• How to set up the Yoast SEO plugin. Yoast Seo Plugin for WordPress – Installation and Configuration

    Yoast SEO is the #1 plugin among other WordPress SEO plugins.

    Need some help with your search engine optimization? Need an SEO plugin that helps you reach for the stars? Yoast SEO is the original WordPress SEO plugin since 2008. It is the favorite tool of millions of users, ranging from the bakery around the corner to some of the most popular sites on the planet. With Yoast SEO, you get a solid toolset that helps you aim for that number one spot in the search results. Yoast: SEO for everyone.

    Yoast SEO does everything in its power to please both visitors and search engine spiders. How? Below you’ll find a small sampling of the powers of Yoast SEO:

    Taking care of your WordPress SEO

    • The most advanced XML Sitemaps functionality at the push of a button.
    • Full control over site breadcrumbs: add a piece of code and you’re good to go.
    • Set canonical URLs to avoid duplicate content. Never have to worry about Google penalties again.
    • Title and meta description templating for better branding and consistent snippets in the search results.
    • Expand Yoast SEO with the News SEO, Video SEO, Local SEO and WooCommerce SEO extensions.
    • Need help? Yoast SEO Premium users get 1 year free access to our awesome support team.

    Write better content with Yoast SEO

    • Content & SEO analysis: Invaluable tools to write SEO-friendly texts.
    • The snippet preview shows you how your post or page will look in the search results — even on mobile. Yoast SEO Premium even has social media previews!
    • The Insights tool shows you what your text on so you can keep your article in line with your keyphrases.
    • Synonyms & related keyphrases: Optimize your article for synonyms and related keyphrases.
    • Automatic internal linking suggestions: write your article and get automatic suggested posts to link to.

    Keep your site in perfect shape

    Premium support

    The Yoast team does not always provide active support for the Yoast SEO plugin on the WordPress.org forums, as we prioritize our email support. One-on-one email support is available to people who bought Yoast SEO Premium only.

    Note that the Yoast SEO Premium also has several extra features too, including the option to have synonyms and related keyphrases, internal linking suggestions, cornerstone content checks and a redirect manager, so it is well worth your investment!

    You should also check out the Yoast Local SEO, Yoast News SEO and Yoast Video SEO extends to Yoast SEO. They work with the free version of Yoast SEO already, and these premium extensions of course come with support too.

    Error messages

    Bug reports for Yoast SEO are welcomed on GitHub. Please note GitHub is not a support forum, and issues that aren’t properly qualified as bugs will be closed.

    Further reading

    For more info on search engine optimization, check out the following:

    = While in WordPress

    1. Visit "Plugins &"; Add new'
    2. Search ‘Yoast SEO’
    3. Activate Yoast SEO on the plugins page.

    Manually

    1. Upload the wordpress-seo folder to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory
    2. Activate the Yoast SEO plugin from the Plugins menu in WordPress
    3. Follow the "after activation" link below.

    = After activation

    1. You should see a notification that the Yoast SEO Setup Wizard will start.
    2. Use the setup wizard to configure the plugin for your site.
    3. Done!

    Correctly setting up an SEO plugin is very important for promoting any resource, be it a personal blog or a content site. That is why one of the first steps when creating a website is to install and configure such a plugin. What is it for? Its main task is to create meta tags on each page title, description And keywords that help search engines find necessary information. However, modern plugins have many additional useful functions, so setting them up can be difficult.

    For a long time, the most popular SEO plugin was All in One Seo Pack, but recently Yoast SEO has become increasingly used. Some webmasters claim that when switching to this plugin, traffic has doubled. I don’t have such statistics, but I want to believe that Yoast SEO will help improve your rankings search results.

    The plugin is multifunctional, so after installing it, configuration is required, the correctness of which will determine a lot, which is why I decided to write this instruction

    After installing the plugin, the Yoast SEO item will appear in the WordPress control panel menu, consisting of several sub-items (initially three, later we will increase their number), and each of them contains several more tabs, that is, there are quite a lot of settings. Let's look at them all in order.

    This item contains the following tabs: Console, General, Features, Information about you, Webmaster tools, Security.

    This settings tab is not very important, it is for informational purposes only. It displays some messages that you can simply turn off.

    General

    There is nothing important here either, you can only mark the button to launch the Yoast SEO setup wizard. This wizard helps you fill in the basic data, but fine settings you can’t use it, so I don’t recommend using it, it’s better to do it yourself. So let's move on to the next tab.

    This tab contains several switches, among them the very important one - Additional page settings. Why they were called additional is difficult to say. It is precisely these settings that play the main role in SEO promotion.
    So, let's move this switch to position Included, save the changes and see that the menu now has eight sub-items instead of three. Now you can move on to full configuration.

    Switches Readability Analysis And Analysis SEO optimization articles by keywords enable or disable the corresponding tabs on the post editing page. I would like to draw your attention to the not entirely accurate translation of the hint: if the position Included, then the tab appears and is not deleted. Of course, these functions must be enabled to work on text.

    Next switch OnPage.org are included if this service is used in your work. I turn it off.

    Switch Admin Panel Menu adds an SEO item to the top menu of the admin panel. You can turn it off.

    And the last switch - Key Content. It adds a checkbox to the editing page that allows you to mark the most important articles. Apparently, Google somehow notes this in the search results.

    Here, in principle, everything is clear. We indicate the name of the site, type of owner, etc. After filling in this data, Open Graph micro markup appears in the code.

    Webmaster Tools

    Using the functionality of this tab, you can add a site to webmasters’ accounts on different services, but usually other methods are used for this. In particular, I have already written about adding to.

    A single toggle can disable advanced metabox settings in posts. This is relevant if several authors work on the site. Advanced SEO settings will only be available to administrators.

    Headings and metadata

    Now let's move on to more important settings that are of great importance in SEO promotion.

    General

    First switch Force header rewrite– one of the most important. While studying the recommendations of different webmasters, I came across opposing opinions. Some argue that this feature should be enabled, others say the opposite. I stick to the first option. By enabling this feature, you have the ability to manage your titles.

    Select a separator for the title. This separator is visible in page titles and in search results snippets if the title consists of two parts. You can choose any one you like.

    Here you need to fill in two fields:

    Title Template

    Description template

    The contents of these fields will be displayed in the main page code in the corresponding tags. The title can be written in plain text, or you can use special variables.

    For example, if you want the site name and description to be displayed in the header, you would enter the following code:

    %%sitename%% %%sep%% %%sitedesc%%, Where

    %%sitename%%- site name,

    %%sep%%- separator,

    %%sitedesc%%— slogan or description of the site.

    To understand the variables in more detail, you can open the tooltip - Help Center - Basic Variables.

    This tab describes general SEO parameters for posts; I indicate only the name, that is, we enter a variable %%title%%(it is no longer possible to write in words, since each entry has its own title).

    But we leave the description empty, it (description) We fill it out for each article individually in the SEO metabox.

    We put all switches in position Included.

