{"id":17871,"date":"2018-06-06T05:00:17","date_gmt":"2018-06-06T05:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.brickmarketing.com\/?p=17871"},"modified":"2025-06-30T18:00:17","modified_gmt":"2025-06-30T18:00:17","slug":"sometimes-ok-ignore-seo-plugins-seo-tools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.brickmarketing.com\/blog\/ignore-seo-plugin","title":{"rendered":"Sometimes It\u2019s OK to Ignore SEO Plugins (And Other SEO Tools)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Here at Brick Marketing, we\u2019re really into WordPress. We use it on all of our sites and always recommend it to clients going through a re-design. At the very least, we recommend it for blogging since it\u2019s very user-friendly. To assist with SEO efforts, it\u2019s advisable to use an SEO plugin. Our favorite is Yoast. It makes it easy to enter SEO related information (title, keyword, meta description). It will also grade the SEO and readability of your content. While this can be helpful, it\u2019s important to keep in mind that these are recommendations only. Let\u2019s take a look at both of these grades:<\/p>\n

SEO<\/h3>\n

While this grade might be helpful for an SEO newbie or a website owner doing their own SEO, an SEO professional will take some of these recommendations with a grain of salt. All of the recommendations are based purely on the keyword that you enter into the keyword field. As we know, that\u2019s not really how SEO works anymore. Exact match keyword and keyword density are no longer relevant in the SEO conversation. Search terms are now long tail queries and with semantic search and machine learning, the search engines understand this. They have a better understanding of the overall meaning of content and if it\u2019s a good fit for a search query. Other items that you can get dinged for are not having any links in the content and the length of the post. Sometimes there\u2019s really no need to include a link. And sometimes a post doesn\u2019t need to be at least 300 words. Think about a recipe blog for instance. There\u2019s no need to stretch a recipe beyond the basics, and people tend to like short and easy recipes!<\/p>\n

Readability<\/h3>\n

\"\"
\nThe best SEO approach is to always write for your readers first, and then the search engines. Same thing here. Write a post that you know your target audience will appreciate, don\u2019t write it to please the SEO plugin. Writing is often subjective and the writer can make a style choice based on their preference and what the norm is in a specific industry. For example, the Yoast SEO plugin uses The Flesch readability score, which uses the sentence length (number of words per sentence) and the number of syllables per word in an equation to calculate the reading ease. If you\u2019re writing for an educated crowd, it only makes sense that it would be more difficult. The bottom line is that if the post is understood by your target audience members, that\u2019s all that matters.<\/p>\n

SEO plugins (and any SEO tool, really) are designed to help us out. But sometimes they can make things more complicated than they need to be. Sometimes your own knowledge and judgement should be weighed more heavily when making SEO decisions than what a tool is telling you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Here at Brick Marketing, we\u2019re really into WordPress. We use it on all of our sites and always recommend it to clients going through a re-design. At the very least,… More Info<\/a>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13687,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-seo"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nSometimes It\u2019s OK to Ignore SEO Plugins (And Other SEO Tools) | Brick Marketing<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Sometimes your own knowledge and judgement should be weighed more heavily than what an SEO plugin or other SEO tool is telling you.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.brickmarketing.com\/blog\/ignore-seo-plugin\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Sometimes It\u2019s OK to Ignore SEO Plugins (And Other SEO Tools) | Brick Marketing\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Sometimes your own knowledge and judgement should be weighed more heavily than what an SEO plugin or other SEO tool is telling you.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.brickmarketing.com\/blog\/ignore-seo-plugin\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Brick Marketing - Digital Marketing Agency\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-06-06T05:00:17+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-06-30T18:00:17+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.brickmarketing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/488576059.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"592\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"592\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Nick Stamoulis\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Nick Stamoulis\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.brickmarketing.com\\\/blog\\\/ignore-seo-plugin#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.brickmarketing.com\\\/blog\\\/ignore-seo-plugin\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Nick Stamoulis\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.brickmarketing.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/dd420fc038644ad2ee1a62912b6368fb\"},\"headline\":\"Sometimes It\u2019s OK to Ignore SEO Plugins (And Other SEO Tools)\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-06-06T05:00:17+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-06-30T18:00:17+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.brickmarketing.com\\\/blog\\\/ignore-seo-plugin\"},\"wordCount\":496,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.brickmarketing.com\\\/blog\\\/ignore-seo-plugin#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/eqo6k4wde6o.exactdn.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2014\\\/11\\\/488576059.jpg?strip=all\",\"articleSection\":[\"SEO\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.brickmarketing.com\\\/blog\\\/ignore-seo-plugin\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.brickmarketing.com\\\/blog\\\/ignore-seo-plugin\",\"name\":\"Sometimes It\u2019s OK to Ignore SEO Plugins (And Other SEO Tools) | Brick Marketing\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.brickmarketing.com\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.brickmarketing.com\\\/blog\\\/ignore-seo-plugin#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.brickmarketing.com\\\/blog\\\/ignore-seo-plugin#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/eqo6k4wde6o.exactdn.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2014\\\/11\\\/488576059.jpg?strip=all\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-06-06T05:00:17+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-06-30T18:00:17+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.brickmarketing.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/dd420fc038644ad2ee1a62912b6368fb\"},\"description\":\"Sometimes your own knowledge and judgement should be weighed more heavily than what an SEO plugin or other SEO tool is telling you.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.brickmarketing.com\\\/blog\\\/ignore-seo-plugin#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/www.brickmarketing.com\\\/blog\\\/ignore-seo-plugin\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.brickmarketing.com\\\/blog\\\/ignore-seo-plugin#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/eqo6k4wde6o.exactdn.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2014\\\/11\\\/488576059.jpg?strip=all\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/eqo6k4wde6o.exactdn.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2014\\\/11\\\/488576059.jpg?strip=all\",\"width\":592,\"height\":592},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.brickmarketing.com\\\/blog\\\/ignore-seo-plugin#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.brickmarketing.com\\\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Sometimes It\u2019s OK to Ignore SEO Plugins (And Other SEO Tools)\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.brickmarketing.com\\\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.brickmarketing.com\\\/\",\"name\":\"Brick Marketing - 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