Are you aiming for that number 1 position in the search results? And do you madly chase traffic and clicks? It’s not easy to achieve all these things on your own. Luckily, Yoast is here to help. In this post, we’ll talk you through optimizing your post in the best possible way. We’ll explain the five steps on how to Yoast your post.
Writing comes first, Yoast comes second
Optimizing your post is important, but it should never come first. Writing has three phases:
Prepare your content
Write!
Edit your content (and Yoast it!)
It doesn’t matter if you’re writing a blog post, an article, or novel. The steps are all the same.
Preparation is key
Before you start writing an article, you should be able to answer the following questions:
In other words, you should take some time to think about what you want to tell your audience and what the structure of your text will look like. You need to know who you’re writing for and what their goal or search intent is. And what keywords does your audience use, so your content can be found in the search engines?
If you do not think about these questions long and hard, you’ll make mistakes like addressing the wrong audience, focusing on the wrong keywords or writing an article that’s badly structured and unfocused.
Write!
After thoroughly preparing your blog post or article, you can start writing. Make sure to start by filling out your focus keyphrases and their synonyms. What are the terms you want to be found for?
Since you’ve thought about what you’ll write in the preparation phase, you should go with the flow when you’re writing. Don’t overthink. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. You’ll have the third – and most important phase- to correct and Yoast your post.
Editing: let’s Yoast it!
In the final editing phase, you can Yoast your post. So, let’s look at the five steps you should take to optimize your post to the max.
Make sure your text is readable
The first step in optimizing your post is checking the readability analysis. If your overall readability score is green, you’re good to go. But that’s not always the case! Perhaps you used too many long sentences. Maybe you’ve used the passive voice too often. Correct those readability issues and make your text nice and easy to read. Check out our article about the readability analysis for more tips!
Check out your snippet preview
You want people to click on your site in the search result pages. You need to write a kickass meta description to make your result stand out. Because a good meta description lets people know they’ll find what they’re looking for on your site! That’s why you should choose a title and a meta description that stands out. Read our article on how to use Yoast SEO to write an awesome meta description if you want more practical tips.
If you need more help writing awesome meta descriptions, try the meta description generator. Our AI-powered generator crafts unique descriptions and titles for you! This feature is currently available if you have our premium Yoast SEO plugin.
Check your SEO score
The third step is to check out the SEO analysis. Which aspects of your SEO need improvement? Perhaps you should use your keyword or its synonym more often. Or maybe you’re overdoing it. And what about headings and images?
Check out which problems and improvements the Yoast SEO analysis indicates. Usually, you can easily make some tweaks that’ll make your copy better optimized for search engines. But don’t overdo it! You do not need all green traffic lights. You’re good to go if your overall SEO traffic light is green!
Add those internal links
Another thing you need before your content can rank is links. Google finds your posts and pages best when linked to from somewhere on the web. Internal links also connect your content and give Google an idea of the structure of your website. So, using the right internal linking strategy can boost your SEO!
Are you linking to your most important articles? Are you linking to articles that are closely related to the article you’re currently writing? Make sure your site structure is tip-top. Read more about the power of internal linking and why you should use Yoast internal linking.
Read and reread!
Yoast SEO is a tool that aims to help you optimize your content. It gives practical tips on what you can do to improve your content. Think of it as your personal SEO assistant! But that being said, it’s also just a tool. Make sure to re-read your content once you’ve optimized it to make sure you’re happy with the end result!
Yoast your post
Writing is hard. Optimizing your post all by yourself is hard. That’s why Yoast SEO tries to make it easier for you! We’ll check your posts for readability, paragraph length, word complexity, your use of inclusive language, and make suggestions for improvements. We’ll help you to Yoast your post. But in the end, it will also remain some work from your side.
We are happy to announce the release of the latest version of Yoast SEO. This update focuses on enhancing performance, fixing bugs, and improving our features. Don’t forget to check out our recently launched generative AI feature! Here’s Yoast SEO 21.3.
Performance enhancements
By design, Yoast SEO stores image metadata for every post upon saving, which we use in several features, like schema output. This meant that for larger websites with loads of images, publishing or editing a post could take longer than expected, especially if a post contained a lot of those images.
With Yoast SEO 21.3, we released an improvement for this by taking advantage of each editor’s inherent handling of images. This enabled us to stop calls to the database that created these delays in the first place. For the combination of editors and blocks that worked, we noticed considerable decreases in the duration times of post-saving in our benchmark tests. Of course, the improvements heavily rely on the editor used for post creation and the image blocks added to the post content.
