Yoast Seo plugin for WordPress – installation and configuration. Yoast SEO is the best SEO plugin for WordPress.

Hello friends. I already told you that to increase traffic you need to optimize articles, but “naked” WordPress does not natively provide this feature. Don't despair! There are plugins that allow you to set title, description and others important parameters for SEO. One of the best is the Yoast SEO plugin, and we’ll talk about how to configure it correctly today.

What is this plugin for?

I will list the possibilities Yoast plugin SEO for a WordPress blog.

Allows you to fill out title, description and keywords meta tags (I don’t fill in keywords - it’s outdated);
Snippet preview for Google;
Automatically builds an XML sitemap;
Allows you to remove bread crumbs;
You can confirm rights to Yandex Webmaster directly from the admin panel (convenient for beginners);
Add semantic markup for social media. networks (Open Graph).

This is the block that appears when writing an article. Extremely convenient!

If you are using another plugin, please do so. But if you’ve given up on optimization, run and set it up!

After installation, the SEO icon will appear in the left menu.

Now about each section in detail.

General

You can set “allow anonymous tracking of the parameters of this site” - this will not affect the optimization of your blog, but developers will be able, based on the collected anonymous statistics, to make the plugin even better.

Be careful with the “reset to default” button. Once you have everything set up, do not click it, otherwise the headings and structure may change, which will negatively affect the blog.

General – your info

Here we set the name of the site and its description “Website name” and “Alternate name”.

In the “Company or person” section, select “person” - private person.

Webmaster Tools

As I said, very convenient function for those who are afraid to get into the code.

You simply paste the resulting meta tags into the fields, and the Yoast SEO functionality itself will display them in the template between the “head” tags.

Safety

Headings and Metadata - General

Be sure to check the “Enable force rewrite titles” checkbox. It allows you to overwrite standard headers with those that we will create ourselves.

“Title separator” is a symbol that is placed between the title of the article and the name of the site, for example: “SEO plugin for WordPress - Webvim blog.” I don’t use this format; I don’t think it’s the best for blog promotion. I’ll show you how to set this up later, for now just select any one.

Home page

Set the title and description for the main page.

This depends on what template you have installed. Most often, the latest entries are displayed on the main page, then fill out both fields. I wrote my blog myself and instead of the main one I substitute separate page and the description is taken from it. I advise you to fill it out - it won’t be superfluous.

Post types

There are several types of posts in WordPress: we are most interested in “posts” and “pages”.

We set a simple template, like in my screenshot. And for maximum effect, we will fill out the title and description on each page.

Taxonomies

Taxonomies include categories and tags (labels). These pages can also be promoted as posts.

I use the same template for all types. This is not so important here; we will still fill out the tags on the categories page.

Headings and Metadata - Rest

I unchecked all the boxes here.

“Noindex for subpages and archives” - I don’t hide such pages;
“Use meta keywords” - I don’t use keywords, they are outdated;
“Tags noodp and noydir” - for the Yahoo search engine and DMOZ catalog, which are not relevant for Russian-language sites.

Go to the next section in the left menu.

Social networks - Accounts

Facebook

Adds semantic markup for Facebook.

Twitter

Metadata for Twitter. In addition to the checkbox, select “Summary content with a large picture” - an image will be inserted into the tweet, and, as we know, there are more clicks on such tweets.

I leave my Pinterest and Google+ tabs empty. First social the network is not popular in the CIS countries, and the second one, after 2014, does not support the display of the author’s photograph in search results, so there is no point.

XML sitemap

One of the most important sections in the WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin. Read carefully!

The XML map shows any changes on the blog to search robots. Without a map, the blog will be indexed extremely poorly, and particularly distant entries may not be reached at all.

We enable the construction of a site map by checking the first box. If your site is slow, try decreasing the value in the “Max entries per sitemap” field. The default value is 1000 and most users do not experience problems.

Sitemap with list of users

I am writing a blog alone, so I checked the “Disable sitemap with list of authors and users” checkbox so that there is no unnecessary information in the sitemap.

Post types

Taxonomies

We exclude labels and formats from the map.

Breadcrumbs - bread crumbs

We check the “Enable breadcrumbs” checkbox and paste the code that is offered to us into the template.

