How to Set Up Yoast SEO for beginners (Practical & Easy) 2022

How to Set Up Yoast SEO for beginners – Do you want your website to appear on the first page of a Google search? If yes, then your SEO efforts should be on point. One way is to use the Yoast SEO plugin. So, how do you set the latest Yoast SEO?

You are on the right page! In this article, you will learn a lot about Yoast SEO. Starting from what Yoast SEO is, how to install it, how to set the best Yoast SEO, to how to use Yoast SEO in posts.

Come on, just read the full article!

What is Yoast SEO?

Yoast SEO is a WordPress plugin that is used to improve website SEO. Since its presence in 2008, Yoast SEO has helped many websites to rank higher in search engines.

With Yoast SEO, you can create SEO-friendly content thanks to the use of the right keywords. You will also know whether the distribution of the keywords is evenly distributed in the article.

Not only that, but you can also see the results of SEO analysis with various parameters. For example, the meta title and meta description that will appear in search results are following Google’s provisions.

There is another Readability Analysis feature that can help you create content that can be read comfortably by many people. There will be information on the use of connecting sentences, to passive sentences that can make the explanation too long.

If you are interested in using it, Yoast SEO has 2 versions, namely: free and premium. For basic use, their free version already offers the main useful features.

Here are the free features that you can enjoy in the Yoast SEO plugin:

• Focus keywords
• Robot meta configuration
• RSS Configuration
• Permalink settings
• Breadcrumbs Settings
• XML Sitemaps
• File editor for .htaccess and robots.txt

Google Search Console, Yahoo Site Explorer, and Bing Webmaster Tools verification assistance
Import settings from other SEO plugins

Not only is it fully featured, but it’s also easy to use Yoast SEO. Now, before going into the best and latest Yoast SEO settings, let’s start with the installation process first!

How to Install Yoast SEO Plugin

1. The first step in setting up Yoast SEO is to install and activate the Yoast SEO plugin on the WordPress admin dashboard.

2. On the WordPress admin page, click the Plugins menu > Add New to add a new plugin.

3. Then, type Yoast in the search field. When the Yoast SEO plugin appears, click the Install Now button.

4. Wait a few moments until the installation process is complete. If so, click Activate.

5. Now, if the plugin has been successfully activated, the SEO menu will appear on the WordPress sidebar menu. Enter the menu, then you will be directed to the General Settings page like this:

6. On that page, you can do Yoast SEO settings. Let’s read more!

How to Set Up Yoast SEO for beginners with Workout

To facilitate Yoast SEO settings for beginners, Yoast provides a quick way to configure the best Yoast SEO settings, namely through the Configuration workout feature.

You can access this feature directly on the Workout submenu or through General Settings by clicking the Yoast SEO Configuration workout link as follows:

You will be redirected to the following SEO Workouts page:

Next, click the Start workout button! You will see several Yoast SEO configuration steps on one page.

1. Optimize SEO data

The first step in setting up Yoast SEO for beginners is to do SEO optimization.

At this stage, SEO optimization will be carried out on your website. Yoast will provide SEO tips to improve its technical SEO performance.

The length of this optimization process depends on the amount of data being optimized. Even so, you can still go directly to the next step, even though the optimization process has not been completed.

2. Site Representation

You can choose 2 types of website options, namely Organization or Person.

Choose Organization if your website is a business website or an organization’s website. Select Person if the website is a personal blog.

Then, fill in the name of the organization/website owner, select the website logo and enter the website tagline. If all the data has been completed, click the Save and continue button.

3. Social Profiles

At this stage, you can enter the social media links you have. If so, click the Save and continue button to proceed to the fourth step.

4. Help Us Improve Yoast SEO

In this step, Yoast SEO asks for permission to use your website data.

If you allow, select Yes, and you can track my site data. But if it doesn’t allow it, select No, I don’t want to allow you to track my site data.

5. Sign Up for Our Newsletter

The final step for setting up the latest Yoast SEO is to enter an email address to subscribe to the Yoast newsletter. Can be skipped if you don’t want to.

Now, if all the steps have been done and the SEO data optimization process is complete, click the Finish this workout button.

If the Configuration Workout feature can’t be used, you can do the latest Yoast SEO settings manually.

How to Set Yoast SEO Manually

With the manual method, you can do more detailed general settings, appearance, and tools for social media.

1. SEO Data Transfer

The first step in setting up Yoast SEO manually is transferring SEO data. If it’s your first time installing an SEO plugin, you can skip this step.

However, if you have used SEO plugins other than Yoast SEO, such as All in One SEO Pack or Rank Math, you will need to transfer SEO data from the previous plugins. That way, Yoast can use its metadata and you don’t have to start over from scratch.

You can transfer data on SEO settings via the Tools menu > Import and Export > Import from other SEO plugins in Yoast SEO.

Oh yes, if you have transferred SEO data, you can disable the previous plugin so that Yoast can work optimally.

