In this post, I’ll guide you on how to set up Yoast SEO for a WordPress blog, ensuring your site is optimized for search engines and ready to attract more visitors.

Have you ever wondered why some blogs appear at the top of search results while others languish in obscurity?

The secret often lies in effective SEO practices, and Yoast SEO is a powerful tool to help you achieve this.

By the end of this post, you’ll understand the benefits of using Yoast SEO over other plugins, learn advanced tips and tricks to maximize its potential, and discover common mistakes to avoid.

I’ll also provide a detailed, step-by-step guide to setting up Yoast SEO, so you can enhance your blog’s visibility and performance.

Whether you’re new to blogging or looking to refine your SEO strategy, this post offers valuable insights and practical advice to help you succeed.

Let’s dive right in…

How to Set Up Yoast SEO for a WordPress Blog: Step-by-Step

Alright so it’s time to set up Yoast SEO on your WordPress blog.

This is a straightforward process that shouldn’t take long at all.

And even though this can feel like a waste of time, it’s a process well worth doing since it can significantly enhance your site’s visibility and performance.

Here’s a step-by-step guide to help you get started:

Step 1: Install and activate Yoast SEO

We’ll start this set up by installing the Yoast SEO plugin on your blog.

This is very simple.

From your WordPress dashboard, head over to “Plugins” and then “Add New Plugin”.

Then, in the search bar, type “Yoast SEO”, and the plugin will show up first in the search results.

Now, click on “Install Now” and then “Activate” to enable Yoast SEO on your blog.

That’s it, you can now move on to step two.

Step 2: Run the configuration wizard

This first thing you need to do when installing Yoast SEO is to go through the initial configuration wizard.

To do that, head over to the Yoast SEO menu in the left sidebar of your WordPress dashboard and click on “General”.

If it doesn’t appear automatically, click on “First Time Configuration” at the top to start the initial configuration.

Now Yoast will ask for details about your site:

First, it wants to scan your site to figure out SEO data optimization. This means that Yoast will scan your site and create a database with SEO data. It doesn’t hurt or change anything, so just click start.

Second is site representation, which means that it wants to know:

• If you’re a person or an organization
• Your site name
• Your organization name
• Your logo

I recommend that you read their guide on whether you should pick person or organization, because the setup differs a bit. If you have a blog similar to mine, pick organization, that works fine.

Third is social profiles.

If you have any socials like YouTube or Instagram add them here. A simple copy and paste will do.

Fourth on the list is personal preferences.

There is only two things to do here…

Add your email address if you want Yoast’s weekly newsletter.

And if you want to share your data to improve Yoast SEO.

What you choose is up to you.

That’s it, the initial configuration is done.

Step 3: Configure general settings

Now we’ll move on with the actual settings of Yoast SEO.

Stary by clicking on “Settings” in the Yoast SEO menu on the left.

That will take you directly to the “General” tab, so we’ll start our work there.

Site Features

Theses settings are a no-brainer to set up.

Under “Writing” you’ll find all the tools you use in both the page and post editor, so enable them all.

Then we have “Site Structure” which activates the cornerstone content option and also the text link counter.

Both very useful, so enable them.

Next is “Social Sharing” which isn’t totally necessary to enable, but you you might as well enable them all just in case you want to use them later.

Second to last is “Tools” and the admin bar menu. Enable this if you want quick access to Yoast from the admin bar.

Lastly we have APIs and here i recommend that you enable both “Rest API Endpoint” and “XML Sitemaps”.

I’ll talk more about setting up the sitemap in step 6.

Site Basics

In this menu Yoast will ask for the basics of your site. Most of this will be inherited from the initial configuration, but double check it just to be sure.

• Website Name: Enter your website name.
• Alternate Website Name: If you have a short for your site, enter it here (mine is TLO).
• Tagline: Have a catchy catchphrase, enter it here.
• Title Separator: Pick what you like, my preferred choice is “-“.
• Site Image: Add the image or the logo of your site.

Under “Site Preferences” it’s really up to you how you set this up.

I have “Restrict advanced settings for authors” activated and “Usage tracking” disabled.

“Site policies” is a premium feature, and something I don’t need nor use them.

Site Representation

This menu, just like above, inherits all it’s information from the initial configuration.

Just double check that everything looks right.

Site Connections

This menu is a bit more important.

Fist of all this is the place where you connect Yoast to Google Search Console, which is the most important thing in this menu.

But you can also add verification to Pinterest, Baidu, Bing and Yandex. So, if you have any of those, add the verifications code to them here.

But Google is the most important, so let’s have a look at that now.

