Welcome to the first part of our review of the Xagio AI SEO Plugin. In this review we look at the all-important functions of all SEO plugins, those being to help with content strategy and search engine results position (SERPs) optimisation. Read on for our comparison with other leading SEO WordPress Plugins Yoast, All-in-One-SEO, and Rank Math.
In our increasingly interconnected world, having a strong online presence is crucial for small business owners and marketing professionals.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) plays a pivotal role in driving free organic traffic to informational content websites including all trade and commercial websites, improving search engine rankings, and ultimately increasing sales and conversions.
If you, like me, would like to find and use the best SEO software for the shortest route to traffic and income generation for your websites, follow me as I begin a new series of blog posts to test and review the latest Xagio AI version (launched in July 2024 as the “Freedom Version”) of the Xagio AI Plugin for WordPress.
My Xagio Journey So Far
I’ve been following Herc Magnus and his Xagio SEO plugin since its inception.
It has always worked well for me for local trade websites meaning that from the start of version 1 of this plugin (under its original name of “Supremacy”), I was on several occasions able to rank tiny 5-page plumbing trade sites on Google SERPs page 1, with very little content, no advertising, and no more than 5 backlinks, on new domains in less than 3 months.
As someone who has been deeply involved in the digital landscape for over two decades, I’ve seen the evolution of SEO from a mysterious art to a complex quasi-science.
My journey, primarily focused on the energy and waste management sectors, has led me to build successful websites that have gained and maintained a strong and loyal following.
Throughout this time, I've experimented with various SEO plugins, including industry giants like Yoast, All-in-One-SEO, and Rank Math. While these tools have their merits, I've always sought a solution that could truly optimize my websites for search engines without compromising on user experience.
I've used “Keyword Surfer” (a complimentary content SEO system to Xagio) and its concept of multiple keyword inclusion but I found it hard to write highly readable flowing text while accommodating all the required keywords to score highly in the Surfer scoring system.
Xagio, in its free form, has emerged as a compelling contender with the other plugins.
Its project planner is a unique feature that will focus you on closely serving your niche. Without that, it's so easy to wander off from the core interests of your community.
Its AI integration is impressive and offers a level of optimization that, in my opinion, significantly surpasses its free competitor plugin versions.
However, the recent introduction of the new features of the paid version, and higher charges, raises the critical questions:
1 – If using the free version how does it compare with the competitor's free versions
2 – Is the paid version worth the investment?
To answer this, I will be reporting on the performance I find for both the free and paid versions of Xagio as I build new websites and optimize existing ones.
Join me as I delve deeper into Xagio's capabilities and share my findings.
About the Author
Steve Last is a seasoned digital marketer with a strong focus on the energy and waste management sectors. With over 20 years of experience in creating and managing successful websites, he has witnessed the evolution of SEO firsthand.
His expertise lies in crafting compelling content, optimizing websites for search engines, and building strong online communities.
Disclaimer: This review is based on my personal experience and opinions. Results may vary.
I may receive a one-off “Xagio Credit” for this review but there is no affiliate link here.
The detailed review will walk you through the basic Xagio features (not all of which are available free of charge), plus:
- developing and implementing an effective SEO strategy using Xagio,
- monitoring your rankings in Xagio.
Make no mistake. This is a leading SEO tool that can do a great deal:
- to guide you in what topics you need to develop to meet your niche's needs
- show you where the traffic is and where the pain points are
- streamline your optimization efforts to grab that traffic.
That's before we even mention the comprehensive feature set that simplifies and speeds up WordPress website creation and maintenance across the board.
So, now we will delve into the Xagio system starting from why we all need an SEO plugin.
The Importance of SEO for Small Business Owners and Marketing Professionals
SEO is essential for small business owners and marketing professionals for several reasons:
Increased Visibility: Higher search engine rankings mean more visibility to potential customers.
Cost-Effective: Organic traffic is free, unlike paid advertising.
