The latest update of our plugin is here: Yoast SEO 20.13. This release is packed with crucial fixes that improve your SEO workflow. We’ve focused on enhancing compatibility and performance, making your SEO efforts smoother and more effective. So, let’s dive into the details of our latest release.
Compatibility with WordPress 6.3
Today, the new version of WordPress will be released. This WordPress 6.3 release would cause a small issue in the form of a design overlap in Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Insight preview pop-ups when using our plugin. That’s why today’s Yoast SEO release comes with a fix for this compatibility issue. We understand how important these previews are for your workflow, as they allow you to see how your content will appear on these platforms. With this fix, you can continue to enjoy a seamless preview experience, ensuring your content always looks its best.
We’ve also made improvements to the Premium version of our plugin. We’ve fixed a performance issue on hosts with limited object caching that was caused by autoloading of redirect data. This enhancement means faster loading times and a smoother user experience.
Update to Yoast SEO 20.13
These updates are designed to make your SEO efforts more efficient. This allows you to focus on what truly matters: creating quality content that resonates with your audience. We encourage you to update to the latest version of Yoast SEO. Not only will you benefit from these enhancements, but you’ll also be equipped with the most up-to-date SEO tools to optimize your website effectively.
We’re committed to continuously improving our plugin, ensuring it remains your go-to SEO solution. Thank you for your continued support and trust in Yoast SEO. We can’t wait to see how these updates will help you take your website’s SEO to new heights.
Video SEO 14.8
In other news, we’re also releasing a new version of our Video SEO add-on that comes with some bug fixes. It contains a fix for a few of our users (with large websites) that got a timeout when reindexing. We also fixed a few other bugs that some users with specific situations encountered, so make sure to update if you are a user of Video SEO!
Sneak peek at our upcoming Yoast SEO release…
At the moment we are still dotting the i’s, but we’re working on something awesome in Yoast SEO and are bursting to share it with you! It’s almost ready to go, so keep an eye on our upcoming release post and for now, see what you can make of this short teaser:
Keyword research is an essential part of your SEO strategy. It’s the first step in the SEO copywriting process. Before you create your site’s content, you should find out what search terms your audience uses. Their search terms are your keywords. Based on these keywords, you can start writing useful, high-quality, and findable content. In this post, we’ll take you through the steps involved in keyword research.
Areyou looking for a guide to keyword research for ecommerce? You can find more information tailored to your needs in this post about keyword research for online stores.
What is keyword research?
Keyword research is part of SEO (search engine optimization). It’s the work someone does to come up with an extensive list of keywords they would like a website to rank for. To obtain such a list, website owners need to dig into their desired audience and search engines. What search terms do people type into Google when looking for a particular product, service, business or type of organization? And what do they expect to find? With this list, website owners can create content that will attract more high-quality traffic to their site. Keyword research is never finished: repeating it regularly is essential to staying up-to-date!
Proper keyword research is important because it makes clear what search terms your audience uses. At Yoast, we frequently come across business owners who use one set of words to describe their products, while their target audience uses a completely different set of words! As a result, potential customers can’t find those websites. In other words: there’s a mismatch.
To avoid this mismatch, you should do thorough keyword research. This research will make sure that you use the same words as your target audience. In addition, you should also consider your audience’s search intent. This will help you figure out what exactly your audience is looking for. All that’s left is for you to write high-quality content that answers your audience’s questions!
Originality versus findability
What about originality? Isn’t it better to stand out from the crowd and use different keywords than your competitors? Let’s say you (or your marketing department) decides to give a product an uncommon name. This can be a smart marketing decision, because people could remember your product more easily. If you rent out vacation cottages instead of vacation homes, for example, you might stand out more.
But beware: very few people search for [vacation cottages]. So if you optimize your text for cottages, you’ll probably rank well on that specific term. However, because your audience uses a different word, you won’t generate a lot of traffic, and you won’t reach a large part of your potential customers.
A focus keyword or keyphrase is the word or phrase you want a certain page on your site to be found for in Google. You determine your set of focus keyphrases by doing keyword research.
Long-tail keywords
Long-tail keywords are more specific and less commonly searched for than head keywords. They focus on a niche. The longer and more specific search terms are, the easier it will be to rank for them. Why? Because there will be less competition.
However, long-tail keywords are still worth ranking for! Because even though less people are searching for them, they might be more motivated to buy, subscribe, sign up, etc.
Keyword strategy
Your keyword strategy is about the decisions you make based on your keyword research. For instance, what content are you going to create first? Will you focus on the head or tail? How and where will you publish it? Will you create a piece of writing, a post or a product page, a video tutorial or an infographic?
Search intent
Digging into search intent is key here: you have to discover what a searcher actually wants or needs. You’re not just looking at keywords. You’re also looking at the underlying goals of what a searcher wants to know, do or buy. Your content should provide a solution to the searcher’s “problem”. This is also known as content design.
How to do keyword research in 10 steps
There are 10 crucial steps to follow when carrying out keyword research. We’ll guide you through the process, and give you practical tips so you can conduct your own keyword research:
Think about your mission and determine your SEO goals
Before you start, think about your mission. Reflect on questions such as: What is the main goal of your business or organization? What makes it special? Who exactly are you trying to reach? And, what promises do you make on your website? Take your time and literally write down your mission. Once you’re able to answer these questions in detail, you’ll have taken the first and most important step in developing your keyword strategy.
What if you’re in a competitive market? The market you’re in determines whether you’ll be able to rank high with your chosen keywords. Some markets are highly competitive, with large companies dominating the search results. It’ll be hard to compete with these companies, because they have huge budgets for marketing in general and SEO in particular.
If you’re launching into a competitive market, your best bet is to start out small. Once you ‘own’ a small part of that niche and become a bigger name in your business area, you could try to level up and sell your cruises to a larger (more general) audience. Your mission will then become more general as well. The scope of your business mission should align with your SEO goals, too. Be realistic about what kind of rankings you can achieve with the size of your business, and focus on what will help you achieve your mission.
