Over the past decade of running WordPress sites, we’ve tested pretty much every SEO plugin out there. Yoast SEO was my go-to choice for years, and it’s still what I recommend to WordPress beginners who want to improve their search rankings without getting overwhelmed.
These days, we use All in One SEO here on WPBeginner because it offers more advanced features. But with over 5 million active installations, Yoast SEO remains one of the most trusted ways to optimize your WordPress site for search engines.
In this guide, we’ll walk you through exactly how to install and set up Yoast SEO the right way. We’ve helped countless WordPress users with this process, and we’ve broken everything down into simple steps that anyone can follow – even if you’re completely new to SEO.
🔈 Important Note: We have switched from Yoast SEO to All in One SEO for the WPBeginner website because it has far more powerful features. The plugin is used by over 3 million websites. You can follow our guide on how to install and set up AIOSEO for more details.
What is Yoast SEO and What Are its Features?
Yoast SEO is one of the most popular WordPress SEO plugins, with many built-in tools and features. Here is a quick overview of some of those features:
- Change the post’s SEO title and meta description on a per-post basis.
- Title and meta description support for taxonomies, such as categories and tags.
- Google search result snippet previews.
- Focus keyword testing.
- Meta robots configuration:
- Easily add noodp and nodir meta tags.
- Easily noindex or nofollow pages, taxonomies, or archives.
- RSS footer/header configuration.
- Breadcrumbs support, with configurable breadcrumbs titles.
- Advanced XML sitemaps.
- The
.htaccessandrobots.txteditors. - Ability to verify Google Search Console, Yahoo Site Explorer, and Bing Webmaster Tools.
- Schema markup support.
The premium version of Yoast SEO comes with even more features.
It includes a redirect manager for easily setting up redirects, the ability to use multiple focus keywords, and internal linking suggestions to improve site navigation.
You can also export focus keywords for analysis, access video tutorials that explain various features, and enjoy priority support for any issues or questions you may have.
For the plugin’s pros and cons and detailed analysis, you may want to see our comparison of Yoast SEO vs. All in One SEO.
How to Install the Yoast SEO Plugin
The first thing you need to do is install and activate the Yoast SEO plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, you’ll notice a new menu item labeled Yoast SEO.
Upon clicking on it, you’ll be prompted to run the ‘First-time configuration’ wizard.
Simply click on the link to run the first-time configuration wizard.
How to Set Up the WordPress SEO Plugin by Yoast
Yoast SEO comes with a basic setup wizard that will guide you through the initial setup.
If you are setting it up on a new WordPress website, then you can skip Step 1 and directly run Step 2 in the first-time configuration wizard.
However, if you are setting up Yoast SEO on an existing website where you have previously used some other WordPress SEO plugin, then you need to import your existing SEO data first.
In the following sections, we’ll share the instructions on how to set up Yoast SEO. Here’s a quick overview of all the steps we’ll cover:
- Importing Your SEO Data
- Running the First-Time Configuration Wizard
- Configuring the Yoast SEO Settings – Site Basics
- Making Site Connections to Search Engines
- Setting Up Content Types Display for Search Results
- Adjusting Category & Tag Search Settings
- Fine-Tuning the Advanced Settings
- Exploring Advanced Task Settings in Tools
- Integrating Yoast SEO With Third-Party Platforms
- Optimizing Your Posts and Pages With Yoast SEO
- Optimizing Taxonomies for SEO (Categories and Tags)
- Optimizing eCommerce Products
- Monitoring and Tracking SEO Performance
Let’s get started.
Step 1: Importing Your SEO Data
You can skip this step if you are setting up Yoast SEO on a new WordPress website or blog.
Other users who are installing the plugin on an existing website may have been using some other WordPress plugin for SEO, like All in One SEO for WordPress, RankMath, or a theme framework like Genesis to deal with their SEO data.
If you want to use Yoast SEO properly, then you need to make sure that all of your previous SEO data has been transported across before you deactivate the other plugin.
Luckily, Yoast SEO comes with a built-in SEO data import/export functionality.
Head over to the Yoast SEO » Tools page and click on the ‘Import and Export’ link.
This will bring you to the import/export tool.
From here, you need to switch to the ‘Import from other SEO plugins’ tab.
First, you will be advised to create a full database backup. We recommend using the Duplicator plugin, which is the quickest way to do this.
Note: There is also a free version of Duplicator, which will get the job done. But for automatic backups, secure cloud storage, and other features, we recommend upgrading to a paid plan.
