On Page SEO Yoast: A Beginner's Guide

If you’re new to making your website more visible in search engine results, On-Page SEO with Yoast is a powerful tool to help you achieve that. Yoast SEO integrates seamlessly with WordPress, guiding you through optimizing your site’s titles, descriptions, content readability, and much more. Here’s a quick rundown of what you’ll learn:

How to Install Yoast SEO: A step-by-step guide to adding Yoast SEO to your WordPress site.
Configuring Yoast SEO: Setting up Yoast to optimize your site’s search appearance and social media profiles.
Understanding and Using the Yoast SEO Meta Box: Insights into improving your content’s SEO title, meta description, readability, and social previews.
Optimizing Your First Post: Choosing the right focus keyphrase and enhancing your SEO and readability scores.
Advanced Features: Customizing search appearance options, social settings, and using Yoast’s technical tools.
Monitoring and Improving Your SEO: Tips on using Google Search Console and Analytics to track your site’s performance.
Troubleshooting Common Issues: Solutions for site health checks, duplicate content, and hacked site recovery.

This guide aims to simplify the SEO process, making it accessible for beginners and helping you get your content noticed by more people online.

Accessing the WordPress Plugins Page

To get Yoast SEO on your website, start by going to your WordPress dashboard. Here’s how:

Log into your WordPress admin area
Look for "Plugins" on the left side, then click "Add New"
You’ll land on a page where you can find and add new plugins

Searching for Yoast SEO

Once you’re on the Add Plugins page:

Type "Yoast SEO" into the search box at the top
Press enter to search
You should see Yoast SEO pop up first in the results

Installing the Plugin

To add Yoast SEO to your site:

Put your mouse over the plugin
Click the "Install Now" button
WordPress will download and install the plugin for you

After it’s installed, you’ll see a button to "Activate" it.

Activating Yoast SEO

To wrap up the installation:

Click on "Activate"
Now, the plugin is all set up and ready for you to use

You’ll find a new "Yoast SEO" section in your dashboard’s sidebar. This is where you can tweak the plugin’s settings and start using its features.## Chapter 2: Configuring Yoast SEO

SEO Data Optimization

This part checks your website the way Google would, helping Yoast SEO spot and fix any technical problems that might hurt your SEO.

But remember, this step is for live websites. If your site is still under construction or not live, just click Continue.

Site Representation

Decide if your site is about a person or a company:

Person – Choose the user account that’s about the person.
Organization – Type in your company’s name.

Also, upload a logo that’s at least 112×112 pixels. A square shape works best.

Link your social media accounts to let Yoast SEO show them off. Add the ones like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram that you use a lot for your site or business.

You don’t have to add all your profiles, just the main ones you focus on.

Personal Preferences

Decide if you’re okay with sending anonymous data to Yoast to help make the plugin better.

You can also sign up for the Yoast SEO newsletter if you like.

Finish Configuration

Wrap up the setup wizard. Yoast will give you a link to go straight to your dashboard afterward.

And that’s it! Yoast SEO is now installed and ready to help get your site in shape!

Chapter 3: Understanding the Yoast SEO Meta Box

The Yoast SEO meta box is a special area you’ll see below where you write your posts and pages in WordPress. It’s important for making your content show up better in search engines.

Title & Description

Here, you can set the title and a short summary (meta description) for your page or post. These show up in search results.

SEO Title – This is the title that appears in search results. Try to keep it under 60 characters.
Meta Description – This is a brief summary that appears under your title in search results. Aim for under 160 characters.

Writing clear and engaging titles and summaries can make more people click on your content from search results.

Readability Analysis

This part checks how easy your text is to read:

Reading Ease – This score tells you if your words and sentences are easy or hard to read. The higher the score, the easier it is.
Transition Words – It checks if you’re using words that help connect your ideas smoothly.
Passive Voice – It points out if you’re using a lot of passive voice, which can make sentences harder to understand.

These scores help you make your writing clearer for your readers.

This shows what your post or page might look like when shared on social media like Facebook and Twitter. In the free version of Yoast, you’ll see a basic preview.

If you have Yoast Premium, you can see exactly how your content will appear on social media.

Cornerstone Content

Here, you can mark your most important pages or posts. This tells Yoast to give you tips on linking to these pieces more, which can help highlight your best content.

