Do you want to properly setup Yoast SEO settings?
Whenever it comes to improving WordPress SEO, Yoast is one of the first names to come to mind. Although there are many SEO plugins available in the market, Yoast SEO is the best.
In this article, I’ll share a complete guide to configure Yoast SEO plugin settings.
Why Should You Use Yoast SEO
Yoast SEO is a very popular and best SEO plugin available in the market. It comes with tons of features and helps to easily optimize your website & content to perform better in search results.
It is available in both free and paid versions. The free version is enough for a site. If you want advanced features, you need to upgrade to its premium version.
Features of Yoast SEO
- You can change the SEO title and meta description of the post.
- You can add Focus keyword.
- Allow creating XML Sitemaps.
- It also includes .htaccess and robots.txt editor.
- You can use Title and Meta description for taxonomies (category and tags) and much more.
- Full control over your site’s breadcrumbs.
- Automatically set canonical URLs to avoid duplicate content.
- [Premium] Redirect manager
- [Premium] Automatic internal linking suggestions
[Premium] Synonyms & related keyphrases
[Premium] offers News SEO, Video SEO, Local SEO and WooCommerce SEO extensions
Yoast SEO Settings Complete Guide
There is no doubt Yoast SEO is the best SEO plugin for WordPress. But proper Yoast SEO setting is very important. Here are the best Yoast SEO Settings below.
First, install the Yoast SEO plugin in your WordPress site. Once activated, it will add a new menu item to your WordPress dashboard with the Yoast SEO logo – SEO.
1. General
Dashboard
You do not need to do anything here.
Features
Now let us know in details…
SEO analysis – It shows your content optimization with Green (good), Pink (medium) and Red (needs work) and offers suggestions to improve the SEO of your content.
Readability analysis – It suggestions to improve the sentence and paragraph (Short, Long and Transition word) of your content.
Cornerstone content – Lets mark cornerstone content (valuable content) on your website.
Text link counter – It shows internal linking on your page and post.
XML sitemaps – It allows you to create an XML sitemap for your site that you can submit in Google, Bing and Yandex webmaster tool for the better crawl.
Ryte integration – It will detect weekly whether the website is indexed by search engines.
Admin bar menu – Add drop-down menu in the WordPress dashboard.
Security: no advanced settings for authors – Allows a user to remove posts from the search results or change the canonical. and only allow editors and administrators can do this.
Webmaster Tools
Here, sign up for each webmaster tool and verify with HTML Tag method.
Verify Webmaster Tools
- Sign up for Google Search Console.
- Add Your Site
- Select the “HTML tag” verification method.
- Copy the code and paste into the here (Yoast Google Search Console field).
- Click on Save changes button in Yoast.
- Click on “Verify” in Google Search Console tool.
- Now You have successfully verified your site in the Google Search Console tool.
- Repeat the same process for Bing / Yandex.
2. Search Appearance
General
Here you can select the symbol that you want to use as a separator between words. SEO title and Meta description are for your site’s homepage title and description.
Content Types
This setting page gives you control on post and page indexing. Just follow the screenshot below.
You can prevent your post and page from being indexed in search engines. Add dates in your snippets. It helps to increase click-through rates on your content.
Apart from this, you can write a custom meta description for your every post and page.
Note: You can also hide Date in Snippet Preview for page.
Media
Taxonomies
It gives you control on categories and tags indexing. Just follow the screenshot below.
If you show tags, categories, formats, etc in the search results, then it creates duplicate content issues. This will reduce your search ranking and Google can even penalize your site.
So I recommend that don’t index tags, categories, formats for search results.
Archives
The default settings work well for most websites. But, if you run a single author blog, just disable author archive pages from the search result.
On a single author blog, contents of the author archive pages and the blog’s homepage will be the same. As a result, it can lead to duplicate content on your site. So keep them disabled.
Breadcrumbs
Breadcrumbs are best for internal linking. It helps users to know where they are on your site and as well as help search engines to understand your site structure data. See our guide how to add breadcrumbs in WordPress using Yoast SEO plugin
RSS
3. Search Console
Search Console section allows you to connect your WordPress site to Google Search Console tools.
Go to Search Console settings tab and click on the “Get Google Authorization Code” now you will be redirected to the Search Console website, here you will get a code. Copy this code and enter in the Authenticate box.
Now select your website from the drop-down menu. Now, you will get search console data here.
4. Social
Here add your social media profile like Facebook, Twitter Username, Instagram URL, LinkedIn URL, etc so that Google can know your profile.
Furthermore, it allows you to upload custom data for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram.
Make sure that the open graph metadata option is enabled. Then enter your Facebook App ID.
This gives you more options to configure posts for Facebook within the WordPress editor. You can pick up the right thumbnail and page information when you will share a post on Facebook.
On the Twitter Settings tab, you can choose how a post will appear when you share a post on Twitter. I recommend using summary with a large image.
Pinterest uses Open Graph metadata just like Facebook, so make sure to keep the Open Graph checkbox on the Facebook tab checked if you want to optimize your site for Pinterest.
After that, you’ll have to confirm your site with Pinterest.
5. Tools
Bulk editor – Bulk editor allows you to edit post titles and descriptions in bulk. But it is not good for SEO because it creates duplicate descriptions and titles.
File Editor – With this option, you can edit your .htaccess files and robots.txt. You do not need to go to cPanel.
That’s all. I hope this article helped you configure Yoast SEO settings properly.
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Dharmendra Singh says
Very helpful post about Yoast SEO settings
Mark Cartelone says
Hi Aman-
Great post here!
I was wondering if you might be able to help with an issue I’m having. I’m a new blogger, so please forgive!
I used to see Yoast SEO info below my post in post edit mode in WP. Now it’s only in the right sidebar. How can I get it back to below the post in WP draft or edit mode?
thanks!!