    Let's move on to the pages. There are some differences here. In the header template, I suggest adding the name of the site, that is, we enter variables %%title%% %%sep%% %%sitename%%.

    Switch Date put in position Hide, since the page is created once, and the date is not relevant for it.

    And the last parameter that can be configured on this tab is . What we're really talking about here is the attachment pages that WordPress creates automatically for each media file. Therefore, they need to be closed from indexing.

    Taxonomies

    In this section, I leave categories for indexing, and disable tags and formats so as not to create unnecessary duplicate entries.

    Archives

    The situation is similar with archives. If you are the only author on the site, then it is better to disable author archives to avoid duplication. You should only enable this feature if there are many authors on the site.

    I also disable archives by date. They are relevant when the date is important, for example, a news site, or if the site hosts some promotions tied to specific dates.

    Other

    It is better to disable all switches on this tab. There is no point in indexing subpages; search engines no longer take keywords into account.

    Social media

    Let's move on to the next menu item. It is designed to connect the site with accounts on social networks. When you fill out the appropriate fields in the page code, Open Graph micromarking appears, thanks to which links to the site in social networks are displayed more correctly.

    XML sitemap

    General

    An XML map must be on any website, as it helps search engine robots index it faster and more correctly. Yoast Seo in automatic mode creates such a map and updates it after each entry is published. On the tab General There is a link to this map. Using the remaining tabs, you can customize the XML map in more detail.

    Here we indicate what to show and what not. For the above reasons, it is recommended to show posts and pages in the XML map, but disable media files.

    Excluded entries

    You can exclude individual records from the sitemap. To do this, you need to specify their identifiers. I described how to determine them in the article.

    Taxonomies

    Additionally

    There are three tabs in this section. Let's go through them briefly.

    bread crumbs

    “Breadcrumbs” are one of the navigation methods that indicate the location of a post in the site structure. It is useful for search engine optimization, especially if there are nested categories. Whether to turn it on or not is up to each individual to decide. Please note that not all templates support this feature and you will need to make code changes to enable it.

    Permalinks

    Here the settings are:

    Basic category strip(rather strange translation). It is better to turn this switch on in position Leave, so that both search engines and visitors can determine which category the entry belongs to. By the way, in the article I wrote about setting up permalinks and suggested two options for URLs. Now I want to clarify that the first option, indicating the category, is preferable.

    Redirect attachment URLs to parent post URL. This switch is, of course, in position Redirect.

    Stop words in the link. Creating a post URL is its own big issue. WordPress, together with the Cyr-To-Lat plugin, automatically creates page addresses, but it is advisable to always edit them manually, in particular, remove stop words. Turning on the switch will help you do this.

    Remove variables?replytocom. This switch allows you to get rid of duplicates that arise when commenting on articles.

    And it is not recommended to enable the last switch on this tab.

    RSS

    This tab is used to configure the RSS feed.

    This menu item contains three very convenient tools.

    Group editor allows you to edit headings (title) and descriptions (description) articles without opening each entry in the editor.

    Import and export. The first two tabs of this tool allow you to save all Yoast Seo settings in a separate file and use them, for example, on another site. Agree, a very convenient function. The third tab is used when switching from other SEO plugins to Yoast Seo. For example, I used All-in-Seo-Pack before and the import feature made it easy to switch to the new plugin.

    File editor can be used for editing robots.txt And .htaccess.

    These are the main features and steps for setting up the Yoast Seo plugin. I hope you found the article useful. If so, repost it on social media to introduce it to your friends.

    See you soon!

    Yoast SEO - best seo plugin for wordpress. Of course this is just my opinion. But I want to convey it to you. To make sure of this, we will have to not only consider in detail the advantages of this WordPress SEO plugin, but compare it with its competitor, the equally popular SEO plugin for Wordpress All in one SEO pack. To compare the capabilities of each plugin, you need to consider the capabilities and settings of both plugins. I have already described the All in one SEO pack plugin in. The capabilities of these plugins are enormous, and there are even more settings. In order to somehow reduce the length of this article, we will only consider the Yoast SEO plugin here and refer to the article about the All in one SEO pack for comparison. So get ready! There will be a lot of information!

    I'm like most WordPress users, once started SEO of my website with All in one SEO pack. But everything had to be done manually. There was no indicator that assessed the quality of an article's SEO.

    And as soon as I found out about the Yoast SEO plugin and its capabilities, I immediately started using only it and recommend only it to everyone. I’ll tell you now what good I found in him. The Yoast SEO plugin was originally created not as a website SEO tool, but as a tool for assessing the SEO of a website and articles. And only then, based on the results of the analysis, it produces suggestions for optimization. Such SEO method gives significantly best results than just general settings without quality control. You can download the latest version of the Yoast SEO plugin.

    First we will look at All the plugin settings. They will help you evaluate most of its capabilities in comparison with the All in one SEO pack. And then we’ll look at what makes him so highly regarded.

    Yoast SEO Settings

    Installing the Yoast SEO plugin is as easy as most plugins. After installing the Yoast SEO plugin, the SEO section will appear in the left menu of the admin panel. Let's go to the first subsection" Information panel". On the first screen we see a menu of six tabs at the top. In the center there are two fields: " Problems" And " Notifications". Immediately after installation, the Yoast SEO plugin evaluates the presence and configuration of the required SEO elements of your site. After that, in the " Problems"provides information and suggestions that will help eliminate important errors in SEO optimization of your website. The function is very good and useful. This is simply NOT found in other plugins.

    General Yoast SEO Settings

    Information panel

    The “Notifications” field will contain less significant recommendations for improving WordPress SEO optimization or new proposals related to changes in the plugin itself. After viewing notifications, you can delete them. And recommendations for eliminating problems will disappear on their own after they are eliminated. And the inscription " Great job! No major SEO issues were found."

    Go to the second tab of the “General Settings” menu.

    General settings

    On this screen we see three sections. "", " About the creators" And " Setup Wizard". "Restore default settings" - allows you to return all previously made settings changes to their original default position by pressing one button. This may be necessary when you have made some incorrect setting, it interferes with your life, but you cannot determine which one. Or if there is a failure in the settings and The plugin needs to be reconfigured.

    Chapter " About the creators" - allows you to see drawings made from photographs of people who took part in the creation of the plugin, as well as get to know them better. On the "About the Creators" screen there is also a tab " Integration", which explains what the plugin is. It also invites you to take part in the further development of new functions of the plugin.

    Yoast SEO - Setup Wizard

    Introductory section

    At the first step we see a greeting and a suggestion; if the SEO settings are too complex for you, you can buy the Premium version of the plugin and order the configuration. The configuration support team will test your site and create optimal plugin settings for your WordPress. It is also suggested to register on the publisher's website to receive news about changes to the plugin. Here you don’t have to register, but simply click the “Next” button. The next step is the so-called “Environment” of your site.