A small announcement from the Night Blogger: “I promoted myself to 4,000 people/day in 5 months and didn’t spend a penny on links, do you want to know how? Take part in the marathon “Seo is easy!”

Hello. Today there will be a lesson about best seo plugin - WordPress SEO by Yoast. The idea for the article was taken from one cool WordPress site and here is a link to the original article about the WordPress SEO plugin by Yoast. May Vitaly forgive me, but the plugin is so good that I decided to write about it on my blog. As many people know, I use mine in the form of a cheat sheet, all the necessary information on plugins, different settings I'm looking on my own blog, no matter how strange it may sound. It's impossible to keep everything in your head. And I like my own style of articles better, naturally.

Read the lesson from cover to cover and you will understand why I, like many, consider WordPress SEO by Yoast the best SEO plugin for WordPress.

Setting up the WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin

As always, first we need to download the WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin.
Next we need to enable the Keywords field for the plugin (it is disabled by default). To do this, in the WordPress admin panel -> SEO -> Headings and metadata -> check the box next to “Use meta keywords?”:
After this, we get rid of the unnecessary All in SEO Pack or in my case (if, of course, you had them). To do this, leave both plugins active (WordPress SEO by Yoast and Platinum SEO Pack), in the WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin settings go to the “Import and Export” section:
Since I had the Platinum SEO Pack installed, I check the box next to “Import from OLD” All-in-One SEO? and click on the “Import” button:
All metadata has been imported. To check this, you can go into the editor of any post and see that WordPress SEO by Yoast already duplicates the data from the Platinum SEO Pack plugin:
Now we need to copy the descriptions and keywords (description and keywords) of the main page. To do this, copy the site description from Platinum settings SEO Pack (or another one, if your plugin is different from mine), go to the WordPress admin panel -> SEO -> Headings and metadata -> Main menu and paste it into the appropriate field. Same with keywords. I made the name template like this "%%sitedesc%% | %%sitename%% %%page%% " (without quotes), provided that in Settings -> General I wrote “site” in the title, and the selected one in the description title.
The Platinum SEO Pack plugin can be safely disabled.
Here are my “checkboxes” in the WordPress SEO by Yoast settings in the “Headings and Metadata” -> General section (if you don’t use , you don’t need to check the “Hide post short link” checkbox!):
You have already seen the “Main Menu” above; I did not touch the other sections on this blog. The only thing is that on FanBar we had to tinker a little in the “Post Types” section, but still we couldn’t get the title of the posts perfect (there were no problems with this with the Platinum SEO Pack).
In the “Social networks” section you can add links to your account on Google+, Twitter, Facebook. What and why is described in great detail:
In the “XML Site Map” section, I did not include the site map of this plugin, since everything already works fine for me using . WITH using WordPress SEO by Yoast You can get rid of the old plugin:
Section “Permanent links”. One of the coolest sections of the plugin. Here I put one single checkmark next to “Delete variables?replytocom”:

I checked this box to get rid of the so-called “snot” on Google. Snot– these are unnecessary pages that are in the index. You've probably noticed that on Google you have a lot more pages in the index than in Yandex? Type the expression “site:https://site/” into Google (without quotes, with the address of your site), you will see that a huge number of pages are in the index:

Then enter the expression “site:https://site/&” into Google, and these are the real pages:

So, “site:https://site/&” minus “site:https://site/” equals your “snot”.. Go to the last page of the search results, click on the “Show hidden results” button:

And again we go to last pages output result:
Wow they are! And there are a huge number of such pages in the index!!! So, the developers of the WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin assure that by checking the box next to “Remove variables?replytocom” (see step 14), these unnecessary pages will be removed from the index. I read reviews from other webmasters, and this is actually true. Well, this is a huge plus for this plugin.
Next comes the “Breadcrumbs” section; I don’t touch it, since I displayed them using . Thanks to WordPress SEO by Yoast, the following own and client sites will have 2 fewer plugins:
In the “RSS” section you can send your text + links along with your feed:
I already spoke about the “Import and Export” section above:
In the “Edit files” section you can edit the robots.txt and htaccess file directly from the admin panel:
I was also pleasantly surprised by the settings for writing posts: there is a preview, you can also set “focal keyword” and analyze how many times it is mentioned in the header, title, content, etc.:
Nearby there is a cool “Page Analysis” function, where you can learn a lot of new and interesting things about your article:

You will also need to remove the words "Archives" in the Taxonomies section ("Headings and Metadata"), and also have the second and subsequent pages of the site displayed in Russian (Page 2 of 5, instead of Page 2 of 5). To do this through FTP client open the file wpseo-functions.php, which is located in /wp-content/plugins/wordpress-seo/inc, find line 169 there and translate the expression “Page” and “of”.

