Step Up Your SEO Game: How to Install, Setup, and Configure Yoast SEO Plugin in WordPress

• Search for Yoast SEO
  
  
  
  
• Install the Plugin
  

  Once you find the plugin, click on “Install now” to get the plugin.

  
  
  
• Activate the Plugin
  

  After the installation is completed, the “Install now” button will transform into “Activate.” Click on the button to activate the plugin for your WordPress website.

   

  That’s it! You have successfully installed the Yoast SEO for your WordPress Website. The next step is to set up the plugin.

• Environment
  

  This part decides whether your WordPress site should show up in the search results. Unless you’re tinkering with a development or staging server, go with Option A all the way. It lets Google and other search engines find and crawl your site, giving it the attention it deserves.

  
  
  
• Site Type
  

  Determines the type of your client’s WordPress Website.

  
  
  
• Organization or Person
  

  To make sure your metadata is accurate, select whether your client’s website represents an individual or an organization. If it’s an organization, you’ll need to upload your brand logo and image.

  For personal websites, just enter your name in the designated field. All of this data will be stored in your clients’ website’s metadata, which plays a crucial role in Google’s Knowledge Graph. This ensures that users get the right information about your clients’ websites.

  

• Search Engine Visibility
  

  This section defines which type of content to show in the SERP results.

  

• Multiple Authors
  

  This section indicates the number of individuals who can publish content on your WordPress site. Sharing this information will assist Yoast SEO in preventing duplicate content, while also preventing any confusion for Google when it comes to indexing your web pages.

  

• Title Setting
  

  Customize how your content headlines appear on search results by incorporating your clients’ website names and choosing the perfect title separator. Select the symbol that aligns with your brand identity, as it will be displayed between your post title and website name in the snippet preview.

  

Sections 7 & 8 will ask you for a Yoast subscription & newsletter updates. As you finish steps 1 to 6, you are done with most of your configuration.

• Dashboard
  

  Right here, you have the option to cross-check and reopen your configuration wizard to make any necessary adjustments to the settings. You’ll also find a dedicated section called “Problem” that keeps you informed about any issues your clients’ websites might be encountering. Moreover, the Notifications section keeps you updated with the latest news and information.

• Features
  

  This section lists all of the Yoast SEO plugin’s features, which include readability analysis, cornerstone content, and XML sitemaps. You can disable or enable them based on your goals.

  
  
  

  Here’s a quick read on what all these features represent:

  • SEO Analysis: This shows the SEO score and analysis of your content.
  • Readability Analysis: Provides analysis and score for the readability of your content.
  • Cornerstone Content: An essential aspect of articles, allowing you to filter and mark cornerstone content.
  • Text Link Counter: Displays the number of internal text links within an article.
  • Insights: Shows the frequently used words that match the keywords in your content.
  • XML Sitemaps: Assists in generating XML sitemaps for the website.
  • Admin Bar Menu: Contains links to third-party tools for page analysis and displays new notifications.
  • Security: Helps hide advanced settings from authors, preventing changes to schema metadata for a post.
  • Usage Tracking: Allows a plugin to collect and maintain up-to-date usage data.
  • Head Endpoint: Enables fetching SEO data for specific WordPress posts or pages. Can be turned off if not building a headless WordPress site.
  • Enhanced Slack Sharing: Adds an author byline and estimated reading time to the article’s snippet when shared on Slack.

  Once you are done checking all the features, hit on the “Save” button & move on to the next section.

• Integration
  

  The Yoast SEO plugin enables smooth integration with several third-party applications. The free version supports Semrush and Ryte, while the premium plan offers Zapier and Algolia integrations.

  
  
  
• Webmaster Tools
  

  Creating accounts for webmaster tools is essential for keeping tabs on different aspects of your clients’ website, such as traffic, performance, and memory usage. This data is crucial for assessing how your site is performing in search engine results.In this section, you can easily verify your site with various tools like Baidu, Bing, Yandex, and Google Search Console. If your site is already verified, you can simply skip this section.