Successful SEO is directly linked to the creation of good content and in order for content to rank well, it needs to consider a number of factors. Yoast is a WordPress plugin that can make this process much easier. It allows editors to take control when making their websites as search engine friendly as possible.

After installing the Yoast plugin, you will see an added column appear on ‘All Pages’. Labelled as SEO, it uses a traffic lights system to show how good the SEO of each page is. Green means the page is doing well, orange means there is room for improvement and red means that the page needs significant improvements. A grey dot implies that Yoast doesn’t have any information to feedback about the SEO. This system allows you to pick out pages easily that need an extra boost.

Yoast WordPress Example

When you open up a page from the list, right at the bottom you will see a new section displaying the Yoast toolbox. This allows you to set a focus keyword. The purpose of this is so it can calculate how many times the keyword has been used in the content, while also looking at the URL, title and meta description. This gives a clear indication of whether the keyword has been used enough or too much. When the grey dot is on display for the specific post, it most commonly means that a keyword hasn’t been specified for the post so Yoast cannot offer any insights into improvements.

yoast-wordpress-example

Underneath the keyword section is a short analysis panel showing the traffic light system appearing as a checklist for your focus keyword and other SEO elements. It highlights areas that website administrators should consider reviewing before publishing the page.

Yoast makes the process of implementing SEO friendly content much easier. It simplifies the whole process so you can work your way through the suggested changes to make each post even better, and be sure that you haven’t missed anything out. The tool allows Google to index pages much faster, especially when linked to your Google Webmaster account as this will notify the search engines when your content has changed.

You can find out more about this plugin on the Yoast website.

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