Under ‘Step 2: Import’, you’ll want to choose the SEO plugin you used before from the dropdown menu.
After that, just click on the ‘Import’ button to fetch SEO data.
Next, you can edit a blog post or page and scroll down to the Yoast SEO section. There, you can see if the plugin correctly imported SEO data, such as the SEO title and meta description.
If everything looks good, then you can switch back to the ‘Import’ tab.
Step 4 will ask you to run the first-time configuration wizard now. We will show you how to do this in the next step of this tutorial.
After that, you can switch back again to the ‘Import’ tab.
You’ll need to select your previous SEO plugin under ‘Step 5: Clean up’ and then click the ‘Clean up’ button.
This will clean up the database and delete the old plugin’s data. After that, you can safely deactivate and delete your old SEO plugin.
Step 2: Running the First-Time Configuration Wizard
Yoast SEO comes with a first-time configuration wizard. To run it, let’s go to the Yoast SEO » General page and switch to the ‘First-time configuration’ tab.
Launching the configuration wizard will allow you to set up some basic SEO settings for your website.
The first step in the wizard is ‘SEO Data Optimization.’ Go ahead and click the ‘Start SEO data optimization’ button to run the analysis.
Don’t worry, because the optimization process will not change any content on your website.
Once the data optimization process is finished, simply click the ‘Continue’ button to proceed.
Next, you will be asked to provide information about your website. This includes whether it is an organization or a person, your website name, organization name, and organization logo.
After entering this information, you need to click the ‘Save and continue’ button.
This will bring you to the next step.
Here, you’ll need to enter social profiles associated with the organization or business behind the website.
After entering your social profiles, you can click the ‘Save and continue’ button.
Next, you will be asked to enter your email address for the weekly Yoast SEO newsletter.
You will also be asked to opt in or out of usage data tracking.
You can select ‘No’ if you are uncomfortable sharing your usage data with the company behind Yoast SEO.
Now, go ahead and click on ‘Save and continue.’
That’s all. You have successfully run the setup wizard.
Next, we will walk you through the rest of the plugin settings. This will help you set up the plugin properly for optimal SEO benefits.
Step 3: Configuring the Yoast SEO Settings – Site Basics
First, you need to set up basic SEO appearance settings.
To do this, you’ll want to go to the Yoast SEO » Settings page and switch to the ‘Site Basics’ tab.
Here, you can change your site title, add an alternate title (optional), provide a tagline, and choose a title separator.
The title separator appears in the browser’s title bar. You can choose any of them, but the dash symbol is the most commonly used.
Below, you can provide a site image. The recommended size for this image is 1200 x 674 pixels.
This image will be used when your website is shared on the internet (not the individual articles, as they can have their own social sharing images).
Under ‘Site preferences,’ let’s make sure that the option next to ‘Restrict advanced settings for authors’ is turned on.
This ensures that authors cannot set up redirects or block search engines when working on an article (editors and site administrators can still access those options).
Don’t forget to save your changes when you have finished making changes.
Step 4: Making Site Connections to Search Engines
The next step is to add your website to search engines. All top search engines allow users to submit their websites and track their search indexing and performance.
For more details, see our complete Google Search Console guide to learn more about these tools.
Yoast SEO makes verifying your website with all top search engines easy.
First, you need to sign up for the Webmaster Tools program for each search engine. After that, you will be asked to add a meta tag to verify your website ownership.
Now, you’ll want to head over to Yoast SEO » Settings.
Then, in the ‘General’ section, you can open the ‘Site Connections’ panel.
Simply add the meta code you received from the different search engines in the respective fields, and don’t forget to save your changes.
Step 5: Setting Up Content Types Display for Search Results
Next, you need to switch to the ‘Content types’ tab in the Yoast SEO settings.
From here, you can set the default options for how different content types will appear in search results.
1. Homepage
First, you need to enter an SEO title and description for your home page.
If you are using a custom homepage in WordPress, then Yoast SEO will use the SEO title and description from the custom homepage.
Below that, you can provide a social media image. Optionally, you can also provide a separate description and title for social sharing.
2. Posts
Next, switch to the ‘Posts’ tab under ‘Content types.’
From here, you’ll want to make sure that the toggle next to the ‘Show posts in search results’ option is turned on.
Below that, you can use variables to set a default format for SEO titles in your posts. This comes in handy if you have older posts without an SEO title or forget to manually write an SEO title for a post.
