How to Install and Setup Yoast SEO WordPress Plugin
WordPress CMS become a popular plate form for starting any type of website. Why it’s so popular is because it is much more flexible than any other platform, Easy to use, Almost anything can be done with the help of plugins, just a little need of coding knowledge, etc. But WordPress default editing panel is not SEO friendly and doesn’t enable users to add some essential search engine optimization information to posts and pages like SEO meta title, description, etc. So we need an SEO plugin (such as Yoast WordPress SEO) for the wordpress website to do better search engine optimization.
When we talk about WordPress SEO Plugins, Yoast WordPress SEO plugin is known as the best plugin for search engine optimization of your WordPress powered website. This plugin is recommended by many expert bloggers because it has a lot of features such as keywords density, Allowing to add meta titles, description and keywords, XML sitemaps, Internal linking, Webmaster and Social tools Integration, etc. all features make it a powerful seo plugin.
Yoast WordPress SEO plugin features are not less than any premium one, but you don’t need to pay a single penny. It’s absolutely free and this is another reason for its popularity in WP users. I highly recommend this plugin for wordpress users to enhance search visibility and ranking. If you don’t want to spend money on the premium plugin then it’s worth trying, I can say you will not be disappointed.
How to Install and Activate Yoast SEO WordPress Plugin?
Installing Yoast WordPress SEO Plugin is a similar process as installing any other, if you are using wordpress and have little knowledge about wordpress then you can do it easily, genius 🙂 Just go to your WP dashboard>Plugins>Add New> Search for WordPress SEO keyword, click on the install button and activate it after installing. You will see a new SEO named tab appear in your wp dashboard. (Underneath the settings option)
You may also like: Best SEO Plugins for Your WordPress Powered Website
Before toward to guide How to set up Yoast WordPress SEO, I would like to mention the features of this plugin.
Key Features of Yoast WordPress SEO Plugin
Here is a complete list of features that are offered by the plugin;
- Webmaster tools verification support
- Easily add meta titles and description
- Easily add no-index or no-follow tag in posts, pages, categories, and taxonomies
- Search engine result snippet preview
- RSD, WLW, RSS, and short link cleanup from head
- Remove/add noodp and noydir meta robots
- Optimize posts with the focus keyword
- Allow showing date in search engine snippet
- Different separator styles
- Social media integration with Facebook, Twitter, and Google+
- Twitter cards support
- Automatically ping Google, Bing, Yahoo, and Ask
- Internal Linking/Breadcrumb
- Robotos.txt and .htaccess files editor
- Import and Export Option from other SEO plugins
- Permalink cleans up
- XML Sitemap Generator
- Bulk Post and Pages Editor
As you can see this plugin provides all the essential features that are important for proper search engine optimization. Anyway, now let’s talk about the proper setting and configuration of Yoast WordPress SEO.
How to Setup Yoast WordPress SEO Plugin for More Search Visibility
Yoast WordPress SEO Plugin is mainly divided into the following different tabs:
- Dashboard
- Titles & Metas
- Social
- XML Sitemaps
- Permalinks
- Internal Links
- RSS
- Import & Export
- Bulk Editor
- Edit Files
- Extensions
1# Dashboard
General: Here at the dashboard Start Tour button helps you to learn quickly about the plugin usages. If you messed up/wrong configure plugin settings then simply click on the Reset button, all the plugin settings will be reset to default as the plugin author configured.
Tracking: You can tick on the Tracking box if you like to share plugin statics anonymously with the developers. Developers use this tracked data to maintain plugin quality and also it helps to find bugs in the plugin. On the other hand, you can leave it unchecked.
Security: If your authors and editors are trustable then uncheck the security box. It allows authors and editors to redirect and no-index posts/pages.
Webmaster Tools Verification: At the end of the dashboard, Yoast WordPress seo plugin helps you to verify your website with different webmaster tools such as Google, Bing, Yandex, Pinterest, and Alexa by inserting tracking code which are provided by them.
2# Titles and Metas
General – Titles & Metas
- Titles Force Rewrite: Leave this box as it is.
- Separator: Choose a separator style between post title and site name or between the current page and site name/description. For example “How to Write a Blog Post” is a post title and “MyTipsHub” is site name then
How to Write a Blog Post ~ MyTipsHub
How to Write a Blog Post | MyTipsHub
How to Write a Blog Post > MyTipsHub
Symbols between post title and site name are the separator. You can select any one which one you like.
