How to set up the Yoast SEO plugin. Yoast SEO is the best SEO plugin for WordPress.

Those who have a website have heard about SEO at least once. And most often, novice webmasters create their websites using the WordPress CMS. But what is the best plugin to use for SEO on this CMS? On the website www.. Thanks a large number functions and features, plugin WordPress SEO by Yoast is a good competitor to the famous All in One SEO Pack plugin.

This plugin has quite a lot of functions that are related to the technical part and micro markup. Therefore, I advise you to study past articles on the topic of website micro-markup:

In this article we will look at how to install, configure this plugin on your website, as well as how to use all the functions that are there. And at the end you will find a small test that will help you check how you have learned the material from this article.

Features of the plugin "WordPress SEO by Yoast"

Now I want to look at this plugin to briefly tell you what capabilities it has and how it can be useful to you:

Filling out the title, description and keywords tags for each article, page or category on the site;
Preview of the snippet, how it will look in the Google search engine;
focus word for article analysis;
use of meta tags noodp, noydir;
- Meta tag noodp— used to ensure that the name of your site and its description are not taken from DMOZ.
- Meta tag noydir- used to ensure that the name of your site and its description are not taken from the Yahoo directory.
Using meta tags noindex, nofollow for archives, categories and pages (post type in CMS WordPress);
Ability to add a tag canonical for categories, posts, pages, as well as for the main page;
Ability to add your own fields to RSS;
Support "";
Create an XML sitemap with:
- Images.
- Excluding certain types of posts.
- Pages with the noindex meta tag may also be excluded from the XML sitemap.
Built-in file editor .htaccess And robots.txt;
integration with the service Google Webmaster;
basic ability to import data from the All in One SEO Pack plugin;

This plugin has a paid version with additional features:

Ability to set redirects (redirections) from page to page;
video training on how to use the plugin;
Yoast plugin customer support;

Agree, the functionality is really impressive. Therefore, next we will look at how to install this plugin on your website. A little later we will look at the process of setting up the plugin.

(instructions) How to install the plugin on the site?

Naturally, before you start configuring this plugin, you need to install it. There are really many installation methods. In this short video you will learn how to install the "WordPress SEO by Yoast" plugin on your website running CMS WordPress.

Video installation instructions

If you did not understand these instructions, then you can read the text version with screenshots below.

So, let's look at the installation process in screenshots, if you did not understand it from the video. First of all, go to the WordPress console and go to the “Plugins” section:

Click the button at the top of the page Add new". A window appears in front of us where we can enter the name of the required plugin and WordPress will start searching for it among the plugins that are officially uploaded to "wordpress.org/plugins":

We need to enter the name of our plugin that we want to install. Previously, the plugin had a long name - "WordPress SEO by Yoast", but now it will be enough to enter the phrase " Yoast SEO":

And the required plugin will appear first in the search results:

The plugin installation process will take some time. But the main advantage of using this method of installing plugins is that you do not need to download the archive with the plugin to your computer.

After installation, a message indicating the successful installation of the plugin will appear. Now you need to “Activate” it:

You should remember that the plugin settings that you will see below are the settings that we recommend. Different SEO optimizers may have their own unique settings. And also more advanced webmasters can ignore some settings and know what exactly they do not need and what needs to be disabled. If you are a beginner and want to use the Yoast SEO plugin on your website, then follow the steps very carefully and carefully.

Plugin version discussed in this article: 3.0.7

General settings of the Yoast SEO plugin

After installing the plugin and activating it, the “SEO” item appeared in the menu on the left, where all the settings for this plugin are located. Click on this item and you will be taken to next page With general settings:

On this page you can:

Using a button "Start Presentation" Watch a short presentation to understand the plugin settings. Fortunately, most of the plugin has been translated into Russian;
via button "View changes" find out what new things the creators have added and what you need to use first;
Well, if you suddenly did something wrong in the settings, then use the button "Restore default settings" You can restore the initial settings.

This concerns the first tab. Go ahead and open the tab " About me":

Two fields in the first block "Site name":

Site name;
alternative site name.

It doesn't make much sense to fill out these two fields. By default, the site name that you filled in at the very beginning is displayed, when WordPress installation. It can be changed either here or in the "Settings" item on the left in the menu.

And the last item on this tab:

Company or Individual.

Where you can indicate what your site represents, as well as enter a name when selecting an item from the drop-down list. This meta data is used by the Google search engine when searching. It looks more like a formality, so it doesn’t play a significant role.