    Environment

    If your site already presents a working form, then it is best to select the first item " Real site with real traffic ". The second point already raises doubts: “A copy of a real site is for testing purposes only.” It is unlikely that an understanding person will want to create a copy of a site on the Internet. Search indicators will immediately drop on all copies of the site and all copies will fade into the background in search results. The third point personally I don’t understand the site being developed and located on local servers should not be indexed at all (perhaps this setting prohibits indexing the entire site, I have not checked).

    Site type

    Click the next button and move on to the third step" Site type". Everything is quite clear here. Everyone will choose what best suits their site. I think there is no need to explain how an online store differs from a news site, and a corporate site from a personal one. Ask why is all this necessary? These are micro markup tags that help It’s better for search engines to identify and rank your site in certain groups. Next, move on to step 4.

    Company or individual

    Here, if you represent a company, select the item " Company" and below there appears a field for entering the name of the company, as well as the opportunity to select a design of the company logo. If you are a private person, then select the item " Private person", and in the field below write your name. If you have already set up your WordPress, then your first name, last name and mailbox will be added automatically. To save the data, click the “Next” button and proceed to the fifth step.

    Social profiles

    In the fifth step, you need to add the addresses of all profiles on social networks. They will help promote your site through social networks, help increase your site's ranking in search engines, and improve site identification. Try to fill in as many fields as possible. This is really useful for promoting your website in search engines. Click next to have Yoast SEO remember your addresses.

    Post type visibility for search engines

    Step six determines the visibility of message types for search engines. These are the types of posts for which sitemaps and URLs will be created and indexed by search engines. A very good note at the bottom of the screen: "WordPress automatically generates a URL for each media element in the library. Enabling this item will allow Google and Yandex to index the generated URLs." So we mark “Posts” and “Pages” that they will be " Visible". A media files" Hidden".

    This is done so that Yandex does not put your site under the AGS. The problem is that Yandex categorically refuses to understand such content. Media files with a separate address look like articles with an address, title, picture, but without text. Yandex perceives them as bad objectionable content or spam. This limits its display in search results, i.e. lowers the site's rating. You need to know about this! Press the button " Next".

    In the seventh step, you are given the opportunity to make a setting that determines whether you will be the only author or whether other authors can register on your site. If your blog is purely yours, the author's, then you can check the box " No" and press the button " Next".

    Google Search Console

    In the eighth step it is proposed to connect the site to Google Search Console. Google Search Console is a multifunctional tool that allows you to find and eliminate technical errors and shortcomings, work on website optimization, and monitor the visibility and presentation of a project in Google search results. When you press the " Authentication with using Google "a button appears" Get an identification code from Google". Press this button.

    An additional browser window opens that says "Yoast SEO is requesting to view and edit Search Console data for verified sites." Click the "allow" button. A code appears in the same window, which must be copied and pasted into the “Authorization code” field. Presses the button " Next".

    Header Settings

    Let's move on to the ninth step - " Header Settings".In the field" Site name"The name that you defined in the WordPress settings is displayed in the Template settings. If you do not change it, this is the name that will be added to the titles of articles and pages. Next, you need to select the type of separator that will separate the title of the article and the name of the site. The default is suggested the most commonly used separator, so you don’t have to change it. Click the " button. Next".

    Completing the Settings Wizard

    Once on the tenth screen, you will see a congratulation that you have completed the SEO settings of the site, as well as a repeated offer to subscribe to Yoast SEO news. Click the "Close" button. The Setup Wizard will close. Most of the basic settings have been completed. It’s a pity that there is no such settings wizard in the All in one SEO pack. It wouldn't hurt him.

    We've sorted out the general settings, now go to the " Peculiarities". This tab contains everything that greatly distinguishes this SEO plugin from others.

    Peculiarities


    "Readability Analysis Readability" in METABOX articles and all related offers. Be sure to include. Now Yoast SEO will analyze your articles for readability and make recommendations on what can be improved. Very important and useful feature. This is not available in other plugins.

    "Analysis of SEO optimization of an article by keywords " - removes or shows a tab " Keywords"in METABOX and all offers related to it. Be sure to enable it. Now the plugin will analyze and evaluate your articles for the quality of SEO optimization for the selected keyword and make recommendations on what else can be improved. In my opinion, this is the most important function in article SEO optimization. This is not available in other plugins.

    "Advanced Settings Pages" - shows or hides additional items in the SEO menu: " Headings and metadata", "Social media", "XML sitemap", "Additionally", "Tools". The function is not super important, but useful. The menu of the WordPress admin panel after installing each plugin becomes bloated, and additional features are actually configured only once. So after configuration, their names can be hidden and they will not clutter the main menu. This setting also applies to the " Admin Panel Menu", the settings of which are described below.

    "OnPage.org" - Integration of the site with OnPage.org checks daily whether the site is indexed by search engines and notifies you if this is not the case. Requires registration of the site on OnPage.org. The function is useful and it is better to enable it. Yandex itself controls the availability of the site and issues email messages about its disappearance from the index. Other search engines are modestly silent about this. We will definitely use it.

    "Admin Panel Menu" - enables or disables the Yoast SEO menu in the top menu of the administrative panel. The menu contains a list of keyword analysis tools and an SEO settings menu. Considering the presence of links to third-party keyword analysis tools, it is better to enable. Additional usefulness and convenience.

    About the Site

    "Site name"- Search engines show the name of your site in search results and it will also be displayed in the title of the main page, as well as as an addition in the alts of articles. By default this is the name of your site, but you can change it here. You can also specify an alternative site name for display in search engines. If you have already made settings in the setup wizard, then you don’t have to repeat it.

    "Company" or " Private person"- This data is shown as micro markup metadata on your site. They are intended for Google's Knowledge Graph, but are understood by all search engines. You can select Company or Individual, depending on what suits you best. When you select Individual, a field appears for filling out information about the individual. When you select Company, two fields will appear for entering the company name and address of the company logo picture. Everything is the same as in the setup wizard. If you have made changes, be sure to click the " button. Save changes".

    Webmaster Tools

    The setup wizard asked you to confirm your rights to the site only for " Google Search Console". Here you can also confirm rights for " Yandex" And " Bing". This screen has a good explanation. If you have already registered in the WEB-master tools of different search engines and confirmed your rights in another way, for example by copying a file with a confirmation code to the root folder of the site, then you do not need to enter anything here. If your rights to the site is not confirmed in these systems, then you need to get the codes and enter them in the specified fields, and press the button " Save changes".

    Safety

    Enabling " Yoast SEO Advanced Settings" allows you to specify the noindex attribute for posts and change canonical addresses. Allowing other authors to access these settings may threaten security your site in terms of the quality of indexing and its display in search results. If you don't trust your authors, then don't include them. By default, this function is available only to the administrator. If you enable this setting, this feature will be available to all users. So we turn off this function. Save the changes.

    Headings and metadata

    General settings

    Go to the menu section " Headings and metadata". On the first page " General"Settings included in the setup wizard." Force header rewrite" allows you to change article titles in search results or add the site title to them. The function is necessary and must be enabled. The title separator is a character included between the article title and the site title. Choose what you like. By default, the most frequently used character is selected .