2. How to set the latest Yoast SEO on the General Menu

On the General Yoast SEO menu, there are four tabs for configuration, namely: the Dashboard tab, Features, Integrations, and Webmaster Tools.

2.1 Dashboard Tabs

The dashboard page displays links to configure SEO workouts, SEO-related issues, and notifications containing suggestions for improving SEO. Perform settings that you have not optimized.

2.2 Features Tab

Yoast SEO has 10 main features that you can easily enable/disable on this page, namely:

• SEO analysis: Displays scores and performs SEO analysis of your content.
• Readability analysis: Displays scores and performs readability analysis of your content.
• Cornerstone content: Helps manage the main content (content pillar) of your website.
• Text link counter: Displays the number of internal links in the article.
• XML sitemaps: Create XML sitemaps for your website.
• Admin bar menu: Displays the Yoast SEO menu on the WordPress admin toolbar.
• Security: no advanced settings for authors: Hides advanced SEO settings for authors.
• Usage tracking: This allows the author plugin to track data usage.
• REST API: Head endpoint: This allows you or the WordPress developer to fetch SEO data specifically for a post or page.
• Enhanced Slack sharing: Adds an author byline and estimated reading time to article snippets when shared via Slack.

If you have decided which features will be active or inactive, don’t forget to click the Save changes button.

2.3 Integrations Tab

To optimize the content on your website, Yoast SEO offers integration with third-party products, namely SEMRush and Ryte.

SEMrush allows you to search for related keywords that match the focus keywords you are using. While Ryte is a tool that helps you analyze your site for search engine indexing.

Both SEMrush and Ryte are tools that can improve the SEO of your website content. Therefore, we recommend enabling both. Then, click the Save changes button to save the changes.

2.4 Webmaster Tools tab

To make your website easier to find in search engines, you can verify your website by entering codes from various webmaster search engines tools such as Baidu, Bing, Google, or Yandex.

3. How to set the latest Yoast SEO on the Search Appearance menu

In this menu, you can change the appearance of the website on the search results page. There are seven configuration tabs in the Search Appearance menu, namely: General, Content Types, Media, Taxonomies, Archives, Breadcrumbs, and RSS.

3.1 General tab

On the General tab, you can select the symbol to use as a separator in your title. Usually, this separator symbol is placed between the content title and the website name.

Next, you will enter the Homepage settings. Here, you can create an SEO title and meta description that will be visible to the audience on search engines.

Next, you can set the preview display on social media if the homepage link is shared. You can add images, titles that will be used on social media, and website descriptions.

If the Homepage settings are complete, scroll down, then you will see the Knowledge Graph & Schema.org settings. In this section, you must choose the type of your website: a website that represents an organization or a personal blog.

Then, enter the organization name/website owner name and add your website logo.

If all the configurations are set correctly, click the Save changes button to save the changes.

3.2 Tab Content Types

In this tab, you can choose or create an SEO title and meta description that can be used as a default or template for any content on your website.

In this tutorial, we recommend that you only customize the SEO title section. As for the meta description section, it is better to leave it blank so that later Yoast SEO can generate its meta description from the first paragraph of your article.

3.3 Media Tabs

In this tab, you don’t need to change anything. Just leave it as the default setting, which is Yes.

3.4 Taxonomies tab

In the taxonomies tab, you can configure titles and meta for categories, tags, and formats. In this tutorial, we recommend that you enable only the categories section.

Then, set the SEO title and meta description columns to your liking. Then, click Save changes.

3.5 Tab Archives

The Archives tab is a place to set the appearance of archive pages on your website. In WordPress itself, there are three types of archive pages, namely: Author archives, Date archives, and Special pages.

By default, Yoast SEO enables Author archives and Date archives.

However, this configuration is not recommended on websites that have a single author. The reason is, that the author archives page will exactly match the date archives. As a result, the content will be duplicated and adversely affect your SEO ranking.

Therefore, for websites with a single author, we recommend disabling one of them.

As for Special Pages, you can modify them or leave them with the default settings from Yoast SEO.

3.6 Tab Breadcrumbs

A website that uses breadcrumbs is considered a quality website and has a good effect on SEO. Therefore, the Yoast SEO plugin has breadcrumbs feature to add to your website.

However, there are already several website themes that have a built-in breadcrumbs feature. So, you are free to choose whether you want to use the theme’s built-in breadcrumbs or from the Yoast plugin.

You can change the configuration of the breadcrumbs in Yoast or leave it with the default settings like this:

Make sure you enable breadcrumbs for your website theme by moving the toggle to Enabled.

3.7 RSS Tabs

RSS feeds are often used by content thieves to copy content from websites and do not provide backlinks to the original content. This will affect SEO rankings because there will be identical content from two different websites.

Well, Yoast SEO has an RSS setting feature that will add a backlink at the beginning or end of each RSS feed post. So, you will get backlinks from content-stealing websites, and Google will know that your content is original.

There are several options that you can add, such as an author link, post link, blog link, or a blog description link.

