Yoast SEO Use Guide: Step-by-Step for Beginners

Step 1: Install and Activate Yoast SEO

The first step to using Yoast SEO is to install and activate Yoast SEO on your WordPress site. Here’s how to do it:

1. Login to Your WordPress Dashboard: Go to your WordPress dashboard.
2. Go to Plugins: On the left-hand sidebar, click on “Plugins” and then “Add New.”
3. Search for Yoast SEO: In the search bar, type “Yoast SEO.”
4. Install the Plugin: Once you find the Yoast SEO plugin, click “Install Now” and then “Activate.”

Once activated, you’ll see a new “SEO” menu on your WordPress dashboard, which means Yoast SEO is ready to use.

Step 2: Configure Yoast SEO Settings

After activation, the next step is to configure Yoast SEO settings to ensure your website is optimized for search engines.

1. Go to SEO Settings: In your WordPress dashboard, click on the “SEO” menu.
2. Open the Configuration Wizard: Yoast SEO provides a step-by-step setup wizard that walks you through configuring your website’s settings. This will include details about your website, such as whether it’s for a business or personal blog.
3. Set Search Appearance: Decide what type of content you want to appear in search engines (e.g., posts, pages, or custom post types).

Once you’ve completed the configuration, your site will be properly optimized for SEO.

Step 3: Optimize Your Content with Yoast SEO

Now that Yoast SEO is set up, the next step is to optimize your content. Yoast SEO integrates directly into the WordPress post editor, where it provides real-time suggestions for improving your SEO.

1. Keyword Optimization: In the Yoast SEO box below your content editor, you can enter your focus keyword (the main keyword you want the post to rank for). Yoast will then provide recommendations on how to optimize your content.
2. SEO Analysis: Yoast SEO offers suggestions based on keyword density, meta description length, keyword placement in headings, and more.
3. Slug Optimization: Ensure that your URL slug (the part of the URL after your domain) is short, clear, and includes your focus keyword.

By following Yoast’s optimization tips, you can improve the chances of ranking higher in search results.

Step 4: Improve Content Readability

In addition to keyword optimization, Yoast SEO helps you improve content readability. The readability analysis checks your content for:

• Sentence and Paragraph Length: Ensures sentences and paragraphs aren’t too long, making the content easier to read.
• Transition Words: Encourages you to use transition words (such as “however,” “therefore,” etc.) to improve flow.
• Subheadings: Prompts you to break your content into sections using appropriate subheadings (H2, H3, etc.).

The Yoast readability feature uses a color-coded system (green, orange, red) to indicate how well-optimized your content is in terms of readability.

Step 5: Generate and Submit XML Sitemaps

One of Yoast SEO’s most important features is the ability to generate and submit XML sitemaps. Sitemaps help search engines crawl your site more effectively.

1. Go to SEO Settings: In your dashboard, go to “SEO” and then “General.”
2. Click on the Features Tab: Scroll down to find “XML sitemaps.” Ensure that the option is enabled.
3. View Your Sitemap: You can view your sitemap by clicking the “See the XML sitemap” link.
4. Submit to Google Search Console: To help Google discover your sitemap faster, submit it through Google Search Console.

With a sitemap submitted, search engines will index your content more efficiently, which can help improve your ranking.

Step 6: Configure Social Media Settings

Yoast SEO also lets you optimize your website for social sharing. To configure social media settings:

1. Go to the SEO Dashboard: In your WordPress dashboard, navigate to the SEO tab and click on “Social.”
2. Add Social Profiles: Input your social media accounts, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.
3. Optimize for Social Sharing: Yoast SEO allows you to customize how your content appears on social media by setting custom images, titles, and descriptions for each platform.

This ensures that when users share your content, it appears well-optimized on social media platforms.

Step 7: Set Up Breadcrumbs for Better Navigation

Breadcrumbs are navigational aids that help users understand where they are on your website. Yoast SEO makes it easy to set up breadcrumbs:

1. Go to the SEO Settings: Navigate to “SEO” and then click “Search Appearance.”
2. Enable Breadcrumbs: Scroll down to find the breadcrumbs section and click to enable them.
3. Customize: You can customize how your breadcrumbs will appear, including separators and prefix text.

Breadcrumbs not only improve user experience but also help search engines understand your website structure.

Step 8: Set Up Advanced Settings (Robots.txt, .htaccess, etc.)

Yoast SEO provides advanced settings for managing your robots.txt and .htaccess files. These files control how search engines crawl and index your site.

1. Go to Tools: In the Yoast SEO settings, go to “Tools” and select “File Editor.”
2. Edit Robots.txt: The robots.txt file tells search engines which parts of your site to crawl.
3. Edit .htaccess: You can also update your .htaccess file for redirections and other advanced configurations.

If you’re not familiar with these files, be careful when editing them, as incorrect changes could negatively impact your SEO.

Step 9: Use Yoast SEO Insights for Internal Linking

Internal linking is crucial for SEO because it helps search engines discover and index more pages on your site. Yoast SEO offers insights for internal linking, helping you connect relevant pages within your content.

1. Yoast SEO Suggestions: When editing a post, Yoast will suggest internal links to other posts or pages on your site.
2. Link Suggestions Box: Below the post editor, you’ll see the link suggestions box, which lists relevant content that you can link to within your current article.

Internal linking improves site structure and helps keep users engaged by guiding them to other valuable content.

Summary

Using Yoast SEO effectively is key to improving your website’s search engine rankings and user experience. From installing the plugin and configuring settings to optimizing content and generating XML sitemaps, this step-by-step guide covers everything you need to know. Whether you are a beginner or looking to enhance your SEO strategy, following these steps will help you take full advantage of Yoast SEO’s powerful features and boost your site’s visibility on search engines.