Anexample Let’s say you sell cruises to Hawaii. You offer great facilities for children, which makes your cruises especially suitable for parents with younger kids. If there are no other family-friendly cruises to Hawaii, you will stand out from the crowd. It will make your service unique. So it would be smart to make this your mission, your niche – because this is what you have to offer your audience.
Make a list of keywords you think people might search for
The second step is creating a list of your keywords, preferably in a spreadsheet (like Google Sheets or Excel). With your mission in mind, try to get into the heads of your desired audience. What will these people be looking for? What kind of search terms could they be using, while looking for your amazing service or product? Which of their “problems” does your product solve? Write down as many answers as possible. If your mission is clear, you will have a pretty clear image of your niche and unique selling points (the things that set your business apart from others). These are the search terms you want to be found for.
Research the keywords you’ve come up with
After you’ve created your first list, it’s time to dive deeper into your keywords. Luckily, there are keyword research tools that make your keyword research easier.
One of the easiest tool to use is Google itself. Google the keywords you came up with and check what Google suggests while you’re typing. Those are the questions people actually asked Google! You can also check out the “related searches” on Google’s results page. Also have a look at our related keyphrases tool in Yoast SEO or Answer the public.
These tools will provide you with all kinds of variations of your keyphrases, synonyms and related keyphrases. Check them out and add the relevant keyphrases to your list.
Use your research to find long-tail variants of your keywords
When people start out with keyword research, they tend to focus on very popular “head” terms. Unfortunately, those head keywords are mostly taken by large businesses. Long-tail keywords, on the other hand, get less search traffic, but there’s less competition too. Therefore it’s easier for you to rank on those keywords. Moreover, long-tail keywords even have a higher conversion value, as they focus more on a specific product or topic.
An example A long-tail keyword often is longer and more focused than a head term. If your head term is [puppy training], a long-tail keyword could be [positive puppy training for Labradoodles in Amsterdam]. Using the tools mentioned in step 3 will also help you find more long-tail keywords. You might also find some less-searched variants of your keywords, you can benefit from using these too.
Use both! Don’t forget to add the long-tail keywords and your keyword variants to your spreadsheet too. Put the head terms in the first column and add (multiple) columns for long-tail keywords and variants. This will also help you create a proper site structure later on. The more long-tail your search term is, the further down into your site structure its landing page belongs.
Analyze your competition for those keywords
Whether you should go after long-tail keywords largely depends on your competition. If the competition in your niche is high, you’ll have a hard time ranking on competitive head terms. If you have little competition, you’ll be able to rank for more of your head terms. So you’ll need to do some benchmarking for SEO.
Google the keywords that came out of your keyword research. Start with your most ‘head’ term. Check out the search engine result page (SERP). These are the websites you’ll be competing against once you optimize your content for such a keyword. Take a closer look: Do you see professional websites? Company websites? Are you ‘equal’ to these companies? Does your website fit among these sites? Is your company of similar size and does it have as much influence in your niche?
It’s harder to rank when you’re competing against sites with strong brand names, like Royal Caribbean and Princess in the example above. If brands are known from TV or radio commercials, your chances to rank high will become even smaller. But it won’t hurt to take a look at their content. Is the content well written and well optimized? If your competition has poor content, you might have a chance to outrank them!
Check Google Ads You can also take a look at ads in Google. Are there any? If you have a Google Ads account you can check the pay-per-click value of each search term using their Keyword Planner tool. Search terms that have a high pay-per-click are usually also harder to rank for in the organic results.
Make notes! Make sure to make notes in your spreadsheet about your findings for the keywords you’ve investigated! You can use colors like red, yellow, and green to mark which keywords are more or less competitive if you find that easier than writing notes.
Take a closer look at search intent for each keyword
Today’s SEO strategies should, for the most part, revolve around answering the questions people have or providing the best solution for their “problem”. Whenever someone enters a search query into a search engine, they are on a quest for something. Every type of question needs a specific answer.
Learn about search intent Try to find out which intent your audience has when they type a certain keyphrase into Google. Do they have an informational intent (try to find information on a specific topic), navigational intent (want to access a specific website), commercial intent (want to research something before buying), or transactional intent (looking to buy something right now)?
You can learn more about the search intent of certain queries by looking closely at the type of pages that already rank for that query. Do you mostly see product pages? Or a lot of informational blog posts? Do you see videos? Or is it a mix? These are all hints to what Google assumes the search intent of a certain query is. This post explains how to use the search results to create great content that matches the right intent.
Find out which kinds of intent apply to your keyphrases and, again, add your findings to your spreadsheet!
Determine a keyword strategy – which keywords will you target?
Based on the data you’ve collected now, you can determine a keyword strategy. If you’ve followed the steps above, you should have a spreadsheet with a substantial amount of keyphrases, plus information about the competition and the search intent of your audience for those keyphrases.
Now think about this question: How does my website hold up compared to the websites in the SERPs? Are you of equal size and marketing budget? Then go ahead and focus on those head terms. If not: try more long-tail keywords first. Focusing on a whole bunch of long-tail keywords combined could very well attract a lot of traffic. Once you’ve managed to rank for those long-tail keywords, aiming for more head terms will become easier.
When you’ve decided where to jump in, think about the type of content: What was the search intent for my keyphrases? What is my audience looking for? But also, which content can I create that isn’t there yet, and how can I stand out in terms of quality or providing solutions? This will help you decide on the type of content you’re going to create.
Create optimized landing pages for your keywords
In theory, this step is out of the scope of keyword research itself. Nevertheless, creating awesome landing pages is essential if you want to get traffic to your website. So, you’ll need to build optimized landing pages for your search terms. You don’t have to create all these pages immediately – it can be a long-term effort. Your keyword strategy will help you prioritize.
Evaluate if your keyword strategy is working and keep improving
Once you’ve done a thorough analysis of your chances to rank on each specific term, published some amazing articles (and optimized them accordingly), you should wait a little. Check out your rankings. Does your article pop up? Did it hit the first page of Google’s SERPs? Or is it hidden away on page 2 or 3? Make sure to evaluate your results in the SERPs.