That's it. I really hope that thanks to WordPress SEO by Yoast I can get rid of many unnecessary pages in the Google index. Oh how they irritate me :). I just switched to this cool plugin with the Platinum SEO Pack yesterday. 🙂 How are you, with me? 🙂

And yes, I almost forgot: a cool competition has been launched on jonyit.ru, the prize fund is 40,000 rubles! I invite you

Optimizing your website for search engines should start with the right settings. meta tags And headers in all articles, pages and sections of the blog, special SEO plugins like WordPress SEO by Yoast are suitable for solving this problem. In this article, let's take a look under the hood of this powerful machine, whose name is WordPress SEO by Yoast, and talk about its correct setting and some useful tricks.

Figure 2. WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin tab in the WP Admin Panel

Once the plugin is installed, it must be activated. To do this, go to the page of installed plugins:

Figure 3. Activating the WordPress SEO plugin

Click on the Activate button, now the plugin is activated, and a menu item will appear in the Admin panel SEO.

Pay attention! If you don’t, then the WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin will complain!

To check if everything is in order, go to the menu item SEO >>> General. If you see something like this, you need to set up permalinks for your blog:

Figure 4. URL error

The plugin complains that the WordPress settings do not contain the postname variable in the URL. This variable indicates that the post title will be included.

You can click the Fix button, you will be taken to setting up permalinks in WP. Here you need to set everything as in the screenshot:

Figure 5. Setting the appearance of permalinks

But this won't be enough. I talked in more detail about setting up permalinks on the WP engine in the article. Follow the instructions in this article and the WordPress SEO plugin will not be angry with your blog settings.

That's all, the plugin is fully functional, let's move on to the next chapter.

I’ll add on my own behalf: before switching to the WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin, I recommend testing it on an experimental blog.

Benefits of the WordPress SEO by Yoast Plugin

WordPress SEO by Yoast is an all-in-one SEO plugin. The functionality of its capabilities is comparable to at least 4 separate plugins.

Let's see what useful features SEO by Yoast plugin can do:

Import all settings from other popular SEO plugins. If you previously used plugins such as All in One SEO Pack or Platinum SEO Pack, all title and meta data can be transferred automatically;
High level of security;
Wide range of metadata and header settings. Everyone can customize WordPress work SEO by Yoast with metadata for your site. There is a separate editor for Titles and Descriptions of articles, which allows you to speed up the work of filling them out;
Setting up SEO in various types records, including taxonomy;
Page analysis on ;
Creating an XML sitemap for search engines;
Creation ;
Removing links from the site code that create duplicates.

These are the main advantages of this plugin.

Import data from other SEO plugins

Tool data import allows you to transfer all headings and meta tags from the old SEO plugin to WordPress SEO automatically, meaning you don’t have to do it lying.

If your blog has good traffic, then switching to the WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin, for example, from the All in One SEO Pack module, at first may negatively affect the position in the search results of both Yandex and Google. Therefore, in this case, I do not recommend sudden changes.

If you have just started creating a blog or created it not so long ago, and your blog does not have high indicators, then feel free to switch to WordPress SEO.

After installation and activation, if you have articles with completed meta data, you need to import the data.

To do this, go to the tab SEO >>> Tools >>> Import and Export:

Figure 6. Importing data into WordPress SEO by Yoast

In Figure 6 we see the settings import and export page. I used arrows to show 4 tabs:

Import. In this section you can download SEO settings as a file in .ZIP format;
Export. Export WordPress SEO settings to back up data or import it to another site;
Import from other SEO plugins. If you have used SEO plugins such as HeadSpace2, All-in-One SEO or WooThemes SEO framework, then in this section you can transfer all settings to WordPress SEO by Yoast;
Import from other plugins. Import data from other plugins;

Let's look at the Import from other SEO plugins tool in detail. This tool allows you to transfer all the titles and meta data that are filled in for each article in one click.

