WordPress is the best content management system for SEO and the wide variety of plugins available to customize content on your site is a big reason why. Yoast SEO helps your site rank for important keywords by giving you the ability to customize on-page SEO settings. The page analysis tool helps simplify the optimization process with a score to show you how effectively content is targeting a focus keyword fast. The basic version of the plugin can be downloaded directly from the WordPress Plugin Repository.
A Yoast SEO options box will appear on each WordPress edit post/page screen and global SEO options will be available after you activate the plugin. Here are some tips on how to use Yoast SEO to optimize your site for organic search.
Global WordPress SEO Settings
Configuring global SEO settings that are available in the Yoast SEO tab in the WordPress admin dashboard is a good place to start optimizations.
Activate WordPress XML Sitemaps
A sitemap is one of the best ways to give search engine bots a complete view of your site so they can prioritize which content gets indexed. Yoast SEO generates a sitemap that will help Google index new content on your site but the XML sitemaps feature needs to be turned on. Go to Yoast SEO > General > Features to make sure the setting is turned on so your site has an active sitemap.
You should submit your sitemap url to the Search Console so Google knows to check it when indexing content after you confirm it’s working correctly.
Search Appearance Settings
Making changes to how page listings are displayed in Google Search Engine Results pages is a big part of Yoast SEO. Configuring global search appearance settings will make sure listings are set to display how you’d like by default. The title separator, knowledge graph settings and title structure for different post types on your site can all be configured from the Yoast SEO > Search Appearance tab in the WordPress admin dashboard.
The Yoast SEO Meta Box
Once global settings are configured properly the Yoast SEO Meta Box is where you’ll be using the plugin most often on your WordPress site. The Meta Box can be found on each edit page/post screen on your site and is used to customize meta info that displays on SERPs and analyze how effectively a page/post is targeting a focus keyword.
Set a Focus Keyword
Entering a focus keyword for each post on your site will give the plugin the info it needs to scan page content and needs to be done to get all the benefits of Yoast SEO on your site. Every page/post should have a unique focus keyword to make sure each piece of content has the most SEO value.
Snippet Preview
The snippet preview area in WordPress Yoast SEO settings shows you how the listing for your page will be displayed on Google. Clicking on the preview will open up fields that can be used to customize page title and meta description info if default settings aren’t exactly what you’re looking for. Customizing your meta descriptions so important keywords show early and often is a great way to optimize with the snippet preview tool.
Yoast SEO Analysis
The number of options for optimizing content for SEO can be overwhelming and the Yoast SEO Analysis tool helps simplify the process of determining where improvements can be made. The tool scans page content after a focus keyword is entered and lets you know how effectively page content is targeting any term.
Yoast SEO Analysis Checks
- Focus Keyword in Page Title
- Focus Keyword in subheadings on page
- Meta description length
- Outbound Links
- Images on page
- Focus Keyword in image alt tags
- Internal links
- Focus Keyword in introduction
- Focus Keyword length
- Focus Keyword density
- Focus Keyword in meta description
- Focus Keyword used before
- Focus Keyword in url slug
- Body text length
- Meta SEO title width
Using the Yoast SEO Analysis tool on pages/posts before they’re published on your site is one of the best ways to make sure each piece of content you post is doing as much as it can for SEO. The content optimization checklist will help simplify getting changes made for SEO and highlight areas you should focus on.
Social Media Sharing Settings
A regular social media presence is a big part of many SEO plans and Yoast’s social settings can help you add custom code to enhance how content is shared on social media platforms. Options for customizing the image, title and description that are displayed when a link is posted on Facebook or Twitter will help make sure important keywords are always associated with your site.
Simplify SEO with Yoast
Yoast SEO is a must-have plugin for anyone publishing content on WordPress with hopes of ranking on Google SERPs. The global settings and on-page SEO analysis tools make getting updates made for SEO simple and easy to implement quickly.