Yoast and WordPress are deeply connected. Yoast grew in and with the WordPress community, ever since starting as a blog as far back as 2008, as you can read in our history of Yoast. WordPress is an open-source CMS, and the open-source concept perfectly aligns with our core values. We're involved in many ways in WordPress and its amazing community. WordPress hosting Hosting companies that get the Yoast seal of approval! It may be the most important decision you make regarding your WordPress site: which hosting party should I entrust with my site? Find hosting companies that get the Yoast seal of approval. With Yoast SEO Premium you’ll learn about all the key SEO aspects, like keyword research, SEO copywriting and technical SEO, while unlocking access to the Yoast SEO Premium plugin as well. Learn how to create your own WordPress site Ever wanted to create your own website? We’ve got you covered! Yoast has helped me by making it incredibly easy to optimize all my on-page elements on my WordPress site, to get me from 0 to a consistent 3,000 monthly page views. I couldn't have done it without you guys. On top of the effortless on-page optimization, Yoast has an incredibly thorough and in-depth content catalog on their website that has allowed me to learn so much about SEO.
The Benefits of the Plugin’s Free Version Are Pretty Awesome
We prefer to hardcode the majority of website functionality to mitigate cybersecurity risk, give our developers more control and, honestly, have fewer things to routinely update.
But there’s one free plugin that we always pull out of the bag when polishing off a site: Yoast SEO. And let us be the first to tell you: When it comes to the backend of a website, this little section gets more questions from clients than any other.
Why? Because Yoast can do a lot – even though it really shouldn’t. Let’s dig deeper.
What Does Yoast Do & Why Should You Use It?
Meta title and description optimization and customization. This is the primary function of this plugin. The little listings that show up when you search for something on Google? That’s what you can control when you download and unpack this plugin. Not only that, but you can get a preview of what your listing will look like on both mobile and desktop.
Yoast for Social Media Titles & Descriptions
When you navigate to the Yoast section on an individual page, category, blog post or custom post type, you’ll see a few tabs. “SEO” will be highlighted by default. Click into the Social tab. This section of the plugin allows you to customize the title and description of the article or page for Facebook and Twitter, along with a desired image.
Some folks like more control over their content and messaging, especially when it comes to their social media posts. In some cases, default meta titles and descriptions look clunky and automatically-pulled images aren’t pretty. Yoast is the solution for all of this!
Get the look you’re goin’ for.
The Limitations Of Yoast As An “SEO Page Grader” & Everything You Can Ignore
We cannot stress this enough: Keep it simple. Ignore everything else about the free version of this plugin. Ignore the notifications you get from it, outside of routine updates. There’s a whole tab dedicated to readability – ignore it. Why? Because SEO cannot be automated, nor should it be. Some of the controls within the plugin are too automatic, including word count thresholds and target keywords per page.
Speaking of which: Don’t “Add related keywords.” This will give you a ton of notifications, red warnings and anxiety that you really don’t need right now. The SEO analysis section? Don’t. Look. At. It!
Whether you’re an eCommerce shop or a debt collection agency, the only analysis you should look at is the little orange and green bars at the bottom of the SEO title and meta description fields. Get them to green and don’t look back! (Or you’ll turn into a pillar of who knows what spice.)
How To Install the Yoast SEO Plugin On WordPress:
- Login to the backend of your WordPress site (www.YourURL.com/wp-admin).
- Head over to the Add Plugin section (www.YourURL.com/wp-admin/plugin-install.php).
- Type “Yoast” in the Search bar & hit enter.
- Click “Install Now” on Yoast SEO (by Team Yoast) and let it download.
- Click “Activate” (the plugin should automatically “unpack”).
- BOOM – you’re done! Start optimizing that meta information.
Should You Get Yoast Premium?
We don’t like to rely on plugins for functionality. But we sure do like Yoast. And if you like how easy it makes meta optimization, we fully endorse purchasing the premium version just to support a really great team. You really don’t need to buy the full version – everything you need is already included – but you should still support the developers if possible.
