How to Use Yoast SEO Plugin for WordPress Site and Why Use It?

Yoast is a popular plugin for WordPress websites that helps optimize the on-page SEO (Search Engine Optimization) of your content. It provides various tools and features to improve your website’s visibility in search engine results and enhance your overall SEO efforts.

The Yoast SEO plugin offers a wide range of functionalities, including:

1. Content analysis: Yoast SEO analyzes your content and provides suggestions to optimize it for search engines. It checks factors like keyword usage, readability, meta tags, headings, and more.
2. XML sitemaps: The plugin generates XML sitemaps for your website, making it easier for search engines to crawl and index your pages.
3. Meta tags and titles: Yoast SEO allows you to customize the meta tags and titles for your posts, pages, and other content types. This helps improve click-through rates and search engine visibility.
4. Social media integration: It provides options to set up social media meta tags, enabling you to control how your content appears when shared on platforms like Facebook and Twitter.
5. Readability analysis: Yoast SEO evaluates the readability of your content, considering factors such as sentence length, paragraph structure, and use of subheadings. It offers suggestions to improve the readability and user-friendliness of your text.
6. Canonical URLs: The plugin helps you define canonical URLs, which prevent duplicate content issues and provide search engines with clear information about your preferred version of a page.
7. Breadcrumbs: Yoast SEO supports the implementation of breadcrumbs, which are navigational elements that show the user’s location on your website. Breadcrumbs improve user experience and search engine understanding of your site structure.

These are just some of the features offered by Yoast SEO. The plugin is continuously updated to stay in line with best SEO practices and evolving search engine algorithms. It aims to assist website owners and content creators in optimizing their content for search engines, thus improving their chances of ranking higher in search results and attracting more organic traffic.

How to Use Yoast SEO Plugin for WordPress Site?

To install Yoast SEO for WordPress, you can follow these steps:

1. Log in to your WordPress admin area. This is typically done by accessing your website’s URL followed by “/wp-admin”.
2. Once logged in, navigate to the “Plugins” section on the left-hand side of the dashboard.
3. Click on “Add New” to go to the plugin installation page.
4. In the search box located in the top-right corner, type “Yoast SEO” and press Enter.
5. The Yoast SEO plugin should appear as one of the top results. Click on the “Install Now” button next to it.
6. WordPress will now download and install the Yoast SEO plugin. Once the installation is complete, the “Install Now” button will change to “Activate.” Click on the “Activate” button to activate the plugin.
7. After activation, you’ll be redirected to the Yoast SEO plugin’s welcome page. You can follow the initial setup wizard to configure the basic settings or skip it for now and configure the plugin later.
8. That’s it! Yoast SEO is now installed and activated on your WordPress website. You can access the plugin’s settings by clicking on the “SEO” menu item in the WordPress admin area. From there, you can customize the SEO settings, optimize your content, and make use of the various features provided by Yoast SEO.

Configure the General Settings

To configure the general settings of the Yoast SEO plugin in WordPress, you can follow these steps:

1. Log in to your WordPress admin area.
2. In the left-hand sidebar, click on “SEO” to expand the Yoast SEO menu.
3. Click on “General” under the SEO menu to access the general settings.
4. The general settings page allows you to configure various options. Here are some important settings you can customize:

• Feature Tab: This section lets you enable or disable specific features of the Yoast SEO plugin. You can enable or disable features such as SEO analysis, readability analysis, XML sitemaps, and more, based on your preferences.
• Webmaster Tools: In this section, you can add verification codes or meta tags from various search engines, such as Google, Bing, Yandex, and Pinterest. Verifying your website with these services can provide you with additional insights and control.
• Security: Yoast SEO allows you to set advanced settings for the security of your website. One such option is to remove the “author” archives, which prevents the indexing of author-specific archives in search engines.
• Company or Person: You can enter your company or personal information in this section, which Yoast SEO uses for schema markup. Schema markup helps search engines better understand your website’s content and display relevant rich snippets in search results.
  
  5. Once you have made the desired changes to the general settings, click on the “Save Changes” button at the bottom of the page to save your settings.

Remember, the general settings page in Yoast SEO provides numerous options, and the optimal configuration may vary depending on your specific needs and website requirements. It’s recommended to review each setting carefully and adjust them according to your SEO strategy and goals.