Step 4: Connect to Google Search Console

Okay now it’s time to connect Yoast SEO to your Google Search Console account or GSC.

For this you need a verification code from Google.

To get that, head over to GSC and click on “Settings”.

Then click on “Users and permissions”.

From there click on the three dots to open the “More Actions” dropdown, then click on “Ownership verification details”.

Now copy the HTML tag code.

Then paste it into the Yoast “Site Connections” menu in the “Google” field.

Step 5: Customize content types

Alright, before you submit a sitemap to any search engine, it’s important do define what’s supposed to be in it.

Basically, by setting this up you are telling search engines what you want and don’t want to have indexed online.

And it’s easy to think that everything should be indexed bu I don’t believe so.

There are only two things that really need to be indexed online…

Posts and pages.

Everything else should be excluded from your sitemap.

Setting this up is super easy.

In the Yoast settings menu go to “Content types” then “posts”.

The first thing you do is to ensure that the “Show posts in search results” are enabled.

Then in the “SEO title” choose to insert the variable called “Title”.

Now scroll down until you see “Shema”.

In “Post type” you pick “Web Page” and in “Article type” you pick “Blog Post”.

Now head over to “Pages” in the general menu, and do the same thing.

Ensure that “Show pages in search results” are enabled, that you have a “SEO title” that you like and that “Shema” is set to “Web Page”.

From her on forward i’t all about disabling the rest or the stuff from the sitemap, like this:

• Landing pages – disabled
• Legal pages – disabled
• Categories – disabled
• Tags – disabled

Once you’ve done that, you’ve now set up Yoast SEO to generate a nice and clean sitemap for your blog.

Step 6: Create and submit an XML sitemap

One of the most important things you need to do when running a blog is to have a proper site map set up.

Luckily for you, Yoast SEO can help you with this.

But first, if your blog is brand new, chances are that Jetpack has its sitemap generator turned on, which isn’t the end of the world. But having two sitemaps is completely unnecessary.

So star by turning of Jetpack’s sitemap.

Go to the Jetpack menu, and click on “Settings”.

Then head over to the “Traffic” tab and scroll down until you see the “Sitemaps” option.

Toggle this one off.

With that done, head back to the Yoast SEO menu and click on “Settings” to get back to the “General” menu.

Scroll down to the bottom until you see “XML Sitemaps” (enable it) and click on “View the XML Sitemap”.

A new window will now open showing your sitemap. If everything is set up correctly (according to me) you should see two maps, one for posts and one for pages.

Copy the URL of your sitemap and head back to GSC and click on “Sitemaps”.

Now paste your sitemap URL into the input field and click “submit”.

Congratulations, you’ve now submitted your sitemap to Google Search Console. Meaning that now Google can index your site with great efficiency.

Step 7: Advanced settings

You’re almost done by now, but before you close Yoast and start writing, glance over the advance settings.

Crawl optimization

First you have crawl optimization, and by changing things here you can speed up and optimize crawling of your site.

My setup is very simple:

First, in “Remove unwanted metadata” everything but “Remove shortlinks” are enabled.

Second, in “Disable unwanted content formats” everything is disabled.

Third, in “Remove unused resources” everything is enabled.

And forth, in “Internal site search cleanup” I have the first three options enabled.

This is just how I have it set up. If you want to change stuff around I recommend that you read the documentation.

Breadcrumbs

Here you can decide how your breadcrumbs should behave, starting with appearance.

This is very much a personal thing but I like to have it set up like this (hopefully image loads).

I also like to enable “Show blog page in breadcrumbs”.

For “Breadcrumbs for post type” and “Breadcrumbs for taxonomies” I just leave the default settings as is.

Lastly, in “How to insert breadcrumbs in your theme” I enable the “Enable breadcrumbs for your theme” option.

Author Archives

If you’re like me and run a solo venture with your blog, then just disable this option.

If you do happen to enable this and you have a one person blog, you run the risk of having duplicated content issues.

Date Archives

This is pretty much the same thing as with the author archives. But this one has do do with how post relate to each other based on publication date. No SEO benefit here at all.

Enabling it can lead to duplicated content which is never a good idea, so disable it.

Format Archives

Again, this is one of those things that can cause duplicate content issues.

I recommend that you turn this off as well.

Special Pages

This one determines how your internal search pages as well as 404 error pages look like in search engines.

I left it to default and it seems to work just fine that way.

Media Pages

When you add images and videos to WordPress, it automatically creates a media page, aka. an attachment page, for it.

This page is pretty much empty and will most likely lead to a bunch of extra pages on your site.

Pages you don’t need…

Leave this option disabled so Yoast can redirect the attachment URL to the actual media itself.