In the ‘Meta description’ field, you should add %excerpt as the default variable.
3. Pages
After that, you can switch to the ‘Pages’ tab and ensure that the toggle next to the ‘Show pages in search results’ option is turned on.
Then, you can scroll down and use the ‘Insert variable’ button to set up a default SEO title scheme for your pages.
In the meta description field, you will need to use %excerpt to select ‘Excerpt’ as the default meta description.
Step 6: Adjusting Category & Tag Search Settings
Next, you need to configure the default search appearance option for categories and tags.
So, let’s switch to the ‘Categories’ tab and then make sure the option ‘Show categories in search results’ is turned on.
Below that, you need to provide a default meta title for your categories using the variables.
For the meta description, you can use %category description as the default meta description for categories.
Next up, you’ll switch to the ‘Tags’ tab and repeat the same steps.
For the meta description, you’ll want to use %tag description as the default meta description for categories.
Step 7: Fine-Tuning the Advanced Settings
This part of the Yoast SEO settings offers advanced, technical SEO features.
They allow you to further optimize your website by cleaning up unwanted options and making it easier for search engines to crawl more of your content.
1. Crawl Optimization
As a website owner, you want Google to crawl more of your pages. However, WordPress generates several pages and RSS feeds that are not important for your website but consume a lot of the crawl budget.
Crawl optimization allows you to fix that. For more details on this topic, you can see our guide on fixing the SEO crawl budget issue in WordPress.
The first option is to ‘Remove unwanted metadata.’ This refers to data WordPress adds to each page on your site, and search engines crawl some of it.
The plugin provides a description next to each option. You can turn the toggle on to remove each item.
After that, you can scroll down to the ‘Disable unwanted content formats’ section.
From here, you can disable unwanted RSS feeds generated by WordPress.
Lastly, you can disable unused resources, such as the emoji script, which is only used by very old browsers.
You can also disallow end-points for the WP-JSON API.
2. Breadcrumbs
Breadcrumbs are great for internal linking because they define a clear path or trail to the page you are on.
These breadcrumbs also appear in search results, giving your site an extra advantage. Here’s an example:
The default settings for Yoast SEO are highly optimized and should work for most websites.
However, if you want to change something, then go ahead and make your changes.
Next, you’ll want to scroll down to the ‘How to insert breadcrumbs in your theme’ section.
Here, you can turn on the toggle next to ‘Enable breadcrumbs for your theme.’
Expert Tip: For better breadcrumb navigation, you may want to look at All in One SEO for WordPress. You will have full control over how your breadcrumbs are displayed and can create custom breadcrumb templates for your specific needs.
For more details, you can check out our tutorial on how to display breadcrumb navigation links in WordPress.
3. Author Archives
The next option in the ‘Advanced Settings’ is ‘Author archives.’
If you run a single-author blog, then you need to disable the author archives. This is important because your blog and author archives will have the same content.
So, if ou don’t disable these archives, search engines may penalize your website for duplicate or low-quality content.
4. Date Archives
WordPress also creates archives based on dates. This may create more duplicate content issues.
Under ‘Date archives,’ you can turn off the switch next to the ‘Enable date archives’ option. This will disable those archives, improve the crawl budget, and avoid duplicate content.
5. Format Archives
Post formats are WordPress theme features that allow developers to add support for different formats. A post type can then use these for styling and appearance purposes.
However, this feature didn’t catch on, and many modern WordPress themes don’t add post format support.
These post formats have separate URLs in WordPress, which search engines can crawl.
You can safely disable those URLs by going to the Advanced » Format Archives tab.
6. Special Pages
Next up, you’ll want to take a look at the ‘Special pages’ tab.
This is where you can provide an SEO title for the internal pages, like the WordPress search result page or the 404 error page.
7. Media Pages
WordPress creates an attachment page when you upload an image or media file to a post or page.
This page only displays that particular image or media file with little to no information. It wastes your crawl budget, adds low-content pages to your site, and negatively impacts SEO.
So, you might need to disable these pages. To do this, you can navigate to the Advanced » Media Pages tab.
When you disable media pages, Yoast SEO automatically redirects users to the media file instead of the attachment page.
8. RSS
Yoast SEO allows you to add content to RSS feed items. By default, it adds a link to your website at the end of each RSS feed item.
You can leave it as is or add anything you want, and it will appear in your RSS feed.