Word complexity improvements in Premium
Improving readability is a vital part of creating high-quality content. It’s one of the reasons we give you the tools needed to help you write that awesome content. Our in-house linguists always work hard to make these tools as good and helpful as possible. In Yoast SEO 21.3, our team updated the word complexity feature available in Yoast SEO Premium.
The word complexity assessment marks complex words so that you can replace these with simpler alternatives. This will make your text easier to understand.
In Yoast SEO 21.3, we’ve improved the accuracy of this assessment in English by recognizing more plural forms of non-complex words. For example, the plural form universities is no longer marked as a complex word, just like the singular form university.
Generative AI in Yoast SEO Premium
As a reminder, in Yoast SEO 21.0, we added an innovative AI-powered feature that makes you quickly generate titles and meta descriptions. With this cutting-edge technology, you can optimize your content and metadata more effectively, saving you valuable time and resources.
Update now to Yoast SEO 21.3
Upgrade to the latest version of Yoast SEO now and benefit from better performance, advanced features, and easier SEO optimization. If you go Premium, you can use our AI-enhanced technology to achieve great results quickly. Download today’s update and enhance your visibility in the search engines.
Today, there’s a constant demand for more efficient and effective SEO practices. Keeping this in mind, we’re constantly updating and refining the features of Yoast SEO. One of our key milestones was the release of Yoast SEO 21.0, where we revealed a pioneering generative AI to redefine SEO optimization. In our next release, Yoast SEO 21.1, we’re improving upon that work.
AI in Yoast SEO
In Yoast SEO 21.0, we introduced a generative AI tool that simplified the generation of SEO-optimized titles and meta descriptions. No longer a tedious manual effort, this tool gives you the power to create engaging titles and descriptions at the click of a button. This innovative application of generative AI eliminates the complexity of SEO optimization, freeing up valuable time to produce top-quality content.
Here’s the awesome video we made to remind you!
Building upon this foundation, we’re excited to present Yoast SEO 21.1, continuing our journey into optimizing your SEO with AI. We’re making the first behind-the-scenes improvements to improve the performance and results of the generative AI feature. This makes your content more appealing, while also upholding its SEO-friendly character. Remember that the AI generator functionality only works when the SEO analysis is turned on. If you don’t have it activated, we’ll show a message alerting you about this.
Let generative AI in Yoast SEO help you make great titles and meta descriptions
Making the most of Yoast SEO Premium
If you’re still on the fence about including AI in your SEO strategy, we recommend trying out Yoast SEO Premium. This grants access to our robust AI feature and equips you with other advanced tools to enhance your site’s SEO performance. More so, these tools are specifically designed to streamline your workflow and amplify your productivity.
Fixes and enhancements
As usual with our new releases, Yoast SEO 21.1 brings a series of fixes and enhancements to boost performance. We’re always at work to keep Yoast SEO a practical and reliable tool that supports your needs.
We value your trust in Yoast SEO, and our goal is always to deliver tools that simplify your SEO routine. So, we would like to encourage you to upgrade to Yoast SEO Premium to unlock the full potential of your site’s SEO capabilities with AI and our advanced features.
Update to Yoast SEO 21.1
Yoast SEO 21.0 was a great success, and we can’t wait to show you what’s next. As we continue to improve your SEO experience, we invite your feedback to help us refine our services further. Comment on this post, use the WordPress forums, or contact us via our socials — it’s all good. Guided by your input, we can ensure Yoast SEO remains high-quality, effective, and user-friendly. Be smarter with SEO in Yoast SEO 21.1!
Are you looking for the best alternatives to Yoast SEO?
Yoast SEO is one of the most popular WordPress SEO plugins, but it isn’t right for every website. If you choose the wrong SEO plugin, then you’ll struggle to appear in relevant search engine results and attract visitors to your website.
In this article, we will show you the best alternatives to the Yoast SEO plugin.
Why Look for a Yoast SEO Alternative?
Search engines are a major source of traffic for most websites, so it’s important to optimize your content for the search engines. However, WordPress SEO is a big topic that can be daunting, especially if you’re just getting started.
A good SEO plugin allows you to optimize for the search engines, without requiring any specialist skills or knowledge. Some SEO tools can even scan your content and suggest changes you can make, in order to improve your rankings.
