Welcome to my Yoast SEO review. In this blog post I will share what I’ve learned from years of personal experience with this WordPress plugin. I’ll explain how Yoast can help more than just search engine optimization.
First off, it would probably help to share some definitions.
SEO stands for search engine optimization. It is the specific things you do to help Internet content like blog posts and web pages rank higher on search engines like Google. SEO is far more than just which words you use. You “optimize” the page so that when someone searches for it, it shows up on the first page of results in the search engine.
A plugin is a small program that adds one or more functions to a WordPress website or blog. I use several of them. The best thing about plugins is that you can add functionality to your site quickly and easily. You do not need to know anything about programming. There are thousands of free plugins available for almost any function you want at WordPress Plugins.
My Yoast SEO Review – I highly recommend the plugin for the following reasons…
The Yoast SEO Plugin helps me get top SEO search engine optimization results. In fact, when I help team members set up their own blog, Yoast is the first plugin I recommend.
For example, when someone searches for my name, Joe Barclay shows up on the first page of Google results. Yoast helps me get similar results with many other search terms too.
A recent figure I saw was that Google was responsible for about 90% of all searches. If your name or any other search term shows up on page 6 or deeper, you are not being found. You have to make page 1 or 2. Ideally, page 1.
It is important to note that SEO takes time. You can not expect results overnight. Search engine optimization should be an ongoing long-haul strategy for your business. While some pages may index and rank in days, as a general rule, SEO mastery for a new website or blog takes months of diligent activity.
Here’s how Yoast helps SEO
Yoast is packed with features and easy to use too. SEO search engine optimization beginners can obtain excellent results using Yoast. It walks you through the process step by step. It is a real time saver even if you are experienced in SEO.
First it helps you create the following critical SEO elements and gives you a preview of what your search listing will look like on both mobile and desktops:
SEO Title – just like the name says, it’s the title of the page
Focus keyphrase – the phrase you want your page to be found for in search engines
Meta description – a brief summary of what the page is about
Slug – the piece of the URL that identifies your particular page or post
You have to get these right to rank high…and Yoast makes it simple. It will either tell you they are good or offer suggestions on how to improve them.
Then Yoast walks you through a detailed SEO analysis to fine tune and SEO optimize other elements on your page. It checks each of them and offers suggestions where improvement is called for. Particular emphasis is placed on keyphrases.
These elements include keyphrase metrics such as length, density, being included in the slug and meta description. Yoast also checks to see if the keyphrase is in the subheadings, introduction, and if it has been used before. Finally, it reminds you that an exact match of the focus keyphrase should be at the beginning of the SEO title.
Lastly, Yoast checks to see if your content has proper linking, maximum use of images and their attributes, and overall text length.
Maximize not just SEO – but readability too
In my Yoast SEO review, this is one of the features I like best. Even if you do obtain a top Google listing and get traffic to your page, it won’t matter if the page is difficult to read. Once you get traffic to your page, you need to keep it there.
The Readability module helps you fine tune sentence length, paragraph length, and subheading distribution. It alerts you to creating variety in sentences and using enough passive voice and transition words. All to maximize overall reading ease.
The price is maybe the best part
Yoast is available full-featured in what they call Premium for $89. There is also a free version, which I have used for years. The biggest feature you give up with the free version is that you can only use 1 keyword phrase at a time. But, this is not a problem. I have found that when I want to target additional keyword phrases, I get far better SEO results by creating additional content.
The other big difference between Premium and free is support. Premium users have access to live support. Free members refer to online forums. Yoast SEO is so well laid out, I don’t feel that the support issue is a problem either.
Again, I highly recommend the Yoast SEO Plugin after careful review and years of first hand experience.
I hope that now you can get the most out of your search engine optimization and more by reading this yoast seo review.
To your success,
Joe Barclay