RSS

This sets up what your RSS feed will look like. Default settings works just fine, but you can make custom changes if feel like it.

By following these steps, you can set up Yoast SEO effectively on your WordPress blog.

All that’s left now is to start writing and optimizing.

If you want to know how to optimize your posts and pages, you can fins that guide here.

Why You Should Prioritize SEO on Your Blog

In the digital age, simply having a blog is not enough.

To reach your audience and stand out amidst the vast sea of online content, prioritizing SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is essential.

Here’s why focusing on SEO can make a significant difference for your blog:

First, SEO plays a big role in driving organic traffic to your blog.

Organic traffic refers to visitors who find your blog through search engine results rather than paid advertisements or social media.

This type of traffic is highly valuable because it is both cost-effective and more likely to convert into loyal readers or customers.

And by optimizing your blog for search engines, you increase the chances of appearing on the first page of search results, where the majority of clicks occur.

Secondly, SEO helps improve user experience, which is a critical factor in retaining visitors.

And you retain visitors by answering their questions in a good way.

Aka. your post it optimized for a specific search term.

When your blog is optimized, it’s not just about pleasing search engine algorithms.

SEO involves structuring your content in a way that makes it easy to read and navigate, which enhances the overall user experience.

For instance, using appropriate headings, bullet points, and images can make your content more engaging and easier to digest.

This leads to longer visit durations and lower bounce rates, both of which are positive signals to search engines like Google.

The long-term benefits of SEO

Investing in SEO yields long-term benefits that can sustain your blog’s growth.

Unlike paid advertising, which stops driving traffic as soon as you cease spending, SEO continues to bring in visitors over time without additional cost.

High-quality, evergreen content that is well-optimized can maintain its ranking and continue to attract traffic for years.

This sustained visibility can establish your blog as an authority in your niche, attracting more backlinks and social shares, which further enhances your SEO.

The trick with SEO is to get it going, once it has started rolling, it’s a snowball effect.

Moreover, prioritizing SEO can significantly boost your blog’s credibility and trustworthiness.

Users tend to trust search engines, and appearing in the top search results signals to users that your blog is a credible source of information.

So a top spot in Google for example translate into:

• Higher engagement rates
• More social media followers
• And increased reader loyalty

Tips and Tricks for Using Yoast SEO

Once you’ve set up Yoast SEO on your blog it’s time to start publishing both new posts and pages.

And with a few well placed tips and tricks you can seriously up your SEO game.

So, here are some of my best tips and tricks to maximize the potential of Yoast SEO:

1. Optimize for multiple focus keyphrases

With Yoast SEO Premium, you can optimize your content for multiple focus keyphrases.

This allows you to target more than one keyword per post, broadening your reach and improving your chances of ranking for related terms.

To use this feature, simply enter additional keyphrases in the provided fields and Yoast will analyze your content for each one, offering suggestions on how to improve your optimization.

Is this 100% necessary, no…

This is simply because once you get the hang of writing, you’ll automatically add semantically related keyphrases on the fly.

2. Utilize the internal linking suggestions

Internal linking is crucial for SEO, as it helps search engines understand the structure of your site and establishes a hierarchy of content.

Again, Yoast SEO Premium offers an internal linking suggestion tool that provides relevant links to include in your posts as you write.

It basically helps you build a umbrella like structure of your posts and pages, which is great for crawling.

You could just as well keep track of this in a Google Sheet, but if you feel lazy, this is a nice feature to have.

3. Leverage the redirect manager

Broken links can negatively impact both user experience and SEO.

The Redirect Manager in Yoast SEO Premium allows you to easily create and manage redirects.

When you delete or move a page, Yoast SEO will prompt you to set up a redirect, ensuring that users and search engines are directed to the correct content.

This tool is especially useful during site migrations or restructuring.

4. Implement schema markup

Schema markup helps search engines understand the content on your site better and can improve the way your pages are displayed in search results.

Yoast SEO includes a built-in schema generator that allows you to specify the type of content you’re publishing, such as articles, products, or FAQs.

By correctly setting up schema markup, you increase the chances of your content appearing as rich results, which can improve click-through rates.

5. Optimize your content with cornerstone content

Cornerstone content refers to your most important posts, which you want to rank highest in search engines.

Yoast SEO lets you mark certain posts as cornerstone content, and then it will help you ensure these posts are fully optimized and receive ample internal links from other posts.

This strategy can significantly improve the visibility and authority of your key content pieces.

6. Integrate with google search console

One of the first things you must do is to connect Yoast SEO to Google Search console.