With that in mind, it’s important to find the best SEO plugin for your particular website. While Yoast SEO is a good choice for many sites, it does have some drawbacks.
Firstly, Yoast offers many important SEO features as paid addons, rather than including them in the core plugin. For example, you’ll need to buy separate Yoast addons if you want to optimize your local SEO, video SEO, or news SEO.
The core Yoast plugin also doesn’t have any WooCommerce features, which is a big problem if you run an online store.
You’ll also need to buy a separate Yoast SEO subscription for every website where you want to use the plugin, as there’s no option to buy a multi-website license.
That being said, let’s take a look at the best Yoast SEO alternatives that you can install. Simply use the quick links below to jump straight to the plugin you want to learn about.
All in One SEO for WordPress (AIOSEO) is the best WordPress SEO plugin on the market. Used by over 3 million users, it is the most comprehensive SEO toolkit that shows how to improve your rankings without any complicated SEO jargon.
The free version of AIOSEO has all the essential SEO features, but the pro version gives you everything you need to outrank the competition.
Upon activation, the user-friendly setup wizard will help you choose the best SEO settings for your website. Yoast SEO has a setup wizard with similar options, but the AIOSEO wizard has fewer steps.
To help optimize your blog posts, AIOSEO adds a new section to the page and post editor. Here, you can type in the focus keyword and any additional keyphrases you want the content to rank for.
Unlike Yoast SEO, AIOSEO gives your content a clear score out of 10 so you can immediately see how well the content is optimized.
AIOSEO also creates an actionable, easy-to-understand SEO checklist showing the exact steps you should take, in order to improve your score.
Simply work your way through the list, and your content will stand a good chance of appearing higher in the search results.
AIOSEO also comes with rich snippet schema markup, which encourages search engines to add rich content to your site’s search results. For example, you can show a product’s star rating, pricing, and other information by adding schema markup in WordPress.
If you visit the Site Health page after activating AIOSEO, then you’ll see some extra SEO health checks.
Both Yoast SEO and AIOSEO automatically generate XML sitemaps for your website. However, AIOSEO also allows you to manage your sitemap directly in the WordPress dashboard.
Sometimes you may create pages outside of WordPress. For example, you might build stand-alone custom landing pages or sales pages. AIOSEO makes it easy to add these external pages to your sitemap, so search engines can find them.
AIOSEO has a built-in social media integration to add Open Graph metadata, so you can easily optimize your content for social platforms like Facebook and Twitter.
AIOSEO will automatically use your post title and description for the Open Graph title and description. However, you can manually change the title, description, and thumbnail for each page and post.
If you use WooCommerce, then AIOSEO comes with built-in WooCommerce SEO tools.
This includes optimizing your product titles and slugs, creating product meta descriptions, adding SEO titles and descriptions to your product categories, and more.
By contrast, if you’re using Yoast then you’ll need to install a separate Yoast WooCommerce SEO plugin.
Do you have a physical store, or sell to people in the local area? Then you can set up your local business schema with just a few clicks, including your address, phone number, and opening hours. Search engines will then include this information in local search results and Google Maps.
If you manage a multi-author WordPress blog, then AIOSEO comes with permissions and user roles so you can control exactly what features users can access.
For example, you might allow guest bloggers to optimize their own posts, without giving them access to the rest of AIOSEO.
Unlike other SEO plugins, AIOSEO offers a Link Assistant that will automatically suggest places where you may want to add more internal links.
If you have only one website, then the Yoast and AIOSEO pricing plans are quite similar. However, if you run multiple websites then AIOSEO offers multi-website licenses, unlike Yoast SEO.
Cons:
Although you can perform important SEO tasks using the free plugin, you’ll need to upgrade to unlock the most powerful features
If you want to track your keyword rankings, then you’ll need to buy an AIOSEO Elite plan. Another option is to invest in an analytics solution such as MonsterInsights.
Why we chose AIOSEO: Overall, AIOSEO is the most beginner-friendly and comprehensive WordPress SEO plugin on the market. It allows you to optimize every part of your site, even if you’re new to SEO.
Since it’s such a board and feature-packed plugin, you don’t need to install any extra plugins or software. This can save you a ton of time and money.
Pricing: AIOSEO plans start at $124 per year. If you want to use AISEO on more than 1 website, then you’ll need to upgrade to the Plus plan ($249 per year) or higher. There’s also a free version of AIOSEO that can optimzie your site for the search engines, no matter what your budget.