    Home page

    The title of the main page is the inscription that appears when you hover the mouse over the name of the browser tab with home page th of your site.

    "Title Template" the main page is already formed from the following tags:

    %%sitename%% - site name- this is the name that is specified in the site settings;

    %%page%% - page number- when there are a lot of articles and page-by-page display of announcements is organized on the home page, when switching to the second and subsequent pages, this tag displays the following text: “page 3 of 5”;

    %%sep%% - separator- the character selected on the previous screen for division different parts title;

    %%sitedesc%% - site description- That brief description site, which is specified in the site settings.

    According to this template, the name of the main page will look like this: (site name | page 3 of 5, if not the first page | site description), either the name of a static page, or... . However, you can change this template at your discretion, for example, leave one thing or remove everything altogether and write your own text.

    In the field" Meta description template"We write a brief description of your site. If possible, we organically include at least one high-frequency search query in the description. But in general, the “description” field does not need to be filled in. This has probably already been done in the site settings.

    In the field" Keyword pattern"We indicate, separated by commas, high-frequency keywords or phrases for which your site should be shown. These can be the highest-frequency search keys that best reflect the essence of your site. There can be 4 - 10 keys. The less bad, the more useless. Be sure to save the changes.

    Post types

    For " Records" The default title template is %%title%% %%page%% %%sep%% %%sitename%%. That is, it consists of the title of the article, the page number, in case of page-by-page output, at the end the name of the site and a separator between the blocks. Meta Description Templates And keywords There is no point in filling in, since they are different for each entry and will be set when writing a message.

    Set Meta Robots to " Index". These meta tags are written in the body of each article. It would be stupid to write articles and not allow them to be indexed.

    "Date in fragment preview"- the parameter is not necessary in my opinion. In any case, I have not yet seen that the date of writing the article would be displayed in the spippet. It just takes up precious space in the description. And possibly capable of harm. After all, seeing the old date of writing an article, some visitors will refuse to visit your pages, which will reduce traffic to your site.

    "Yoast SEO Block" set to " Show". This means that the entire Yoast SEO Block will be displayed at the end of the article you are editing and you will be able to take advantage of its settings, tips and ratings.

    For " pages" We make the same settings as for records. Because all the working material is the same.

    But for " Media files " somewhat differently. Leave the title template as default. We do not fill out description and keyword templates. Meta Robots turn it to " noindex" - this is very important. I described the reason above. Media files in WordPress are designed as independent entries, only without text content. Yandex considers such entries to be bad content even when the AGS filter imposes a lot of it. After this, the site is poorly ranked and goes down in search results background. The number of visitors from Yandex drops to zero.

    "Date in fragment preview" set to " Hide". As I already said, the parameter is unnecessary and possibly even harmful." Yoast SEO block" You can turn it on in the "Show" mode if you are going to work with media files and write lush descriptions for them. But as practice has shown, this is of little use. If additional work with media files is not expected, this block can and should be disabled. If you have made changes on this page, be sure to click the " Save changes".

    Taxonomies

    On the "tab" Taxonomies" It is possible to customize header templates for Rubrik, Tags And Archives. They are also already set by default in the format %%term_title%% %%page%% %%sep%% %%sitename%%.

    %%term_title%% - Term Title

    %%page%% - page number for paged output

    %%sep%% - separator between header blocks

    %%sitename%% - site name

    But for the convenience of perceiving the title and understanding its content, you can add the words before each template: Category Archive, Posts with a tag, Archive for. Then you will get the following organic and logical headings: Archive of the category “Category name”, Entries with the label “Tag name”, Archive for “month-year”. The fields “description template” and “keyword template” do not need to be filled in, since it is impossible to come up with one description for all categories or all tags, much less choose keywords.

    As for the archive header format, I completely disabled them to avoid duplicates. I also completely removed the archives section from the sitebar. It does not bring any benefit, but it can cause harm. So we turn off the Archives.

    Archives

    In the figure you see even before the settings a very good warning, which I talked about earlier. In a situation where there is only one author, the content of the archive will completely coincide with the content of the main page. And duplicating content is very bad for search engines, for ranking pages and the site as a whole. So if you are the only author on the site, then it is better to disable archives.

    If you have the ability to register other authors who create content, then it is better to include author archives. This will improve navigation through the authors' materials. When turned on " Author's archives"you will have fields" title settings, descriptions, keywords, robots. The default header template looks something like this: %%name%%, author at %%sitename%% %%page%% ("Name" author at "site name" "page number"). There is no need to fill in the description or keywords. Meta Robots set to position " noindex"We don't need indexing of duplicates.

    Setting " Archives by date"This is done in the same way. We do not change the name template, we do not fill out the description field. Meta Robots to the noindex position. Next is a small section " Special Pages". This " Search page", And " Page 404". For these pages, only header templates are configured in the plugin. By default, quite organic templates are created, but if you wish, you can tweak them. For the search page, you can make the following template: "You searched for %%searchphrase%% %%page%% %%sep %% %%sitename%%". And for the error page "Page not found %%sep%% %%sitename%%" or "Error 404 %%sep%% %%sitename%%".

    Meta

    "Archive subpages" - If you want to prevent archive pages from being shown repeatedly in search results, set the state to "noindex".

    "Apply Meta Tag "keywords" in the article " - The presence of keywords meta tags in articles is no longer relevant now. If you want to use the keywords tag in the description of your articles, then enable . This is exactly the setting that allows you to add Keywords. Due to incorrect translation, many who want to use keywords do not know where to enable it and try to use another plugin.

    Considering that search engines determine the relevance of your article search queries without taking into account the keywords tag, then its presence in the body of the page will not hurt in any way. And the keywords written after the keywords tag will once again appear in the index. Perhaps this will play a positive role. Who needs this, set it to " Included". After this, below the edited article, in the Yoast SEO section, just above the content analysis, a field for entering keywords will be added.

    "Apply noodp robots descriptors to the entire site" - Prevents search engines from using the DMOZ description in search results for all pages of the site. The site must be registered in the DMOZ directory. Note: If you specified a custom description for a page or post (and the description for articles will have to be specified), it will have a noodp tag regardless of this parameter. The meaning is that it doesn’t matter what position the setting is in if you apply the description for each article. Just in case, we’ll leave it. included, suddenly the article turns out to be without a description.

    Social media

    On the "tab" Accounts"It is proposed to link your profiles on social networks with your website so that search engines can better rank your website in search results. In essence and content, this is the same page as in the setup wizard. If you have already made the settings there, then there is nothing to change here necessary or add what is missing. Here, the more fields are filled in, the better for your site.

    Facebook Settings

    On the "tab" Facebook Settings"turn on only the button" Add Open Graph Metadata". This means that we will use this opportunity to promote on social networks. We do not fill out all other fields, since it does not make sense. In each article, if necessary, we indicate the desired picture, description and title. There is such an opportunity.