Expert Tip: RSS feeds let readers subscribe to your blog and read posts in apps like Feedly without visiting your site manually. Plus, optimizing your RSS feed can help prevent content scraping and improve engagement.
For a detailed guide, you can see our expert tips for optimizing your WordPress RSS feed.
Step 8: Exploring Advanced Task Settings in Tools
Yoast SEO comes with built-in tools that allow you to perform advanced tasks. Most beginners may not need to use these tools. However, we will show you each tool and what it does.
First, you need to go to Yoast SEO » Tools to see the available tools.
1. Import and Export
We have shown you how to use this tool to import SEO data from other SEO plugins in step 1 of this guide.
However, this tool can also be used in other ways. For instance, you can import and export the Yoast SEO plugin’s settings and use them on a different WordPress blog or website.
2. File editor
As your WordPress site grows, you may often come across tutorials asking you to add some code to your website’s .htaccess file or robots.txt file.
Both are configuration files and have a huge impact on your website’s SEO. Yoast SEO allows you to edit both files directly from the WordPress admin area.
3. Bulk editor
The bulk editor tool in Yoast SEO allows you to quickly add SEO titles and descriptions for all your blog posts and pages.
In the ‘Title’ tab, you will find a blank field in the ‘New Yoast SEO Title’ column where you can add your new SEO title for that blog post.
After that, go ahead and click on the ‘Save’ link to store your changes.
To add descriptions, you must switch to the ‘Description’ tab.
Once again, you can add a description for each blog post or page and save it.
Step 9: Integrating Yoast SEO With Third-Party Platforms
Yoast SEO has partnered up with a couple of premium SEO platforms to provide more features. It includes two free integrations: Semrush and Wincher.
These integrations are turned on by default on the Yoast SEO » Integrations page.
Keep in mind that you will need to create free accounts for both services to use them, and you will only get limited features with a free account.
Below that, you will find integrations with other premium WordPress plugins.
For instance, if you are using Easy Digital Downloads, then you can unlock that integration by upgrading to Yoast SEO Premium.
Step 10: Optimizing Your Posts and Pages With Yoast SEO
Just installing and setting up this plugin is not enough. To maximize the benefits of Yoast SEO, you will need to customize the settings per post.
Let’s look at maximizing the benefits by optimizing each post/page in WordPress.
Simply edit any post or page, and you will notice a new Yoast SEO meta box below the post editor.
You can start by adding a ‘Focus keyphrase’ or keyword. This is the main keyword that you think your users will type into search engines to find this post.
After that, Yoast SEO will check your post content for SEO and a readability analysis. You can view the analysis to improve your article further.
Sometimes, your post title and your SEO title might not be the same. Every time, you should write a custom SEO description because the excerpt generator only picks up the first paragraph, which might not be the most important one.
Expert Tip: The SEO and readability analysis report in Yoast SEO is quite helpful for improving your content. However, don’t stress yourself out over it, or you might spend more time following the analysis instead of creating better content for your users.
To learn more about on-page optimization, see our article on how to optimize blog posts for SEO.
Step 11: Optimizing Taxonomies for SEO (Categories and Tags)
Just like your post and pages, you can also override the SEO title and meta descriptions for category, tag, and author archive pages.
Simply navigate to Posts » Categories and click the ‘Edit’ link below any category.
On the category edit page, scroll down to the bottom, and you will see the Yoast SEO meta box.
From here, you can provide an SEO title and meta description for your category.
You can do that for all your categories, tags, and custom taxonomy archives.
Related: See our guide on taxonomy SEO to learn more about how to optimize your WordPress category pages.
Step 12: Optimizing eCommerce Products
Yoast SEO provides basic support for online stores and eCommerce websites using WooCommerce.
This allows you to optimize your product pages, just like blog posts and pages.
You will find all eCommerce SEO options when adding a new product to your website. You can also edit and optimize an old product by entering a focus keyword, SEO title, SEO description, and more.
If you are using WooCommerce, then you will need to purchase the Yoast WooCommerce SEO add-on for extended eCommerce features.
Alternative: All in One SEO for WordPress has full eCommerce support even with the basic plan, which starts at $49.
Step 13: Monitoring and Tracking SEO Performance
Now that you have successfully set up Yoast SEO, it is important to start tracking your performance.
First, you need to add your WordPress site to Google Search Console.
This shows you how your website is doing in search, which keywords you are ranking for, and which pages are not doing so well.