There are various ways to check how your content is performing in the search results. The simplest way is to Google the terms you’ve optimized your articles for. Another option is to use Google Search Console to find out which queries you’re ranking for. While the Google Search Console method is a bit more complicated, it can be a great way to find new opportunities! And finally, a third method is to use a keyword tracking tool to monitor your rankings; you can do this easily using the integrated Wincher features in the Yoast SEO plugin.
However you do it, it’s always a good idea to check if your efforts are paying off. If you’re not able to rank on the first page, try to write another article, focused on an (even) more long-tail keyword. Make it a little bit more specific, more niche. And see how that goes. Evaluate again. Continue this process until you hit that first page of the SERPs!
Refresh your keyword research and your content regularly
As time goes on, things will change. Your audience may start using different words to search for what they want, so you might need to add new keywords to your sheet. And with the rise of generative AI, the competitive landscape is bound to change, either making it easier or harder to target particular keywords. Who knows? Blogging might not be relevant anymore.
When you look at the situation from year to year, a lot can change. That’s why it’s important to reevaluate and refresh your keyword research once in a while. Take the time to update your sheet with the latest information. And don’t forget to keep your content fresh and up-to-date, too!
Quick keyword research
In an ideal world, you would do your keyword research, make a beautiful spreadsheet and create landing pages for each one. Your site structure would be flawless, and you’d blog and write every day, making your site rank higher and higher in Google. But we live in the real world.
Of course, your keyword research will not always be as extensive. And some posts or articles aren’t written as part of an awesome strategy, but just because the topic was in the news or something inspired you to write it. That’s just how these things work. But this doesn’t have to be a problem.
If you’re writing something that doesn’t exactly fit your strategy, this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to make that content rank. You could still use it to rank for something related to the terms in the list of your keyword strategy. Use the tools mentioned in step 3 and Google Trends to quickly check which keyword you’d like to rank for. At least, take some time to think about how to make your article or blog fit your strategy. After all, if you are writing valuable content, you might as well make it rank! You can find more tips on how to do keyword research on the fly in our focus keyword article.
Tips for keyword research
This all might sound pretty straight-forward, but we know it’s a lot of work and easier said than done. When put into practice, you might bump into some common issues or questions. Here we’ll give you some tips to make it work!
Pro-tip: Want us to guide you through keyword research step-by-step? With videos, quizzes and other training material? Take a look at our keyword research training in Yoast SEO academy and let us help you!
Prioritize your keyword list
How many keywords should you target? Well, we can’t tell you the exact number of keywords you should have, but we can tell you that you need a lot of them – as many as you can think of. However, more than 1000 keywords is probably too many! Even if you’re a reasonably small business, you’ll probably end up with a couple of hundred keywords.
But there’s no need to create pages for all of these straight away. You can add content bit by bit. Think about which keywords you want to rank for now (perhaps the more long-tail ones?) and which ones aren’t as important right away. Understand your priorities and plan the creation of your content.
A focus keyphrase and its synonyms only need one page
In the past, each of the keywords you wanted to be found for got its own landing page. Today, however, search engines are so smart that they mostly use search intent to give searchers the best answer to their questions. The page that answers those questions best will rank on top. Search engines also understand subtle differences between keywords, so you don’t have to create landing pages for every subtle variation of a keyword, like synonyms.
That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use synonyms! In fact, synonyms can really improve the readability of your copy, so make sure to use them. Our Yoast SEO Premium plugin can help you with this; it allows you to optimize your content for synonyms and related keyphrases. You can fill in synonyms of your keyphrase under the SEO analysis tab in your Yoast SEO sidebar. If you want to fill in more than one, you can separate them by commas. When it comes to adding related keyphrases to your text, we have an awesome feature you will want to know more about. So let’s discuss that next!
Glossary of terms
In the following paragraphs, we use a few words that you might not be familiar yet. Such as related keyphrases, word forms and exact focus keyphrase. Don’t worry! We wrote a glossary of terms that can help you out when you’re not quite sure what we mean when we use a specific term.
Add related keyphrases to help Google understand your text
Related keyphrases are words and concepts that deepen and broaden the understanding of your focus keyphrase. They even help Google better understand the topic you’re talking about. By using related keyphrases in your text, you can paint a complete picture of your focus keyphrase in the article you’re writing.
How do you find related keyphrases?
You might be able to think of a few related keyphrases, but we think using proper keyword data is the safest bet. That’s why we have a Semrush integration in Yoast SEO. It suggests related keyphrases and even shows you the search volume and trend for every keyphrase. As Semrush is one of the leading SEO and marketing software companies in the world, this will help you find the right related keyphrases for your content.
You can find this feature in the Yoast SEO sidebar and meta box. Simply go to the ‘Get related keyphrases’ button underneath the ‘Focus keyphrase’ field and click it. The first time you click this, you will need to connect your Semrush account or create an account and authorize Yoast SEO to use it. After you’ve connected your account, you will be able to click the ‘Get related keyphrases’ button and find related keyphrases right away:
Find related keyphrases without having to leave your post editor
The related keyphrase feature is available for free, but if you use Premium you can also use those related keyphrases to optimize your content with the related keyphrase feature. This feature allows you to add related keyphrases or synonyms to a field in the Yoast SEO sidebar or meta box. That way you can easily optimize your content for multiple keyphrases and synonyms. If you want to know more about this integration, we have an article on how to use the Semrush related keyphrase feature.
Check out results for singular and plural keywords
Should you aim for the singular or the plural keyword? Well, this depends on the query. As Google learns more about the search intent of your query, it is able to better guess what you’re looking for. For instance, if you search for book, you get different results than if you search for books. Apparently Google thinks that in the first case you’re looking for a definition, in the second case it believes you’re intending to buy a book. So make sure you know what you offer on your page and that it fits with the query and results Google gives on that query.
Yoast SEO Premium has word form support, so it automatically detects all the different forms of your focus keyphrase (known as keyword stemming). So, you no longer have to optimize your post for a specific word form. Optimizing your post has become a much more natural process. However, there are reasons why you’d still want to optimize for a very specific word form of a keyword. In this case, you can put your focus keyphrase in quotes: “best books ever”. Yoast SEO will now only take that exact focus keyphrase into account when checking your content.