Chapter 4: Optimizing Your First Post with Yoast SEO

Choosing the Focus Keyphrase

When you’re getting your post ready for search engines with Yoast SEO, the first thing to do is pick a focus keyphrase. This is basically the main topic or idea you want people to find your post for when they search online.

Here’s how to pick one:

Think about what your post is about. This helps you figure out good keyphrases.
Use tools like Google Keyword Planner to find phrases related to your topic that people are actually searching for.
Pick one or two phrases that match your post’s topic and that you think people will use to find it.
Type your chosen keyphrase into the "Focus keyphrase" spot in the Yoast SEO section under your post.

Some advice on picking a keyphrase:

Make sure it really matches what your post is about.
Choose a phrase that’s popular but not too hard to compete for.
Longer, more specific phrases are usually better.

Improving SEO and Readability Scores

After you’ve set your keyphrase, Yoast checks your post and gives advice on how to make it better for search engines and easier to read. It looks at:

SEO analysis

How well you’ve used your keyphrase, if your title’s the right length, links in your post, and more.
Gives a score and tips to do better.

Readability analysis

Checks if your post is easy to read, uses good transition words, avoids too much passive voice, and so on.
Scores your post and suggests improvements.

To make your post better:

Look at Yoast’s advice and make changes like using your keyphrase more or shortening paragraphs.
Keep editing until your scores are better.

Remember, your main goal is to write posts that people find helpful and interesting. Making them easy to find and read comes next.

Using the Google Preview

This part lets you see how your post might look in Google search results. You can adjust:

SEO Title

Should be short and clear.

Meta Description

A quick summary that should make people want to read more.

URL Slug

A short version of your title that goes in the web address.

Change these to make your post more appealing in search results.

Chapter 5: Advanced Features

Search Appearance Options

Yoast SEO lets you decide how your site looks when people find it on search engines. This part is about making your site’s name, description, and pictures look right in search results.

You can:

Choose how your site title and description appear.
Pick images to show next to your site’s search results.

Yoast SEO also automatically makes structured data for your pages. Structured data helps search engines understand your content better by giving more details.

With these settings, you can:

Make templates for different parts of your site, like blog posts or product pages.
Change the default title and description Yoast SEO makes.
Choose logos and images for your search listings.
Adjust the structured data for better search engine understanding.

This helps you control how search engines show your site and content.

Yoast SEO’s social settings help your site look its best when shared on social networks. This is about making sure your pages look good on Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Here, you can:

Link your site to your social media profiles.
Set a default social image for when no specific image is chosen for a page. This image should be big.
Write titles and descriptions just for social sharing, different from search ones.
Turn on and tweak Open Graph and Twitter Card data, which helps social sites show your content correctly.

Setting these up makes sure your content looks good and gets more attention on social media.

Tools Options

Yoast SEO has some tools for the more technical side of managing your site’s SEO.

Import & Export

Bring in or send out redirects in bulk.
Move SEO data from other plugins to Yoast SEO.

Snippet Preview

Check how your search snippets will look.

File Editor

Change your robots.txt file, which tells search engines what they can look at on your site.

Role Manager

Decide who in your team can change Yoast SEO settings.

These tools give you more power in managing how your site interacts with search engines and who on your team can make changes.

Chapter 6: Monitoring and Improving Your SEO

Introduction

After setting up Yoast SEO and starting to make your content better for search engines, it’s time to see how your website is doing. This means checking if what you’re doing is actually helping people find your website more easily.

Yoast can work with Google Search Console to help you keep an eye on things. You can also use Google Analytics for even more information.

Here’s a simple guide on tracking your SEO progress with Yoast:

Connect Google Search Console

First, link your Google Search Console account to Yoast SEO:

In your WordPress dashboard, click on SEO > General.
Choose Webmaster Tools.
Select Authenticate with Google Search Console and follow the steps.

This lets you see your Search Console data right in Yoast SEO.

Check Performance Reports

Yoast SEO shows you important numbers from Search Console about how your website’s doing:

Impressions – How often people see your pages in search results.
Clicks – How many times people visit your site from search results.
CTR – Your click-through rate, or how often people click on your site after seeing it in search results. You want this number to be high.
Position – Where your pages usually show up in search results. The higher, the better.

Look at these numbers to understand how your SEO work is paying off.