Next, you need to install Google Analytics in WordPress so that you can see your website data from your WordPress dashboard.
The easiest way to do this is by using MonsterInsights. It connects your WordPress site to Google Analytics and shows you how much traffic you are getting, as well as what your users do when they are on your website.
Most importantly, it shows Google Analytics reports inside WordPress in a more user-friendly, intuitive format.
This helps you understand your target audience and make smart decisions to grow your business and improve SEO.
That’s all there is to it!
Yoast SEO is a great WordPress SEO plugin. However, it lacks certain features that could truly help you improve your SEO.
That’s why we recommend using All in One SEO for WordPress instead. We use it on all our brand websites, including WPBeginner. It comes packed with features, including a link assistant, SEO statistics, advanced XML sitemaps, and more.
For more details, you can take a look at our detailed All in One SEO review with pros and cons. You may also be interested in our post about why we switched from Yoast to AIOSEO.
We hope this article helped you set up Yoast SEO properly. You may also want to see our guide on whether premium WordPress SEO plugins are worth it, or see our expert picks of the best WordPress SEO plugins and tools.
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
Prateek
thanks For This Wpbegginers
jackson
\my yoast is written on the dash board
The following file(s) is/are blocking your XML sitemaps from working properly:
/home/hanseltr/public_html/sitemap.xml
Either delete them (this can be done with the “Fix it” button) or disable Yoast SEO XML sitemaps.
WPBeginner Support
It seems that another plugin has added a sitemap.xml file to your website. You can need to find out which plugin added it and disable the plugin. Alternately, you can connect to your website using FTP and then locate the sitemap.xml file and delete it manually.
Admin
Anubhav
So here is my issue. When I am sharing my website on facebook, it automatically shows a thumbnail of a random shop product and a random product description. I did make that change under Social->Facebook and added the appropriate image and description, still nothing has changed. What am I doing wrong? Thanks in advance.
alison
will this plugin properly work with Genesis theme?
WPBeginner Support
Yes, it will.
Admin
janel zamoras
How about simply read theme?
Bisham
How to solve 500 internet sever error
Raja Sharma
Simply check Your htaccess file For Any Wrong Code
danu adji
please help, why the blog description still does not appear, whereas I had to apply the existing arrangements in this article
Tara
I’ve just got wordpress, the free version which says you can’t add plugins.
Can you confirm that if I upgrade wordpress then I will be able to use yoast SEO?
I can’t seem to find that piece of information!
Thanks
Tara
WPBeginner Support
It seems like you are using WordPress.com. Please see our guide on the difference between self hosted WordPress.org vs free WordPress.com blog.
Admin
Tara
Yes i have wordpress.com free
and I have a domain and google apps
… and I really don’t know what these do! The google apps – is that just email management, or are they my domain (website)?
I’d like to migrate to wordpress.org but don’t want to pay for web hosting twice
please advise, thanks!
Tara
I mean is google apps hosting my website?
Praveesh
Hi Tara,
Got your Query resolved?
jasmine
thanks for the detailed tutorial.
i would really appreciate if you share FREE video sitemap creator.
Ahmed Nasr
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
Hi, thank you for this post
i have one question
i’m using Yoast plugin in my site but i want to entry meta code
meta name=”Googlebot-News” content=”noindex, nofollow”
to some posts to Exclude it from Google News
how can i do it
WPBeginner Support
You can use Insert Headers and Footers plugin for that and add this code in the header section of your website.
Admin
Josh
For XML Sitemaps (Step 8), should we disable the ThirstyLink options?
Brenda
Thank you SO much! For reasons like this article, you are the first “assignment” I give new clients when they are WordPress users.
Google wants me to verify all the versions of my URL (http, https, www, -www). Where would I put the verification codes for all these different versions? Different “alternative methods”?
Many thanks indeed!
WPBeginner Support
You can add multiple meta tags, or verifcation through file uploads.
Admin
Jaswinder
I am using All in One Seo Pack.
Actually I tried both, but I like All in one Seo Pack more than Yoast Seo.
Louay
Hi,
Great info.
How do add og:image for the home page?
thanks
cheers
Nicole
Thanks so much for your help!
I have installed Yoast on my wordpress site however am still battling with trying to clear up my ‘tags’ pages on Google. How would I go about this? I think that the numerous tag pages relating to my site might be related as to why Google Adsense keeps getting disapproved. Please could you advise me?