    Twitter Settings

    On the "tab" Twitter Settings"turn on" Add Twitter metadata". "Use default card type"set to state" Summary with a big picture". All other settings, if necessary, can be made in each article.

    Pinterest Settings

    On the "tab" Pinterest Settings", if you have already linked your site to your Pinterest account and set up Facebook, then you don’t need to do anything.

    Google Settings+

    On this tab" Google+ Settings"You can add your account address Google+ if you haven't done this before in " setup wizard" or on the tab " Accounts"section" Social media".

    Next, let's move on to the most important setting, which ensures the correct indexing of your site's articles. This is the XML sitemap menu section. For the map settings to work fully, you need to use WordPress triples, in the " Permalink settings" install " Arbitrarily", but in the settings field enter the following template:

    /%postname%.html - this means putting a “/” sign after the domain name, then displaying the title of the article and adding the combination of letters “http” at the end. The address generated by this template will look very good and will be managed well by the XML sitemap plugin.

    And so we go to the menu section " XML sitemap". On this tab you can enable or disable the creation of an XML sitemap. This is a very important point. This tool uses many new technologies that Google treats very calmly or even with pleasure. But Yandex categorically does not accept some things. Therefore I recommend Turn off "Creating an XML sitemap".

    And to create a map of your site, I recommend using Google (XML) Sitemaps Generator for WordPress. XML sitemap built by this plugin is very well received by search engines such as Ask.com, Google, Yahoo, MSN Search, as well as Yandex.

    If you don’t care about Yandex at all or it doesn’t matter to you that Yandex doesn’t perceive some things correctly and you still want to use this particular XML sitemap, then the engine " Creating an XML sitemap"set to position" Included". But be sure to make the correct settings . Otherwise your site may fall under Yandex AGS. After enabling the section " Creating an XML sitemap" a menu of four tabs will appear: " General settings", "Post types", "Excluded entries", "Taxonomies".

    General settings

    On the first tab " General settings"It is proposed to specify the maximum number of records for one page of the site map (the default is 1000). This is done so that the site works correctly on servers with a very weak configuration. If problems arise with the load on the server, you may have to reduce this number to lower memory consumption.

    Post types

    Yoast SEO creates separate maps for each type of content. On the "tab" Post types" it is proposed to determine which site maps to create. Maps for Create Posts and Pages in mandatory . But for NO media files . If you enable " create a map for media files", then you will have a map file in which the addresses of articles containing only a picture and no text will be indicated. In fact, the same one that poses a danger to your site, due to which it may be subject to AGS. Therefore, Absolutely NO media files . Even if you have a gallery and you make sane titles, descriptions and set keywords for each image or video, there is still no article text. Yandex still treats such content poorly. So absolutely NO.

    Excluded entries

    On the "tab" Excluded entries"You can specify records that need to be excluded from indexing. Perhaps someone will need this function.

    Taxonomies

    On the "tab" Taxonomy sitemap settings"there is an option to allow the creation of sitemaps for " Rubrik", "Tags", "Archives". I do not recommend including them, since files will be created with new links, but leading to the same pages. Search engines regard this as duplication of content. Click the button " Save changes". This completes the setup of sitemaps. After all that has been done, the Yoast SEO plugin will create the necessary sitemaps. If you have done everything as described above, then you will have files for posts and pages.

    After viewing your map by Yandex, a message about errors in your sitemap will appear in the Yandex webmaster: " Wrong format entries for images." Errors will be marked not in red, but in yellow, this means they are not critical. That is, Yandex does not understand these entries and perceives them as an error, but this is not fatal. As I already said, the plugin uses new technologies that Google perceives ok, but Yandex is still opposed to this. For those who like everything without errors, taking into account all of the above, I recommended not using sitemaps from Yoast SEO for now, but replacing them with the plugin. The Webcraftic Clearfy plugin has a function for removing image:image tags from XML. sitemap created by the Yoast SEO plugin.

    Additional settings

    Next, go to the subsection " Additionally" and on the first tab we see Breadcrumb settings. Yoast SEO breadcrumbs are quite decent and can be used if necessary. Therefore the point Enable breadcrumbs set to position " Included". In the field Separator between bread crumbs We write a sign that will act as a separator. If you already have two arrows to the right, then you can leave them, since they display the logic of the sequence as correctly as possible.

    In the field" Home page link text“we write the following words: “Home”, “Main page”, “Home”, “Home page” or “Site name”. Choose what you like best. The main thing is that it makes it clear as much as possible what is hidden behind this word or combination of words home page of the site.

    In the field" Prefix" is not a link and is used purely for aesthetic design. You don’t have to write anything here. But if you really want to, then the name of your site or domain is most suitable. The contents of this field will be displayed first in the sequence of links. Next will be “Home” and then everything else looks something like this: “Testing Everything > Home » Website creation » WordPress » Plugins » Yoast SEO - the best SEO plugin for WordPress.” For some reason, the last position of the article title is duplicated by this script. This greatly lengthens the line of breadcrumbs and. It doesn’t look pretty. The function to disable duplicate article title in Yoast SEO breadcrumbs is present in the Webcraftic Clearfy plugin.

    In the field" Prefix for breadcrumbs on archive pages"You can enter nothing or add the words “Archive for.” If your template settings allow, they may be displayed when displaying a list of archive articles. Although I already said that there is no benefit from the archive, only duplication of content. I have completely disabled widget " Archives".

    In the field" Prefix for breadcrumbs on the search page“You can enter nothing or add the words “You searched.” If your template settings allow, they may be displayed when displaying the search page.

    In the field" Breadcrumbs on page 404" you can add the words "Error 404". If your template settings allow, they may be displayed when displaying the error page.

    "Select last page"set to state" Bold". This adds to the understanding of where we are at the moment.

    Next comes, in my opinion, the most important setting point " Taxonomies to be shown in breadcrumbs". Here you can select " Empty", "Categories", "Label" And " Format". If you install " Empty"then between the words" Home" and "article title" nothing will be added. That is, it is not clear which category or section of the site the article belongs to. The navigation path is very difficult.

    If you install " Categories", then in the path from the main page to the title of the current article all headings and subcategories will be listed in compliance with the sequence of attachment. That is, the path will be displayed as completely and correctly as possible, and you can quickly follow each link to obtain additional material. It is absolutely clear that where it is. Very convenient. I recommend installing it " Categories".

    If you install " Label", then instead of headings a label will be displayed, and only one, which in no way clarifies the logic of the attachments and does not contribute to the convenience of navigating the site. The only thing is that by going to this label you can see related or similar articles.

    "Format"as far as I understand, this applies to archives, but when their display is disabled in the plugin or when it is impossible to display them using the template this setting doesn't work.

    As I already said, the correct and only setting remains " Categories". When enabled, the full path will be displayed and it will look something like this: " We test everything > Home » Website creation » WordPress » Plugins » Yoast SEO - the best SEO plugin for wordpress". After all the changes made, for them to take effect, you must click the "Save changes" button.