Let's look at the transfer of SEO data using the All-in-One SEO Pack plugin as an example:

Figure 7. Importing data from the All-in-One SEO Pack plugin

Figure 7 shows the data transfer settings. To do this, simply check the box next to Import from All-in-One SEO. And click on the Import button.

Important: both plugins must be activated when importing.

About the item Delete old data after import, I would not recommend checking this box. For two reasons:

the risk of losing all data in case of a plugin conflict;
After transferring the data, you will need to deactivate and delete the old SEO plugin, which will most likely be accompanied by the deletion of all data.

In a separate article, I’ll tell you how to transfer settings from various SEO plugins using the SEO Data Transporter plugin.

General settings of the WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin

Let's take a look at the WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin management menu:

Figure 8. WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin menu

All plugin settings are distributed in 6 menu items:

General;
Headings and metadata;
Social media;
XML Sitemap;
Extended;
Tools.

In this chapter we will focus on general settings. After going to the General menu item, you will see settings divided into 4 tabs:

Figure 9. General WordPress SEO by Yoast settings. Tab: General

In the General tab we can manage three tools:

Tracking. Enabling this feature will allow plugins to send some data to the plugin developers for updating it;
Presentation. If you missed the introductory presentation after activating the plugin, you can watch it here at any time;
Restore default settings. Factory reset button.

Personally, I did not allow anonymous tracking of my site parameters, this is up to each person, but I personally do not recommend enabling this option.

The presentation would be a very useful tool for beginners if it were completely translated into Russian, but as it was, I was able to view only 2 steps and closed it.

Tab: Your Info

The following general settings tab of the WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin is responsible for editing personal settings:

Figure 10. General WordPress SEO by Yoast settings. Tab: Your Info

As we see in Figure 10, in this tab you can specify the name of the site, as well as its alternative name. I did not notice the particular importance of this function, so I recommend not filling it out.

Here you can select the site owner. It could be a Company or a Person.

These settings are mostly for the Google search engine.

Webmaster Tools tab

This tool allows you to confirm rights to own a website in services for webmasters.

Figure 11. General WordPress SEO by Yoast settings. Tab: Webmaster Tools

This tool allows you to confirm rights to the site in 4 services:

Alexa Verification ID;
Bing Webmaster;
Google Webmaster;
Yandex Webmaster Tools.

For this purpose in empty fields It is necessary to fill in the meta tags of these services.

I’ll show you using Alexa Verification ID as an example. To add a site you must be registered and authorized in the service.

Figure 12. Adding a site to the Alexa service

We click on the continue button and get to the page for confirming rights to the site, where we see 3 methods:

Figure 13. Confirming rights to the site in the Alexa service using a meta tag

We select method 2, as shown in Figure 13, select and copy the specified verification meta tag, you can only copy the content attribute code. In my case, I copied this code:

rBoyYmIBTRbOJLqZXFTU9CYcJd8

Now you need to install it in the required field of the WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin and save the changed parameters:

Figure 14. Adding a meta tag using the WordPress SEO plugin by Yoast

After inserting the code, you need to check the code of the main page of the site. The following meta tag should appear in it:

Figure 15. Alexa verification meta tag in the site code

Now you can safely confirm the installation of the meta tag on the service website. If everything went correctly, the following message will appear:

Figure 16. Successful confirmation of rights to the site

In other services the process is almost the same.

Security tab

Setting up security in the WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin comes down to checking one box:

Figure 17. General WordPress SEO by Yoast settings. Tab: Security

Checking this box will deny access to the WordPress SEO meta box for users of the Authors and Editors roles.

Setting up titles and metadata

This section is the main one in setting up the WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin. The promotion of the site as a whole, as well as individual articles, headings and possibly tags, if you decide to open them for indexing, will depend on how you configure the display of headings and metadata.

In the plugin menu select Headings and metadata(Figure 8). And we see that this settings section has 6 tabs.

Figure 18. Headings and metadata - WordPress SEO by Yoast general tab

In the General tab, you can activate forced rewriting of article titles, which is basically what I did.