Nicole
Thanks so much
Rashed
thanks
your post is more descriptive for the beginner which seo plugin is the best for seo ultimate or yoast please suggest me which one should i use
Rithika
Thanks for sharing information on Yoast ,but as i am using genesis theme for my blog, So is there any extra features you know which is not there in genesis .because these features are i think there in genesis.
Thank You..!
Rithika
WPBeginner Support
We use Genesis Framework on WPBeginner, but we still use WordPress SEO. While the SEO features in Genesis are quite adequate, Yoast SEO is a much more powerful and robust solution. As soon as you activate Yoast SEO plugin, Genesis will automatically hide all its SEO settings.
Admin
sugiharto
thanks for your info, can ask related Yoast SEO
am install Yoast SEO plugin win my blog, but i chek in google have problem in Robots.txt fetch and Search Console – Yoast SEO code is different in my google webmaster hot to fix it
thanks
Emily Johns
Thanks For Sharing This. but in Yoast SEO plugin, we can put only one Keyword and in All in One SEO, we can put as many we want, so Here I am confused that which one is exactly the best. Does Yoast plugin drive more traffic to my blog than All in One SEO????
Val Archer
Hi – I installed yoast and am trying to find a box where I can enter each post’s meta tag description. You mention:
>On each post and page editor page, you will see this new box called WordPress SEO that has tons of fields like SEO Title, Meta Description
I have “Yoast SEO” checked in ‘Screen Options.’ Below my post window is Yoast SEO with 3 icon options: Content, Advanced, Social.
Under ‘Content” is “Snippet Editor”, ‘Focus Keyword’ and ‘Content Analysis.’ Content Analysis complains “No meta description has been specified” BUT I can NOT find a box/field anywhere for me to enter the meta description. You say “tons of fields” but I see only these 3 under Content.
Please can you tell me where I can enter the meta description uniquely for each post? Thank you! Alternatively, do you have any code for functions.php that will add a meta description box to the post edit window? So in the dropdown under Custom Fields, I’ll see “Description” and can give it a value there? Then I can uninstall yoast because I really don’t like it.
WPBeginner Support
Yoast SEO has changed the meta box UI since we last updated this article. The description field is in the snippet editor just below the title. You can edit the title by clicking on it. If the description field below it is empty then just click on the empty area below the title and it will become editable. You can then enter your post’s description.
Admin
Val Archer
That’s funny. I definitely don’t have any empty area below title. Will email you a .jpg
Ayoola Abolaji
Thank you so much. this is the best SEO walk through I’ve found so far
Peter Wright
Great post – certainly has helped tweak my Yoast plugin
febx
Thank you for the post, It will help all of those newbie bloger included me
Patrik
Hi,
How do I set up Yoast SEO plugin to work with Advanced Custom Fields?
I have searched all around the web and can not find any help/tutorial or information about how to get Yoast SEO Wordpress plugin to work with other fields in WordPress, in this case I have a website (or several) that use Advanced Custom Fields to store a lot of content and Yoast can not sense these fields. Yoast have an extra plugin for this (what I’ve understand): YoastSEO.js , but I have no idea how to get this to work.
1. How do I set up YoastSEO.js plugin (is it a plugin?) to work with Advanced Custom Fields in WordPress.
Would you at wpbeginner be able to write a proper bulletproof tutorial for dummies about this?
Regards,
Patrik from Sweden
WPBeginner Support
We will try. Meanwhile you can try support forums for Yoast SEO plugin on WordPress.org.
Admin
Kelsey
Hi! Great Post.
I just downloaded Yoast SEO onto my website, but I now have a message that says this:
Your theme contains a meta description, which blocks Yoast SEO from working properly, please delete the following line, or press fix it:
<meta name="description" content="”>
Warning!
The Header and Footer plugin(s) might cause issues when used in conjunction with Yoast SEO.
Both Yoast SEO and Header and Footer create OpenGraph output, which might make Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social networks use the wrong texts and images when your pages are being shared.
It then has a button that says to deactivate my header and footer.
I do have a header and footer plugin by Stefano Lissa. Will I mess up my website if I deactivate the header and footer?
Thanks!
WPBeginner Support
You will need to deactivate header and footer plugin. We cannot say what kind of effect it will have on your site. If you were just using it to add Facebook open graph meta data, then you can do that in Yoast SEO.
Admin
Akshay Hiremath
In the google search results I want my organic listing to appear like a box with product name & prices in it. Saw this on the search results and want to apply the same for my business.
