How to Install Yoast SEO Plugin and its basic settings?

Configuring the best WordPress SEO will be done with the number of plugins. But it turns it turns out that the WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin (Yoast SEO) hits the first installed plugin category (1 million active WordPress installs). In this post, we are discussing the basic Yoast SEO settings to prepare your blog for search engine friendliness.

How to improve Google’s SEO ranking? Yoast SEO (formerly WordPress SEO by Yoast) is the most complete SEO plugin available for WordPress users. The Yoast SEO plugin provides every option that you need to optimise a WordPress blog.

In this plugin, there is a particular built-in content analysis function that is available. It helps optimise WordPress site titles and descriptions for Google.

A few years back, the elite developer “Joost De Valk” created a plugin and created history. The plugin has all the options related to SEO. It is not like “All-in-One SEO,” which was simple and had fewer opportunities for SEO comparatively. The plugin was created by Joost. The plugin is “WordPress SEO by Yoast,” (or) “Yoast SEO for WordPress SEO.”

With its extensive set of options and features, it alleviated the burden on webmasters. This tutorial covers the WordPress SEO plugin installation and configuration process for best results in Search Engine Optimization.

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How to make an SEO-friendly website on WordPress? Today I will explain how to install and setup the WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin in this article. By setting up the features listed above in this way, we can improve the way your WordPress-based blogs work. 

The following features are the major features of the Yoast plugin:

• Post Title and Meta Description
• Taxonomy (Tags, Category, and Custom Taxonomy) title and Meta description
• Meta Robots Configuration
• Canonical setup
• Verify your sites in Google, Bing, and Yandex (Russian search engine)
• Focus Keyword testing
• Readability score
• Facebook Open Graph Support
• Date hiding features from search engine snippets
• Add Google authorship for a single author
• You can hide RSD, WLW, and short links from head
• Breadcrumbs support
• Permalink Cleans up
• XML sitemaps
• RSS footer / header configuration
• ‘robots.txt’ and ‘.htaccess.’ editor
• Search Console integration for 404 error fixation

Getting Started with Basic Yoast SEO Settings?

If you are using any SEO plugin other than WordPress SEO by Yoast or Yoast SEO plugins, like All in One SEO, HeadSpace2, or the Old All in One SEO plugin, you can import all settings from the existing plugin to this Yoast plugin. To do this, first install the plugin and activate it now. Then you can use the Tools >Import option.

Joost combined his developments “RSS footer,” “Head Space2,” “Yoast Breadcrumbs,” and many more for this WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin, also known as “Powerhouse Plugin.”

How to Install the Yoast SEO Plugin from your WordPress Dashboard?

The installation of the Yoast SEO plugin is straightforward. Just go to Plugins > Add New and search for the keyword “Yoast SEO.”

After the display, the required plugin snippet, click on the Install button, and finally click on Activate Plugin.

Now you will see a new tab option “SEO” in the left column of your WordPress dashboard.

You now need to make the necessary changes according to the requirements of your blog.

Getting Started with Basic Yoast SEO Settings

How to improve SEO on WordPress?

These settings are created by keeping beginners in mind. Before you setup the plugin, you must import all SEO data from your blog to the Yoast Plugin with the help of “SEO Data Transporter.” Finally, the WordPress SEO by Yoast Plugin is enough for WordPress blogs. No need to install more SEO plugins.

1. General Settings (Dashboard)

a. General Tab

• Start Tour feature has an excellent introduction to the plugin. If you want to know the plugin click on Start Tour button.
  Latest changes summarised the most recent changes in WordPress SEO by Yoast Plugin.
• Default settings: This option helps you to reset the plugin setting into default mode.

b. Integrations

The plugin allows you to integrate third-party products like SEMrush tools and Ryte. These tools help you to suggest the best keywords and give a site audit report also.

c. Webmaster Tools

You need to add the tags which are on Google, Bing, and Yandex (Russian Search Engine) to verify the ownership of your blog.

The primary advantage of this feature is that if you are using the in-built Theme SEO options to validate the ownership of your blog, it will be removed when you change your blog theme.

But the tags in the WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin’s Webmaster Tools are permanent, and they won’t change even when you replace the Blog theme.

2. Search Appearance

a. General

• In the General tab, Disable Force rewrite titles feature. It can correct duplicate site name from appearing in the SEO title. In fact, it fixes the duplicate site names, but it can slow down your site. So leave it as Disable. (Update: Recently this feature disabled in the latest version).
• Now you can choose Title separator. My personal opinion is to leave by default. Do not change anything.
• Enable Readability Analysis feature to analyze the content errors and suggestions.

This is an important page to feed the blog title and meta description, which appear in the search engine result page snippet.

Just click on the HomePage tab and configure the settings.