    This completes the “breadcrumbs” settings, but they will not be shown yet since there is no code to display them. Next you should read the paragraph with the title: " How to Add Breadcrumbs to Your Theme ". Actually, you need to follow the specified link, pick up the code and add it to the right place. The most logical place is right above the title of the article or under the line with the author’s name and publication date.

    This is done like this: Open the single.php file (for posts) and the page.php file (for pages) of your template in an editor without text formatting functions. You can use Notepad++, AkelPad, PhpDesigner, or, ultimately, a regular notepad, but in no case WORD. Look for the line with the function to display the title of the article

    Copy the code on the above page or right here:

    if (function_exists("yoast_breadcrumb")) (
    yoast_breadcrumb("
    ");
    }
    ?>

    and insert it above the found line or below the next line. Save the file and, if necessary, upload it back to the server. The Notepad++ editor allows you to copy a file directly from the server and save it there without additionally copying the file to your computer. If you did everything as I described, you will succeed in the same way as I do on this site.

    "Will remove the category name (usually /category/) from the post URL" means that category names can be added or removed from the article URL. Theoretically, the function is useful and logically correct, but it has a negative side. It can greatly lengthen the article address, which in turn may not be very useful for search engines and for the visitor to remember. As a rule, the shorter the URL, the better it is perceived by search engines and is better remembered by visitors. Also, the theme template may not display categories in the addresses, although the function was enabled. It is probably better to set it to ". Put away".

    "Redirect attachment URLs to parent post URL" - Attachments to records are stored in the database as messages. This means that they are available on their own own URL. If you don't redirect them, they will be redirected to the posts they were attached to. I personally don't understand this function. In the sense of what has been said, it turns out that redirection will be performed in any position. I think it would be more correct to set it to " Redirect".

    Next section " Cleaning up links"At least two functions here are useful." Stop words in the link"Of course we must" put away". In links created from Russian words, this does not work, but if the links are in English, it will help create cleaner URLs.

    "Delete variable?replytocom"if switched to state" put away", then the formation of duplicate content should be disabled, which on large sites will give a huge increase in the efficiency of search robots in messages with many comments.

    "Redirect old URLs to clean up permalinks. (Not recommended to enable in most cases!)." This setting allows you to redirect links to your site that were made in error. Although this feature is heavily used, it is known to be incompatible with some plugins. If problems are identified in their operation, it must be disabled first. If you enable this setting, two more will open.

    "Prevent Google Site Search from scraping URLs" - URLs Google search engine sometimes they look weird and ugly, but if you use the Google search engine, you may not want to clear them. "Disable" is recommended. If necessary, turn it on later.

    "Prevent clearing Google Analytics and Google AdWords campaign settings" - If you are using Google Analytics campaign parameters starting with ?utm_ , then enable this feature. However, it is not recommended to use it. Instead, use the hash version.

    Just below there is another field where you can enter other variables separated by commas that do not need to be cleared.

    RSS feed settings

    On the next tab RSS you will find RSS feed settings. Considering the fact that this is all prepared for output before each entry, I would not recommend filling out the first field. Because it is impossible to come up with one universal entry that describes all articles well. But in the second field there is a template for displaying information in the RSS feed with links to your blog. Already installed by default good template, which will indicate the address of the original source of the content. But you can change it at your own discretion. The functions that can be used are shown in the table below in the figure.

    Open the next settings section " Tools".

    Yoast SEO Tools


    Instead of settings tabs on the main screen, we see three links to tools with descriptions.

    Group editor

    "Group editor" - will allow you to quickly change the titles and descriptions of your posts and pages without opening and editing individual pages. Very useful tool. I think you will need it sooner or later;

    Import and Export

    "Import and export" - Allows Import settings from other SEO plugins that you have used previously, such as HeadSpace2, All-in-One SEO, WooThemes SEO framework, wpSEO, and also delete old data after importing;

    export these settings for reuse, or for use on another blog;

    import previously saved settings from this blog, or settings from other sites.

    File editor

    "File editor" - will allow you to quickly edit such important files for your site as robots.txt and .htaccess (if available). The editor is extremely simple and intuitive, without any tricks, but clearly performs its main functions, unlike the designer that is in All -in-One SEO pack.

    Open the next section of the menu " Search Console".

    Search Console


    This is a tool for tracking what and when became unavailable on your site. If you look here often, you can discover in time that some material has become unavailable and take action.

    The last section of the menu " Go to premium" - advertising section. Here you will be offered to buy Yoast SEO Premium and extensions to it.

    This concludes our review of the Yoast SEO plugin settings as a whole. As you can see, this Yoast SEO plugin has everything that is present in the All-in-One SEO pack. Many settings are implemented a little worse, but some things are actually done better or there are things that don’t exist anywhere else.

    Let me remind you that the Yoast SEO plugin contains such unusual and very useful things as:

    1. Assessing website SEO settings, detecting problems and issuing recommendations for eliminating them;
    2. Plugin setup wizard for website search engine optimization;
    3. Assessing the readability of the article text and suggestions for its improvement;
    4. SEO assessment of article content by keywords and suggestions for improving SEO;
    5. Correct and functional "File Editor" robots.txt and .htaccess.
    6. Evaluation of SEO design of Rubrics and suggestions for its improvement.
    7. Evaluation of SEO design of Tags and suggestions for its improvement.

    Based on this alone, we can conclude that the Yoast SEO plugin is significantly ahead in its capabilities of All-in-One SEO pack and others SEO plugins for WordPress.

    Next, I want to talk about the coolest feature of the Yoast SEO plugin - analysis and evaluation of the SEO content of an article. Those who have written articles themselves know how difficult it is to evaluate the quality of the content of an article. Is it relevant? Is it optimized? Will it have good readability? Does it have enough volume? These are just the first questions that already lead you to a dead end. The Yoast SEO plugin analyzes your article for much more more parameters, evaluates the quality of its SEO on the fly and, as a result, gives tips on what can be improved. By following these tips, you will quickly learn how to create articles that will appeal to both search engines and visitors. .

    You may also be interested

    In this article, I will talk about how to properly configure the Yoast SEO plugin. This add-on is used to promote a website; its main task is SEO optimization. The plugin is a multifunctional combine in which you can do almost everything you need for promotion. And it is free, in Russian and is intensively updated and improved by developers.

    Thanks to this article, you will understand why this or that function in this plugin is needed, and how to use them all correctly.

    Download the Yoast SEO plugin and install it on your website.

    After activation, you will need to enable advanced settings, since the developers, for security reasons (so that inexperienced webmasters cannot spoil anything for promotion), have disabled them by default.

    To enable advanced settings, you need to go to the “SEO” item, the “Console” sub-item, the “Features” tab and enable the “Advanced page settings” option.

    After saving the changes, you will see that there are more options. Now I will go through each section of the settings and tell you what and why.

    Console

    Console. Notifications from the plugin are indicated here, as well as problems that it found on your site. You can often come across something useful.