Here you also need to select title separator.

Home tab

Let's look at Figure 19, which shows the title and metadata template settings for the blog home page:

Figure 19. Headings and Metadata - WordPress SEO by Yoast. Tab: Home Page

The figure shows the default settings. I do not recommend filling out the meta description field. Since for the main page SEO by Yoast plugin will fill in automatically if you have filled out Brief description site.

In the keyword template, indicate the keywords by which you are promoting the main page.

Let's take a closer look at the name template; by default it looks like this:

%%sitename%% %%page%% %%sep%% %%sitedesc%%

As you can see, the template consists of 4 parts:

%%sitename%%— name of the site;
%%page%%— page number;
%%sep%%— separator;
%%sitedesc%%— description of the site.

Let's look at the example of page number 2 of this blog to see what is responsible for what:

Figure 20. Elements of the header template using the example of the blog Self-Webmaster

The exclusion of any element will entail its removal from the title of the site. You can experiment with the order of the elements, but I recommend leaving everything as it is.

Post Types Tab

This section is pretty much the same as the previous one, but now we'll be setting up posts, pages, and media files. Figure 20 shows my recommended settings:

Figure 21. Post type settings in the WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin

Everything is clear with templates. Let's look at the remaining points:

Meta Robots - if you check the box, for example, in the page post types, then all pages will have noindex and nofollow meta tags; these meta tags prohibit search engines from indexing the web document. Under no circumstances do we check the boxes for posts and pages.
Date in fragment preview - this function for Google. This spinnet search engine can display when posts were updated. This does not provide any particular advantage, but it is possible that this search engine ranks frequently updated sites better;
WordPress SEO Meta Box - hides the plugin panel for setting up titles and metadata.

I think I sorted everything out into pieces. If you have any questions, please ask in the comments.

Taxonomies and Archives tabs

Absolutely the same as in the previous section, only for taxonomy elements: categories, tags, formats. And archives of authors and dates.

This is how the Taxonomy section on this blog is set up:

Figure 22. Taxonomy settings in the WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin

So the archives:

Figure 23. Archive settings in the WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin

There is nothing complicated, you can navigate according to the tips. The only thing I did was open the tags for indexing. This is an experiment, so I don’t recommend adding tags to the index.

Other tab

The remaining settings are not that important at first glance, but I recommend activating them all, since their functions are useful specifically for SEO.

Figure 24. Headings and Metadata - WordPress SEO by Yoast. Tab: Other

Let's look at each point, starting with the first:

Noindex for subpages and archives - check the box to avoid duplicating content;
Use in meta keywords - if you are not going to enter keywords for posts and pages, then this function can not be enabled;
Add a tag noodp meta robots throughout the site - prohibits search engines from using the DMOZ description for the site;
Add a tag noydir meta robots throughout the site - the same thing only the Yahoo directory.

At this point, you can complete the header and metadata configuration. Let's move on.

Integration with social networks

I can’t say anything special about this point. Since I haven't used it myself yet. But I did some digging on the Internet, and the plugin’s hints explain everything well.

By checking the box Add Twitter metadata we link the site to the twitter account.

Set the type of card (tweet). There are two types of tweets available:

Final content - the tweet will be in text form;
Summary content with a large image - the tweet will have text and an image.

In general, this is how I set it up for myself:

Figure 27. Twitter username

Let's copy it. The username is also available in the profile under the avatar, but there it is displayed with a “dog”, and we don’t need it. Now the copied name must be pasted into the field Twitter Username in the Accounts tab:

Figure 28. Adding a username to the Twitter Username field

We save and check the code of our site again, something like this should appear there:

Figure 29. Meta tags for Twitter in the site code

Just like that I linked my site with Twitter account using the WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin. This is done similarly for other social networks.

Creating an XML sitemap

Any website should have a sitemap in XML format, its presence is especially important for sites with a large number content. This type Site maps are intended exclusively for search engines and help them in correctly indexing the site structure and all content.

The WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin is equipped with a tool that allows you to create and customize an XML sitemap in a couple of minutes.