And there are some tasks that are made easier by the premium version of this plugin, such as 301 redirects, finding pages that aren’t linked anywhere else on the site and internal link recommendations. Again, if you’re fairly experienced with SEO, you won’t need this. Even if you have an entry-level knowledge of SEO, you won’t need this.
Is the Yoast Plugin Harmful?
No. This plugin is updated quite often to remain compliant and fully cooperative with themes, plugins and other updates. It’s a small plugin, so it shouldn’t have much impact on site speed. The thing has a 5-star rating from WordPress based on 27,162+ ratings. It ain’t hurtin’ nobody.
Our Conclusion: Download The Yoast Plugin. It’s a Good One.
As web design pros and digital marketing experts, we strongly endorse Yoast for its basic functionality. You should use it for your WordPress site! But remember to keep it as simple as possible. Whether you’re an international retailer, a reputable medical collections agency or a local coffee shop, Yoast can help you out. Have additional questions about how you can get the most of Yoast?
Description
Yoast SEO: the #1 WordPress SEO plugin
Since 2008 Yoast SEO has helped millions of websites worldwide to rank higher in search engines.
Yoast’s mission is SEO for Everyone. Our plugin’s users range from the bakery around the corner to some of the most popular sites on the planet.
Yoast SEO Free contains everything that you need to manage your SEO, and the Yoast SEO Premium plugin and its extensions unlock even more tools and functionality.
GET AHEAD OF THE COMPETITION
To rank highly in search engines, you need to beat the competition. You need a better, faster, stronger website than the people who sell or do the same kinds of things as you.
Yoast SEO is the most-used WordPress SEO plugin, and has helped millions of people like you to get ahead, and to stay ahead.
TAKING CARE OF YOUR WORDPRESS SEO
Yoast SEO is packed full of features, designed to help visitors and search engines to get the most out of your website. Some of our favourites are:
- Automated technical SEO improvements, like canonical URLs and meta tags.
- Advanced XML sitemaps; making it easy for Google to understand your site structure.
- Title and meta description templating, for better branding and consistent snippets in the search results.
- An in-depth Schema.org integration that will increase your chance of getting rich results, by helping search engines to understand your content.
- Full control over site breadcrumbs, so that users and search engines always know where they are.
- Faster loading times for your whole website, due to an innovative way of managing data in WordPress.
- [Premium] E-mail support for our Yoast SEO Premium users.
- [Premium] The possibility to expand Yoast SEO with the News SEO, Video SEO, Local SEO and WooCommerce SEO extensions.
WRITE KILLER CONTENT WITH YOAST SEO
We know content is king, that’s why Yoast SEO is famous for its state-of-the-art content and SEO analysis. Yoast SEO gives you:
- SEO analysis: an invaluable tool while writing SEO-friendly content with the right (focus) keyphrases in mind.
- Readability analysis: ensures that humans and search engines can read and understand your content.
- Full language support for: English, German, French, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Indonesian, Polish, Portuguese, Arabic, Swedish, Hebrew, Hungarian and Turkish.
- A Google preview, which shows what your listings will look like in the search results. Even on mobile devices!
- Innovative Schema blocks for the WordPress block editor, so that your FAQ and HowTo content can be shown directly in the search results. Plus a breadcrumbs block to guide your users.
- [Premium] Internal linking blocks to easily improve the structure of your content. Easily add a table of contents block, a related links block, a subpages block, or siblings block! Plus, we’ll keep adding these easy-to-add blocks to improve your site structure.
- [Premium] Social previews to show you how your content will be shown on Twitter and Facebook.
- [Premium] The Insights tool that shows you what your text focuses on. This way you can keep your article in line with your keyphrases.
- [Premium] Optimize your content for synonyms and related keyphrases.
- [Premium] Optimize your article for different word forms of your keyphrases, as the singular and plural. But also different verb forms, synonyms, and related keyphrases. This makes for more natural content!
- [Premium] Automatic internal linking suggestions: write your article and get automatic suggested posts to link to!
- [Premium] An orphaned content filter to detect posts that have no links pointing towards them!