Next tab " Webmaster Tools":

A very useful feature in this plugin for those who have just installed WordPress and now need to link Google Webmaster, Yandex.Webmaster, Bing WebMaster and the Alexa service.

The advantage is that you don’t need to go into the code and look for the area between the tags And, or upload the file to the server via FTP. You just need to use the method of confirming rights to the site using a meta tag and then simply paste the resulting meta tag into the appropriate field. Then check for the right service presence of a meta tag on the site. A useful feature that saves a lot of time.

Leave this checkbox if you have several authors or moderators on your site who write articles for you and you want them not to have the ability to prohibit indexing of individual posts and so that they cannot control the search output of pages. This way, they will only be able to write articles, and you will be responsible for everything else.

And the last tab " OnPage.org":

If the checkbox is checked, indexing of your site by the search robot of this service will be allowed. For Russian-language sites, there is no point in allowing indexing, so you can uncheck the box.

Settings item "Headers and metadata"

Here you will see 6 tabs that are really important and require attention. Now let's look at each of them in detail.

1. General

Using the checkbox " Force header rewrite"You can let the Yoast SEO plugin independently rewrite headers where it deems it necessary. I left this checkbox because I want the headers entered in the plugin field to overwrite the standard post headers.

Also on this page you can select " Header separator", which will be shown in search results:

There are a total of 13 separators in the plugin. Therefore there is a choice. A little later we'll look at where this separator appears in the title template.

2. Home page

Next, we will define the title, description and keywords for the main page. By default, a template is inserted there, with the help of which the title is generated. But for the main page these values can be static. Therefore, I recommend entering your values yourself once.

Title template- main page.
Meta description template— enter description.
Keyword pattern— enter several keywords.

But for posts, pages and media files, these values are generated dynamically, which we will look at right now.

3. Post types

By default, the WordPress CMS has several post types: post, page, media file, and so on. And authors have the opportunity to independently choose its type for each entry:

The Yoast SEO plugin also automatically fills in the Title field and all you have to do is enter a description and keywords. But where are these fields? The Yoast SEO plugin adds a special block at the end of each post and page:

Be sure to manually fill out the Title and Description to get maximum benefits. I showed how to do this in this version of the plugin in the GIF image below:

That is, just click on the desired field and enter the required value.

I also want to look at the template for creating the Title. For example, the following template was introduced there to form the header " %%title%% %%page%% %%sep%% %%sitename%%":

%%title%% is the title of the entry.
%%page%%— page number. For example "Page 2 of 3".
%%sep%%- this is the separator that we looked at in the first “General” tab.

As you understand, there are much more such variables. But there is no point in writing all of them within the framework of this article. We've looked at the most important ones. You can remove some variables to form the Title as you wish. It is recommended to leave only the title.

4. Taxonomies

In addition to the main pages and posts, WordPress has categories and tags. After all, you can also promote categories in search engines. And thus you will have even more pages in the search. But you need to be careful here because duplicates may appear. However, this is not what we are talking about now. By default, the most common template is specified, which is used on most sites. Here you can not change anything and leave it as is. But if you want to change something, do it with caution.

I also want to remind you once again that the Yoast SEO plugin adds a special block at the end of each post, page and category. Therefore, in the “Categories” section, by selecting the required category, you can change its description and title.

In addition to categories, you can also promote a page with a specific tag (label). There is a similar situation with its description and title. In the "Tags" section for any tag you can configure the necessary fields.

5. Archives

Here you can specify meta information for pages with an archive of authors, an archive by date, and special pages (for example, a 404 page).

If you run your website alone, then your articles are completely duplicated in the author’s archive. Therefore, it is better to disable it by checking the box next to " Disable author archives".

Regarding the archive by date, here you can only check the box " Add noindex, follow to archive by date". This is done in order to avoid duplication of content.

Below on this page are settings for the search page and 404 page. Here we leave everything as is.

6. Other

This tab contains global settings. Here I recommend checking the last two boxes:

"Add globally noodp meta robots"— we prohibit search engines from taking descriptions from the DMOZ catalog. Because that description is entered by the moderators of this directory, and it is not always the most attractive.
"Add globally noydir meta robots"— we also prohibit taking a description from the Yahoo directory;

Hi all! Any blog is doomed in advance if it does not have an SEO plugin installed. The main purpose of the SEO plugin is to add meta tags, description and keywords to blog pages. It is these meta tags that search engines primarily use to determine what the article is about. And if keywords are no longer relevant for a long time, then the absence of title and description can seriously slow down the development of a blog; their absence is a serious mistake in internal optimization.