Let's go to the XML sitemap settings page:

Figure 30. Creating an XML sitemap using the WordPress SEO plugin by Yoast

Check the box to enable the sitemap. To view the created sitemap, click on the XML Sitemap button, and the sitemap will open in a new window. This is what my sitemap looks like:

Figure 31. My XML sitemap WordPress SEO by Yoast

Please note that the XML sitemap generated by the WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin is available at:

http://site/ sitemap_index.xml

Let's go through the remaining tabs and look at all the available settings.

Tab User list. Enabling this feature will add a list of users, if any, to the sitemap. The function is enabled by unchecking:

Figure 32. List of users function for XML sitemap in the WordPress SEO by plugin

If there is no registration on your site, then feel free to check the box and disable this function.

Setting up post types for a sitemap

The next tab is for setting up the display of post types in the site map. Let's look at the screenshot:

Figure 33. Configuring the display of post types in the XML sitemap

As can be seen from Figure 33, the settings of the WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin allow you to add 3 types of posts to the XML sitemap:

Posts (post);
Pages (page);
Media files (attachment).

Posts and pages must be present in the site map. But media files need to be added in certain cases:

If in your articles large number photographs. Suitable for travel blogs based on beautiful photographs;
If your blog template is designed to create a gallery;
If your blog has video files.

If your blog falls under one of the conditions, you can add media files to the sitemap and open them for indexing in the Headings and Metadata section.

Taxonomies

We continue to configure the site map for search engines and now we will understand the structure of the blog in the site map.

Figure 34. Setting up taxonomy for XML sitemap

Figure 34 shows my settings; as you can see, I excluded the Tags and Formats sites from the map in order to avoid creating similar content on different pages.

Advanced settings

Advanced settings include 3 functions: bread crumbs; Permalinks And RSS. All of these tools are useful and are included for good reason. this plugin. And the function for setting up permalinks will help beginners save a lot of time and nerves by avoiding setting up workarounds.

WordPress SEO Breadcrumbs by Yoast

Breadcrumbs are a breadcrumb trail that shows the user where they are in at the moment. Another undeniable function of breadcrumbs is to help search engines understand the site structure and weight distribution.

Let's look at the screenshot:

Figure 35. Setting up WordPress SEO breadcrumbs by Yoast

So, to enable breadcrumbs, check the box and install the PHP code for displaying breadcrumbs in the site code, namely in the file single.php (Sometimes this file may be called differently, for example loop-single.php ).

Most often, breadcrumbs are placed above the title of an article so that visitors can immediately see in which category or sub-category they are located.

Figure 36. Example of Breadcrumbs

Figure 36 above the article title shows bread crumbs, which have quite interesting design and certainly attract the attention of visitors. The breadcrumbs for this article are represented by 3 buttons, which are links:

Home page. We see the site domain;
Heading. The article is located in a section called CSS Lessons;
Title of the article.

Permalinks

A significant tool of the WordPress SEO plugin by Yoast. I’ll show you how I set up this tool on my blog in the screenshot:

Figure 37. Setting up WordPress SEO permalinks by Yoast

I will not repeat each point, since everything is clearly described there. I’ll tell you that for me the most important tools here are 2:

Delete variables?replytycom;
Hide post short link.

Both functions are aimed at protecting the blog from duplicates.

Removing duplicates ?replytycom quite a complex process, and in the WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin it is reduced to checking one box, for which the developers receive great respect from all webmasters.

I talked about how to hide a short link or in other words rel =’shortlink’ in a separate article. In it, I recommended a rather complicated method, and SEO by Yoast allows you to do this by checking one box.

Tools

I have already talked about one of the tools in the Tools group. And there are three of them in total:

Bulk editor— in this tool you can edit (add titles and descriptions) articles and categories together:
File editor— allows you to edit Robots.txt and .htaccess files directly from the admin panel. If I'm not mistaken, only the WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin can do this;
Import and Export— imports and exports SEO data.

This completes the basic settings of the WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin. Now the plugin should work correctly and have a positive impact on the promotion of your blog or website.

Setting up and filling out the WordPress SEO Meta Box

Let's look at how to set up the WordPress SEO Meta Box while writing an article. After activating and configuring the WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin, a section with SEO settings for a separate article or category should appear in the WP article editor.

