Yoast Seo Tutorial : Beginners Guide

Every WordPress site requires an SEO plugin to ensure its pages rank well in the search engine ranks. Yoast SEO, one of the most well-known SEO plugins, is undoubtedly it. WordPress SEO has always been a complex topic, and Yoast SEO has many features to help you control your website’s SEO. We will give you the Yoast SEO Tutorial for this article.

Yoast SEO is an excellent resource if you’re new to SEO or want to brush up on your skills. Yoast offers a comprehensive Yoast SEO tutorial covering everything from keyword research to optimizing your content. The tutorial is geared towards beginners, but even experienced SEOs can benefit from a refresher. 

Yoast’s tutorials are clear and concise, providing an excellent foundation for anyone looking to improve their SEO knowledge. 

Yoast SEO has been made easy to use by the team. This tutorial will show you how to use Yoast.

We have divided it into two parts because it’s so comprehensive:

• Yoast’s SEO: This section contains tips for beginners and more experienced users. This guide might seem redundant if Yoast SEO is something you already know.
  
• The advanced tutorial for Yoast. This section covers more advanced techniques such as title/meta-variables and no index tags. You may be able to get additional value even if Yoast SEO already works on your site.

Do you want to learn more about Yoast? The Yoast SEO tutorial is free, so there’s no excuse not to check it out! You can skip straight into the advanced section. Instead, let’s go back to the beginning. 

The Beginner’s Guide Yoast SEO

We will cover all you need to learn about Yoast Search Engine Optimization. You’ll learn:

• How to correctly input information in the configuration wizard
• What the Yoast SEO SEO meta box looks like and how it operates
• What you have to do with Yoast SEO dashboard

The following section will cover advanced Yoast-related settings.

Use the Yoast SEO Configuration Wizard

One of the essential first steps in configuring Yoast SEO is to complete the configuration wizard. The Yoast SEO Configuration Wizard will guide you through some of the basic settings for your website. It is essential to answer all of the questions truthfully so that you can provide us with the most accurate information possible. Once you have completed the configuration wizard, you can optimize your website for search engines better. 

Additionally, you will be able to offer more thorough instructions and pointers for enhancing the SEO of your website. As a result, the Yoast SEO Configuration Wizard is an essential tool for anyone who wants to ensure that their website is optimally configured for search engines.

After installing Yoast SEO in your WordPress dashboard, you can access the Yoast SEO portal by clicking on the SEO tab.

You should be able to see a clear warning on the First-time optimization setup if this is your first time using the plugin.

Yoast SEO provides a guide to help set up all basic SEO settings. Click the link configuration wizard.

Click the link. Click Next on the wizard’s first page to configure Yoast SEO.

In the sections below, we’ll walk you through each step of the configuration wizard.

Section 1: Environment

Always select option A for the Environment section if you are not working on a building site.

Section 2 Site type

Try to select the correct type of site from the Site Type section.

Section 3 – Organization or Person

Next, select if you want your website to represent a company or a specific person.

If you choose Organization, there will be an additional field to fill out:

• The Organization’s name
• Your Organization’s logo is 112x112px at a minimum. We recommend a square symbol.

If you choose Person, all you need is the name.

Input all social media profiles you want to use for your website. If you create a website for an organization, these will be your company’s social profiles. If the Person you are editing is a person, then you can edit the details like their social profiles, their name, and the description on their WordPress profile pages.

No matter how many profiles you have, promote the ones you want.

This section allows Yoast SEO to provide additional information for Google to create a Knowledge Graph Card. These cards can be beautiful, so give as much information as possible.

Section 4 Search engine visibility

You can choose to allow specific types of content to search engines. This section is called Search engine visibility.

These defaults should be used 99.99%. If you are unfamiliar with the procedure, refrain from making any changes.

Section 5: Multiple authors

Yoast SEO will automatically label your author archives as “no index” if you are the sole writer on your website, preventing duplicate content.

Yoast SEO does that because all the author archives of a single author blogger are identical to the actual index page.

If you have multiple authors in mind, choose “Yes” so people can still search the Google search results for a specific author.

Section 6 – Google Search Console

Google Search Console A tool by Google that allows users to view information about site performance in Google search organic search. If you’re already using Google Search Chrome, Yoast can import information by clicking Get Google Authorization Code.

You can use Google Search Console as a tool to look up keywords in Google Search. Google Search Console may be something you need to investigate, but it is not necessary for the proper functioning of Yoast Search Engine.

Section 7 – Title settings

Your Title (or the Title of your webpage) appears in Google searches.

By default, Yoast SEO makes your Title:

Post Name *Separator* Web Name

You have two options in this section:

• Your website name
• The *Separator*

Google might display the following example site if it had a post called “How To Use Yoast Seo” and the settings shown above:

How to Use SEO Yoast – Kinsta Demo Site

Finishing up the Configuration Wizard

Sections 8-9 of Yoast SEO will guide you to:

• Sign up to receive the Yoast SEO newsletter
• Purchase Yoast’s SEO Premium. Keyword research training and plugin training.