Trust and Credibility: Higher rankings give your business more credibility.
Better User Experience: SEO improves the overall usability and experience of your website.
So, that's what we all need from our SEO plugin, and we need it done with as little effort as possible to allow us to concentrate on our content.
How Xagio Can Streamline Your Optimization Efforts
Xagio is a powerful SEO tool that offers a range of features to help you optimize your website effectively. From keyword research to performance tracking, Xagio simplifies the process and provides the following actionable insights.
1. Keyword Research
Identifying high-impact keywords is the cornerstone of any successful SEO strategy. With Xagio, you can:
Use the Built-in Keyword Tool to Create A Content Plan (the Keyword Planner): Input seed keywords and get a list of related keywords along with search volume, competition, and CPC data.
Analyze Competitors: Discover the keywords your competitors are ranking for and identify gaps in your existing content strategy for big improvements when revisiting existing websites.
In my opinion, Xagio has to be the outright winner of all the major SEO plugins for its keyword research and site auditing capability.
While the ability to analyse and track ranking is limited in the free version, there is nothing to stop free users of this plugin from using free or alternative keyword tools and entering them into the project planner.
The YOAST plugin gives no help with keyword strategy and as soon as the user even tries to use YOAST for SEO optimising any page or post for more than one keyword the user is confronted with a paywall. Once you start using Xagio and understand “Keyword Cloud Optimisation” you will come to realise that this is a huge failing of the YOAST free version to exclude a very important aspect of SEO (also known as LSI).
Nevertheless, I would judge that probably as much as 90% of YOAST users stick with the free version and never get to see the magic of “Keyword Cloud Optimisation” for their rankings. I appreciate that many YOAST users augment their SEO by using the Surfer platform, but Surfer is expensive and I find it hard to use and even “clunky” when copying snippets into my content that don't fit well at all in the article content.
Rank Math similarly fails to suggest what keywords to use to create the content for your niche only providing it as an AI add-on (as a paid extra) to both their free, and standard paid versions.
The All-in-One-SEO-Pack plugin has recently been extensively updated but as far as I am aware also fails to help the user with website content planning. A check on their website “pricing features” lists “audits”, but even the top-of-the-range subscription makes no mention of a content planner.
Surely, any SEO plugin should start, as Xagio does, by helping you plan a website's content.
That's such a basic requirement that Xagio gets a big thumbs up from me for that.
2. On-Page SEO
Optimizing your website content is crucial for improving your search engine rankings. Xagio helps you with:
Content Suggestions: Get recommendations for keyword placement, meta tags, and header tags.
SEO Audit: Perform a comprehensive audit to identify and fix on-page issues like duplicate titles and metadata, duplicate content, and missing alt tags.
Xagio's on-page SEO checklist is similar in many ways to the free YOAST plugin method that users must follow to change the SEO compliance radio button to green in the right-hand side panel. Rank Math's criteria are similar again but the aim is to raise the on page SEO score to at least 80% for Rank Math users.
On balance, the Xagio on-page SEO scoring is now, in my opinion, less fiddly to optimise in Xagio. Xagio now also in all versions includes an XML sitemap. For that reason, I rate Xagio as better than any of the 3 competitors YOAST, Rank Math or All-in-One-SEO.
Not only that, the overview provided by Xagio in their integrated and constantly updated Project Planner allows enormous additional flexibility for on-page SEO adjustments as they can be done both on the page or “on the fly” within the planner screen.
3. Backlink Building (Also known as Off-page SEO)
Building a robust backlink profile is essential for SEO success. In common with the other SEO plugins, Xagio does not build backlinks. But, with Xagio, you can:
Find Link Opportunities: Identify high-authority websites in your niche that you can target for backlinks.
Track Backlinks: Monitor your backlinks and ensure they remain active and relevant.
Xagio wins again in this facility with their backlinking opportunity discovery method and training. None of the others even mention backlinking, and yet all SEOs I've ever followed opine that a few well-chosen and congruent high-quality backlinks will always provide a boost to any website or page.