Please Help me with this.
Jiten
Hey Sayed / Editorial Team,
I am using All in One SEO plugin, since 2 years for my health blog. I am getting good visitors. I want to change the plugin to SEO by Yoast. Will it affect my rankings? Do i need to rewrite all Meta Title & Description again if I uninstall the older and activate Yoast SEO plugin?
Awaiting for your reply.
Thanks,
Jiten
WPBeginner Support
No it should not affect your rankings. Yoast SEO has built-in importer, that brings all your All in One SEO settings into Yoast. Simply go to SEO » Tools » Import/Export and then click on import from other plugins tab. You will find the option to import from All in One SEO plugin.
Admin
Mikael Andersen
Have you checked all the new rewievs in the plugins reviews. Until 3 days ago I would recommend Yoast SEO. Today I am about to find another plugin, because of all the bugs in the newest update and because a lot of functionality is away and instead you will find a lot of buttons for paid extenstions.
Mikael Andersen
Hi
After Yoast have made a bunch of errors in their new update, can you then recommend an alternative Seo plugin, that is a bit similar to Yoast plugin.
Zuber Shaikh
Dear Sir,
I can use this tool in my website and also all my Wordpress Clients Sites. Really Good tools. I m Web Developer and also Internet Marketer last 4+ Years.
Thanks Regards
i m Zuber
thousan
Hi Wpbeginner support team. I am a newbie to wordpress and website. I have a website on a free hosting service and I did install SEO by yoast and I tried to config the setting as in your video. Yet I still can not find my website and my content in google search result. I don’t know what wrong with this. I hope you can help me to solve this problem.
bisot
it help me to deal with the setting , thank you verymuch
sumit
Do we need to remove tag and categories from sitemap.
JC
Great tip. I switched from All in one SEO to Yoast and keep trying to optimize this tool.
Hari
how to optimze a .net website
Jitendra Mahato
Hi there,
I have installed this plugin in my site before 1 year but there is one problem us my site. There is working very good in my site as well. But the breadcrumb is working just in the post or page. It is not working in the google search engine snippet like other. May i why? it there something special to do for that…… I want to have displayed breadcrumb in search engine…….. . I am waiting for your response.
Jitendra
WPBeginner Support
It is upto Google to decide whether or not they will show breadcrumbs with a result.
Admin
bhaskar
thank u
brian
thank you for your instructions.
in this document you wrote, “The next option is to remove stop words from permalinks. Stop words are common words used in plain language. Yoast believes that by removing these, you will create cleaner URLs. While it does make the URLs smaller, we disagree with Yoast. This is why we have left it unchecked.”
But, the screenshot indicates that the, “Remove stop words from slugs” is checked.
If possible, can you please clarify if you meant it is advisable to leave it checked (default) or remove the check?
thank you.
WPBeginner Support
We have it unchecked.
Admin
brian
thank you!
Marcia
I just watched the video and feel like I went through a maelstrom. It was so fast that it raised my blood pressure trying to keep up with it. Therefore, it wasn’t very useful to me. I’m not a beginner. Were I a beginner, it would have been even worse for me. Thank heavens for the printed words that follow it!
Anna A.
Hi. Great article! I am just a little confused on 1 thing. I will have a blog with categories. Under each post I will have tags for them. The tags will then become the archived pages for the posts. My question is for these archived pages, will Yoast have the correct canonical? Or will I need to go and manually change something there to refer it back to my category page??
sai krishnan
i am getting this error on installing the plugin please help
Installing Plugin: Yoast SEO 2.3.2
Downloading install package from https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/wordpress-seo.2.3.2.zip…
Unpacking the package…
Installing the plugin…
Destination folder already exists. /home/content/p3pnexwpnas08_data01/85/2727085/html/wp-content/plugins/wordpress-seo/
Plugin install failed.
WPBeginner Support
Seems like you have either already installed the plugin or a previous installation failed to complete. Go to the plugins page and see if you have WordPress SEO or Yoast SEO plugin installed. If it is already installed, then you just need to activate it. If you cannot see it on the plugins page, then connect to your website using an FTP client and go to /wp-content/plugins/ directory. Delete the WordPress-SEO folder.
Admin
Nelbin
I am getting this error message when I try to upload the plugin
‘The package could not be installed. PCLZIP_ERR_BAD_FORMAT(-10): invalid archive structure.’
Please help.
Thank you!
Bj aka Bill Brown
You make no mention of the noodp or noydir.