- No-index subpages: If you don’t want to index sub-pages in search engines then tick on no-index subpages of archives check box.
- Meta keywords tag: Tick on meta keywords check box.
- Noodp: Do you like to allow search engines they show description about your site picked from DMOZ directory? If yes then leave this box otherwise tick it.
- Noydir: Leaving noydir check box allow search engines to pick yahoo directory description for pages from your site in the search results.
- Head cleanup: Tick on all boxes it helps to clean up the head section of your website.
Home – Titles & Metas
%%sitename%% %%sep%% %%sitedesc%%
%%sitneme%% It is your site name
%%sep%% Separator between site name and site description.
%%sitedesc%% Your site description.
Enter your meta description and main or your blogging niche keywords. As Google announced they don’t give importance to meta keywords in search results, so you can leave meta keywords field, but some other search engines still give importance to meta keywords like Bing, Yahoo. I still recommend you to write meta keywords.
Post Types – Titles & Metas
Setup the following setting as mention in the above snapshot.
Post Meta Title: %%title%%
Post Meta Description: If you insert %%excerpt%% tag then the yoast plugin will automatically pick meta description from the posts/pages individually. I manually insert meta description for every individual post and also recommend you to enter every post meta description manually. With this way, you can write more catchy and attractive description though it is not known as SEO factor and also don’t help to increase search ranking. But by inserting more attractive meta description you can increase CTR (Click Through Rate) towards your website. If you want to write the description for every post individually then leave blank this field.
Post Meta Keywords: Leave this field blank, always use most posts related keywords as meta keywords.
(Note: You can use post settings also for page settings)
Taxonomies – Titles & Metas
You can leave these all settings as default. Don’t forget to tick no-index, follow check box. You can prevent yourself by no-indexing these fields for content duplication. If you don’t no-index these fields, when you search your website in the search engine you will see every category, tag, archive is indexed in search engine results. It is because you allowed search engines they index these fields/taxonomies, this is not a good seo practice. You can verify is taxonomies are indexed or no-indexed in search engines by this method. Just enter in search engine site:yoursitename.com
Other – Titles & Metas
Leave all the settings default as these are but don’t forget to tick on no-index, follow and disable the author archives box’s.
3# Social – Yoast WordPress SEO
Yoast seo plugin support three giant social media networks integration option facebook, twitter and google+.
Facebook:
Enter your facebook profile/page url address and verify admin role.
Twitter: Enter your site twitter username.
Google+: Simply paste your website google plus page or profile url address.
4# XML Sitemaps
Yoast WordPress SEO plugin also offers sitemap generating feature, So you don’t need to install an additional sitemap generator plugin. But if you want to use different sitemap plugin then XML Sitemaps is another best tool.
5# Permalinks
There is nothing special setting in permalinks just follow below guide.
6# Internal Links
Breadcrumbs navigate users to easily understand that currently where is they are. If your site don’t have breadcrumbs functionality then you can use Yoast breadcrumb setting. This step is little tricky and technical because you need to make some editing into your theme files to enable this function.
7# RSS
You can insert any text, message or html code above and below the RSS feeds which are deliver to your site subscribers.
8# Import and Export
One of the best thing of Yoast WordPress SEO plugin is you can import and export configured settings. As you can see yoast plugin is little complicated for beginners so when you properly configured this plugin import settings. You can use imported settings when ever you need.
9# Bulk Editor
Bulk editor in wordpress seo by yoast plugin help you to view and edit your all posts quickly. Here you can analyse posts meta title, description, page URL and publishing dates.
10# Edit Files
This tab allows you to create and modify robots.txt and .htaccess files. Make sure you have created backup of these files before modifying. (Before editing these files you should know what are you doing, because wrong configuration can ruined your entire site)
11# Extensions
Yoast offer couples of other plugins and services, here you can install and buy more plugins or services offered by yoast.
So, the complete guide on How to Install and Setup Yoast WordPress SEO plugin is ended here. I hope you would like this complete guide and it help you to configure all setting properly. Yoast plugin is one of the best SEO plugin for wordpress powered websites. Currently, this plugin s also powering this website to enhance SEO and search ranking. Yoast really done a great work I highly appreciate his hard work. At the end of this tutorial I would like to ask one question, please reply if you don’t mind.
Is it make any sense to buy premium seo plugin, though Yoast offering a best SEO plugin freely?