Use a keyphrase only once
Beware, you shouldn’t use your exact focus keyword more than once. If you do, your rankings might suffer from keyword cannibalization. Google has a hard time distinguishing between content that’s very alike. Therefore it might rank very similar posts or pages lower.
Did you find out you’ve already used the same or very similar keywords or keyphrases on various posts and pages? Then, it probably makes sense to audit your content and perhaps merge/delete/redirect some of it. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to solve keyword cannibalization issues.
Ready? Start writing!
Keyword research should be the start of any sustainable SEO strategy. The result will be a long list of keywords for which you’d like to be found. But the hardest part is still ahead: writing all that content. You should write articles and blog posts on every single keyword you would like to be found for. That’s quite a challenge. Check out our ultimate guide to SEO copywriting to get started!
Meet our latest update, Yoast SEO 20.12. It’s loaded with improvements designed to enhance your SEO efforts and simplify your journey toward better rankings. We owe the growth and evolution of Yoast SEO to your constant support and invaluable feedback. This update will benefit your website optimization efforts as we improve our products.
More improvements in Yoast SEO 20.12
The heart of this Yoast SEO 20.12 lies in fixes and improvements. Our dedicated team has worked hard to fix issues, refine our plugin, and optimize functionalities to ensure a smoother, more efficient user experience.
Reliability is a cornerstone of effective SEO, so we’ve strengthened the stability of our plugin to give you consistent, peak performance. Also, we’ve ironed out issues to ensure your SEO strategy remains intact and your site’s performance soars.
Helping you do SEO
Quality readability analysis ensures your content is available and understandable to your audience. Adhering to recommended reading levels, using clear language, and structuring your content effectively can improve user engagement and lower bounce rates. Remember, Google and other search engines also focus on the user experience when ranking websites, which means good readability is critical for SEO.
Our well-executed SEO analysis helps you to improve your rankings and increase your visibility to organic traffic. By catering to relevant keywords and building high-quality backlinks, you can attract a larger, more targeted audience to your website.
Updating WooCommerce SEO
We’ve also updated our WooCommerce SEO plugin. We’ve made it easier to use, more stable, and with an enhanced user experience. Our team has worked hard to streamline the plugin, incorporating more intuitive controls and cleaner processes to make your SEO optimization as easy as 1-2-3. Moreover, we’ve improved the plugin’s stability, eliminating bugs and ensuring a smooth run for your SEO needs. The user experience is now seamless, with faster response and comfortable navigation, making your tasks more efficient and hassle-free.
Update now to Yoast SEO 20.12
Yoast SEO 20.12 is available to download for all. We appreciate your support and remain committed to continually improving our products to cater to your SEO needs. This update aims to make Yoast SEO not just a tool for your website but the ultimate companion in your online success journey. Try out our latest release and experience the difference.
If you use Yoast SEO on your site, you’re probably familiar with features like the SEO analysis or the snippet preview. You might also know our inclusive language analysis, and how easily you can link to related posts or create redirects in the premium version of the plugin. But there’s (much) more! For instance, the Yoast SEO plugin has so-called hidden features. You won’t find them in your settings, but they do great work. Today, we’ll dive into these hidden features: which ones do we have and how do they lighten your load?
Why hidden features?
You can optimize a website in many different ways. Imagine having a toggle for all these options! That’s why, when developing our Yoast SEO plugin, we decided not to translate all these options into settings. If we believe something is beneficial for every Yoast SEO user, we turn the feature on. We call these features hidden features because as a user you’re not necessarily aware of their existence. You might even think we don’t have certain features because there’s no setting for it. But the opposite is true! We’re quietly taking care of things for you.
The hidden features of Yoast SEO
To help you understand what Yoast SEO does for your website in the background, we’ve listed some of the hidden features for you below. Let’s go through them one by one!
1. A structured data graph
Yoast SEO outputs a fully-integrated structured data graph for your posts and pages. But what is a structured data graph? And how does it help you optimize your site? To answer these questions, you first need to know what Schema is.
A few years ago, search engines came up with something called Schema.org to better understand the content they crawl. Schema is a bit like a glossary of terms for search engine robots. This structured data markup will help them understand whether something is a blog post, a local shop, a product, an organization or a book, just to name a few possibilities. Or, whether someone is an author, an actor, associated with a certain organization, alive or even a fictional character, for instance.
For all these items there’s a set of properties that specifically belongs to that item. If you provide information about these items in a structured way – with structured data – search engines can make sense of your site and the things you talk about. As a reward, they might even give you those eye-catching rich results.
How does the Yoast SEO plugin help?
Adding structured data to your site’s content is a smart thing to do. But as the number of structured data items grows, all these loose pieces of code can end up on a big pile of Schema markup on your site’s pages. Yoast SEO helps you prevent creating a big and unorganized pile of code. For every page or post, our plugin creates a neat structured data graph. In this graph, it connects the loose pieces of structured data with each other. When the pieces are connected, a search engine can understand, for instance, that a post is written by author X, working for organization Y, selling brand Z.
You can even build full how-to articles and FAQ pages using the free structured data content blocks in Yoast SEO!
A structured data graph: Yoast SEO connects blobs of Schema markup in one single graph, so search engines understand the bigger picture.
Canonicals were introduced as an answer to duplicate content quite some time ago. So, what’s duplicate content? Duplicate content means you’ve published content that is the same or very similar to other content on your site. In other words: it’s available on multiple URLs. This confuses search engines. They start to wonder which URL they should show in the search results.
Duplicate content can exist without you being aware of it. In an online store, for instance, one product might belong to more than one category. If the category is included in the URL, the product page can be found on multiple URLs. Another example would be campaign tags. If you add these tags to your URLs when you share content on social or in your newsletter, it means the same page is available on a URL with and without a campaign tag. And there are more technical causes for duplicate content such as these.
The solution for this type of duplicate content issues is a self-referencing canonical. A canonical URL lets you say to search engines: “Of all the options available for this URL, this URL is the one you should show in the search results”. You can do so by adding a rel=canonical tag on a page, pointing to the page that you’d like to rank. In this case, you’d need the canonical tag to point to the URL of the original page.