There are quite a lot of SEO plugins and it’s not for me to judge which one is better. For example, at the moment I am using the All In One Seo Pack plugin, which I wrote a little about. But I think that you shouldn’t focus on one plugin and therefore I decided to try out the capabilities of other SEO plugins. In this article I will introduce you to the plugin Yoast WordPress SEO, I’ll tell you how to set it up, and what advantages and disadvantages it has over other SEO plugins.

You can download the plugin from the official website. At the moment the most current version is 3.1.1. The installation is standard.

Setting up the Yoast Seo plugin

After installing and activating the plugin, a special section will appear in the blog admin panel where plugin settings are available.

We will now analyze all the settings in detail.

General settings

There are five items in the general settings of the Yoast Seo plugin:

1. General.

Here you can view a presentation on setting up the plugin or reset everything previous settings to return everything to its original state.

2. About the site.

In this tab you need to indicate the name of the site and you can select whether you are a company or an individual. Of course, the blogger should indicate “Private person”.

3. Webmaster tools.

In webmaster tools, you can specify identifiers to confirm site ownership. This feature is useful if you have not yet submitted your blog to search engines. If your blog is already known to search engines, then you can skip these settings.

4. Security.

The security enable feature is very useful if you are not the only one who has access to the blog admin area. By enabling security in the Yoast Seo plugin, you will prevent other users from changing the plugin settings such as redirects, prohibiting indexing and adding some attributes.

5.OnPage.org

If you want to enable the service to check site indexing, you can activate the option.

Headings and metadata

Actually the name speaks for itself, what can be configured here.

1. General.

You can enable the plugin to automatically rewrite article titles, but I don’t recommend it. In any case, it is better to write headers manually.

You also need to specify a separator for the title. This function is only needed if you use a title format like this:

Article title/Blog title

2. Home page.

You must specify templates for the title and meta description of the blog. For the title template, I recommend entering the value %%sitename%%, so as not to generate a title in which there is a lot excess garbage But the description must be written in full.

3. Post types.

In this tab, you can set various meta tag settings for each type of post separately - for pages, for posts and for media files.

The settings are identical to the previous tab. In the “Title Template” field you need to enter %%sitename%%. You don’t have to fill out the meta description template at all; I recommend doing it manually for each article separately.

I would like to draw your attention to the title template for pages. I recommend writing it in this format - %%title%% %%sitename%%. This is necessary to make your blog pages unique. The simple fact is that almost all blogs have pages with the same names, such as “Services”, “Competitions”, “About the author”, etc.

It is also possible to specify a ban on indexing a certain type of record by activating the “Meta Robots” meta tag. Of course, there is no need to prohibit indexing of pages and blog posts, but it is better to ban the “Media files” post type, otherwise the index will contain a huge number of duplicate attachment pages.

4. Taxonomies.

The settings for this tab are identical to the previous one. Here we configure the display template and indexing status for blog categories and tags.

5. Archives.

This tab is similar to the previous post types. They can be left as is by default.

In addition, you can edit the blog search page template and 404 pages.

Be sure to disable indexing of archive pages!

6. Other.

Here you can activate or, conversely, disable only three values:

Indexing of archive pages like /page/2, /page/3, etc. I recommend activating the ban. Such pages are garbage in search engine results and there is no point in indexing them.

Using the keywords meta tag. It's up to you to decide, I don't use it.

Adding a NOODP meta tag. This meta tag tells search robots not to take the name and description of the blog from the DMOZ trust directory.

The Yoast Seo plugin makes working with social media very convenient. networks. Some settings are missing in other SEO plugins.

1. Accounts.

2. Facebook.

To make the posts you share on Facebook look good, you need to enable the Open Graph meta data. This is a kind of micro markup for social networks. I mentioned her too.

3. Twitter.

In this tab we add Twitter card metadata. Their use can also be disabled, but I recommend enabling them. In addition, you can choose one of two Twitter card options:

Summary;
Brief content with a big picture.

The point is that in the first option, the announcement will simply contain the title of the page and a link to the post, and in the second, an image (thumbnail) will also be added to this announcement.