What is your opinion on using / not using these?
WPBeginner Support
We don’t think that these settings are relevant or affect most sites. However, both of them are harmless if you want to opt-out from ODP or Yahoo Directory descriptions.
Admin
Sacha
Very, very helpful post a video WPBeginner.
I have been using All in One SEO Pack plugin for a long time a finally decided to switch and I’m pleased I did.
Rich
Help me please. I’m another beginner. Them main advertising content of my website is the photos in my gallery showing the work that we can do (a picture paints a thousand words), but the images do not show up in Google. Looking in the Sitemaps it appears that the images are listed with a value of zero. I have done much internet searching and can find nothing conclusive. I am using Nextgen Gallery.
Any help appreciated
WPBeginner Support
Perhaps switching to a more SEO friendly gallery plugin would help. Please take a look at Envira Gallery
Admin
Kregg Hill
Question? On the “Edit Page” tab, Yoast SEO section, under “Page Settings” there are 5 Tabs…one of which is SEO where there is a place to input “Keywords”. Is this essentially where you add all keywords for that page, and if so, can you add long tail keywords, is there a comma required after each entry, and is there a lmit to how many search keywords or terms you can add there?
Sorry, I’m a newby!
WPBeginner Support
You can add keywords relevant to that page under keywords option.
Admin
Jennifer McNeil
Dear WPBEGINNER SUPPORT,
Well, I must say that your tutorial was very comprehensive and most informative!
Now all we have to find out is if it all actually works, since I have been ‘fighting’ with our Website,, since last November, trying to get it to rank even a little bit! From all the numerous scans I have done with endless software, it is full of flaws and errors (apparently many of them in the actual code of the THBusiness theme we are using). Will following all your instructions in this tutorial fix these problems, or do I need to look elsewhere for remedies?
Also, all Pages are showing absolutely horrible Google Page Speed Testing too. All are in the 30’s and 40’s for both Desktop and Mobile and we can’t figure out why!
If you have any suggestions at all, I’d sure be open to receiving them, as admittedly, I am a bit of a greenhorn. Many thanks in advance.
Very best regards,
Jennifer McNeil
WPBeginner Support
If you believe that the problem is with your WordPress theme’s code, then we would recommend you to consider changing your WordPress theme. You can also temporarily disable all plugins on your site, and switch to a default WordPress theme like Twenty Fifteen. After that test your Google Page speed. If this improves performance significantly then it is your theme or one of the plugin’s fault. To further analyze, you can turn on your plugins one by one, take Google page speed score after each plugin. Do the same for your theme. This way you can find out whats causing low page speed score. Hope this helps.
Admin
Riju
Nicely composed post about seo by Yoast. It will help all of those newbie bloger included me, who like to add this powerhouse seo plugin on their wordpress blog. Now it’s look like that I can easily proceed to setup Yoast. Let’s see…..
Thanx…..
Manoela
Hey!
Following this tutorial, I’ve just migrated from All in One SEO to Wordpress SEO by Yoast! I simply love the analysis function, but there’s something I’m missing: can’t I set keywords for my posts and pages? Isn’t that worse for my SEO? I thought it was a good way of getting the post found by robots. What would you recommend?
Thanks a lot.
Manoela
WPBeginner Support
Actually the author of Yoast’s WordPress SEO plugin believes that Meta Keywords are no longer important for SEO. However, we believe that even if they are not important, they are still pretty harmless. If you want to use them on your posts and pages while using WordPress SEO plugin, this is what you need to do.
Go to SEO » Titles & Metas and click on the Other tab. Check the box next to ‘Use meta keywords tag?’ option and click on the save changes button. You will now see the meta keywords field in the WordPress SEO metabox below the posts and pages.
Admin
Ibn Adam
Thank you for the post. Webmaster Tools and Titles & Metas sections helped!
kim
Just want to say THANK YOU! Absolute a life saver for this learning lady!
Ralph D. Klonz
Yoast is used so much out in SEO Land, but this is really the best how to if seen so far. Have watched a many videos but your blog drives it home. There are still some thing I don’t fully understand. But that’s not the plugin, it’s my limitations.
Tommy
Hi guys!
I have a problem after editing posts using yoast plugin. I can’t then see what I saw before, i.e. my post with gallery only – I can only edit it in text mode. everything else is disabled, and even invisible.
Same issue with sites – only text editor possible.
Any ideas?
Cheers,
Tommy