The Best way to install and Setup WordPress SEO Plugin by Yoast

Yoast SEO plugin is the best WordPress plugin in the market due to its comprehensive set of web optimization tools. If you don’t have it on your website, read this article on how to install and setup Yoast SEO plugin. 

SEO (search engine optimization) is the most crucial element in running a website. Unfortunately, the majority of web owners have little or zero knowledge of how to implement effective SEO strategies. 

The good thing about using WordPress to run your website is that it offers plenty of plugins to help you achieve practical SEO efforts on your website for greater visibility. One such plugin is called Yoast SEO. In this article, we will work on how to install and setup the Yoast SEO WordPress plugin properly on your website  

Yoast SEO Features

Since Yoast SEO is a comprehensive plugin with lots of built-in tools, it is one of the most sorts after SEO plugin in WordPress.org repository. Here are a few features you should expect from Yoast SEO.

• Based on the post, Yoast SEO can change SEO title and meta description
• Title and meta description support for taxonomies
• Focus keyword testing
• Meta Robots configuration
• Google search result snippet previews
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These are some of the features found in the free version of Yoast SEO. The premium version has an advanced option to help you do more site optimization. These features include:

• Offers suggestions for internal linking
• A redirect manager to quickly set up redirects
• Allows you to use multiple focus keywords
• Allows you to export focus keywords and many more
•  

Installing the Yoast SEO Plugin in your WordPress Website

You can start by activating and installing the Yoast SEO plugin. A new menu item labeled SEO with Yoast SEO logo on it will be displayed in the WordPress admin bar. Now that you have installed the plugin, it’s now time to setup Yoast SEO properly. 

Depending on your preference, you can select settings that meet your business requirements. The settings option also depends on how advanced you are in SEO knowledge. Since this article is meant to cater to both beginners and advanced Yoast SEO users, we are going to use the following set of settings carefully.

1. Data Transfer

First, if you already have a plugin to handle your website data like One SEO pack, and you want to use Yoast instead, you must ensure that all your previous data have been transferred to Yoast SEO first before deactivating what you are using to manage your data. If you want to use Yoast SEO on a new blog or website, then you don’t have to focus on this process.

2. General Settings

While clicking on the SEO icon, you will be taken to the settings page of the plugin. You will find a button to open configuration wizard once you switch to the ‘General’ tab. Ignore the wizard since we want to go step by step through every option.

3. Features

This page allows you to quickly turn on and off features since Yoast SEO is a comprehensive SEO plugin with lots of built-in functions. You will notice that all functions on this page are turned on by default. Let’s take a look at the available items and what they do. 

SEO analysis – Shows your content’s SEO analysis and score.

Readability analysis – Shows your content’s readability score and report.

Cornerstone content – Users can filter cornerstone content using this feature (valuable pillar articles).

Text link counter – Used to show the number of internal text links that go in and out of the article.

XML sitemaps – This feature is used to create XML sitemaps for your website.

Ryte integration – For those who don’t know Ryte, it is a third-party service for checking and notifying you whether your site is deindexed weekly.

Admin bar menu – This feature is used to show Yoast SEO menu in the WordPress admin toolbar.

Security – To improve safety, this feature is used to hide advanced SEO settings from authors.

4. Webmaster Tools

The webmaster tools area is used sites in major search engines. With Yoast SEO, you can easily verify your website with all top search engines. 

To do this, all you need to do is sign up for a webmaster tools program for each search engine. When you are done, it will prompt you to add a meta tag to verify your website’s ownership. Just enter the meta code in the respective fields, received from the search engines.

5. Tools

Yoast SEO built-in tools to perform advanced tasks. If you are starting, you may not need all these tools. Some of these tools include:

· Import and Export

This is the most popular tool to help you import SEO data in case you have been using another WordPress SEO plugin or a theme with built-in SEO functions.

 It makes it easier for you to export Yoast SEO plugin’s settings and use them on other WordPress sites you own.

· File editor

When your WordPress website grows, other tutorials ask you to add some code to your website’s .htaccess file or robots.txt file.


In this case, you will find this tool useful since it enables you to edit both files directly from the WordPress admin area. These two files are configuration files and are very important in your site’s SEO. 

· Bulk editor

This tool is used to quickly add SEO titles and descriptions for all your blog pages and posts. To add a new SEO title for that blog post, there is a blank field beneath the Titles tab. When you have completed adding, click on the ‘Save link’ to store your changes.