SEO is important for businesses and individuals with online presences. There are many tools that can help you achieve better results. The WordPress SEO plug-in, Yoast WordPress SEO Plugin, is one. This article will explain the features of Yoast, and how to optimize your content.
Yoast WordPress SEO Plugin lets you add Meta Descriptions and perform On-Page Analyses. A sitemap can help search engines index your website better.
While Yoast’s free version includes features such as internal linking suggestions, content analysis and other premium features, it is not the only option.
Boost your SEO with AI: Now available in Yoast SEO
How to install it
Let’s now learn how to utilize this plugin.
Search for “Yoast” in the WordPress Dashboard.
Click “Install”, then “Activate” to begin the initial installation. After you complete these fields, the installation is completed.
Once you have completed the initial configuration, Yoast WordPress SEO Plugin will automatically update your website.
Adding a sitemap.
Adding a robots.txt file.
Adding basic schema.
Yoast SEO Basic Settings
Click on the Settings menu after you have completed the installation. Now let’s look at the most important options.
General settings
Site Features is the first option under General Settings. Site Features is the first menu option in the general settings.
During initial setup, you may have selected the “Site Basics”, Site Representation”, or “Site Representation” menus. Enter your website title or tagline. The last option in the General settings is Site Connections, formerly known as Webmaster Tools. This allows you to use various tools such as Bing or Google to verify your website. By default, Yoast adds a verification code.
Tags, categories and types of content
Content Types is the next section under Settings. You can control which sections of your website appear in search results.
You have the option to set up different types of content (pages and posts). The title tags for different types of content can be structured differently.
You may specify the schema type to be used for different types content. The wrong markup may also affect your rank in search engine result pages (SERPs). You should keep your settings the same. To prevent search engines indexing specific pages/posts, or to use a certain type of schema you can change the settings for each page.
Advanced Options
If you are not familiar with SEO, it is best to leave “Crawl Optimizations”.
Breadcrumbs will make your site more accessible to both spiders and users. If you are using a page-builder such as Elementor, then you will need to use the shortcode to display breadcrumbs on your site.
Use Yoast WordPress SEO Plugin
After you’ve mastered the basics, let’s look at the features of Yoast and the WordPress editor.
Clicking on the Yoast icon located in the upper-right corner of the WordPress editor will expand the sidebar menu. You can also use the “Yoast Meta Box” located at the bottom.
Here you will interact with Yoast most. Learn how to optimize and adjust the settings on each page.
Focus keyphrase
You must first complete the “keyphrase” section. Enter your main keywords here.
To identify keywords for which you want to rank, use Ahrefs Keyword Explorer.
Yoast analyzes the content that you submit in order to determine its optimization.
SEO Analysis
Yoast’s SEO Analysis section is designed to provide you with advice on what elements you should include in content to achieve a high ranking for your keyword.
Both readability and SEO tools use a traffic light system. Adding more elements to your content will increase the likelihood of getting a green signal.
This plugin checks to see if the keyphrase you are using is in any of the following elements.
Title for the page in SEO
Introduction
Heading(s)
Image alt tags
The URL
Page content
Meta description
Yoast is a great plugin for those who have a staff member uploading content into WordPress. It ensures that certain elements are included, such as meta descriptions.
For someone new in their role, a list of the things that should be covered during training is very helpful.
The readability assessment by Yoast SEO helps you to ensure that your content is easily understood and conveys your message.
This algorithm measures textual difficulty using the Flesch Reading Ease algorithm, in combination with its own algorithm. It takes into account elements such as sentence structure, paragraph structure, transition words, passive voice and sentence length and size. The Readability Analysis is similar to SEO analysis, in that it shows which elements need improvement and which ones are good. Highlighting your content in this section will help you improve it.
You can see how much of your text is affected by a problem by clicking on the eye icon next to it. All areas that are affected will be highlighted. The WordPress editor now makes it easy to make edits. Yoast WordPress SEO Plugin.
Google preview
Google search results allow you to preview your website on desktop or mobile.
You can edit the URL Slug as well as Title Tag. Yoast lets you know whether the elements have the right length and contain your keyphrase.
Social Previews
This section allows you to see how your content will look when shared on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms.
Select the images, titles, and descriptions you want to use for each platform. Leave them blank and this tool will use WordPress’ title and featured image. Yoast premium is required to preview the elements on social platforms.
Schema
Schema markup helps search engine understand your content. You can also qualify for rich results by using Schema Markup.
You can define specific pages using the schema section of the Yoast plug in.
1.FAQ page available. 2. The About Pages 3. Checkout page
The default schema options are set to what you chose during the initial setup. If you wish, you can change them.
Advanced Settings
The advanced options allow you to perform a number of tasks, including:
1.Stop your page being indexed. 2. Disable search engines from following links on the page. 3. Add an URL that is canonical. 4. Use advanced meta robots parameters (noarchive, nosnippet, etc. ). 5. Add the title to the breadcrumbs.
Be careful with the advanced settings. Usually, the default settings will suffice. If you’re not familiar with the settings, it’s best to just leave them alone.
Yoast becomes more powerful when you add Yoast’s complementary plugins
The Yoast plug-in is a great tool for improving your website’s SEO. This plugin is best used in combination with other plug-ins. Yoast can only cover certain areas.
Ahrefs can be used with Yoast WordPress SEO Plugin.
This plugin is a time-saver because it offers recommendations to improve the SEO performance on each page, based on an automated audit.
This tool also displays key SEO metrics for each page, combining data from Ahrefs and Google Search Console with your keyphrases set by Yoast.
Yoast WordPress SEO Plugin offers several paid plugins. Each is priced at $79 per year for each site. The plugins are compatible with the free version of Yoast SEO and designed to meet specific needs, such as:
1.Yoast WooCommerce SEO 2. Yoast local SEO by Yoast 3. Yoast Video Search Engine 4. Yoast News SEO
Does Yoast WordPress SEO Plugin Premium Worth It?
Yoast SEO Premium offers some extra features.
Add related synonyms and keyphrases
External Linking Suggestions
Redirections manager
404 Monitoring
Find orphaned content
Yoast SEO Academy: Free Access
Yoast’s SEO premium costs $99 for each website per year. I need the advanced features. This may not be needed if you have many clients or a large portfolio.
Yoast WordPress SEO Plugin: Downsides
Yoast is not the perfect SEO tool.
For those who wish to optimize their blogs, Yoast may be the best plugin. This is not as useful when you want more control.
Yoast has many advanced features that are available in other plugins, such as Rank Math or All In One SEO. Only Yoast Premium users can access these features.
For example, the free Rank Math plug-in allows you to:
Add redirections for your Yoast premium account.
Monitor 404 pages (available with Yoast Premium).
Automated Image SEO (automatically adding alt texts and image titles).
Integrate Google Analytics.
Instant index.
Advanced Webmaster Tools
Local Search Engine Optimization is only available in Yoast as a plugin.
Work on WooCommerce’s SEO. Only available as an add-on for Yoast ).
This is a sample of some of the advanced features that Rank Math’s plugin offers.
Yoast can be a good option for basic SEO support on your website or blog. However, if you want to optimize more than one site and that has advanced features it could get pricey. You may have to find a different solution in this case.
Final Thoughts
The Premium Upgrade offers some great features to take your SEO to a new level. However, Yoast WordPress SEO Plugin is not the only SEO tool you need. Optimize your website performance by using other SEO tools.