How does the Yoast SEO plugin help?
Should you go through all your posts now and add the canonical tag? Not if you’re using Yoast SEO. The plugin does this for you, everywhere on your site: single posts and pages, homepages, category archives, tag archives, date archives, author archives, etc. If you’re not really a techy person, the canonical isn’t easy to wrap your head around. Or perhaps you simply don’t have the time to focus on it. Why not let Yoast SEO take care of it? Then you can move on to the more exciting stuff!
Another hidden feature in Yoast SEO is rel=next / rel=prev. It’s a method of telling search engines that certain pages belong to an archive: a so-called paginated archive. A rel=next / prev tag in the header of your site lets search engines know what the previous and the next page in that archive is. No one other than people looking at the source code of your site and search engines see this piece of code.
Not so long ago, Google announced that it isn’t using rel=next/prev anymore. Does this mean we should do away with this feature? Certainly not! Bing and other search engines still use it, so Yoast SEO will keep on adding rel=next / prev tags to paginated archives.
If you have a WordPress site, you most likely have a login link and a registration link for the backend of your site. But the login or registration page of your backend are places that visitors and search engines don’t ever need to be.
Therefore, Yoast SEO tells search engines not to follow links for login and registration pages. Yoast SEO makes sure that search engines will never follow these links. It’s a tiny tweak, but it saves a lot of unneeded Google action.
5. Noindex your internal search results
This hidden feature is based on Google’s Search Essentials documentation. Google wants to prevent users from going from a search result in Google to a search result page on a website. Google, justly, considers that bad user experience.
You can tell search engines not to include a certain page in their search results by adding a noindex tag to a page. Because of Google’s guidelines, Yoast SEO tells search engines that they shouldn’t display your internal search results pages in their search results with a noindex tag. But the links on these pages can still be followed and counted, which is better for your SEO. The plugin tells them not to show these pages in the search results; the links on these pages can still be followed and counted which is better for SEO.
This last hidden feature is quite a technical one. In short, it prevents your site from creating lots of URLs with no added value. WordPress has a replytocom feature that lets you reply to comments without activating JavaScript in your browser. But this means that for every comment, it creates a separate URL with ?replytocom variables.
So what happens if you get a lot of comments? Search engines then have to index all those URLs, which is a waste of your crawl budget. Therefore we remove these variables by default.
But that’s not all..
Our plugin comes with loads of features and settings that will benefit the online visibility of your website. The free version of Yoast SEO already gives you access to a lot of features that will help you do well in the search results. Yoast SEO Premium gives you access to additional tools, like the internal linking suggestions or the redirect manager. This makes many SEO-related tasks much easier and saving you time.
Buy Yoast SEO Premium now!
Unlock powerful features and much more for your WordPress site with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin!
Building trust and establishing authority has become paramount for most online publishers. As Google strives to deliver the most reliable and high-quality content to users — especially in the age of generative AI, they have emphasized a concept known as E-E-A-T: Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. E-E-A-T serves as a critical framework to evaluate the credibility and reliability of websites and their content. Improving your E-E-A-T can solidify your position as a trusted authority in your field. Yoast SEO Premium now has a tool to help you work on that.
Yoast SEO Premium helps improve E-E-A-T
Google looks at your site from all angles to help determine its expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. There are so many options for you to point Google to the right places so it can quickly find what it needs to verify all that. For instance, your publishing principles pages provide excellent insights for Google. In today’s release of Yoast SEO Premium, we’ll enhance these pages via structured data.
Publishing principles are guidelines that govern the creation and dissemination of content. They encompass accuracy, integrity, relevance, transparency, engagement, privacy, accessibility, continuous improvement, and legal compliance. Following these principles ensures high-quality, trustworthy content that resonates with users.
Adhering to publishing principles establishes credibility and expertise, improves user satisfaction, and positively impacts SEO by enhancing E-E-A-T.
There’s structured data for that: publishingPrinciples
Yoast SEO Premium has new options to help Google find those all-important pages. We also make sure to add the publishingPrinciples schema to it so it’s instantly recognizable as such for search engines.
Head to the Site basics settings in Yoast SEO and scroll down to the Site policies section. Here, you can find different options for publishing principles, like:
General publishing principles
Funding information
Corrections policy
Ethics policy
Diversity policy
And more…
Select the appropriate pages from the fields, and you are ready. If you don’t have policies, this might be a good time to start writing those!
Adding publishing principles with Yoast SEO Premium
Update now to Yoast SEO 20.11
In Yoast SEO 20.11, we’ve added a new notification that reminds you to optimize recently added content types. You’ll not only see a notification on your dashboard, but we’ve also added a label to the content types to make them easily recognizable as new.
In Yoast SEO Premium, we’ve added a new option to add your publishing principles to your site. Select them from the options, and we’ll add the proper schema. This makes it easier for Google to find and recognize your essential principles, which helps your E-E-A-T!
With the rise of TikTok, Instagram reels, and YouTube shorts, it feels like people want nothing but videos. Specifically short videos. So where does that leave blogging? Is it still relevant, or has video taken over the world?
Will blogs still exist?
It’s impossible to predict the future, but it’s safe to say that blogging isn’t going anywhere. You’ve probably heard that blogs are dead for years now. When YouTube first became a thing, blogging was supposedly done. But it’s not. It’s still here and probably will be for a while.
But blogs have changed. Ten years ago, blogs were like journals. Obviously, they’re not anymore. If you read a business blog, you won’t find what the CEO ate for dinner last night. Nowadays, blogs are more like digital newsletters. They are polished, focused, and viewed as pieces of content in a marketing strategy. And that’s exactly what will happen this time around. Blogs will change. Again.
How will blogging change?
The short answer: in multiple ways. Generative AI will become more popular, which means storytelling will become more important. Blogs will become a tool for someone’s personal brand, so it’ll be harder to make a name for yourself. And finally, blogs will probably transform into digital publishing businesses.Â
Let’s go over these in more detail.
Generative AI: Why write it yourself?