KEEP YOUR SITE IN PERFECT SHAPE
Yoast Seo Plugin Wordpress
Whether you are an online entrepreneur, blogger or content creator, a developer, a (WordPress) SEO expert or a business owner, Yoast SEO helps you keep your website in perfect shape by:
- Tuning the engine of your website, so you can work on creating great content!
- Giving you cornerstone content and internal linking features to help you optimize your site structure in a breeze.
- Translating your content to structured data where possible, to help search engines understand your website.
- Helping you manage your team: with our SEO roles you can give colleagues access to specific sections of the Yoast SEO plugin.
- [Premium] Automatically creating redirects when URLs change or when pages are deleted, and providing tools to manage or create redirects.
- [Premium] Showing you social previews to manage the way your page is shared on social networks like Facebook and Twitter.
TRUST THE EXPERTS
Yoast is powered by a team of expert developers, testers, software architects, and SEO consultants. They work constantly to stay at the cutting edge of WordPress SEO, and to improve the plugin with every release.
Yoast SEO is the only WordPress SEO plugin made by world-renowned SEO experts.
GET PREMIUM SUPPORT
The Yoast team offers regular support on the WordPress.org forums. But we hope you understand that we prioritize our Premium customers. This one-on-one email support is available to people who have purchased Yoast SEO Premium.
Did you know that Yoast SEO Premium contains a lot of extra features:
- A redirect manager that prevents “404: page not found” errors
- Optimize without worrying about over-optimization with intelligent word form recognition available in multiple languages.
- Internal linking blocks to structure your site easily.
- Internal linking suggestions while you’re writing.
- Preview your content to see what it will look like in the search results and when shared on social media using the Google preview and social preview.
- Cornerstone content checks that point search engines to your most important pages.
- Connect Yoast SEO to Zapier to easily create zaps that instantly share your published posts with 2000+ destinations like Twitter, Facebook, and much more.
Yoast Wordpress Sitemap
If you are serious about your WordPress SEO, install the Yoast SEO Premium plugin! Costs a little, saves a lot of time!
OUR EXTENSIONS TO FURTHER IMPROVE YOUR WORDPRESS SEO
Check out these SEO add-ons by Yoast:
- Yoast Local SEO optimizes your website for a local audience.
- Yoast Video SEO ensures that Google understands what your video is about, increasing the chances of ranking in the video results.
- Yoast News SEO for news websites that want to improve their visibility and performance in Google News.
- WooCommerce SEO for all online shops that want to perform better in the search results and social media.
These extensions work fine with the free version of Yoast SEO. Of course, the premium extensions also include 24/7 support.
Oh, don’t forget: our Yoast Academy is for all entrepreneurs, bloggers, and anyone who wants to learn more about optimizing websites, improving your WordPress SEO, and if you want to take your content to the next level!
INTEGRATIONS
Yoast SEO integrates seamlessly into a range of themes and plugins. We work particularly well with:
- The WordPress block editor (or ‘Gutenberg’ editor).
- The official AMP plugin, which changes your templates to use the ‘AMP’ HTML format.
- Google’s Web Stories plugin, which helps you to create ‘web stories’.
- The Advanced Custom Fields plugin, when you also activate the ACF Content Analysis for Yoast SEO plugin.
- The Elementor website builder.
- Zapier, which helps you automate your publishing flow.
BUG REPORTS
Do you want to report a bug for Yoast SEO? Best to do so in the WordPress SEO repository on GitHub. Please note that GitHub is not a support forum and issues will be closed if they don’t meet the bug requirements.
READ MORE
Want more information on search engine optimization and Yoast SEO? Have a look at:
- The Yoast SEO Plugin official homepage.
- The Yoast SEO Help center.
- WordPress SEO – The definitive Guide by Yoast.
- Other WordPress Plugins by Team Yoast.
- Also follow Yoast on Facebook, Instagram & Twitter.
