{"id":304,"date":"2012-09-07T16:04:12","date_gmt":"2012-09-07T16:04:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.websitespot.com\/blog\/?p=304"},"modified":"2012-09-07T16:04:12","modified_gmt":"2012-09-07T16:04:12","slug":"best-plugins-wordpress-seo-by-yoast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.websitespot.com\/blog\/best-plugins-wordpress-seo-by-yoast\/","title":{"rendered":"The All-Time Best Plugins: WordPress SEO By Yoast"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When you first start working online, SEO is the scariest, shortest phrase someone can utter or type to make you feel completely incompetent.\u00a0Even when you research about, you still end up confused and frustrated. <em><strong>Why can't the search engine just optimize itsel<\/strong><strong>f?<\/strong> <\/em>How much are you really supposed to worry about this stuff?<\/p>\n<p>As I hope you know by now, SEO stands for <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Search engine optimization\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Search_engine_optimization\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"wikipedia\">search engine optimization<\/a>. It is the practice of fine-tuning your articles, posts, and content so the big guys like Google, Yahoo!, and Bing can understand it better. The premise is that the easier the search engines can find, process, and categorize your content, the easier it will be for them to connect your work with your potential readers.<\/p>\n<p>You don't have to be an expert in SEO to optimize your content. In fact, there are many programs, plugins, and devices out there to help you power through your actual work (which isn't fretting over SEO, I'm sure).\u00a0One of the absolute, all-time best ways to manage your SEO completely is through the plugin: <strong>WordPress SEO by Yoast.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I'm tried several different plugins for SEO, but nothing is as convenient, user-friendly, or effective as <strong>WordPress SEO by Yoast.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Essentially, you download this simple plugin as you would any other, non-magical plugin. It will add icons that say \"SEO\" to both the header and left dashboard menu on WordPress.\u00a0They give you access to your personal settings for the plugin, but it also provides quick links to some of the best <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Keyword research\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Keyword_research\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"wikipedia\">keyword research<\/a> tools on the web.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>WordPress SEO by Yoast<\/strong>\u00a0is built to help you draw in as much organic traffic as possible.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>All of these benefits exclude the best and most notable: <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">it\u00a0allows quick, friendly customization right from inside the Post screen.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><em>Use WordPress SEO by Yoast to become an SEO master for free.\u00a0<\/em><\/h2>\n<p>1. <strong>Type up your post like you would normally.<\/strong> Directly below the text editor you will see a box like this:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.websitespot.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/Wordpress-SEO-by-yoast-homescreen1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-318\" src=\"https:\/\/www.websitespot.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/Wordpress-SEO-by-yoast-homescreen1.jpg\" alt=\"Yoast dashboard\" width=\"650\" height=\"405\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.websitespot.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/Wordpress-SEO-by-yoast-homescreen1.jpg 929w, https:\/\/www.websitespot.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/Wordpress-SEO-by-yoast-homescreen1-300x187.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.websitespot.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/Wordpress-SEO-by-yoast-homescreen1-768x479.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.websitespot.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/Wordpress-SEO-by-yoast-homescreen1-790x492.jpg 790w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 650px) 100vw, 650px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>2. <strong>Then, come up with a focus keyword (or main topic) for your post.<\/strong> Type it into the Focus Keyword bar on the plugin home screen. It will automatically search the search engine innards for the topic that most closely matches yours.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.websitespot.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/wordpress-seo-by-yoast-keyword-selection1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-319\" src=\"https:\/\/www.websitespot.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/wordpress-seo-by-yoast-keyword-selection1.jpg\" alt=\"Yoast keyword focus\" width=\"653\" height=\"425\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.websitespot.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/wordpress-seo-by-yoast-keyword-selection1.jpg 933w, https:\/\/www.websitespot.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/wordpress-seo-by-yoast-keyword-selection1-300x195.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.websitespot.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/wordpress-seo-by-yoast-keyword-selection1-768x500.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.websitespot.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/wordpress-seo-by-yoast-keyword-selection1-790x514.jpg 790w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 653px) 100vw, 653px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u00a03. <strong>Then, hit \"Save Draft.\"<\/strong> WordPress will automatically run a check on SEO, which makes it even easier to see how you've done. A light will come on in the Publish box of the Post screen. The color is the plugin's ranking of how ready your post is for the search engines. It looks like this:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-313 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.websitespot.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/SEOcheck.jpg\" alt=\"Publish Yoast optimized post\" width=\"267\" height=\"246\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.websitespot.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/SEOcheck.jpg 267w, https:\/\/www.websitespot.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/SEOcheck-217x200.jpg 217w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 267px) 100vw, 267px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>4. If you earned anything below a green light,<strong> click \"Check\" or \"Page Analysis\" on the WordPress SEO by Yoast bar<\/strong> (it's a tab heading) to see what's wrong and what's right. It will show you something like this:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.websitespot.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/wordpress-seo-by-yoast-page-analysis1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-314\" src=\"https:\/\/www.websitespot.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/wordpress-seo-by-yoast-page-analysis1.jpg\" alt=\"SEO Page analysis by Yoast\" width=\"666\" height=\"363\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.websitespot.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/wordpress-seo-by-yoast-page-analysis1.jpg 925w, https:\/\/www.websitespot.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/wordpress-seo-by-yoast-page-analysis1-300x163.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.websitespot.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/wordpress-seo-by-yoast-page-analysis1-768x418.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.websitespot.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/wordpress-seo-by-yoast-page-analysis1-790x430.jpg 790w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 666px) 100vw, 666px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<strong>WordPress SEO by Yoast<\/strong> is\u00a0<strong>that\u00a0simple.\u00a0<\/strong>You can even add in special blurbs for your social media sites on the Social tab heading near Page Analysis. Every time I use this plugin, <em><strong>I'm astonished that it's free!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When you first start working online, SEO is the scariest, shortest phrase someone can utter or type to make you feel completely incompetent.\u00a0Even when you research about, you still end up confused and frustrated. Why can't the search engine just optimize itself? How much are you really supposed to worry about this stuff? As I [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":313,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[474,8],"tags":[352,445,447],"class_list":["post-304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog-writing","category-seo","tag-seo","tag-wordpress","tag-wordpress-seo"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.websitespot.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/SEOcheck.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.websitespot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.websitespot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.websitespot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.websitespot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.websitespot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.websitespot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.websitespot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.websitespot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.websitespot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.websitespot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}