SEOPress is a simple yet powerful WordPress SEO plugin. It includes all the features you would expect from an SEO plugin like meta title, description, open graph support, image and content XML sitemaps, redirects, and more. It also comes with a redirect manager, broken link checker, and 404 tracking.
SEOPress has a straightforward setup wizard that’ll optimize your site with just a few clicks.
SEOPress can generate news and video sitemaps, to help you get listed in Google News and Google Video search results.
Similarly, SEOPress can automatically add your images to the XML sitemap to improve visibility in Google Images.
This includes featured images, image galleries, and WooCommerce product images.
You can also create custom XML sitemaps by adding custom post types and custom taxonomies. SEOPress will even automatically notify search engines when you publish new pages and posts, so they can rank your new WordPress content faster.
If you’re looking to migrate away from Yoast, then SEOPress can import all your metadata from Yoast SEO, including title tags, Open Graph tags, meta robots, and more.
Unlike Yoast SEO, SEOPress uses AI to automate many of the basic SEO optimization tasks.
For example, it can automatically generate meta titles and descriptions based on the content of your post, page, or custom post type.
If you want to connect with people and customers in your local area, then SEOPress can add local business schema to your WordPress website.
It also has a local business widget that can show this information on your website. In this way, SEOPress can help improve your E-A-T (Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness).
Pros:
Automatically adds WooCommerce product images and WooCommerce image galleries to your sitemap
Powerful schema generator with full support for a long list of schema including local business, product, video, event, and recipe schema
Set up unlimited redirects
Deploy SEOPress to your customers as a white-label tool complete with your own custom logo and branding
Integrates with Astra, Easy Digital Downloads, AMP, BuddyPress, and many other WordPress plugins, themes, and services.
Cons:
The free SEOPress plugin is quite limited, compared to the free version of Yoast SEO. For example, you can edit your robots.txt file using the free version of Yoast, but you’ll need to upgrade to SEOPress Pro in order to optimize your robots.txt file for SEO.
Why we chose SEOPress: The free plugin may be slightly lighter on features compared to some of its competitors, but the premium version has everything you need to optimize your site. This includes some features you don’t often see in SEO plugins such as AI-powered suggestions, plus integrations with both Google Analytics and the Google Search Console.
Pricing: SEOPress licenses range from $49-$148 per year. There’s also a free plugin that you can download from the official WordPress repository.
It comes with a setup wizard that checks your site’s settings and recommends any changes you need to make, in order to improve your SEO.
To get started, simply type in the focus keyword you want to rank for.
Rank Math will then show actionable suggestions inside the WordPress content editor. In this way, you can fine-tune your content as you’re writing it.
You can also easily add a meta title, description, and Open Graph metadata to your WordPress blogs.
The panel also shows how the post will look in the search engine results, and when it’s shared on social media. You can use these settings to fine-tune the preview, so you get more clicks and increase your blog traffic.
To help you track the impact of your SEO activities, Rank Math shows information from Google Search Console directly in the WordPress dashboard. This includes the keywords you rank for, your sitemap status, and any indexing issues.
Rank Math even displays Google URL Inspection API data, so you can see your site’s overall presence on Google, your content’s advanced index status, the last time your posts were crawled, and much more.
Pros:
Advanced schema generator
Give yourself a head start by importing schema markup from any page, post, or URL
Check your schema markup against Google’s Rich Results validation tool
Build custom schemas and even add multiple schemas to a single post without having to write a single line of code
Integrates with Google Trends to show the latest search trends for keywords
Use Rank Math on an unlimited number of personal sites, even if you choose the least expensive plan
Cons:
You’ll need to upgrade to a Business or higher plan if you want to use Rank Math on client sites
All the paid plans limit the number of keywords you can track
Why we chose Rank Math: Rank Math shows an impressive range of tracking data and statistics inside the WordPress dashboard. This makes it a good choice if you haven’t installed Google Analytics in WordPress, or set up a similar analytics tool.
Pricing: Rank Math Pro licenses start at $59 per year. However, if you want to use Rank Math on client websites then you’ll need to purchase a Business license ($199 per year) or higher. There’s also a free Rank Math plugin that you can download from WordPress.org.
Slim SEO is a lightweight Yoast SEO alternative that aims to do all the heavy lifting for you.
This plugin can automatically generate meta titles, meta descriptions, Open Graph, Twitter card tags, and more.
It can also generate schema types for all your content, image alt text, and XML sitemaps for search engines.