It’s actually so important that I mentioned how to do it earlier in this guide.

Doing this provides you with insights into how your site is performing in search results.

This integration allows you to view important data such as search queries, click-through rates, and indexed pages directly from your WordPress dashboard.

Data that you then can use to make data-driven decisions.

7. Configure meta robots settings

In the advanced settings of Yoast SEO, you have the option to configure meta robots tags.

These settings let you control how search engines crawl and index your site.

For example, you can use the noindex tag to prevent certain pages from appearing in search results, or use the nofollow tag to instruct search engines not to follow specific links.

This level of control can help you fine-tune your SEO strategy.

Again, I talk about this earlier in this guide.

Common Mistakes to Avoid with Yoast SEO

After you’ve set up Yoast SEO for your blog, it’s easy to think that you have mastered this tool.

However, it’s easy to make mistakes that can hinder your blog’s performance.

So, here are some common pitfalls to watch out for:

1. Ignoring readability analysis

Many users focus solely on the SEO analysis and neglect the readability suggestions provided by Yoast.

This can lead to content that is well-optimized for search engines but difficult for humans to read.

And that’s not a good thing, after all, you write for humans.

This is the big downfall of relying on AI too much, since they write in a very robot way.

Therefore you can use AI to draft, but use your own skills to humanify the content to ensure it’s engaging and easy to understand.

Learn how your audience talks, what slang and humor do they use. If you can incorporate that and write in a natural human way, you’re good for a long time.

The readability analyzes will also give you green lights when you’re on the right path.

2. Overloading Keywords

Keyword stuffing is a practice that involves overusing your target keywords in an attempt to manipulate search rankings.

While Yoast SEO helps you focus on keywords, it’s important to use them naturally and sparingly. It will actually tell you if you are stuffing keywords.

Overloading your content with keywords can result in penalties from search engines, negatively impacting your rankings​.

Keyword stuffing might have worked in 1999, but today it should not even be considered, period!

3. Ignoring meta descriptions

Meta descriptions don’t directly affect your search rankings, but they play a significant role in click-through rates.

Neglecting to craft compelling meta descriptions means you might miss out on potential traffic.

Use Yoast’s snippet preview to ensure your meta descriptions are enticing and accurately reflect your content​.

4. Overlooking image optimization

Images are an important part of content, and optimizing them can enhance your SEO.

Ensure all images have descriptive alt text that includes relevant keywords. So if the image fails to load, the alt text can still be viewed.

And Yoast SEO can help you identify if your images have alt tags that reflect your topic and if you’re reflecting it a bit too much.

Tools like Hummingbird and Smush can help you compress images so they load faster, increasing page load times and SEO scores.

5. Failing to update regularly

SEO is not a set-it-and-forget-it task. Sorry to break it to you, but that’s the reality of it.

Search algorithms and best practices evolve, so it’s crucial to regularly update your content to match the latest norms.

Yoast SEO is frequently updated to keep up with these changes, so make sure you’re using the latest version and revisiting older posts to keep them optimized​.

Sometimes you’ll notice this when you write a post and Yoast flaggs something it haven’t before.

Then you go: “Hey, that’s new, I used to be able to write like this before and now I can’t”.

Time to adjust and adapt.

6. Neglecting to use cornerstone content

Yoast SEO allows you to designate cornerstone content, which are your most important articles.

Failing to utilize this feature can result in these key posts not getting the attention and internal links they deserve.

Regularly update and link to these cornerstone articles to boost their visibility and authority.​

7. Not setting up proper redirects

When you delete or move content, failing to set up proper redirects can result in broken links.

This negatively affects user experience and can hurt your SEO.

If you’re a premium Yoaster, use its redirect manager to ensure all changes are properly managed, maintaining the integrity of your site’s structure.

If not, check out my guide on setting up permalinks, because there are other ways of doing redirects.

By avoiding these common mistakes, you can make the most out of Yoast SEO and ensure your blog is fully optimized for both search engines and readers.

Paying attention to these details will help you achieve better rankings, attract more visitors, and ultimately grow your blog’s audience.

Conclusion

There you have it, every step you need to take in order to set up Yoast SEO for your WordPress blog.

Now you should have all the knowledge you need to create a blog that is both engaging for readers and loved by search engines.

And by implementing these strategies you’ll drive more organic traffic, improve user experience, and establish your blog as a credible source in your niche.

This comprehensive approach not only boosts your SEO but also enhances your overall blogging success.

Now I’d like to hear from you:

Have you set up Yoast SEO for your blog yet,

Or are you using some other SEO optimization tool?

Either way, let me know by leaving a comment below right now.