    General. There is a “Settings Wizard” that makes setting up the Yoast SEO plugin easy. However, it seems to me that it is better to set everything up yourself. “Text link counter”, which shows whether some articles need to increase their link weight due to linking. There is also a section with information “About the Creators” and the “Restore Settings” function.

    Possibilities. In this tab you can enable or disable certain functions of the plugin. As you remember, at first we included additional options here that will allow you to configure the plugin more finely. Leave all features enabled.

    Information about you. Here you can set information about you that will be shown in Google as an alternative site name. It is not necessary to fill out.

    Webmaster Tools. Here you can confirm the rights to the site in the search engines Bing, Google and Yandex.

    Safety. Here you can enable advanced options for the Yost SEO block, which allow you to set indexing settings that are unique for each post or page. I recommend turning this on if you understand what it's about. If you don't need it yet, then leave it as is.

    Headings and meta data

    General. The character for the separator is set here. It doesn’t matter in principle what exactly will be chosen.

    Home page. Set a title and description for your home page. The header can be left as default - it uses the variables from the WordPress settings.

    Post types. Here you set titles and descriptions for post types. Headings can also be left as default. In addition, for each type you can set unique settings: “Meta robots” - whether these types of posts are indexed or not; “Date in fragment preview”—whether or not to indicate the date in the search results; “Yoast SEO block” - whether the Yoast SEO plugin will show its options in this post type. All types of posts are supported, including custom ones, if any.

    Taxonomies. A similar tab as “Post types”, only for taxonomies. I won’t go into detail, but if you need it, read the description for “Post Types.”

    Archives. Same as “Post Types”, only for archives of posts by date and author. Again, for those who need it, read the explanation for the “Record Types” tab.

    Other. The “Archive subpages” option allows you to remove pages like page/2, etc. from the search index. And the option “Use keywords meta tag?” allows you to enable or disable keywords - a meta tag with keywords, many still use it, although most search engines have stopped taking it into account.

    Social media

    Accounts. Here you can set accounts on social networks that the search engine should associate with your site. Only foreign social networks are supported.

    Facebook. Here you can add Open Graph data for your site, which will be seen and displayed by FaceBook and other social networks. The Yoast SEO plugin allows you to add Open Graph data for each individual post/page.

    Twitter. This is where Open Graph data for Twitter is added and the data type can be selected. You can also add it separately for each entry.

    Pinterest. You can verify your site on the social network Pinterest.

    Google+. You can specify your Google+ account address.

    XML sitemap

    The "Create XML Sitemap" option allows you to enable or disable this feature. If you want the Yoast SEO plugin to make a map, then enable it.

    General. Here you can view the created map and set the maximum number of lines in it.

    Map with a list of users. Includes or removes users from the list. If there is only one user on the site, then there is no point in enabling it.

    Post types. Here certain types of records are added or excluded from the map. If not on the site custom types records, you can leave it as default.

    Excluded entries. You can remove entries from the map by their ID.

    Taxonomies. Here you can include or exclude taxonomies - categories and tags - from XML maps.


    Any questions? Write a comment!

    Hi all! Today I will take apart a super popular plugin - Yoast SEO, designed for SEO website optimization. Although the plugin is in Russian, this will still not be enough for beginners to understand the plugin settings. Therefore, my instructions are to help all beginners and those who want to understand this plugin. I'll show you how to set up the plugin and how to work with it. You can install the Yoast SEO plugin directly from the WordPress admin panel. Go to the tab: Plugins – Add new, enter the name of the plugin in the search form, press Enter, install and activate the plugin.

    Attention! – .

    To start setting up the plugin, go to the tab: SEO.

    On the plugin page, at the top of the page, you will see notifications; close them by clicking on the cross on the right so that they do not bother you or distract you.

    General

    In general settings or in main settings, you can:

    Start presentation You can watch the presentation to understand the plugin settings. Text prompts will appear throughout the presentation.

    View changes you can see latest changes, which occurred in the plugin.

    Restore default settings, you can reset the settings, return everything to its original position.

    About me

    – Site name, here you can change the site name, specify a different name for the site, but this is not necessary. You can also specify an alternative name for the site, especially for Google, but it is also not necessary to do this. You can leave the fields empty, the site name is indicated in the main wordpress settings and this is more than enough for all search engines.

    Company or Individual, choose who you are, if you are a single blogger, then choose – Private person. If the site represents any company, firm, agency, OJSC, LLC, individual entrepreneur, then select – Company.

    Webmaster Tools

    Here you can add your site to popular search engines. Leave the fields blank if you have already added your site to Google, Yandex, Bing, Alexa. To add your site to search engines, follow the link with the name of the search engine. I'll show you using Google as an example.

    You will see a page - Webmaster Center, to confirm the site. You need to copy the Meta tag and add it to the field on the plugin page, webmaster tools.

    Paste the copied Meta tag into the Google Search Console field and click Save changes.

    After that, go back to Google Webmaster and click on the button - Check.

    If everything was done correctly, your rights to the site will be confirmed. It’s the same with other search engines, insert a special meta tag for verification, save the tag and check the site. Only Alexa does not have a meta tag, but a verification ID. Look, to add a site to a search engine, you must have your own account in this search engine, that is, you must have an email, if you don’t have an account, then you will need to first register an account, and only then you can add the site to this search engine system. In general, it is not necessary to add a site to search engines through a plugin; you can do it yourself, manually. I already told you, without a plugin.

    Safety

    Disable Advanced Composition from Yoast SEO meta box. Check the box to allow other authors and editors to manage settings for each post, edit the meta description, etc. If you are the only author on the site, you can uncheck the box for security, so that no one except you can make changes.

    OnPage.org

    Enable OnPage.org indexability check, enable the service to check site indexing, check the box.

    Headings and metadata

    General

    Forced rewrite of headers, It is not recommended to check the box. If you check this box, the plugin will be able to change the headers of your posts; it’s better not to do this. The plugin will strictly adjust your headers to fit the templates, and this is not good for optimization. The headlines should contain not only keywords, but also the human factor, that is, creativity, something from you, and not just everything from a primitive robot. Don't turn it on!

    Header separator, Of course, you can choose any separator for the title, but it seems to me that a vertical stick looks best, so choose it if you agree with me.

    Home page

    Title template, is specified by default, it is not necessary to change it, leave the field empty.

    Meta Description Template, Leave the field blank if you do not want to change the default template.

    By the way, at the top of the page, on the right, click on the tab - Help, here you can see the designation of all templates. If you wish, you can change the templates and add some additions.

    Post types

    Fields – Title Template and Meta description template– leave all values ​​unchanged.

    – Meta Robots, if you check this box, Posts, Pages and Media files will not be indexed by search engines.

    Date in the pre-examination of the fragment, It’s not necessary to check the box, what difference does it make whether the date is indicated there or not, because this is a preview.

    – Yoast SEO meta box, if you check this box, the meta box will not be shown for each post, where you need to indicate a meta description, focus keyword, etc. Don't check the box!