Xagio is unique in its ability to spy on as many competitor websites as you wish by auditing them and at the same time revealing their backlinks.
Knowing those websites willing to link to a competitor's content, (and therefore also most likely yours too) is an established SEO tactic and all credit to Xagio for the assistance, including the training provided. A paid Xagio version (or Xagio credit) is needed.
4. Performance Tracking
Monitoring your SEO performance is crucial for continuous improvement. Xagio provides:
Rank Tracking: Track your keyword rankings over time and see how your efforts are paying off.
Analytics Integration: Integrated with Google Analytics to get a comprehensive view of your traffic and user behaviour.
Performance tracking is offered in the competitor plugins (YOAST, Rank Math and All-in-One-SEO-Pack), and Xagio is comparable given that all of them require a subscription before offering this service.
Given that Xagio is more flexible on-balance Xagio wins.
Actionable Tips for Using Xagio
Here are some actionable tips to get the most out of Xagio’s features:
Regularly Update Keywords: Keep your keyword list updated to reflect changing trends and search behaviours.
Optimize Content: Use Xagio’s keyword cloud optimization technique to ensure you not only group together relevant keywords but you also use the keywords within the group as LSI lazer targeted keywords. This is the unique and very powerful feature in Xagio ensuring that your on-page SEO is top-notch.
Build Quality Backlinks: The need for backlinks is much reduced by the Xagio optimization, so you need fewer backlinks in order to rank. Nevertheless, for the harder keywords, you will still need to focus on getting some quality backlinks from high-authority sites to improve your domain authority. Xagio makes it very quick and easy to discover competitor keywords and hence he anchor-text in the fewer links you will ultimately need to buy.
Monitor Performance: Use the built-in Xagio rank plots that are included. Regularly check your performance metrics and adjust your strategy as needed.
Xagio AI Plugin Case Studies
Let’s take a look at a couple of case studies that have been provided in Xagio training over the years that illustrate the effectiveness of using Xagio for SEO optimization:
Case Study 1: Local Bakery
A local bakery used Xagio to improve its online visibility. By targeting high-volume, low-competition keywords like “best bakery in [city],” optimizing their website content, and building quality backlinks, they saw a 50% increase in organic traffic within three months.
Using the AI optimisation only requires pressing a few buttons and takes a few minutes a page.
Case Study 2: Online Marketing Agency
An online marketing agency leveraged Xagio’s competitor analysis and backlink tracking features to outrank their competitors.
By identifying keyword gaps and building a strong backlink profile, they improved their search engine rankings and increased their lead generation by 35%.
Our Verdict on Xagio AI Plugin as an Alternative to Yoast, All-in-One-SEO, and Rank Math
By following this review and leveraging Xagio AI’s powerful features, you can develop and implement an effective SEO strategy that will enhance your online presence and improve your search engine rankings.
Whether you’re a small business owner or a marketing professional, Xagio can help you streamline your optimization efforts and achieve your SEO goals.
But How Do I Rate Xagio Versus the Main Competition?
For this first review of a planned series in which I intend to provide details of my experience of the ranking performance I see on several of my websites while using the latest “Freedom AI” Xagio AI Plugin update.
I have selected the most important features of SEO optimization, and I have compared all four, for their help with:
- Keyword research
- On-page SEO
- Backlink Building
- Performance tracking.
In my opinion, there can be no doubt that Xagio AI is currently the best SEO optimisation WordPress plugin against all four criteria. Furthermore, on technical merit, this goes for both the free and the paid-for versions.
Go ahead and try out the free Xagio plugin!
Download the Free Version of the Xagio AI SEO WP Plugin
Note. This is not an affiliate link.
But, will the real-life results I find using Xagio AI “Freedom Update” beat my use of the competing plugins on my other websites? Will the real results be equally impressive?
They should be. But the “Freedom Update” version plugin is new and the jury is out on that! So, watch this space!
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