4. Pinterest.

Pinterest uses Open Graph metadata similar to Facebook. In Runet this social. the network is not popular, so you can skip this step. But if you are interested in Pinterest, you can add a meta tag in this tab and thereby confirm ownership of the site.

5. Google+

Include metadata for Google and add a link to the Google+ group and its owner's page.

XML Sitemap

Sitemap in XML format helps search engine robots better navigate the blog and promptly points to new entries, thereby speeding up their indexing.

Therefore activate this map definitely worth it.

1. General.

The default value is 1000 lines in the sitemap. This is quite enough for a regular website. If you have a huge portal, you can specify a higher value.

2. Site map with a list of users.

3. Post types.

Here you can mark the types of content that should be in the site map. Post and page post types must be included. But turn off attachment immediately.

4. Excluded entries.

You can also forcefully disable some specific pages from the XML sitemap. To do this, you just need to enter their ID numbers separated by commas. These could be subscription pages or a thank you page for the first comment.

5. Taxonomies.

We choose whether to add categories and tags to the site map. Categories are worth adding, but tags should be excluded.

Additionally

In this tab you can specify various additional blog settings.

1. Breadcrumb trail.

Breadcrumbs are breadcrumbs. If your template does not have this wonderful addition, you can activate it in the Yoast Seo plugin and customize it.

You need to be more careful with your permalink settings. This will help you avoid many problems with your blog in the future.

Redirect the attachment URL to the parent post URL. By enabling this item, you will activate redirection from subcategory pages to category pages. That is, a redirect from these types of pages:

To these pages:

Why is this necessary, you ask? It's simple. The greater the nesting depth of a page, the slower it is indexed and the less weight it has.

Remove stop words from labels. By activating this feature, you will enable the plugin to remove stop words from the URL.

Tools

There are four powerful tools in this section:

Group editor. With it, you can quickly change the metadata of all published pages. A very useful feature when there are hundreds of pages on a blog and they need to be optimized.

Import and export. Thanks to it, you can export metadata settings from other SEO plugins. A useful thing if you decide to change your SEO plugin to Yoast Seo.

File editor. Helps you instantly edit such important files as robots.txt and .htaccess.

Recalculate SEO score. Yoast Seo plugin can give ratings SEO optimization and make recommendations for its improvement. With this tool you can periodically check how up-to-date your post optimization is.

Search Engine Console

If you want, you can link the plugin and your Google Webmaster account. I haven’t tried this, so I can’t say whether it’s worth doing. If you use this function, write in the comments: is it worth connecting Google Search Console to the Yoast Seo plugin?

Extensions

The developers of the Yoast Seo plugin have other premium plugins that you can buy if necessary:

Yoast SEO Premium is the same as Yoast Seo but with some additional features.
Video SEO – video content optimization plugin.
News SEO – optimization plugin for news sites.
Local SEO is a plugin for optimizing regional sites.

How to use the Yoast Seo plugin on a WordPress blog?

After you have installed and configured the Yoast Seo plugin, a block will appear on the editor page for adding posts and pages where you can add and change page metadata.

Which is better All In One Seo Pack or Yoast Seo?

I have always been a supporter of the first plugin, but after trying out the capabilities of the second, I completely switched to it. I consider the advantages of Yoast Seo over All In One Seo Pack:

Ability to close duplicate replytocom pages;
Possibility of both mass and single editing of snippets;
The ability to block junk pagination pages, tags, etc. from indexing.
Possibility of adding (some use separate plugins for this);
Possibility of import and export SEO settings;
For Woocommerce online stores there is no need to install an additional SEO plugin. (With the All In One Seo Pack plugin, I had to install an additional plugin - Woocommerce All In One Seo Pack for an online store of premium WordPress themes);

Personally, these advantages seemed to me to be more than enough to finally move to Yoast Seo.

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, like most WordPress users, once started SEO on my site with the 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. This SEO method gives significantly better 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 message “Great job! No serious SEO problems found” will appear.