4. How to set the latest Yoast SEO on the Social Menu

Yoast SEO has features to integrate your website with social media, such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc. In this Social menu, you can configure it on four tabs, namely: Account, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.

4.1 Accounts tab

In this tab, enter the URL of your social media profile. If so, click Save changes to save the changes.

4.2 Facebook Tabs

In the Facebook tab, make sure you enable Open Graph metadata so that Facebook can display a preview in the form of images or text when you share a website link.

Next, select an image in the Default image section, this image will be used if the website content you share on Facebook does not have an image. If so, click the Save changes button.

4.3 Twitter Tabs

Twitter uses Open Graph metadata like Facebook. Therefore, to optimize the website on Twitter, you must make sure the Open Graph metadata in the Facebook tab settings are active.

Then, enable Twitter card metadata by sliding the toggle towards Enabled. Then, select the default card type that is used to display a preview of website content on Twitter.

In this tutorial, we chose the Summary with a large image card type which will display the summary and image in the preview shown.

4.4 Pinterest Tabs

To configure Pinterest, make sure the Open Graph metadata in the Facebook tab is active. After that, enter the Pinterest verification code in the field provided.

This verification code is a meta tag that you can get in your Pinterest Business account > Settings > Claim.

5. Using the Tools Menu [Optional]

The tools menu can help you in setting up the latest Yoast SEO. Yoast SEO provides advanced features to help you perform advanced tasks, such as import and export, file editor, bulk editor, and optimize SEO data.

5.1 Import and Export Tools

Previously, you were advised to transfer SEO settings data from another SEO plugin, right? Well, these steps can be done on the import and export features in the Tools menu below:

You can import SEO settings from other plugins or export Yoast SEO settings to other plugins in a different WordPress.

5.2 Tools File Editor

In WordPress, two configuration files have a big impact on website SEO: the .htaccess file and the robots.txt file.

Yoast SEO makes it easy for you to edit these two files directly through the WordPress admin page as follows:

5.3 Tools Bulk Editor

Yoast SEO allows you to quickly edit the SEO title and SEO description of all blog posts by using the Bulk Editor feature.

The trick, go to the Title tab and write a new SEO title in the column provided. Then, click Save to save the changes.

Likewise, if you want to change the meta description, you only need to go to the Description tab and write a new meta description in the column provided. Then, click Save.

6. Switch to Yoast Premium [Optional]

The free Yoast SEO plugin is good enough to carry out SEO optimization functions. However, to be more optimal, you can use the paid (premium) version.

In the premium version, you will get additional features such as A redirect manager, Synonyms & related keyphrases, Social previews, and Premium support.

To switch to Yoast SEO Premium, please access the Premium menu and click the Buy Yoast SEO Premium button.

How to Use Yoast SEO on posts

After the latest Yoast SEO settings are complete, it’s time to use Yoast on every post. To do this, check the analysis panel at the bottom of the editor page, then do the following:

1. Enter Keyword

The first way to use Yoast SEO is to enter the appropriate keywords after the article has been written. So, articles can rank high on Google according to topic searches with certain keywords.

Before adding keywords to the Yoast SEO panel in your articles, do some keyword research with the help of tools like Google Trends or Ubersuggest.

Then, enter keywords in the Focus Keyphrase column.

2. Set Google Preview

At this stage, you can control how your articles appear on search pages on both mobile and desktop devices. There are three things you can set:

• SEO title: Give an attractive title and insert focus keywords. Don’t use titles that are too short or too long with the green SEO indicator.
• Slug: Determine the permalink of your article. Don’t be too long and try not to use numbers in the slug.
• Meta description: Make an interesting meta description with the appropriate length of words and enter the keywords. Make the SEO indicator green.

3. Enter keywords on H2/H3

Check your article again and make sure there is at least one keyword in the subtitle in your post. In this example, we recommend using keywords in the H2 subtitle:

4. Pay attention to Keyword Density in the Analysis section

Yoast SEO is a plugin that provides SEO analysis information, such as an analysis of the number of keywords used in articles.

So, check the keyword density in the post, which is the comparison of the number of keywords with the number of words in the article. Make sure the keyword density is green.

In addition to keyword density, try other SEO indicators that are green. If there are still red or orange ones, make improvements according to the suggestions given by Yoast SEO.

5. Add Internal Link

Don’t forget to add an internal link, which is a link to one of your posts on the website. Internal links are important to build the context of the explanation and structure of the blog.

6. Add Keywords in Image Alt Tags

The last way to use Yoast SEO is to always add keywords to the image Alt tag, at least one image. The trick, click on the image in your article and add Alternative text in the Image settings section.

Closing

Thus the best Yoast SEO setting guide for you. Yoast SEO is a popular SEO plugin with many advantages and powerful features that can help your website rank high on Google.

For beginners, use the best and latest Yoast SEO settings through the SEO Workout feature. Meanwhile, for those of you who want a more detailed configuration, there is a more complete manual method.

Next, you can apply how to use Yoast SEO on each of the menus and features that we have described.