Everyone’s talking about it. Or everyone’s asked ChatGPT to talk about it. It’s becoming increasingly harder to tell whether AI or a human wrote content. Of course, there are still tells, but that’s because the technology is still in its early stages. Who knows how quickly it will evolve?
Sure, Google wants to crack down on AI content. But the algorithm they want to build is also still in its infancy, meaning it’ll take awhile before Google can prioritize human-made content. But who’s to say that a post written by AI and modified by people isn’t human-made? It’s a gray area. But one thing’s for sure: it’ll make it easier for people to start blogs.
AI can’t fake human experience
As a response to more generated content, storytelling will become more important. But wait, you might think. People don’t want to read stories. They want to watch videos. Yes, but part of why people prefer video content is because it feels more genuine and authentic. And that’s exactly what you should focus on in your blogs.
By sharing personal stories, experiences, and insights, you can create that sense of authenticity readers crave. It’ll also allow you to build trust and eventually a relationship with your readers. The result? A loyal audience and a successful blog.Â
Bonus: You’ll appeal to Google
Sharing personal experiences isn’t just great for your readers. Google likes it too. That’s why they added an extra E to their previously E-A-T system. They stand for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.Â
These raters determine whether you provide helpful and relevant content. If the answer is yes, then congrats. Your rankings might increase, so people can more easily find you in the search results. And since we established that people want to watch videos, why not add a few to your posts? If they make your site more relevant and helpful, that’s a win-win.Â
It will be harder to make a name for yourself
Creating a blog is easy, but it’s becoming increasingly harder to grow popular. Just look at the numbers. According to Web Tribunal, “there are more than 600 million blogs out of 1.9 billion websites in the world. Their authors account for over 6 million blog posts daily, or over 2.5 billion annually.†This means that around one-third of all current websites are blogs, which is huge!
Years ago, you could write a series of 10 to 15 decent blog posts and rank for their target keywords in many niches. Now, you need to find your specific niche, then publish more and better content. And you can’t forget the visuals (photos, images, infographics, videos). That’s why becoming a successful blogger is increasingly harder when it’s just you.
Blogs as digital businesses
Most successful blogs (that generate decent income) are actually run by a small team of people. Even if it’s just one person writing the content, they probably work directly and indirectly with web hosts, email marketing platforms, photographers, ad management companies, social media managers, graphic designers, etc. Because doing all the work by yourself and generating a lot of great quality content is nearly impossible.
Furthermore, you must go where the people are to market your blog. And the people are mostly watching videos. That’s why most blogs also have YouTube channels, post reels on Instagram, launch podcasts, or even produce online courses. Even if your passion is writing, you can’t escape video content.
Is the rise of video such a bad thing?
Not necessarily. It even makes sense, if you ask me. If you’re a reader, consider how to choose your next read. Chances are, you look at the cover (visual), you read the blurb (short and enticing content intended to lure you in), and you might ask the bookseller if it’s any good (authentic content). Or perhaps you look for the little cards that say, “Alex recommends this book!†Again, authenticity. Is that really so different from watching a short reel from a blogger before reading their blog? You tell me.Â
Hey folks, Jono here. I’m writing to you today with mixed emotions as I have some big news to share. After over five years of working with the incredible team at Yoast, I’ve decided it’s time for me to step down as Head of SEO and move on to new adventures.
I want to express my deep gratitude to all of you. Whether you’re a user of our software, a fellow SEO enthusiast, a colleague, or a member of our vibrant community, you’ve made my time at Yoast truly special. I’ve always been passionate about our mission of “SEO for everyone,” and it’s been an absolute joy to work towards this goal with all of you.
I’ve loved every moment of my journey at Yoast. From our deep dives into technical SEO, to exploring emerging technologies, to reacting to Google’s constant changes and updates, it’s been a wild ride.
I’m proud of the work we’ve done – particularly in the field of structured data. We’ve done incredible work in making structured data more accessible and understandable for everyone. I strongly believe that our approach to schema.org has had a significant positive impact on the web. Seeing how our work has helped websites improve their SEO and reach a wider audience has been one of the most rewarding aspects of my job.
But as much as I’ve loved my time at Yoast, I believe it’s time to explore new horizons. I’m unsure what’s next for me, but I look forward to finding out. It’s safe to say that I’ll still be involved in the world of WordPress and technical SEO consulting and cheering on the Yoast team from the sidelines.
Before I sign off, I want to say a huge thank you to everyone at Yoast. I’ve had the privilege of working with some of the industry’s most talented and dedicated people, and I’m incredibly proud of what we’ve achieved together.
So, here’s to the next chapter. I’m excited about what the future holds, and I wish you all well. Remember, SEO is for everyone, and I can’t wait to see how Yoast continues to make the web a better place.
In SEO, there are on-page factors and off-page factors. On-page SEO factors are aspects of your website that you can optimize for better search rankings. It’s about improving things like your technical set-up, your content, and how user-friendly your site is. In this post, we’ll explain all about on-page SEO and how it differs from off-page SEO, and we’ll talk about some on-page optimizations that can help you to rank better.
On-page and off-page SEO: what’s the difference?
Every SEO strategy is focused on ranking as high as possible in the search engines. To do this, we all try to design and develop a website that Google’s algorithm — and people! — will love. That’s basically what SEO is about. The factors in Google’s algorithm can be divided into two categories that will determine the ranking of your website: on-page factors and off-page factors.
On-page SEO factors all have to do with elements on your website. For instance, things you work on to improve your E-E-A-T also fall in this category. Some of the most important on-page SEO factors are:
Your site set-up and technical features, site speed in particular
The quality of your content and use of keywords
How do you use additional media, such as images and videos
Your site structure and internal linking
Structured data and search appearance
Your URL structure
User experience
Meanwhile, off-page SEO looks at what happens away from your website. Some off-page SEO factors include:
Relevant links from other websites leading to your site
Social media activity
Business and map listings
External marketing activities
Pro tip: Find out more about on-page SEO with our front-end SEO inspector! You can use the front-end inspector tool in Yoast SEO Premium to explore the SEO data, metadata and schema output for pages on your site. It’s a great way to get to grips with your on-page SEO.