To help visitors find interesting content on your website, Slim SEO comes with fully-customizable breadcrumb navigation that you can add to any page, post, or widget-ready area using a shortcode.
If a third-party scrapes your site, then the duplicate content can hurt your rankings.
To help prevent blog content scraping, Slim SEO can show excerpts in your RSS feed rather than the full content. It will also automatically add a link to each post in the WordPress RSS feed, so you’ll get a backlink even if someone successfully scrapes your content.
If you need to set up a redirect, then Slim SEO supports 301 redirects, temporary redirects, 410 content deleted messages, and more.
Sometimes, you may need to add third-party code to your website. For example, you might add code from Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Meta Pixel, or other webmaster tools.
Unlike some other SEO tools, Slim SEO makes it easy to add custom code to WordPress. In the Slim SEO settings, simply paste the custom code into the boxes labeled header, body, or footer. Slim SEO will then go ahead and insert the code for you.
Pros:
Configures many important SEO settings automatically
Very lightweight and easy to use
Optimized for speed and performance
Automatically checks if a page needs to be indexed and will exclude it from the search results if necessary
Redirect broken or outdated URLs with just a few clicks
Integrates with many popular WordPress plugins including AffiliateWP, WooCommerce, and WPForms.
Cons:
With its focus on ease of use, Slim SEO is missing some of the more advanced features you’ll find in plugins like Yoast SEO and AIOSEO.
While the automation can save you a ton of time, Slim SEO lacks the level of customization found in competing plugins.
Why we chose Slim SEO: If you’re looking for a straightforward plugin that makes SEO feel effortless, then Slim SEO may be your ideal plugin. With its focus on automation, Slim SEO promises to deliver a significant SEO boost, without you having to learn complicated features and settings.
It’s easy to get started with the SmartCrawl Pro plugin, thanks to a one-click setup wizard.
Once you’re up and running, SmartCrawl continues to make things easy with a straightforward user interface that allows you to see different modules with the click of a button.
The SEO Audits module is powered by Google Lighthouse and highlights any issues with your site’s SEO on both mobile and desktop devices.
You can start a scan manually at any point, or set up an automated schedule. SmartCrawl will then email you the results, or notify you when your score drops below a certain percentage.
SmartCrawl adds a new section to the WordPress All Posts and All Pages screens where you can see some basic information about your content. This includes the readability score and whether the title and description are within the recommended character count.
SmartCrawl also adds a custom meta box to the post editor where you can fine-tune important content such as the SEO title and description, and OpenGraph elements.
It also shows how easy the content is to read, based on the Flesch-Kincaid readability.
To save time and improve your internal linking, SmartCrawl can turn certain words or phrases into URLs automatically. For example, you may want to link to your pricing table every time you mention a particular product.
You can also use SmartCrawl to set up redirects, edit your robots.txt file, set up breadcrumb navigation, add product schema to your WooCommerce store, and more.
Pros:
Provides actionable recommendations on how to improve your content’s search engine rankings and readability
Automated SEO audits and sitemap crawler reports
Preview how your content will look in the search engine results
The free plugin doesn’t include many of SmartCrawl’s best features, including automated scanning, automatic linking, and built-in reports.
Why we chose SmartCrawl: SmartCrawl is easy to set up, even if you’re just getting started with SEO. In fact, all its features are enabled automatically, so if you’re happy to use the default settings then you can set up SmartCrawl with just a few clicks.
For advanced users, there are some more powerful features to explore, but this is a great plugin for anyone who wants to make SEO quick and easy.
Pricing: SmartCrawl’s premium licenses start from $7.50 per month, which allows you to use the plugin on up to 10 sites. There’s also a free plugin that you can download from the official WordPress repository.
Squirrly SEO is an AI-powered SEO toolkit that comes with 650 features pre-configured.
To start, you can find the best keywords to target using Squirrly’s advanced keyword research tool, which shows important information such as the search volume data, and the level of competition for each keyword.
Squirrly SEO also comes with SEO AI Assistant. Simply enter the keywords you want to target, and Squirrly will use AI to create a personalized checklist on how to improve your rankings.
Squirrly doesn’t just help you optimize for the search engines. As you create content, its Live Assistant will suggest ways to improve the article for human readers. For example, Squirrly will monitor your content for repetitiveness, keyword stuffing, and many other factors that can hurt the reader experience.
