need to worry about importing. This will likely change once that feature is added.

You can download The SEO Framework on the WordPress respository here or learn more on their website.

What is currently your favorite WordPress plugin for SEO?