If you are using WordPress, then SEO is an essential part of that to site contents higher in the search engine. WordPress SEO plugin by Yoast is one of the most effective WordPress plugin to deal with SEO. This plugin has lot of features to rank your website, but majority of people can’t do setting of this plugin, if doing, then may be wrong. In this tutorial, I’m going to show you best Yoast SEO settings that you can configure this plugin more effectively.
Why do I need this plugin?
WordPress itself doesn’t have built-in SEO features; this plugin will help you to do complete on-page optimization for your website. You can configure many SEO features like site Title, Meta Tag, Meta Description, sitemap and dozens of other features.
How to install SEO by Yoast:
Go to Dashboard > Plugins > Add New.
Write WordPress SEO by Yoast in the Search box.
Click the Install Now link.
A pop-up alert box will open and ask Do you really want to install the plugin, click OK.
After that, plugin will be automatically downloaded and installed, Now click on just Activate.
You can also download from WordPress.org ( Link )
Setting up the WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin:
After installation, it’s time to configure it correctly. Here is complete guide to setup and configure Yoast plugin.
Titles & Metas:
Title settings
WordPress SEO has auto-detected whether it needs to force rewrite the titles for your pages, if you think it’s wrong and you know what you’re doing, you can change the setting here. It should remain unchecked.
Sitewide Meta settings
Noindex subpages of archives
If you want to prevent /page/2/ and further of any archive to show up in the search results, enable this. Next is meta tag, meta tags also very important for page to get better ranking, so enable it as well.
Add noodp meta robots tag sitewide
If you want to Prevents search engines from using the DMOZ description for pages from this site in the search results, then you can enable it otherwise it should remain disable.
Add noydir meta robots tag sitewide
This option is use to prevents search engines from using the Yahoo! directory description for pages from this site in the search results. It should also remain Disable.
Clean up the <head>
Most of the SEO Analysts & Pro Bloggers suggested to keep your website head section clean, the apex most links which the Google bot reads get more importance. I’m not in the favor of hiding these links, as in RSD, WLW Manifest Links and shortlinks. You can leave them disable.
Homepage
This is one of the most important page in SEO, do it very cleverly because it will be your main page setting.
Title template:
Here you can give title for your page. You can give 70 characters title here.
Meta Description:
A search engine shows maximum of 156 characters from the Meta Description tag, so keep your description short and attractive.
Meta keywords:
Give 5-6 your main keywords here separated by comma.
Post Types
You can set title and meta description of your post manually box provided under the post. You can see rest of setting in screenshots here.
Taxonomies
Enable all noindex, follow. Leave rest of setting to default.
Other
If you’re running a one author blog, the author archive will always look exactly the same as your homepage. And even though you may not link to it, others might, to do you harm. Disabling them here will make sure any link to those archives will be 301 redirected to the homepage.
Yoast SEO Settings: Social
Here you can do all you social settings like Facebook, Twitter, Google+. No special setting required here, just follow the screenshots below.
XML Sitemaps
If you want to generate sitemap using this plugin, then just Check sitemap box to enable XML sitemap functionality.
Permalinks
Permalinks setting also available in this plugin, you can do permalink setting through setting tab as well.
Breadcrumbs Settings
If you want to enable breadcrumbs, then option is available in Yoast. Breadcrumbs are usful to show path of your website. Breadcrumbs can give you extra advantage in search engine as well. To show breadcrumbs, just click on Enable Breadcrumbs and save.
So these are Yoast SEO settings. If you have any confusion or want to ask any question regarding Yoast setting, then you can ask freely in comments.
Hi Waqas,
This plugin is the biggest free SEO plugin for wordpress and people often find it difficult to configure. It’s a nice thing to find such a comprehensive tutorial.
I’m so confident this will be of huge help to many.
Do have a wonderful week and thanks for stopping over at my blog 😉
BTW, I think this is my first time here. I’ll always be around for great tutorials from you
Thank you so much Muki for your appreciation and feedback. Yeh i have visited your blog last night and very informative, keep it up and keep visiting. Thanks again 🙂
Excellent article regarding Yoast SEO which covers almost all the information regarding its setting. You down a great job Waqas Ahmed and keep sharing more like that.
Thanks Mairaj for you feedback here.
Yoast is very useful plugin and recommended by top experts.