About The SEO Framework Plugin
The SEO Framework plugin for WordPress is an outstanding tool that can help your website reach those desirable top positions in SERPs. It is a customizable plugin that has Free, Essential, and Premium plans. Each of these offers extra extensions suitable for different SEO tasks. You can add the extras using the companion Extension Manager plugin.
The SEO Framework is excellent since it doesn’t bother its users with annoying ads. In contrast, its alternative Yoast or All in One SEO does. No matter the version – free or paid, you get lifetime plugin updates.
Brief history of the plugin
The developer presents the tool as an AI-driven white-hat SEO tool. Speaking of the developer, there is an exciting story to tell.
Sybre Waaijer is a respectable member of the WPMU DEV community. Some time ago, he noticed how hosting companies were unfair with WordPress websites, so he decided to set up a proprietary hosting environment.
He automated this environment, and part of this process was the creation of the SEO plugin. The plugin, now known as The SEO Framework, quickly gained popularity on WPMU DEV, and soon appeared on WordPress.org.
Ratings and pricing
Today, the plugin has over 80,000 active installations, 4.9 out of 5 rating based on 186 reviews, and a growing consumer circle. Hence, there is no wonder why it appears in our best WP SEO Plugins list for 2019. As mentioned earlier, the plugin provides free and paid versions. To find out The SEO Framework cost, see below.
- Free – 0$ per year;
- Essentials – $49 per year;
- Premium – $99 per year;
- Enterprise – $299 per year.
Now, let’s take a look at the features provided by this plugin (free and paid) and share our verdict.
The SEO Framework review
General Settings overview
The SEO Framework plugin appeared to be lightweight and easy to install. The next thing we saw is the new WP Dashboard item called SEO. Clicking on it took us to General Settings, which were divided into Layout, Performance, Canonical, Timestamps, and Post Types categories.
Further, there are Settings for Title, Description Meta, Home Page, Social Meta, Schema.org, Robots Meta, Sitemap, and Feed.
The most noteworthy thing we like is that there are short, straight-to-the-point, and easy-to-understand descriptions for settings and different choices, all written in italics. We believe that it really helps to understand the usage of specific settings.
Post and Page SEO Settings
The SEO Framework Free plugin version provides a brief SEO summary in the form of colorful blocks, named TG, DG, I, F, A, R. These stand for:
- TG – Title Generated. Checks Title length.
- DG – Description Generated. Displays description length and the most used word in it.
- I – Index. Shows whether the post/page is being indexed or not.
- F – Follow. Shows if post/page links are being followed.
- A – Archive. Shows whether bots are allowed to archive the post/page.
- R – Redirect. Checks if the post/page is redirected.
In Post or Page, you can check SEO Settings. These are divided into General, Social, and Visibility. In General, you can alter Meta Title and see whether its length is good. Furthermore, you can inspect Meta Description.
In Social, you can define Open Graph title, description, Twitter title, description. Additionally, consider adding Social Image URL (or select it from WP Media Library).
If you wish, you can Turn off Schema and add the same URL (a website that unambiguously identifies an item’s identity). Unfortunately, without any extensions, that’s all that the plugin provides.
What is more, The SEO Framework Free doesn’t include keyword optimization, which is a major drawback. In contrast, the Yoast SEO plugin does.
Therefore, if you want more, you have to install Extension Manager to get free or paid extensions.
The SEO Framework – Extension Manager
Extension Manager in The SEO Framework is a WordPress plugin that allows expanding the bundle of the plugin’s features by adding new ones. By default, these extensions come when you install the Extension Manager:
- Incognito. The extension gets rid of front-end branding from TSF. The extension doesn’t affect the website’s performance. To clarify, it merely uses filters to remove The SEO Framework annotations.
- Origin. Redirects attachment pages created by WordPress to parent posts.
- AMP. It gathers important SEO details from TSF and outputs them on AMP pages.
However, the manager extension can be used to add premium features, which are described below.
Essentials pack
There are several paid extensions that come either with The SEO Framework Essentials, Premium, or Enterprise subscriptions.
- Focus. The extension allows focusing on well-targeted keywords or key phrases, rating the page based on SEO principles, such as keyword density, links, permalink, keyword placement, and even more. You can use up to three keywords to form three subjects.
- Articles. The add-on uses structured data for different article types, such as blog posts, reports, and so on. It helps to display essential data in search results nicely so that visitors could learn more before checking out the post on your website.
- Honeypot. Helps to fight spam from robots that automatically post random comments with URLs. The Honeypot only adds around 160 bytes to the website’s source code. As a result, it makes almost no difference in the site’s performance.
The SEO Framework Premium and Enterprise pack
- Local SEO. Local listings are essential as they help to attract potential customers. The extension comes in handy when trying to rank your local business department in search engines. You will need to enter the required information. As a result, it converts into Schema.org scripts and appears in the site?s header.
- Monitor. The extension works as an error checker for your website. In other words, it finds compatibility issues, checks performance, uptime.
- Focus. The SEO Framework Premium gives an improved focus extension, which comes with a dictionary. Moreover, it provides you with synonyms and inflections for your keywords.
What are your thoughts about The SEO Framework? Share your opinion below.