I have recently tried to use some extra energy when it comes to writing articles and optimizing them for SEO. And for that purpose I have worked with Yoast SEO and Squirrly SEO and here comes the results from my little test. Which plugin will I use in the future? Yoast SEO or Squirrly SEO?
As a person who use a lot of time in front of the computer writing several blog posts a day I am often tempted to produce lots of material and if I have done so when the sun goes down I feel satisfied and efficient. But efficiency does not necessarily mean that you will get results. Maybe I would get more results actually working hard on one article and optimizing it, then if I write 4 or 5 and just publish them without actually thinking about what I have just written and with no plan or strategy for optimizing the actual article. This is always a challenge and that is why I decided to work some more on optimizing the different articles I write, and that is how the battle became reality: Yoast SEO vs Squirrly SEO.
The first contestant: Yoast SEO
I feel kind of ashamed to say this, but I have often had Yoast SEO installed on blogs, but for some reason I have not really used it. I have used it to add meta descriptions sometimes or change the title of a post or page, but nothing more. I did understand that scoreboard based on a selected keyword, but I never actually used it. That is why I decided to use it and I really found it useful. Now time will show how efficient this actually is and if it will help me get better rankings for my articles in Google and in Bing, but hopefully it will. There are lots of other functions in Yoast SEO that I find useful, for example the chance to enter verification IDs for Google and Bing (this function also exist in Squirrly), the Search Console is very useful to find broken URLs and redirect them, These are just some of the functions that I use now and like with Yoast, but the most important when it comes to on page SEO is the chance to optimize every article as you write it on the go.
The second contestant: Squirrly SEO
My first impression of Squirrly SEO is that it was way more colorful and it looked more appealing to me. It also encouraged me to fill in all needed forms to get higher scores and the live assistant when you write articles had the same effect on me. With Squirrly you can get help to find the best keywords and once you have found the keywords for which you want to optimize the article you get the help on the fly telling you when you have succeeded in writing an optimized article. The process of optimizing every single article is quite similar to what you do in Yoast SEO, only that you receive messages instantly in Squirrly confirming that you have succeeded in a task in the article you currently write.
Why I would choose Squirrly SEO instead of Yoast SEO
The function that I simply loved with Squirrly SEO is how it connects to Google and instantly gives you feedback related to how you are ranked for your keyword for a given article. That is simply amazing and it makes it so easy to follow your articles and their progress. They also come with a weekly audit giving you information on your progress and advises for how to keep going strong.
One more function that I did love was the option where you could go into every single article and get an analyze of the article with information about incoming links to that article, author rank on the subject, information about how the article is doing on social media and more. Very useful!
Why I would choose Yoast SEO and not Squirrly SEO
Yoast SEO is very pure and conservative, it almost feels invisible, but if you know the powers hidden inside the plugin and its possibilities, you can still reach very far with this plugin. And it is totally free. You can of course buy a Premium version, but for most people that is not needed at all, and if you did, it would not help you any more than the free plugin does. It must also be said that Yoast is a man with authority and always up to date, meaning that this plugin is safe and up to date. Yoast does everything a SEO plugin should do.
Yoast SEO vs Squirrly SEO conclusion
If I had to choose at this very moment which of the tools I would use, Yoast SEO or Squirrly SEO, I would end up with Yoast SEO. Not because I like it much more, but because it is free. If however Squirrly SEO would be free I would jump back and use it at once, because it has those extra functions that are really brilliant and that I really do love. But, is my love so deep that I am willing to pay 20 USD a month for it? That is the big question, and at the moment my answer is no.
In other words, I think Yoast SEO vs Squirrly SEO ended up with a win for Squirrly as that was the WordPress SEO plugin I liked the most, but since I do not really want to pay a monthly fee, Yoast SEO is the plugin I will end up using!
Have you used Yoast SEO and Squirrly SEO? Which plugin are you using? Why? I would love to hear your thoughts on the subject!