You don’t need to do either unless you choose to.

Continue pressing the next button until you reach section 10 – Success! You can then click Close.

Congratulations! Yoast SEO has been configured.

Use The Yoast SEO Meta Box

On a daily-to-day basis, the Yoast keyword meta box is where you will interact most with the plugin. You will find the following information in the meta box:

• Analyzing content for SEO quality and readability
• Let you set up the settings to control how your content is displayed on Google or social media

The meta box is located beneath the WordPress editor. Depending on your plugins and themes, its exact location may vary. If you’re using WordPress block Editor, this can also be found in the right-hand corner. There are three ways you can interact with this meta box.

• (1) – This allows you to toggle between Snippet Preview, Readability analysis, Focus keyphrase, Cornerstone content, and Snippet Preview
• (2) – Additional Access settings to social media
• (3) – Lets you have access to advanced options

Tab Content Optimization

The Content Optimization tab measures how search engine-friendly your content

Snippet preview makes up the first area in the content optimization tab.

You can click Edit snippet to edit your content’s SEO Title or meta description. You will see a live preview at its top as you edit your information.

This information matters because it is what Google will display in its organic search results.

Yoast SEO’s Readability Analysis area tries to apply the same concept to humans. It assesses how easily human visitors will read your content. Next, it gives suggestions on ways to improve the readability of your content.

These suggestions don’t always work, and these guidelines are excellent for high-level guidance.

Focus keyword: To optimize your content, type a Focus keyword into the Focus keyphrase field.

You will need basic keyword research to identify people’s searches. Once you have entered the keyword, Yoast SEO analyses your content to determine if your post is optimized for it.

It will inform you of the good and bad things you are doing. Yoast SEO Premium can be used to add related keywords.

It would be best to remember that Yoast Focus Keyphrase does not help you rank in Google, and it’s only an advisory to help optimize your content.

You can decide whether or not to designate the content as a cornerstone within the Cornerstone content space.

Cornerstone is the heart of your website, and it contains the best and most important articles from your site. Cornerstone articles combine the insights of different blog posts and provide a comprehensive subject overview.

You should choose the best content, posts, and pages you will keep current as cornerstone content. This will make it easy to find your cornerstone material in the pages and post lists.

Yoast SEO Social Media Tab

In the Social tab, it’s possible to set up how your content looks on Facebook and Twitter.

This is information that a network automatically generates after a URL is shared.

Yoast SEO will automatically generate this information.

• Your SEO title
• Your content’s featured photo

This is where you can change the default settings.

Yoast Advanced Tab

The Yoast Advanced Tab is a powerful tool that can help you to improve your website’s SEO. Using this tab, you can control how your website appears in search results and customize how you can also customize the way that you will analyze your content.

 In addition, the Yoast Advanced Tab provides you with a range of other features that can help you to improve your website’s SEO. These include the ability to add social media tags to your website and the ability to create 301 redirects. The Yoast Advanced Tab is a crucial feature you should consider employing if you are serious about enhancing the SEO of your website.

Most people won’t even look at the Advanced tab. If you want to:

• Stop Google from indexing that particular piece of content. Allow search engines to display it in search results.
• Use a unique URL to avoid duplicate content.

This is how you can achieve it.

Exploring The Yoast SEO Dashboard

Let’s see the dashboard now that Yoast SEO is set up and you are familiar with the meta box.

Yoast SEO is a tool that alerts you to potential SEO issues. It can be found on the dashboard’s main page, “Under General”.

Yoast SEO has a problem with our test site tagline being the default text.

Yoast provides instructions on how you can fix the issue. You can either ignore the notification or dismiss it.

General Tab

Although not very important, the General tab allows you:

• Go to the configuration wizard
• Count the internal links in each post.

Features Tab

The Features tab offers a bit more options than the previous tab. You can activate or disable Yoast SEO’s specific features from this section.

For instance, if the Yoast Search SEO meta box’s Readability analysis is not helpful, you can turn it off by clicking here.

You may also turn off or on author security from here. The advanced section within Yoast SEO allows users to edit the canonical or remove posts from search results, and these are tasks you may not want your author to perform. Administrators or editors can only change these settings, and all users can change these settings by changing the location to “Off”.

Do you need XML sitemaps to be found? Yoast SEO helps you generate an XML web map that you can submit directly to search engines. You can find more information about WordPress sitemaps on.

Yoast SEO v2.0 has no separate section for this. You can still find a link from your XML web sitemap by expanding the XML tooltip and clicking the “See the XML Web Sitemap” link.

You can use the Search Area further below to exclude certain post types.

Webmaster tools Tab

Yoast SEO’s webmaster tools can be used to verify your site against various search engines.

The Webmaster Tools Tab is a powerful tool that can help Yoast SEO tutorial to improve your website ranking. It provides Yoast SEO tutorials, tips, and resources that can help you optimize your website for better search engine results. The Webmaster Tools Tab also includes a link to the Google Webmaster Central Blog, which can provide Yoast SEO tutorials and other helpful information about website optimization. 