Installation
Starting with Yoast SEO consists of just two steps: installing and setting up the plugin. Yoast SEO is designed to work with your site’s specific needs, so don’t forget to go through the Yoast SEO configuration wizard as explained in the ‘after activation’ step!
INSTALL YOAST SEO FROM WITHIN WORDPRESS
- Visit the plugins page within your dashboard and select ‘Add New’;
- Search for ‘Yoast SEO’;
- Activate Yoast SEO from your Plugins page;
- Go to ‘after activation’ below.
INSTALL YOAST SEO MANUALLY
- Upload the ‘wordpress-seo’ folder to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory;
- Activate the Yoast SEO plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress;
- Go to ‘after activation’ below.
AFTER ACTIVATION
- You should see (a notice to start) the Yoast SEO configuration wizard;
- Go through the configuration wizard and set up the plugin for your site;
- You’re done!
FAQ
How do the XML Sitemaps in the Yoast SEO plugin work?
Having an XML sitemap can be beneficial for SEO, as Google can retrieve essential pages of a website very fast, even if the internal linking of a site isn’t flawless.
The sitemap index and individual sitemaps are updated automatically as you add or remove content and will include the post types you want search engines to index. Post Types marked as noindex will not appear in the sitemap. Learn more about XML Sitemaps.
How can I add my website to Google Search Console?
It is straightforward to add your website to Google Search Console.
1. Create a Google Search Console account and login into your account.
2. Click ‘Add a property’ under the search drop-down.
3. Enter your website URL in the box and click ‘Continue’.
4. Click the arrow next to ‘HTML tag’ to expand the option.
5. Copy the meta tag.
6. Log in to your WordPress website.
7. Click on ‘SEO’ in the dashboard.
8. Click on ‘General’.
9. Click on the ‘Webmaster Tools’ tab.
10. Paste the code in the Google field and click ‘Save Changes’.
11. Go back to Google Search Console and click ‘Verify’.
If you want more details steps, please visit our article on our help center.
How do I implement Yoast SEO breadcrumbs?
The steps below are a temporary solution as manual edits made to theme files may be overwritten with future theme updates. Please contact the theme developer for a permanent solution. We’ve written an article about the importance of breadcrumbs for SEO.
To implement the breadcrumbs function in Yoast SEO, you will have to edit your theme. We recommend that prior to any editing of the theme files, a backup is taken. Your host provider can help you take a backup.
Copy the following code into your theme where you want the breadcrumbs to be. If you are not sure, you will need to experiment with placement:
Common places where you could place your breadcrumbs are inside your single.php
and/or page.php
file just above the page’s title. Another option that makes it really easy in some themes is by just pasting the code in header.php
at the very end.
In most non-WooTheme themes, this code snippet should not be added to your functions.php
file.
Alternatively, you can manually add the breadcrumb shortcode to individual posts or pages: [wpseo_breadcrumb]
If you need more details or a step by step guide, read our Implementation guide for Yoast SEO breadcrumbs.
How do I noindex URLS?
Yoast SEO provides multiple options for setting a URL or group of URLs to noindex. Read more about how to do this in this guide.
Google shows the wrong description, how do I fix this?
If you’ve crafted nice meta descriptions for your blog posts, nothing is more annoying than Google showing another description for your site completely in the search result snippet.
Possible causes could be:
1. wrong description in code
2. Google cache is outdated
3. Search term manipulation
4. Google ignored the meta description
You can read more here on how to solve the issue with the wrong description.
How often is Yoast SEO updated?
Yoast SEO is updated every two weeks. If you want to know why, please read this post on why we release every two weeks!
How do I get support?
As our free plugin is used by millions of people worldwide, we cannot offer you all one on one support. If you have trouble with the Yoast SEO for WordPress plugin, you can get help on the support forums here at wordpress.org or by checking out our help center at yoast.com/help/.
The plugins you buy at Yoast are called ‘premium plugins’ (even if Premium isn’t in its name) and include a complete year of free updates and premium support. This means you can contact our support team if you have any questions about that plugin.
I have a different question than listed here
Your question has most likely been answered on our help center: yoast.com/help/.