Look at the example of a regular article. Here's a screenshot:

Figure 38. WordPress SEO Meta Box

Let's take a look at Figure 38; those who have previously worked with SEO plugins will see a “familiar picture”: Title, description, keywords and preview. Everything is familiar except for one thing: the Focus Word field and the analysis of the article based on it. As you can see, I have the green words YES on all counts. This means that the article is highly optimized from an SEO point of view.

Let's go through the other tabs.

Page analysis

Sometimes this function does not work. If this suddenly happens, then the reason may be in the focus word, perhaps it simply has not loaded yet. To fix this, highlight the keyword and click on the Enter button.

Figure 39. Page analysis

As you can see from Figure 39, the WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin provides fairly broad and detailed on-page analysis, and I still have some room for improvement.

Advanced

This section of SEO settings includes several useful tools, but in principle I practically don’t use them.

Figure 40. Advanced

I would especially like to note the functions of 301 redirects and canonical URLs. The WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin is the only one that allows you to do this manually. In certain situations this will be indispensable.

Social media

We remember that, while writing this blog, I linked my blog to my Twitter account, so in the social networks section I had settings for this social network.

Here you can specify the Title and descriptions for the tweet, and, most importantly, set the image. After which the tweets of all those who shared will have a picture.

This completes the setup of WordPress SEO Meta Box.

Conclusion

Don't think that the WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin is all SEO in WordPress systems. No, this is just one tool, but it is one of the most important, so don't hesitate and install it on your blog.

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 wordpress admin panels. 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 Private person, 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 ones 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, e-mail should be, 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. 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.

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 links to your site are shared social networks, then 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 home page When 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?

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 talk about it later.

You also need to indicate your Page URL on Google+. And on Google page+, on the – About yourself 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 of removing 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 configure 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 post or page creation 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 about how to lose weight in a post, 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 a breadcrumb, you can specify a Post Title for the breadcrumb. 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 see new tab– SEO

– External Adwords, you can go to the service Google AdWords and see popular queries V 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 SEO WordPress plugin new instructions updated: April 23, 2018 by: Ilya Zhuravlev

Plugin WordPress SEO(full name - WordPress SEO by Yoast) is a real find for those who want to expand the capabilities of the standard WordPress set. Its main function is technical SEO, a set of measures to increase the site’s position in search engine results.

In other words, under equal conditions, your site with WordPress SEO will be higher in the positions of Google or Yandex than a competitor’s site that does not use either this plugin or another similar SEO.

Download and install:

Administrator's turn part of the VP itself:Plugins -> Add New: WordPress SEO by Yoast(install, activate);
Or from the office. website: WordPress SEO by Yoast (move and unzip to Your_site/wp-content/plugins)

With this plugin you need to keep your eyes open! Incorrect settings may not improve your “SERP positions” in the reverse order, but on the contrary, they may also “help” to throw out part of your site from the search, reduce the text, etc., create a conflict with other plugins...
Think seven times (check), and “Save changes” once

All about the WordPress SEO plugin by Yoast. Settings

It’s impossible to tell “everything” about this plugin. Because it affects changes in important promotional attributes. To understand why one way or another, you will have to make appropriate digressions into SEO basics, and not only. And then this article will turn into a whole talk.
Therefore, only the settings are given below, and why exactly this is so - Google to help, we study the corresponding mat. Part.
But here, below, are all the important and not so important settings. And therefore, the loud name “All about the plugin...”

So, after activation, another menu appears in your VP admin panel: “ SEO“, responsible for the settings of this SEO plugin.

In addition, all sorts of windows will flash: “Allow...”, “Subscribe...”. Click “No” everywhere. Although, it doesn’t matter (I just don’t like intrusiveness or an overabundance of information...)

Let's go through each submenu, top to bottom, left to right...

— It doesn’t matter, it’s recommended, but not essential...
- Very, very important settings.

1. SEO -> Admin Panel

You can leave everything as is, or at your own discretion, the only thing you may need over time is to fill out two fields (I underlined them). These fields are identifiers that are needed to confirm that this miracle site belongs to you.

It is confirmed through a special code that is assigned to you when you register a new site with Webmaster from Google or Yandex.

However, I immediately install Google Analytics; you don’t need to enter the code from Google.