The Live Assistant is compatible with many popular page builder plugins including Divi, WP Bakery, and Thrive Architect. In fact, it can show complete audits and reports for pages created with these builders.
Similar to many other SEO plugins, Squirrly lets you control exactly how your pages appear in the SERPs and on social media.
When it comes to tracking the impact of your SEO activities, Squirrly SEO provides detailed audits, in-depth performance metrics, and performance scores. To provide even greater insight, Squirrly SEO integrates with Google Search Console and Google Analytics.
Pros:
A complete SEO toolkit that can help you perform keyword research, content optimization, technical SEO, site audits, rank tracking, and more.
Why we chose Squirrly SEO: With its built-in analytics and keyword research tools, this is a comprehensive SEO toolkit. The combination of an AI Assistant and Live Assistant also encourages you to optimize for both audiences: the search engines that index your content, and the people who visit your website.
Pricing: Squirrly SEO licenses range from $29.99-$75.99 per month. There’s also an SEO Plugin by Squirrly SEO that you can download for free.
Semrush SEO Writing Assistant is a smart editor tool that helps you write more SEO-friendly content and improve your ranking for your focus keyword.
This tool integrates with the WordPress post editor and offers actionable suggestions based on the top-performing content in Google’s SERPs.
Based on this information, it gives the post an overall score, so you can easily see how well the content is optimized.
The SEO Writing Assistant also uses the Flesch-Kincaid score to assess your content’s readability and make suggestions on how to improve the reader experience.
The Semrush SEO Writing Assistant checks if your tone of voice is consistent, and also comes with an AI-powered rephraser.
This rephraser will suggest ways to paraphrase any areas of text that are unclear, wordy, or awkward to read.
When you type in a focus keyword, SEO Writing Assistant will suggest related keywords that you may also want to target.
In this way, you can optimize your content for multiple keywords and get even more visitors.
With its focus on improving copy, SEO Writing Assistant is also a great tool for editors, proofreaders, and anyone who edits posts on their WordPress website.
If you do allow users to submit posts on your WordPress site, then SEO Writing Assistant has a plagiarism checker. Duplicate content can hurt your site’s SEO and your reputation. In the worst-case scenario, search engines such as Google might even blacklist your website so you stop appearing in relevant search results.
With SEO Writing Assistant, it’s easy to make sure each writer submits original content.
A complete SEO toolkit that can optimize your content for search engines and human readers
An easy-to-understand overall SEO score
Identifies potential issues with links and alt tags
Cons:
Limited built-in keyword research tools. If you want to research potential focus keyphrases, then you’ll need to create a separate Semrush account.
Depending on how you use the tool, you may also need to buy a Semrush subscription
Why we chose Semrush SEO Writing Assistant: If you already have a Semrush subscription, then this plugin allows you to access Semrush features directly inside the WordPress dashboard.
Pricing: You can download Semrush SEO Writing Assistant for free, but you will need to create a Semrush account before you can use any of the features. To use some of the more advanced settings, you may also need to buy a Semrush subscription (prices range from $129.95-$499.95 per month).
There are many reasons why you might get broken links, but they commonly happen when you move a site to a new domain name, or delete a page without setting up a redirect. These broken URLs can hurt your SEO and the visitor experience, so it’s important to fix them.
The Broken Link Checker plugin by AIOSEO is a simple tool that scans your posts, pages, and custom post types for broken links every three days.
Every time it finds a broken URL, it’ll show the link’s HTTP status code, response headers, and how long the link has been broken.
To fix the link, simply click on ‘Edit URL’ in the WordPress dashboard.
You can also simply remove the link, by clicking ‘Unlink.’
Unlike some other plugins, Broken Link Checker is built as a SaaS service, so it won’t slow your website down. It also won’t be blocked by managed WordPress hosting companies like WP Engine because it pings for broken links using an external private server.
Pros:
A simple and straightforward plugin that you can download for free
Automatically identifies broken links
Designed so it won’t slow down your website, or get blocked by managed WordPress hosting providers
Minimal settings to configure
Cons:
This plugin is designed to do one job, and do it well. With that in mind, you’ll still need an SEO toolkit to manage all your other SEO tasks
Why we chose Broken Link Checker: Fixing broken links is an important SEO task, but not every plugin manages broken URLs, especially if you’re using the free version of a premium plugin. If this is the case, then Broken Link Checker is a free, simple plugin that provides this missing feature.
Conclusion: What is the Best Yoast SEO Alternative?
