How to Make the Most out of Yoast SEO

by Nile Flores@blondishnet

http://blondish.net

Objective❏ Go over some basic SEO tips❏ Go over a few MUST dos and basic best

practices for Yoast SEO

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Understand Google FirstGoogle isn’t the enemy as you some of you may believe.

“Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.”

https://www.google.com/about/company/

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Linking is Important!If you want Google to find you, you need to be linking. Google follows the links.

❏ Navigation menu❏ Breadcrumbs❏ Internal links from one page or post to

another❏ External links from other websites

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How does Google determine what to list, and where?

Search results are determined by what fits your search terms best.

Links to well written content, links from other websites (also knowns as off-page factors), and content that is shared well, may rank better than other websites.

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Basic SEO Tips❏ Write natural, and let your blog voice shine

through❏ Use keyword research to cover topics that your

niche needs in order to target and bring in readers/ subscribers/ buyers

❏ Title is 50-60 characters❏ Put your keywords toward beginning of post❏ Write an engaging title

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Cool and Free SEO Resource Links❏ Blog Title Generator - http://bit.ly/1QiL7zE❏ Google Adwords Keyword Planner -

https://adwords.google.com/KeywordPlanner❏ Yoast Suggest - https://yoast.com/suggest/❏ Google Trends - https://www.google.com/trends/

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More Basic SEO Tips❏ Have an About page and a Contact page.❏ Video, audio/ podcast, image/ infographics

should be accompanied by some text.❏ Link to external to resources to enhance your

own content.❏ Make sure your site is mobile responsive.❏ Site speed is important. Under 4-second page

load time is ideal.

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Last Slide on Basic SEO Tips… Promise!

❏ Have a balanced site structure, like a pyramid.❏ Have a clear navigation.❏ Do submit your website to Google Search

Console.❏ Don’t 301 redirect all your 404s to the

homepage.❏ Have a clear permalink structure

https://yoast.com/how-to-clean-site-structure/@blondishnet

Yoast SEO

Yoast SEO is a tool to help you optimize your website’s content to be seen more favorably by Google.

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Yoast SEO: What Areas Can You Optimize?

❏ Real time page analysis tool❏ Edit titles and meta descriptions❏ Robots meta settings❏ XML Sitemap❏ Breadcrumbs❏ Social Integration❏ Google Search Console integration❏ Edit robots.txt and .htaccess file❏ RSS Optimization❏ Canonical links

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Yoast SEO: Real Time Page Analysis Tool (1)

Yoast SEO: Real Time Page Analysis Tool (2)

Yoast SEO: XML Sitemap

Yoast SEO: Titles and Meta Description

Yoast SEO: Social Profiles and Open Graph (1)

Yoast SEO: Social Profiles and Open Graph (2)

Yoast SEO Best Practices: Gamification That green light might be tempting to try having, but sometimes it can harm more than hurt. Think of the page analysis tool as a suggestion, not an absolute must.

Write naturally, and don’t force content or take away specific content just to get all green lights.

https://yoast.com/want-green-bullet-wp-seo/

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Yoast SEO Best Practices: Titles and Descriptions

While Google ultimately makes the decision on what the best title for your article is, don’t give up!

Make sure to set your titles and metas templates in your WordPress admin (SEO > Titles & Metas)

Sometimes you will need to edit the individual post or page titles if you need it to be different from your settings.

https://yoast.com/google-page-title/@blondishnet

Yoast SEO Best Practices: XML Sitemaps

Enabling the XML sitemap feature is half the work.

Don’t forget to submit it to Google Search Console (formerly Google Webmaster Tools)

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Yoast SEO Best Practices: Images

❏ Don’t forget to label your alt tags in your images.❏ Don’t use huge images. Scale or resize them.❏ Label the image file with the keyword.

More about image optimization: https://yoast.com/image-seo/http://bit.ly/1Wn82OK@blondishnet

Yoast SEO Best Practices: Don’t block your CSS or JS files

Google can’t crawl your site and render it properly.

https://yoast.com/dont-block-your-css-and-js-files/

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Yoast SEO Best Practices: Write at least 300 Words

300 is the minimum magic number of words you should be writing.

This includes for products, images, video, and audio content. Don’t just post them alone.

Yoast SEO Best Practices: Have a Mobile Ready website

More and more people are using devices other than a desktop or laptop.

Make sure your website has a responsive design.

Yoast SEO Best Practices: Accessibility really does matter!

Just because you can surf your own website, doesn’t mean everyone surfs and processes your website in the same manner.

Make sure your site is accessible.

https://yoast.com/accessibility-matters/

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Yoast SEO Best Practices: Make Your Posts Easy to Read

Break paragraphs up. Vary the length of the paragraph. Walls of text are daunting to read.

Don’t use a lot of big and fancy words. Your readers need to understand you. The exception is if your target audience is of the academic community.

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Good news! Yoast has videos available to learn more about Yoast SEO for WordPress!

http://bit.ly/1LJVpgD

15 Things You MUST Do With Yoast SEO for WordPressIf you want to take on adjusting your Yoast SEO plugin’s settings, here’s an in-depth checklist of 15 MUST Do actions.

http://bit.ly/2dFZNBN

Thanks!

Nile Flores

http://blondish.net

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