Drill Into Specific Pages

To get more details on a particular page, Yoast SEO lets you see:

How well it’s doing in searches for specific keywords
More about clicks and views
If Google has any issues with the page

This helps you fix problems or find new ways to get people to your page.

Set Up Google Analytics Integration

Google Analytics tells you what visitors do on your site. To connect it:

In Yoast SEO, go to Features.
Find Google Analytics integration and turn it on.
Link your Analytics account.

Now, you can see visitor information in your Yoast SEO reports.

Create Site-Wide SEO Goals

With your data ready, set some SEO goals like:

Getting more people to visit your site from search engines
Increasing the number of clicks from search results
Getting better click-through rates
Ranking higher for certain keywords

Check your progress to see if you’re reaching these goals.

Leverage Other Analytics Integrations

Yoast SEO also works with tools like SEMrush and Ahrefs to:

Show you what keywords you might be missing
Help you find new ways to get links to your site
Point out any SEO problems

Pick the tools that you find most helpful.

Keep Iterating and Improving

SEO isn’t something you do just once. Keep checking your data, stay updated on SEO tips, and always look for ways to make your content better. Over time, these small changes can make a big difference in how easy it is for people to find your website.

Chapter 7: Troubleshooting Common Issues

Site Health Checks

Yoast SEO includes a Site Health feature that looks for technical SEO problems. This tool is great for finding and fixing issues that might be stopping your site from doing well in search engine rankings.

To use Site Health:

Go to SEO > General > Environment in your WordPress dashboard.
Look at the status of different checks. A green check means everything’s good, while a red one points out issues.
Click on any red flags to see what’s wrong and how you can fix it.

Site Health looks at things like:

Page speed – Makes sure your site loads quickly. Slow loading can hurt your site’s chance to rank well.
HTTPS and security – Checks if your site’s security setup, like SSL, is correct. This is important for both SEO and keeping your site safe.
Sitemap – Makes sure your sitemap is working right and can be found by search engines.
Indexation – Looks for any problems that might stop search engines from reading your site properly.

Check your site’s health often and fix any issues to keep your SEO in good shape.

Fixing Duplicate Content Issues

Duplicate content means having the same or very similar information on more than one page of your site. This can confuse search engines and make it hard for them to rank your site.

To fix duplicate content:

Find Duplicates

Use tools like Siteliner to find and show you where you have duplicate content.
Yoast SEO Premium has a tool to help find duplicates, too.

Point to a Primary Page

If you have similar pages, keep only one full version and make the others shorter, linking to the main page.
Use canonical tags to tell search engines which page is the main one to pay attention to.

Refresh and Redirect

If you have exact duplicates, delete the extras and redirect them to the main page using a 301 redirect.
This helps keep your site tidy and avoids broken links.

Adjust Content

If pages are only a bit similar, change the content so each page is unique.

Keeping your content unique helps search engines see your site as reliable and authoritative.

Dealing with Hacked or Compromised Sites

If your site gets hacked, it can negatively affect your SEO. Hacked pages might be marked as unsafe by search engines.

Here’s what to do if it happens:

1. Restore From Backup

If you have backups, like with the UpdraftPlus plugin, you can go back to a version of your site before it was hacked.

2. Scan and Clean Up

Use security tools to find and remove any malware or suspicious files.

3. Reset Passwords

Change all your passwords to keep hackers out.

4. Inform Search Engines

Use Google Search Console to let search engines know you’ve cleaned up and ask them to check your site again.

Keeping your site secure and fixing problems quickly is key to protecting your SEO.

Conclusion

Making your website easy for search engines to understand is key so that more people can find you. However, getting this right involves a lot of steps.

Yoast SEO simplifies this by integrating with WordPress and offering instant tips while you work on your site. It checks if your writing is easy to read and has tools like a preview for how your page might look in search results, and a health check for your site.

Once Yoast SEO is up and running, focus on writing great content about topics your audience is interested in. Listen to the feedback from Yoast and tweak your pages to make them stand out. Regularly check how your site is doing and look for ways to make it better.

SEO is an ongoing task, but Yoast SEO helps you to focus on what matters without getting overwhelmed. It supports you in building a site that does well in search results and attracts more visitors over time.

Which feature of Yoast SEO do you want to try first on your WordPress site? Let us know in the comments!

On Page SEO Yoast: A Beginner’s Guide