Having a website doesn’t necessarily mean that it will be visited. SEO optimisation is a must to gain organic traffic to your website, but it can be overwhelming to look after your website’ SEO all by yourself. In such cases, the SEO plugin can be of great help. Besides creating a user-friendly website and putting your 100% into creating great content for your business, optimising it for search engines is essential. SEO plugins can help boost the visibility of your content and make it accessible to search engines. However, it is crucial to choose the right SEO plugin for your website.
Given the pros and cons of numerous SEO plugins available for WordPress, here’s our pick on the #1 SEO plugin that would kickstart the SEO for your website- the Yoast SEO plugin.
Yoast SEO plugin for WordPress is packed with features that enable you to implement all the necessary SEO elements on your website. The comprehensive features of the Yoast SEO plugin help you optimise your website in terms of content, keywords, sitemaps, optimising your website for rich snippets, and managing duplicate content.
Here are the top 10 features of the Yoast SEO plugin that are immensely helpful in leveraging the SEO for your website.
1. Displaying or hiding the content from the search engines:
Yoast SEO plugin allows you to show or hide web pages on your website at your convenience. You can restrict search engines from indexing certain web pages on your website by adding no-index to them. It also helps you hide archive pages, no-index categories, and tags on your website.
2. Canonical link elements:
Yoast SEO plugin automatically adds canonical links pointing to the original pots from the author or archive pages. Besides, you can also manually add canonical links throughout your website that help search engines follow pages that need to be indexed. These links help Google trace back to the original content from the archives page.
3. Bulk title and description editor:
Yoast offers a bulk title and description editor where you can edit meta titles and descriptions for all your posts. It also enables you to add an SEO title and meta description for every page without visiting each page separately and assessing the length and target keywords. You can also set default title and meta description options for your website pages.
4. Integration of XML sitemap:
Yoast SEO plugin automatically generates an XML sitemap for your WordPress website and submits it to Google through the linked Google Search Console account. Whenever a new page is created on your website, it is automatically added to the XML sitemap. Additionally, your Search Console account is also integrated with your Yoast dashboard, where you can see your site’s performance.
5. Access to roboto.txt files and .htaccess files:
Robots.txt and .htaccess files are located in the root directory of your website and usually need an FTP client connection to access them. Yoast SEO plugin has an in-built feature that allows easy access to robots.txt and .htaccess files, making it simple to edit or audit them.
6. Assistance with redirection:
Yoast gives you a redirection notification whenever you move, remove, or change content on your website. Initially indexed URL’s cannot be found when you change the location of content which adds up to a poor user experience and an eventual decrease in your website rankings. Yoast’s redirects manager prevents search engines and users from getting lost when searching for a particular page on your website. You can add redirects to multiple URLs, with the premium version providing different redirect types.
7. Customised schema markup:
Article schema is preferred for articles and blog posts; however, you can add custom schema markup and structured data to your website using Yoast SEO plugin. Structured data helps present additional information related to your product or website, including ratings, reviews, and snippets. This set of information is considered to be a part of rich snippets and helps in boosting your SEO.
8. Breadcrumbs:
Breadcrumbs have a vital role in boosting your SEO strategy. Google uses breadcrumbs to categorise the content on your website. Breadcrumbs simplify the user’s and the search engine’s task of navigating through your website. You can add breadcrumbs to your WordPress website to make navigation easier and boost the SEO of your website.
9. Readability analysis:
One of the most remarkable features of the Yoast SEO plugin is that it helps you leverage the quality and consistency of your content. It provides a detailed readability analysis report for your content and gives you a score based on it. It effectively maps the grammatical inconsistencies and lack of target keywords and detects content that might be difficult for search engines to understand. Yoast’s readability feature helps you optimise your content for SEO and is available in 19 different languages.
10. Facebook and Twitter page preview option:
You can get a preview of how your content would look when you post it on Facebook or Twitter using the Yoast SEO plugin. Promoting your posts on social media platforms is a part of off-page SEO, and with the help of the Yoast SEO plugin, you can easily predict how your post will look on these social platforms and optimise it accordingly.
Conclusion
The comprehensive features of the Yoast SEO plugin aid you in both the technical and non-technical side of SEO for your WordPress website. It makes it easier for small businesses and SEO beginners to kick start the search engine optimisation process. SEO forms an integral part of your business growth, and the earlier you begin with it, the better results you can obtain. Tools such as SEO plugins and keyword and competitor research tools simplify your job by partially demystifying the SEO arena.
However, given the technicalities involved in the complete SEO optimization of your website, it is wise to consult an SEO expert who can provide the correct guidance based on your business goals. Being India’s leading result-oriented SEO agency, Intent Farm has leveraged our client’s visibility on the web through effective SEO strategies. With our full-suite SEO services for WordPress, we have set brands from different domains in the growth trajectory and have driven excellent results. Intent Farm has been selected among the Top Local SEO Agencies by DesignRush. If you are in search of a WordPress SEO services agency, look no further. Write to us at hello@intentfarm.com, and we will be happy to help!
