Installing and Setting Up Yoast SEO in WordPress: A Step-by-Step Guide
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a fundamental aspect of managing a successful website. For WordPress users, the Yoast SEO plugin offers a comprehensive solution to optimize your site’s content and structure for better visibility in search engines. In this guide, we’ll walk you through the process of installing and configuring Yoast SEO, ensuring that your website is primed for search engine success.
Why Choose Yoast SEO?
Yoast SEO is one of the most popular SEO plugins for WordPress, boasting millions of active installations. It provides users with a range of tools to optimize content, manage meta tags, generate XML sitemaps, and more. By following this guide, you’ll learn how to harness the power of Yoast SEO to improve your site’s search engine rankings.
Step 1: Installing the Yoast SEO Plugin
To get started, log in to your WordPress dashboard. If you’re still accessing your dashboard via /wp-admin/, consider enhancing your site’s security by changing the login URL. You can refer to tutorials on securing WordPress for detailed instructions.
Once logged in, navigate to the Plugins section and click on Add New. In the search bar, type “Yoast SEO” and press Enter. Locate the Yoast SEO plugin in the search results, click on Install Now, and then activate the plugin by clicking on Activate.
Step 2: First-Time Configuration
After activating the plugin, you’ll be prompted to start the first-time configuration. Click on the Start first-time configuration button to begin.
You may be offered an opportunity to sign up for a weekly webinar or newsletter from Yoast. You can choose to sign up or skip this step by clicking away.
Optimizing SEO Data
The first step involves optimizing your site’s SEO data. Click on Start SEO data optimization. Yoast SEO will process your site’s content in the background, making adjustments to improve SEO performance. While this runs, you can proceed with the configuration.
Step 3: Setting Up Site Representation
Yoast SEO will ask whether your site represents an individual or an organization. Select the appropriate option. For businesses or groups, choose Organization; for personal blogs or portfolios, choose Person.
Enter your site’s name as it should appear in search results. This name typically reflects your organization or personal brand. In our example, we’ll use Alphabet Apartments.
Adding a Logo
Next, you’ll be prompted to upload a logo for your site. Click on Select Image and choose the highest-quality version of your logo available. This image may be used in search results and when your content is shared on social media platforms.
After uploading your logo, click on Save and Continue.
Adding Social Profiles
In this step, you can link your site’s social media profiles. Adding these accounts helps search engines associate your site with your social presence. Enter the URLs for your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other profiles. If you don’t have any social accounts associated with your site, you can leave these fields blank and add them later if needed.
Click on Save and Continue to proceed.
Step 4: Finalizing the Configuration
Yoast SEO may ask if you’d like to help them improve by allowing usage tracking or receiving their newsletter. Choose your preferred options and click on Save and Continue.
Completing the Setup
Once you’ve completed the previous steps, click on Visit your SEO dashboard to access the main Yoast SEO settings.
Step 5: Navigating the Yoast SEO Dashboard
The Yoast SEO dashboard provides an overview of your site’s SEO status and notifications about updates or issues. You can revisit the first-time configuration at any time by clicking the appropriate link.
Accessing the Settings
On the left-hand menu, click on Settings. We’ll go through the settings step by step to ensure your site is properly configured for optimal SEO performance.
Step 6: Configuring Site Features
In the General tab under Site Features, you can enable or disable various SEO features provided by Yoast.
All of the default features are generally beneficial for SEO and should remain enabled. However, you might consider the following options:
- Slack Sharing: If your target audience doesn’t typically use Slack, you can disable this feature. Slack is often used in business environments, so consider whether your content is likely to be shared on this platform.
- Admin Bar Menu: If you prefer a cleaner WordPress dashboard without Yoast SEO notifications in the admin bar, you can disable this feature.
Ensure that the XML Sitemap feature is enabled, as it helps search engines index your site effectively.
After adjusting these settings, click on Save changes.
Step 7: Setting Up Site Basics
In the Site Basics section, you can configure fundamental information about your site.
Site Name and Tagline
Confirm that your Site Name is correct. This name will appear in the title tags of your pages. If you have a shorter version or an acronym, you can enter it in the Abbreviation field.
The Tagline is a brief description that summarizes what your site is about. This could be your company’s slogan or a few words highlighting your services. For example, “Serviced Apartments in the Netherlands”.
Title Separator
The Title Separator is a symbol used to separate elements in your page titles. Common separators include dashes, pipes, and bullets. Choose the one that suits your site’s style. In our example, we’ll use the pipe symbol (|).
Site Image
Upload a Site Image to be used when your site’s homepage is shared on social media platforms. This image should include your logo and possibly an eye-catching graphic related to your site. Click on Select Image and upload the desired picture.
User Access and Tracking
If you have multiple users contributing content to your site, you might want to restrict their ability to modify SEO settings. Leaving the SEO settings for Authors disabled prevents users from deindexing pages or posts inadvertently.
You can also enable or disable Usage Tracking based on your preference.
Once you’ve configured these settings, click on Save changes.
Step 8: Configuring Site Representation
The Site Representation section allows you to provide detailed information about your organization or personal brand.
Organization Details
Ensure that your organization’s name, logo, and social profiles are correctly entered. This information helps search engines understand more about your site and may improve how your site appears in search results.
Step 9: Connecting to Webmaster Tools
Under Site Connections, you can verify your site with various webmaster tools like Google Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools, and others. Verification allows you to access valuable insights about your site’s performance in search engines.
To connect to Google Search Console, follow a detailed tutorial on setting up and verifying your site. This step is important for monitoring your site’s SEO and addressing any issues that may arise.
Step 10: Configuring Content Types
The Content Types settings determine how your posts, pages, and other content appear in search results.
Posts
If your site features a blog, you can configure how your posts display in search results. If you do not have any blog posts, you can disable posts from appearing in search results by setting Show Posts in search results? to Off.
For sites with blog content, you can customize the SEO Title and Meta Description templates using variables. Variables allow you to dynamically insert content such as the post title, page number, separator, and site title.
Understanding Variables
Variables are placeholders that Yoast SEO replaces with actual content when generating your page titles and meta descriptions. Common variables include:
%%title%%– Replaced with the post or page title.%%page%%– Inserts the page number if content is paginated.%%sep%%– Includes the title separator you selected earlier.%%sitename%%– Inserts your site’s name.
For example, an SEO title template might look like: %%title%% %%sep%% %%sitename%%, which would render as “Your Post Title | Your Site Name”.
Schema Settings
In the Schema settings, you can specify how your content is classified for search engines. For blog posts, you might select Blog posts under Article Type. Choose the most appropriate type for your content to help search engines index it correctly.
SEO Controls and Readability Analysis
It’s recommended to keep the SEO Controls and Readability Analysis enable