Importance of on-page SEO
On-page SEO consists of all the elements of SEO that you have control over. If you own a website, you can control the technical issues and the quality of your content. We believe you should be able to tackle all of these factors as they’re in your own hands. Remember: if you create an excellent website, it will start ranking.
Focusing on on-page SEO will also increase the chance that your off-page SEO strategy will be successful. Link building with a crappy site is very tough. Nobody wants to link to poorly written articles or sites that don’t work correctly.
How to optimize on-page SEO factors
1. Make sure search engines can crawl and index your site
If you’re unfamiliar with crawlability and indexing, here’s a quick explanation of what it is and what it has to do with Google. To show your page in the search results, Google must first know about that page. It has to be indexed by Google, meaning that this page has been stored in their index. And for that to be possible, you must ensure you’re not blocking Google from indexing your post or your whole site. So check if you’re not unintentionally doing that (we still see this happening!), and ensure your site is indexed.
Although this isn’t technically a ranking factor, getting your site into the search results requires it, so we thought it should be included here.
2. Invest time in creating quality content based on solid keyword research
Why do you think people visit your site? Most likely because it contains the information they’re looking for. Therefore it’s essential to write excellent content that corresponds with their needs. Search engines like Google also read your text. Which site ranks highest for a specific search term is primarily based on a website’s content. That’s why your content should be informative, easy to read, and focused on the right keywords that your audience uses.
Aside from creating quality content, you must remove or remedy low-quality pages. So-called thin content can harm your SEO. Take time to find these pages and do something with them occasionally to keep your content in good shape.
A significant on-page ranking factor is site speed. Users don’t want to wait for pages to load, so Google tends to rank fast-loading sites higher. If you’re unsure how fast (or slow) your site is, check out your Core Web Vital scores using the report in Google Search Console. This helpful tool will point out areas where your site speed can be improved so you know what to work on.
If you’re tech-savvy, you can probably handle this on your own. If you’re unsure where to start, our Technical SEO training can help you.
4. Get your site structure and internal linking right
A good site structure helps Google (and users) understand your site and navigate your content. And when it comes to making that site structure, internal linking is the way to do it. Firstly, you must channel many internal links to your most important content. We call those pages cornerstone content. Secondly, you should tidy up pages that aren’t getting many (if any) internal links. Those pages are what we refer to as orphaned content. It would be best if you decided whether to improve those pages and add more internal links pointing to them or remove them altogether.
Yoast SEO Premium has two SEO workouts to help you improve your site structure and internal linking. Using the workouts can help you to make big improvements quickly, so give them a go!
5. Optimize your use of images and videos
You’ll want to include images on your site to make it attractive, and maybe some videos too. Doing that wrong can harm your SEO, but doing it correctly comes with some SEO benefits.
High-quality images are usually large files that can slow your site down, and that’s a problem. Using smaller image files and giving them descriptive names, captions, and alt tags will favor your SEO. Plus, there are additional benefits. For one, you’ll make your site more accessible, so it’s helpful for a wider audience. And for another thing, you’ll have a chance of your images ranking in the Google Image search results. Read more about these topics in our posts about image SEO and alt tags.
Adding videos to your site is a bit more complicated than images. And ranking your videos on Google (or YouTube) comes with its own set of challenges. We’ve got a great series of posts all about video SEO, if you’d like to learn more about optimizing in this area. There’s also a dedicated Yoast Video SEO plugin, if you’re serious about getting your videos ranking.
6. Create a persuasive search appearance
How your site looks in the search results is vital for SEO. While the search results aren’t part of your site, the things you do to optimize your search appearance are. Therefore, we consider SEO titles, meta descriptions, and structured data part of on-page SEO.
Optimize your SEO title and meta description, and then add structured data for results that stand out
Optimizing the text for your search snippets is fairly straightforward. Adding structured data can be trickier. Good to know: Yoast SEO can help with all these tasks. With checks and previews to help you, getting your SEO titles and meta descriptions right couldn’t be easier. And when it comes to structured data, Yoast does all the hard work for you — all you need to do is select the content type and fill in the blanks.
7. Make your URLs SEO-friendly
A well-crafted URL structure helps your on-page SEO — it’s like giving your web pages a good road map. Think of it as a friendly address that guides search engines and invites users to explore your content. Creating SEO-friendly URLs makes it easier for humans and search engines to understand what your page is all about. Opt for concise and descriptive URLs that include relevant keywords, as they provide a clear signpost. A clean and organized URL structure enhances navigation, making it easier for everyone to understand your website. Don’t forget to keep it short and readable.
8. Design an excellent user experience
The last thing we want to mention is user experience. Simply put, users need to understand your website easily. They should be able to find what they want in a heartbeat. They should know where to click and how to navigate through your site. And your site should be fast! A beautifully designed website is nice, but you should make it your top priority to create a user-friendly website first.
If you want to learn more about combining SEO and UX to get more people to your site, we’d advise you to look at our other articles on user experience. Or check out our all-around SEO training course.
To conclude
We’ve talked about the most important on-page SEO factors. First, ensure that your website works correctly and that your technical SEO is up to par. Secondly, create content that is user-centered and focused on the right keywords. Thirdly, work on the usability and speed of your site to help users and search engines around your website.
As these factors are all a part of your site, you can work on them to ensure your on-page SEO is top-notch! That being said, do remember to also work on your off-page SEO. Although you may not have total control over these factors, you can still put some effort into creating that exposure on other sites too!
We are excited to present Yoast SEO 20.10, a release dedicated to fine-tuning your website and delivering an even smoother experience for all our fantastic users. This update focuses on fixing bugs and implementing minor enhancements to ensure your SEO journey is flawless. We’ve added a support section that gives you quick access to helpful content, while Premium subscribers can contact our dedicated support team.
A brand-new support section
At Yoast, we deeply value our users and understand the importance of reliable, responsive support. With Yoast SEO 20.10, we’ve made it easier for you to access the help you need, empowering you to optimize your website and achieve outstanding results confidently.
The latest release of Yoast SEO offers a new support page. Here, you’ll find options to get answers to all your burning questions quickly. Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced pro, you’ll find a wealth of resources on our site to guide you through the intricacies of SEO optimization.
