Yoast SEO is a WordPress plugin that is used to optimize an article for better visibility in search engines result pages. It has some advanced features that help in making your content SEO friendly.
The first thing you have to do is to install this plugin. To do so, search “Yoast SEO” on the WordPress plugin directory. Install and activate it.
This plugin is compatible with Gutenberg editor as well as Elementor editor or other editors of the WordPress. We will learn to use Yoast SEO to complete on-page SEO for the articles and web-pages.
When editing or drafting an article, you will find the Yoast SEO option below the text area in Gutenberg editor (As shown below).
It has three main sections:
- SEO
- Readability
- (Schema)
- Social
Let’s understand them in detail:
1. SEO
Yoast SEO propeller scans your article and displays the problems in red parts, the improvement parts in orange, and all the good results in green color under the “SEO analysis” tab.
This SEO analysis is done around a “focused keyword“.
For example, if you are targeting a keyword “stress management” with your article, then this section will give you an analysis and improvements required in your article to rank it for the keyword “stress management”.
Further, you can set how this article will look like in SERPs. It allows you to set, SEO title, slug and meta description, which will be shown when your article ranks on Google. (as shown below)
SEO has four parts which are explained below:
1. Focus keyphrase
The term for which you are targeting your article to rank of Google SERPs is called “focus keyphrase“. This keyphrase should not be picked randomly.
You should decide your focused key phrase before writing your article with an extensive keyword research.
Keyword with less competition and high search volume performs well. Long tail keywords also perform better as they helps in narrowing down your article and make search engines to display your article.
For instance: Let’s say you have written an article on the top 10 content writing agencies in Bangalore and your focus key phrase is “content writing services”. The search engine will display all the articles which are related to content writing services and your article will be lost. But if use long-tail keywords like “content writing services in Bangalore”, the chance of your article appearing will increase.
2. SEO title
This is the title that will appear in the Google search engine result pages when it start ranking. It is also known as the “Title tag”.
It can be same as the title of the article or with some modification. Do not make it too long. Make it catchy and appealing. It’s a good practice to include the focus keyword when writing the SEO title.
You can use a pipe (|) to mention your website’s name after the title.
3. Slug
A slug is a part of the URL that identifies a particular page of your website. It is always written in lowercase with hyphens between two words.
Avoid spaces. Keep it short and directive just as shown in the below image:
Note: Its a wrong practice to change the slug after publishing an article. Changing slug later, will create a broken link for your website. So, decide slug in the beginning, and never change it after making your post or page live.
If you change it, you need to fix the broken link.
4. Meta description
A meta description is a short paragraph that explains the content of your article. It appears in search engines to help readers find out whether this particular article will fulfill their search intent or not. It’s a kind of promise to the readers about the content they will get inside.
It should be engaging, and to the point with a “focus keyphrase” in it. If it’s long, Yoast SEO will display a red line indicating to make it short.
2. Readability
It is a second section of Yoast SEO that focuses on the Grammar part and how easily it can be read. It is a critical factor in determining the success of your article as it tells how easy and enjoyable your content is. Some tips are given below to increase your readability score:
- Use simple words and short sentences.
- Don’t write in long paragraphs and use transition words (but, and, or, etc) sufficiently.
- Try to write it in an active voice.
- Make your content conversational.
- Use different sentence structures and multiple sub-headings.
3. Social
This is the last section where you can set title, image and description, which will be displayed on Facebook and Twitter, if the article is shared on these social platforms.
Here’s an example: this is how one of our article looks like when we share it on Facebook. The image, title and description are fetch from what we enter in the social section of the Yoast SEO.
Don’t forget to click on the “Save draft” icon given at the top right corner after completing all these sections.
Conclusion
Once you have completed all the three sections, the emoji color will turn “Green” if everything is under the Yoast guidelines.
If it’s still in red or yellow, you can make modifications by checking the improvements or problems section.
Remember, its not compulsory to make it green before publishing your article. If you think everything is done fine enough, you can procced with publish button even with red or yellow emoji in Yoast SEO.