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 settings plugin 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 It’s not clear to me at all. A 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 to 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 unwanted 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 feature-rich tool that allows you to find and resolve technical errors and shortcomings, work on site optimization, monitor the visibility and presentation of the project in Google search results. When you press the " Authentication with 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 them. Now Yoast SEO will analyze your articles for readability and make recommendations on what can be improved. A very important and useful feature. This is not found 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 give recommendations on what else can be improved. In my opinion, this is the most important function in SEO optimization of articles. 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 administrative panel is bloated after installing each plugin, and additional functions are actually configured only once. So after configuration, their names can be hidden and they will not clutter the main menu. The effect of this setting extends and to the point " 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 top menu administrative panel. The menu contains a list of keyword analysis tools and an SEO settings menu. Given that there are links to third party keyword analysis tools, it is best to include. Additional utility 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. Default this function only available 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 your mouse over the name of the browser tab with the main page 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 to separate different parts of the 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 extra work it is not intended to work with media files; 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.

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 Posts and Pages must be created. 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 Yandex views your sitemap, Yandex webmaster will display an error message in your sitemap: “Invalid record format 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 normally, but Yandex is so far 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 a plugin. The Webcraftic Clearfy plugin has a feature to remove image:image tags from the XML sitemap generated 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 posts are stored in the database as messages. This means that they are available at their own URL. If you do not redirect them, they will be redirected to the posts to which they were attached. I personally do not understand the function. In terms of meaning Having said that, it turns out that in any position redirection will be performed. I think it would be more correct to set it to the " position. 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 campaign settings Google Analytics And Google AdWords " - 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. A 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:

Assessing website SEO settings, detecting problems and issuing recommendations for eliminating them;
Plugin setup wizard for website search engine optimization;
Assessing the readability of the article text and suggestions for its improvement;
SEO assessment of article content by keywords and suggestions for improving SEO;
Correct and functional "File Editor" robots.txt and .htaccess.
Evaluation of SEO design of Rubrics and suggestions for its improvement.
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 the All-in-One SEO pack and other 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. .

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.

= While in WordPress

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

Manually

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

= After activation

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

Yoast SEO is a great plugin that helps you set up your website for search engine optimization and properly tailor your articles to the right ones. search queries. Below you will find a full video on setting up and using Yoast, and this will be a text version of the instructions.

So let's start setting it up. There is a quick settings option, I’ll tell you about it right away.

Achtung! All code described in this article must be added to your theme's functions.php file. But it's more convenient to use.

Quick Settings

I have prepared for you special file with settings. Just download and import it

Attention! Current version of Yoast SEO 7+. In this version, there have been dramatic changes to the interface. The settings information in this article is temporarily out of date

How to import? Very simple: go SEO → Tools → Import tab

Upload the downloaded file and that’s it. If the import is successful, a corresponding message will appear.

Now all that remains is to add your data in the Information and Social Networks section.

Setting up Yoast SEO

Now let's go in detail and in order. And first we have General Settings

General settings

Console

Various messages will appear on the Console tab indicating problems that may occur. If everything is configured correctly, then usually there are no problems.

General

Settings Wizard allows you to configure Yoast in visual mode. That is, everything that is written in this article is only more beautiful.

Text link counter— special functionality of the Yoast plugin. Allows you to analyze internal links and correctly configure internal linking.

About the creators— the section allows you to view information about the developers of the Yoast plugin.

Restore default settings— reset all settings to original ones. Sometimes it is necessary.

Possibilities

This is where the settings begin. Not everything on this tab needs to be included.

Readability analysis and SEO optimization Usually they are turned on, but if you turn it off, these important tabs in the Yoast metabox will be cut off when editing an article.

And the whole point of using the Yoast SEO plugin will be lost.

Switch Additional settings disables all additional functionality of the plugin. In previous versions, this plugin was disabled by default and the settings were not shown.

Setting up Ryte— includes the ability to integrate into a special, imported service for monitoring the indexing of your site. It costs some crazy money and does not work with our search engines. You can and should turn it off. And you can also monitor it through Metrica.

Admin Panel Menu— duplication of various information in the top bar.

I usually turn off this functionality, but if it’s convenient for you, you can leave it on.

Key Content— special Yoast functionality. If the site has several articles on the same topic, it allows you to indicate the most important article. You can turn it off if you don't intend to use it.

Text link counter. I already mentioned this above, if you’re not going to use it, turn it off.

Information about you

On this tab, it is advisable to indicate what you need. This information is necessary for the correct formation of the basic one. For me it looks like this

For a commercial site you need to do this

These settings help create the desired snippet in search results. For example, this site looks something like this

Webmaster Tools

This tab is intended for conveniently adding a site to the webmaster accounts of various search engines. Receive the data and add it to the required fields. The video above explains this in detail.

Safety

We are done with the general settings. Watch the video for details starting at 2:22.