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Yoast SEO is a plugin for WordPress (WP). It has been around since 2008 and they boost it as the original SEO plugin for WP. With Yoast SEO, you get a solid toolset that helps you gain a spot on the first page in search results. Being on the first page is extremely important in any marketing campaign.
Here is a quick overview of some of those features.
There is a premium version of the Yoast SEO that comes with even more features.
If all of these features do not make sense to you. They will after you install the plugin and take the following steps below.
Before trying to install any plugin, know that if you are using WordPress.com you cannot install plugins unless you upgrade to their business plan.
• Log on to your WordPress website, go to your WordPress dashboard and click on
Plugins » Add New.
You will see a screen like the one in the screenshot (fig. 1). Find the plugin by typing the plugin name “Yoast“. After that, you will see a bunch of listings like the example – right.
WordPress will now download and install the Yoast plugin for you. After this, you will see the success message with a link to activate the plugin or return to plugin installer. Press the Button “Activate“.
At the top of your window, you will now see “Y” Yoast SEO logo at the top of the user window (most likely in the black strip above). 
You will also see the Yoast SEO loge to the left under Settings. If you click on either the top or the bottom Yoast icon it will bring you to the Yoast Dashboard.
You will see “Get started quickly with the Yoast SEO configuration wizard!” There will be other notification, we will get to those farther down. Press the wizard link (older versions of the link may say configure plugin) configuration wizard. You are now in the configure window. We are going to configure not let Yoast do it for us; this is a 12step process.
• Click “Configure Yoast SEO” for the first step.
• Environment is the up to you, but in this set up I am doing choosing “My site is live and ready to be indexed. Click NEXT to finish the second step.
• Choose what type of website you are planning on. For this example, I am pressing “A portfolio.” Click NEXT to finish the third step.
• Choose Company or Person in this step. Don’t forget to fill the company name or person for your website. Click NEXT to finish the fourth step.
• Social profiles will take a bit of time to fill out. Get as many as you can, but only use social networks you are planning on keeping up with. Click NEXT to finish the fifth step.
• Post type visibility according to what you think is best. I recommend “Posts” and “Pages” be
• Multiple authors is fairly straightforward. Click NEXT to finish the seventh step.
• Google Search Console is a very important step. Let us go through this step with a few details. Press Google Authorization Code. A new tab or window will pop up. Yoast will ask you for account information, or if you are logged into Google it will ask you to choose an account, to continue to This is where you will need your google account information. You can do this manually later if you do not want Yoast SEO to do this, but for this exercise press ALLOW. The new tab or window will have the code you need to paste into your Yoast configure tab or window. Now enter your Google Authorization Code and press the Authenticate button.
Here is where you may need to work with your Google account. Make sure you are logged in to a new tab. Go to: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/home?hl=en. Press ADD A PROPERTY it is a red button. Add your website.Then:
1. Download this HTML verification file. [google-numbers.html]
2. Upload the file to http://www.YourWebsite.com/
3. Confirm successful upload by visiting http://christopherferman.com/google-numbers.html in your browser.
4. Click Verify below.
Click Verify, it is a red button.
Now you can choose your website for the Google Search Console. Click NEXT to finish the eighth step.
• Title settings will be the name you see at the top of the tab and browser when people come to your web page. Fill in what you feel is appropriate for your site. The character you are choosing will be the separator between the post title and the site title. An example would be How to hike rivers – My Cool Hiking Website or How to hike rivers | My Cool Hiking Website. The “-” or “|” is the difference. SEO is not influence by which one your choose. Click NEXT to finish the ninth step.
• Newsletter use to be the first step. Fill out if you want a news. Leave blank if you do not and click NEXT to finish the tenth step.
• You might like is another optional step. I recommend watching all the videos, but at a later date. Click NEXT to finish the last step.
• Yeah! You reached Success!
Your Yoast SEO Plugin is now set and ready to go. The first time you do this it could take up to a half hour because you have not collected all the information yet. You may even start new social accounts because Yoast made you rethink your marketing plan and SEO. If you have another website that you will work on next it will be closer to 10 minutes to finish.
If you did not use Yoast to help you set up Google. Go to Webmaster tools. I am not going into Bing and Yandex Webmaster Tools this time. I will visit it in the future. If you would like it sooner than later just send me a message.
Pick any post you have done and scroll to the bottom of the page. You should see:
• Problems
• Improvements
• Good results
This is where Yoast SEO makes your blog/website a better place to visit and easier for search engines to understand your fit in their results. In short, this is a SEO’s best practices grading system. Fix all that are in red. I recommend if you have the time fix all the orange issues as well but do not skip over reading the green. The green is where you did well, and by reading them you can recreate these higher standards in your writing to make you a better SEO writer/editor.
If you are new to Yoast and you are now trying to fix all the red in the problem area of Yoast’s critic, you will want to go to Features in the SEO dashboard (). Here you can Enable – Advanced settings pages. This will fix a few problems you may have. For example:
No focus keyword was set for this page. If you do not set a focus keyword, no score can be calculated.
No meta description has been specified. Search engines will display copy from the
Once you Enable – Advanced settings pages. in the dashboard under Features, you can add a focus keyword and a meta description (This is the description search engines will show on their pages under your link.) for your post.
Go back to your post an scroll down to the bottom and look for the Edit snippet button. Fill the form to fix errors. This is one of the few place you will get to freely add language that will get people to click on your link. Very important for your marketing plan.
Remember the goal is make all dots GREEN so that you have Search Engine Optimization.
Keyword research is the work you do to come up with an extensive list of keywords you want to rank for in your article or post. The reason you do the keyword research is that it is vital to SEO to formulate a Keyword strategy. Keyword strategy is about the decisions you make on the basis of that keyword research. Proper keyword research will make clear which search terms your audience uses. The Plugin Yoast can only help once you have decided on the keywords that will help promote your article or post. Often writers use one set of words when describing their products or services, while their target audience uses a completely different set of words. These writers do not help their sites because their potential customers aren’t finding the site due to a mismatch in the word search or use.
An example of mismatch keyword could be “cooper”. If your target audience does not know what a cooper is, the keyword will fall on deaf ears. In this case barrel maker might be better. It doesn’t make any sense to optimize for words that customers don’t use. Well done keyword research makes sure that you use the same words as your target audience, and this makes the whole effort of optimizing your website far more effective. On top of that, by looking at search intent, you find out what your customer is asking about. Those questions should get an answer in the writers article or post. In other words, your content should contain the keyword you customer uses.
It is paramount to ensure that the content you’re writing fits both the vocabulary (words or terms) people are searching for, as well as the search intent of your audience. Make sure your post or page is informational if people are searching for information. But lead people to your sales pages if they are prone to buying one of your products or services. Once you have established the vocabulary or keywords in your content. Use Yoast SEO Plugin to magnify your intention in both articles and posts on your website.
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