8.2. WordPress SEO Plugin

In the previous section, we learned some of the important SEO recommendations to improve page rank. In this section, we put those recommendations into action with the help of WordPress SEO Plugin.

WordPress SEO Plugin by Yoast is one the leading search engine optimization (SEO) plugins for WordPress. WordPress SEO Plugin helps us to:

  • Set SEO Title for the page.

  • Set Meta Description for the page.

  • Set focus keywords and analyze the page.

  • Get SEO suggestions for the page.

Install WordPress SEO Plugin by Yoast. Plugin installation is explained in WordPress Plugin.

WordPress SEO Plugin adds a new menu item SEO to the dashboard.

WordPress SEO Plugin comes with default settings, and we leave them as it is, except three items. By default on content publish, WordPress SEO pings Google and Bing search engines. To ping Yahoo and Ask we have to enable them in Dashboard → SEO → XML Sitemaps.

Breadcrumbs in the header are useful to navigate the pages, and it is also important for SEO as they provide hints to search engine about the hierarchy of the pages. Many themes add breadcrumbs to the pages, and we may also enable breadcrumbs using WordPress SEO Plugin. When there are no breadcrumbs in pages, enable breadcrumbs using Dashboard → SEO → Internal Links.

Last thing we need to set is Authorship. By default, WordPress SEO Plugin enables authorship for Posts. To enable it for Pages, open Dashboard → SEO → Titles and Metas and select Post Types tab and scroll down to Pages section and uncheck Don’t show rel=“author” and save changes. We cover Authorship in detail in the next chapter.

 
 

WordPress SEO Optimization

So far it was easy, but we are yet to begin the SEO optimization. Most tedious part in SEO task is that we have to edit each and every page and set focus keywords and tweak page title, page URL, meta description and get a good SEO rating for the page.

WordPress SEO Plugin - Focus Keyword Screen.

Open All Posts or All Pages and select an item to edit. In edit screen, now we have a new block below the visual editor - WordPress SEO by Yoast. Fill the Focus Keyword that is appropriate for the page and navigate to the next field by pressing Tab. WordPress SEO Plugin analyzes the page and shows the presence or absence of focus keywords in the key areas of the page.

Adjust Article Heading, Page Title, Page URL, Meta Description, and content so that focus keyword appears in as many of them as possible.

By default, WordPress SEO Plugin uses a part of the first paragraph for meta description and shows it in the Snippet Review. Use the Meta Description field to enter the proper description that is appealing and contains focus keywords.

After tweaking, save the page by clicking Update in the Publish block. An icon, next to the SEO label, shows the rating of the page.

WordPress SEO Plugin presents the analyzes of the page in Page Analysis tab of WordPress SEO section. Review the suggestions and where ever possible, try to improve the things. Plugin updates the Rating and Page Analysis tab when page is updated and saved.

SEO is a tedious and time consuming process, yet it is necessary to move up in the search results. In the next section, we go through one more SEO activity - Google Authorship.