There are no special settings here. We can move on...

2. SEO -> Headings and metadata

2.1 SEO -> Headings and metadata: " General«

No comments, I already indicated why above...

2.2 SEO -> Headings and metadata: " Main menu«*

*Some VI templates do not have the ability to edit here. It's OK …

You can leave everything as is, or come up with your own template. But it is recommended to write your own meta data for each post or page (title template - also known as “title”, meta template ... - “description” ...) I’ll say more about this at the end.

Where %%page%% - corresponds to the variable - page name, %%sitename%% - site name, %%sep%% - "-" symbol, %%term_title%% - category, %%date%% - date.

2.3 SEO -> Headings and metadata: " Post types«

Post, Pages:

Media files

If you have these original media files (pictures, videos), then uncheck all the fields. Otherwise (if “borrowed” on the Internet):

2.4 SEO -> Headings and metadata: " Taxonomy«

Usually like this:

But it can also be the other way around. Those. at the top Prohibited - with a tick, at the bottom Allowed - without a tick. But no way: both are allowed (without a checkmark), but both can be closed from being included in the search engine results (i.e., both have checkmarks).

2.4 SEO -> Headings and metadata: " Rest«

"Special Pages" at discretion.

3. SEO -> Social networks

Uncheck " "

You may eventually need the “Google+” tab; in “Owner’s page on Google:” the address of the page from Google+ is written (obviously, we can do without a picture).

4. SEO -> XML Sitemap

This CML sitemap is a map (a list of all pages and posts on the site) created specifically for search engines. It speeds up the entry of new pages/posts into search results.

You can leave everything as is. Or …

Remove (do not exclude from the map) - if your media files are unique, otherwise - leave as is.

Exclude tags and format if your categories are open to search engines (however, it doesn’t matter).

BUT! On some templates, this built-in CML generator in the plugin conflicts with the template itself. Or conflicts with other plugins. It is recommended to turn it off until everything is installed and configured. And then turn it on, see - if everything works, then so be it.

If something doesn’t work, and the map looks unclear at your_site/sitemap.xml, it’s better to install another plugin (for example, the best is considered to be: Google XML Sitemaps).

5. SEO -> Permanent links

Don't remove categories, many plugins and other WordPress settings use them. By the way, for some templates this is impossible to do. Those. one day you will bet new template- and all internal links will refer to non-existent addresses...

6. SEO -> Breadcrumbs

There is nothing remarkable here, except that this built-in utility often conflicts with templates. If you installed the template, there were “crumbs” there, but after installing this SEO plugin, they disappeared, alas, this plugin’s fault. To be treated - enable the corresponding setting here (in red).

Yes, also, as a rule... In general, see for yourself (second red line)...

6. SEO -> RSS

At your discretion, you can leave everything as is...

7. SEO -> Everything before “Edit Files”

Utilities: “Import and export” - allows you to save settings or take them from others SEO plugins. The experts will figure it out themselves, there is nothing for beginners to do here yet.

“Mass editors” - allow you to edit the same meta data (title and description) in bulk. In my opinion, it is a useless and inconvenient thing. Better with pens in every article.

8. SEO -> Edit files

Allows important files( and .htaccess) edit on the fly. I had a couple of incidents because of this (half the site was removed from the index, traffic dropped, and I didn’t know why. It turned out that the file was saved incorrectly thanks to this editor in the plugin).

How to work with WordPress SEO by Yoast

After activation and all settings, the following field will appear in the editor of pages, posts and other things (depending on the “WordPress SEO Meta Box: Hide” settings):

(1) - hmm, how can I put it briefly... For example, you have a request to Google: “Buy a Bathtub.” The whole article is about this. So the plugin will calculate how suitable this article is for “Buy a Bathtub”.

Since we started about Baths:

What you enter in (2) will appear in the search results in place (2).

What you quote from your given article in (3) will appear in the search results in place (3). This is true for Google, but not for Yandex.

Pay attention to “buy a bathtub” in both field (2) and field (3) - the request is present in both, highlighted in bold. Try to do the same.

Flaws WordPress SEO by Yoast

Lots of settings, easy to get confused, forget...
The plugin significantly loads the hosting processor. But he also does a lot of work.

Alexander