    Taxonomies

    Everything is similar here, the fields are Title Template and Meta description template leave unchanged. If you do not rely on the promotion of Categories and Tags, then you can disable the Yoast SEO meta box for them. The format doesn’t have to be indexed at all, that is, check the Meta Robots box.

    Archives

    Same thing, fields – Title template and Meta description template leave unchanged. Look, if you have problems with duplicate content, that is, identical entries appear in the search, then you can disable Author Archives. If you have been blogging for a long time, then check the do not index box. If you have a new site, then it will be enough to simply disable the archive so that it is not created. It's the same with the date archive.

    Other

    Global META settings, leave all fields blank. I don't see the point in preventing search engines from using the DMOZ or Yahoo directory description, because if you don't use them, then what difference does it make? For Google and Yandex this does not play any role at all. Using the meta keywords tag is, in my opinion, an outdated topic; meta descriptions are more than enough. Previously, there weren’t all these descriptions, keywords, etc., there was a title and that’s it. Over time, they began to complicate everything, to come up with some unnecessary complex functions, but now everything seems to be returning to normal. We’ve already looked at the archives; if you don’t have subpages on your site, then there’s no point in banning them.

    Social media

    Accounts

    You can add the URLs of your social media accounts if you have them, of course, if not, leave the fields blank. Go to your social media home page and copy the URL at the top of the page.

    Facebook

    See, when a link to your site is shared on social networks, your site name, image and description are displayed. You can set all these details for your site's home page if it is shared on Facebook. That is, if the main page of your site is shared on Facebook, the data you provide here, image, title and description, will be displayed. You can also set a default image, that is, if your post or page is shared and there is no image in it, the default image that you specify will be displayed.

    Here you can also add a Facebook administrator for a more detailed analysis of your site on Facebook. But not necessarily.

    Facebook App ID,, I already told you.

    Twitter

    You can choose how your site's posts appear on Twitter. With a picture or just text?

    Pinterest

    You can use your details, title, description and image for the Pinterest social network, just like for Facebook. You need to pass verification, follow the link, copy the meta tag and paste it into the field - Pinterest Verification. If you don't have a Pinterest account, simply skip these settings.

    Google+

    Add metadata to posts for Google+, if you check this box, you will be able to add metadata to each post for Google+. That is, you will be able to specify the title, description and image that will be displayed on Google+ if your post is shared on Google+. You will have a special tab in the Yoast SEO widget for social networks, this widget is displayed on the post and page creation page, I will tell you about it later.

    You also need to enter your Google+ page URL here. And on the Google+ page, on the “About” tab, provide a link to your website in the Links section.

    XML Sitemap

    General

    To activate the XML Site Map, check the box at the top of the page. Here you can view your XML Map by clicking on the button - XML ​​Sitemap. Here you can specify the maximum number of entries for one sitemap page, the default is 1000 entries. If you have performance problems, then lower the number to 100. The XML sitemap displays a list of your posts and pages for indexing in search engines.

    Sitemap with list of users

    There is no need to indicate authors and users in the XML sitemap. If you have a site where many authors are published and you want their names to be indexed, you can leave the checkbox unchecked. And if you have a regular website, then check the box.

    Post types

    Here you can exclude any type of content from the map. Posts and pages do not need to be excluded, but media files can be excluded.

    Excluded entries

    You can exclude some entries from the sitemap by specifying their ID.

    Taxonomies

    If you don’t use tags or categories on your site, then there’s no point in excluding them. And if you use a lot of categories or tags, then it’s better not to exclude.

    Additionally

    Breadcrumbs

    You can enable breadcrumb trail. Breadcrumbs or breadcrumbs are the path from the page you started on to the page you are currently on. If you want to enable the chain, then check the box, do not change anything in the settings, save the settings.

    Here you can enable the function to remove stop words from post labels, although this is not at all necessary. Sometimes stop words can even help make a more precise request. I wouldn't include anything here at all. If you don't use RSD files then there is no point in hiding them, the same goes for the rest, why hide short links? It’s not clear why they are worse than regular links. It's better to leave everything as it is, by default.

    RSS

    Here you can set up an RSS feed for your site. You can add content that will appear before each post in the feed. And you can add a content template that will be displayed after each post. For each template, explanations are displayed at the bottom of the page.

    Tools

    Group editor, With this tool you can quickly edit the titles and descriptions of your posts and pages.

    Import and export, You can import or export the settings of any SEO plugin from site to site.

    File editor, will help you edit files – .htaccess and . And if you don’t have these files, you can create them.

    – Recalculate SEO scores, a tool for calculating keywords. Click on the link and your score will be displayed.

    Search Engine Console

    Here you can connect the Yoast SEO plugin to the Google Webmaster Console so that the plugin can receive detailed information about your site. Click on the button – Get authorization code from Google. A window will open where you need to click on the button - Allow.

    Paste the code into the special field and click on the button - Authentication.

    You should see the address of your website, click on the button - Save profile. The site will only appear if you have added it to Google search.

    Now on the page Search Engine Console, you will be able to observe the indexing date of the records, the response code of the records. It is also possible to observe the display of the site on Smartphones and communicators.

    Metadata for posts and pages

    Go to the page for creating a post or page; at the bottom of the page you will see a special widget.

    Content

    Here you can change the Title and Description of the post that will be displayed in search results on the browser search page. When a person searches for something through a search, he is shown a list of sites with titles and descriptions, and this data will be displayed in the search results.

    Focus keyword Indicate here the word that best characterizes your entry, that is, a generalizing word. For example, if you are talking in a post about how to lose weight, then the focal keyword will be “Weight Loss.”

    Additionally

    IN additional settings you can block the entry from indexing, that is, so that search engines do not index your site. If you are using breadcrumbs, you can specify a Post Title for the breadcrumbs. You don't have to specify the canonical URL if you don't have problems with duplicate pages. The canonical URL is the main URL of the post. In general, if you do not want to change anything here, then do not change the settings.

    Here you can specify for the post – Title, Description and Image, which will be displayed on the specified social network if your post is shared on social networks. You can leave these fields blank if you don't want to change the basic meta data, title, description, and image.

    Keyword Research

    At the top of the WordPress admin panel, you will have a new tab - SEO

    – External Adwords, you can go to the Google AdWords service and see popular queries in Google search. That is, you can find out how popular a particular query is in Google search. Number of views...

    – Google Insights, you can see popular trends on Google.

    – SEO book, website about SEO, in order to receive training materials, you need to register. True, the site is in English.

    And also, on the main page of the WordPress admin panel, you will have an SEO post review widget. By clicking on the button – Analyze entire site, you can analyze your site using special tools. You will need to register on the site to access your statistics.

    Attention! The plugin has been updated! Read the new instructions HERE!!! – .

    That's all for me, I'm waiting for your comments, good luck and see you again!


    Setting up the Yoast plugin SEO WordPress new instructions updated: April 23, 2018 by: Ilya Zhuravlev