• Title Template: This is the Homepage title place that shows in Google search. Character limitation is 70 characters only.
• Meta description Template: This is the Homepage Meta description for search engines results. Do not exceed your description, not more than 155 characters.
• Meta Keywords Template: This is an optional feature in the plugin. Google is not considering this keywords feature. So use this feature based on the site.

B. Content Types

There are four different options that are available to configure. They are posts, pages, and media types. This choice is based on the theme.

In the title template using the variables as the SEO title (%%title%%), it is replaced with the title of the page and the separator (%%%sep%%) and site name (%%sitename%%).

Keep the variable “%%title%%” and remove everything.

By default, WordPress, SEO by Yoast hides the date from search engine snippets.

This feature is helpful for a news blog.

c. Taxonomies

I recommend keeping categories and tags as no index and following and hiding boxes. You can configure the title template as per your needs.

You can add more user and brand-centric title templates. They are not indexed by search engines. I keep my tags and categories non-indexed to prevent duplicate content penalties.

d. Archives

Set the indexing for your author and date-based archive.

Author Archives:

• Author Archives are – Enabled
• Meta Robots – Noindex

Date based archives:

• Date-based archives are – Enabled
• Meta Robots – no index
• Date-based archives are – Enabled
• Meta Robots – no index

e. Breadcrumbs

This is an excellent feature for internal linking. It gives a clear path or train to the page you are on.

The breadcrumbs appear on the search engine result page with your site’s extra advantage in the quest.

To enable this, check the “Enable breadcrumbs” box. Do not change any default settings.

It works well on most of the websites. Finally, click on the Save Changes button to save the configuration.

It works well on most of the websites. Finally, click on the Save Changes button to save the configuration. c. RSS

This feature is integrated with the RSS footer plugin. When I use this function, I get a link back to my original article in the RSS feeds. I am using this line here on my blog:

“The post %%POSTLINK%% appeared first on %%BLOGLINK%%.”

Or

“Credits: This article (%%POSTLINK%%) is copyrighted to %%AUTHORLINK%% who actively blogs at %%BLOGLINK%%.”

From this tab, using the Yoast Seo WordPress plugin, you can set the content you want to show in the RSS automatically. 

The WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin provides a set of variables that you can use to automate content within your titles and descriptions. This feature is also used to add an advertisement to your RSS feed.

3. Social settings

Social settings are an updated feature of Yoast SEO 3.0. In this update, they have added the Google Knowledge Graph feature.

If someone searches for your brand name, your social media profiles will be displayed in the search engine results.

To configure this, add all social media profiles to this social settings page.

a. Facebook

You must enable the “Add Open Graph metadata” option in the Facebook tab in the Yoast plugin.

Then upload the default image, which is shown when you share the post on Facebook (if the post does not have any images, your brand image will be displayed with your share).

Write the title and description here, or you can use the “Copy home meta description” option to copy the Meta description from the Homepage option in Title and meta tab

b. Twitter

In the Twitter tab, you can add Twitter cards to your blog’s head section. Activate the “Add Twitter card metadata” by clicking on the “Enabled” button.

These add Twitter metadata to your site’s <head> section.

Choose Summary with Large Image from the “The default card type to use” option.

c. Pinterest

Pinterest also uses Open Graph metadata just like Facebook.

So be sure you keep the Open Graph checkbox on the Facebook tab checked if you want to optimize your blog for Pinterest.

To confirm your site with Pinterest, here is the verification option to add a Meta tag. Use the feature and verify your blog.

5. Tools

From this section you can perform the following operations:

a. File Editor

You can quickly modify important files for your SEO. Here there are two options – robots.txt and the .htaccess file editor. 

b. Bulk Editor

It lets you quickly edit titles and descriptions of posts and pages one by one without entering the editor.

c. Import and export

From here, you can make a backup of the configuration of the Yoast SEO plugin. to later introduce it to recover or simply when you do a blog migration or for any other reason. 

d. Recalculate SEO scores

An added option in version 3.0 to recalculate the SEO rating of your posts.

Conclusion

We can achieve the maximum functionality of WordPress blogs by using Joost’s plugin “WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin.” It can also help to avoid and protect against content scrapers for your WordPress blogs.

Each step contains expanded information, videos, and links to additional documentation; please read carefully before making any changes.

Choosing Yoast SEO Premium is another great option to improve blog SEO in a professional way. The premium plugin includes additional features such as internal linking, multi-focus keywords, and special redirection. Every option is good in this search engine optimization WordPress plugin.

I covered everything in this guide about this Yoast WordPress SEO plugin, and we hope that helps you install and set it in the right way. You can also see my list of WordPress SEO plugins for blog optimization.

By using the above Yoast SEO settings, recheck your existing settings or if you are new to the WordPress blog, and follow those instructions to create a new WordPress blog within 30 minutes.