If you subscribe to Yoast SEO Premium, you’ll find an option to contact our support team instantly. Unlock unlimited 24/7 premium support and take your SEO to new heights by signing up for Yoast SEO Premium now!
Yoast SEO 20.10 introduces a new support section
Fixes and enhancements
In Yoast SEO 20.10, we’ve squashed numerous bugs that might have been causing a few hiccups along the way. Building stable foundations is crucial for your success, and we’re committed to providing you with a top-notch, bug-free experience. Of course, we’ve also added some interesting enhancements to our product.
For instance, we’ve expanded the list of HTML elements excluded from the content analysis to ensure these don’t influence the scores. In addition, we’ve introduced more robust HTML processing for the competing links, keyphrase in introduction, image keyphrase, and images assessments. Lastly, you can find a new option in the crawl optimization settings. This new one lets you block AdsBot crawling when enabled.
You can now block Google AdsBot from crawling — if you don’t use Google Ads, that is
Update now to Yoast SEO 20.10
Upgrade to Yoast SEO 20.10 today and experience the updated stability and fine-tuned enhancements. We appreciate your feedback, and we’re confident that this release will bring you peace of mind and increased optimization capabilities. Let’s take your SEO goals to new heights together as we continue to refine and perfect Yoast SEO.
A new Google Analytics is coming to town, and it’s time to get ready! This new Analytics will replace the good old Universal Analytics on the 1st of July, 2023. So if you haven’t started with Google Analytics 4 yet, don’t put it off any longer. Because from July on, your Universal Analytics will no longer process any new data. You will have to have your new analytics set up to make sure you keep collecting data! In this post, we’ll tell you more about what you can expect from Google Analytics 4 and how to prepare for it.
Why set up your Google Analytics 4 now?
Good to know: If you have a 360 Universal Analytics property (the paid version of analytics), you will receive a one-time processing extension until the 1st of July, 2024.
A few years ago, Google first mentioned Google Analytics 4. The reason for creating this new type of analytics is the complexity of collecting and analyzing data. People’s online journeys are becoming more intricate (and spread over several platforms or devices). In addition, privacy is becoming increasingly important in how you collect data.
It’s good to know this new property can happily coexist with your current Analytics property. Getting started with Google Analytics 4 doesn’t mean you won’t be able to use your Universal Analytics anymore. This property will continue to function and collect data until the data we mentioned above. But from that date on, you will have to make the switch, so let’s dive into what this new version of Analytics (formerly known as “App + Web”) entails.
As we mentioned, you can use Universal Analytics until July 1, 2023. From that day on, it will no longer process any data. But that doesn’t mean you should wait until that date to create your new Google Analytics 4 property. We strongly advise you to create it now to ensure your property is set up in time. Ideally, you would have set it up months ago. This will also allow you to start collecting data on your new property. The earlier you start, the more historical data you have to give you context when making decisions regarding your website.
What to expect from Google Analytics 4
Google calls this “the next generation of Google Analytics”. On their help center page, they name a few advantages over Universal Analytics:
It’s durable for the future and privacy-focused
It uses machine learning to get you insights into customer journeys across platforms and devices
It has enhanced integrations with Google’s advertising platform to optimize campaign performance
However, it is good to know that this newest version of analytics seems to have been built with data analysts in mind. Where Universal Analytics was a tool for marketers, this new generation seems more difficult for the average user. Ecommerce expert Luke Carthy did an interesting talk on Google Analytics 4 during YoastCon 2023, in which he also explained how to make it work for marketers:
Interested in hearing the rest of what Luke says? Go to Yoast SEO academy and watch his talk on Using GA4 to boost ecommerce conversions. You can find ten more talks by SEO experts we invited to YoastCon there. If you don’t have an account yet, you can sign up for free to watch these videos and check out our other courses!
How to prepare yourself…
There’s no way around it; Universal Analytics is being replaced by Google Analytics 4. Google encourages people to set up this new property (alongside your current one) as soon as possible. So how can you prepare yourself? We’ll discuss setting it up when you’re already using Analytics. But also how to set it up when you’re not using Analytics yet.
When you’re already using Analytics
The very first step is to create a Google Analytics 4 property for your website. This can be done from your Google Analytics account. Setting up this new property doesn’t mean losing access to your analytics setup. This setup will remain the same and functional. The new property will collect data next to your existing property; you can access them both.
To help you set up your new property, Google has introduced a GA4 Setup Assistant wizard. You must have an editor role on your Google Analytics account to use this wizard. The steps to get to this wizard are thoroughly described on Google’s page on how to add a Google Analytics 4 property (to a site that already has Analytics).
When you’ve created your new property, there are a few more things you can do to ensure you’re getting the most out of it. This new version is focused on giving you more insight into the complex customer journey and improving your marketing efforts. Google’s page on how to switch to Google Analytics 4 gives a great overview of what you can do to properly set up Google Analytics 4. If you want to learn even more, you can take their Skillshop Course to discover what’s new with Google Analytics.
When you’re new to Analytics
If you aren’t using Analytics, you must start by setting up an account. Go to google.com/analytics and click ‘Get started today’. When logged in, you can go to Admin (the cogwheel in the bottom left corner) and click the blue button ‘Create Account’ in the top left corner. You must set an account name and decide on what data you want to share with other Google services.
After that, you click ‘Next’ and add a property to your new account. Google explains how to do this on their page on setting up Analytics for a website and/or app. After you’ve set up your new account and property, you can start getting familiar with Analytics and dive into the data to get more insights into your site visitors and their behavior. Of course, it can be overwhelming at first. But you can find loads of information and training in Google’s training and support section.
To summarize
Now is the time to add a GA4 property to your account. This helps you get used to this new way of analyzing your data, and it comes with new features that give you more insight into your audience and the performance of your marketing campaigns. Adding this new Analytics property won’t change anything in your current Analytics setup; you can use and view both properties until July 2023. After that, your old property won’t process any new data, and you will have to switch to Google Analytics 4. So start immediately and get the most out of this new version of Google Analytics!