In addition, the Webmaster Tools Tab includes a link to the Google Search Console, a valuable tool for tracking your website’s performance in the search engines. Overall, the Webmaster Tools Tab is a valuable resource for anyone interested in improving their website’s ranking in search engines.

The Advanced Guide To Yoast Seo

Congrats! You should understand the core settings and features of Yoast SEO.

This section will discuss some of the advanced settings Yoast’s SEO keeps under wraps.

Search Appearance Option

Want to edit the schema.org data and knowledge graph? Perhaps the configuration wizard wasn’t available to you. You can find this area under the Search Appearance. Click on the General tab to edit your organization and person data.

Yoast SEO version 11.+ is now capable of supporting more structured data. They can be added as JSON/LD to the code of your site and include support for Organization, Person WebSite WebPage Article schema.

You can test your WordPress site with the Google Structured Data Testing Software.

The Search Appearance area offers many great ways to automate some of your on-page SEO.

Yoast SEO lets you set up templates for SEO titles, meta descriptions and other relevant information.

• Posts
• Pages
• Types de custom post
• Taxonomies
• Custom taxonomies
• Archive pages

This feature is powerful because it allows you to dynamically insert information into various variables, including information in custom fields.

Can you view the complete list by clicking the Need Help Me? Clicking on the Need Help! When pressed, a list of variables will appear. 

Scroll down to the Advanced Variables section to find time-saving hacks.

Let’s assume you manage a coupon website.

You do not need to update the Title every month manually. Yoast SEO could simply use the %%current month%% & %%current year%% variables.

This area also offers other opportunities.

• Set index tags on specific content. Google won’t index content that isn’t indexed if you do. This feature is compelling, so it’s essential to use it carefully. Only make changes to the default settings when you understand the implications and are confident in your abilities.
• You can decide whether or not to show a blog’s published dates in Google search results. You can leave this on if you have published it. If you’re posting news or any other time-specific content, it’s a good idea.
• You can choose which categories of content should display in the Yoast SEO Meta box. 

Taxonomies Tab

The Taxonomies tab lets you do cool stuff to clean your site’s permalinks.

One of the most valuable features you have is the option to remove your category slug from URLs.

A taxonomy is a system of classification. In the Yoast SEO tutorial context, a taxonomy is a way to group different types of content. For example, you could have a taxonomy for blog posts, pages, products, etc. The Yoast SEO plugin has the Taxonomies tab, which allows you to create and manage your taxonomies. 

Your Yoast SEO settings can be kept tidy and accessible by doing this. To access the Taxonomies tab, go to Yoast SEO » Taxonomies in your WordPress dashboard. From here, you can add new taxonomies or edit existing ones.

Breadcrumbs Tab

Breadcrumbs are a navigational element that looks like this:

They’re generally regarded positively for assisting users in navigating your website.

You can enable them with Yoast. To activate breadcrumbs, you will need to modify your theme.

RSS Tab

The RSS tab allows you to add additional content before and after your posts in yours. You can also dynamically add information to your blog using some variables.

Social Options

You can also configure settings in the Social area to improve how your site interacts on various social networks.

These should be left as defaults.

Tools Options

Finally, the Tools section allows you to access a variety of editors and also offers an option for exporting or importing your Yoast optimization settings.

Here’s a helpful tip: You can edit your WordPress site robots.txt files from your dashboard and do not need SFTP in your area.

Yoast SEO helps you create robots.txt. Click the File editor to get started. Yoast SEO also lets you make changes in your dashboard once you have the file.

If you don’t see the File option, one of two things is happening.

1. The access and Nginx files aren’t accessible on your web server. For help, reach out to your hosting company.
2. Your WordPress install has file editing disabled.

How to Use SEO Yoast in Your Everyday Life

Let’s finish this guide and look at Yoast’s actual use in your WordPress everyday life.

Yoast SEO is a “set and forget” tool. After you’ve got everything set up, the Yoast Search SEO meta box is the only area you’ll use daily.

Minimum one sentence per post.

• Enter a keyword focus. It doesn’t imply that you must take each Yoast’s advice into account. But, it’s always a good idea.
• Configure the Meta Description and SEO Title. Even if you create a well-designed template, it’s still essential to manually adjust these for most posts to make them as optimized and valuable as possible.

You may also be interested in:

• Readability
• Social settings are essential if you believe a piece of content could do well on social networks.

Yoast Premium updates regularly and adds new functionality such as the index now feature. 

This allows website owners to notify search engines of any changes quickly.

If you have other questions regarding Yoast SEO, please let us know. Drop a comment, and we’ll get your site ranked!

Use this tool to save time, reduce costs, and optimize site performance

• WordPress hosting experts available 24/7 for immediate assistance
• Cloudflare Enterprise integration
• Thirty-four data centers around the world help you reach your global audience.
• Optimize your applications with our built-in Application Performance Monitor.

With no long-term commitments, guided migrations, and a 30-day money-back guarantee, one plan offers all of that and much more. Browse our plans. Talk with sales. To find the plan for you,