If you’re looking for the best Yoast SEO alternative, then we recommend AIOSEO. Similar to Yoast, AIOSEO is a complete SEO toolkit that has everything you need to optimize your site for search engines. This means you don’t need to install any additional SEO plugins.
Unlike Yoast SEO, AIOSEO has a range of plans including subscriptions for multiple websites. This makes AIOSEO a great option if you own more than one website, or need a plugin that you can use on multiple client websites.
AIOSEO also supports WooCommerce SEO out of the box, without you needing to pay for an additional eCommerce SEO plugin. This is a big win if you run an online store, marketplace, or sell digital products.
If you’re just getting started, then there’s even a free version of AIOSEO that gives you access to advanced SEO features, no matter what your budget.
FAQs About Yoast SEO Alternatives
In this guide, we have covered several popular Yoast SEO alternatives. If you still have questions, then here are our FAQs about choosing the right SEO plugin for your WordPress blog or website.
What Are the Best Yoast SEO Alternatives?
The best alternatives to Yoast SEO are AIOSEO, Rank Math, SEOPress, Slim SEO, SmartCrawl, and Squirrely SEO.
However, we recommend AIOSEO as it’s easy to set up, easy to use, and creates a complete SEO checklist for every page, post, and custom post type across your WordPress website.
What Is the Best Yoast SEO Alternative for WooCommerce?
When it comes to eCommerce SEO, AIOSEO comes out on top. It has built-in support for WooCommerce, so you don’t need to install a separate plugin.
AIOSEO allows you to optimize your product pages and automatically generates XML sitemaps for your products and product categories.
You can also add product schema to your inventory, which encourages search engines such as Google to create rich snippets for your products. This includes showing the product’s average star rating, how many reviews it has, and its pricing.
Is Rank Math Better Than Yoast?
If you’re looking for a plugin that’s easy to set up and use, then Yoast is a great choice especially if you’re new to SEO. However, Rank Math has more advanced features including the ability to generate fully-customizable schema, perform detailed keyword analysis, create custom XML sitemaps, and even optimize your image SEO for smart displays and devices such as Alexa.
For that reason, we recommend choosing Rank Math, despite the slightly steeper learning curve compared to Yoast.
Is AIOSEO Better Than Yoast SEO?
Both AIOSEO and Yoast SEO are powerful, user-friendly SEO plugins. However, AIOSEO offers more schema types, and gives you greater control over your XML sitemap.
Both plugins can scan your content and create an SEO checklist, but AIOSEO tends to provide a clearer, more actionable plan thanks to its TruSEO score and Focus Keyphrase features.
If you have multiple websites, then AIOSEO’s plans represent much better value for money. You can use AIOSEO on up to 100 websites, using a single license.
By contrast, all of Yoast SEO’s plans are limited to a single website, so you’ll need to buy multiple licenses if you own multiple websites.
How Do I Set up an SEO Plugin for WordPress?
The first thing you need to do is install and activate your chosen SEO plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.
Upon activation, you’ll typically see a setup wizard that will guide you through the setup process. For example, if you’re using AIOSEO then you can simply click on the ‘Let’s Get Started’ button.
If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.
Say goodbye to the manual labor of creating SEO-optimized titles and meta descriptions! We’re excited to introduce an AI-powered breakthrough in Yoast SEO 21.0 that transforms how you optimize your content. We’ve harnessed the power of generative AI to bring you effortless title and meta description generation at the click of a button. Dive into our newest release and experience the benefits of seamless SEO optimization, giving you more time to craft quality content and less time worrying about SEO details.
Simplified SEO
We’ve designed this update of Yoast SEO to eliminate the hassle of your SEO optimization efforts. We all know that creating SEO-friendly titles and descriptions can be complex, often consuming a lot of your time and requiring an understanding of SEO best practices. Not anymore. Unlock the potential of AI with the newest release of Yoast SEO Premium. You can now generate titles and meta descriptions with just a click!
Now available as beta in Yoast SEO Premium
The new AI feature is now available as a beta in Yoast SEO Premium. As we fine-tune the API, you might see system messages in this beta phase. These are not huge issues, and it’s certainly not your fault. Simply try again if you see a message pop up! Think of it as getting a sneak peek behind the scenes, like witnessing a chef in a restaurant kitchen perfecting your dish. It’s all part of the process as we refine and optimize the product. You can activate the AI feature in the Yoast SEO settings.
We’re constantly working to improve our AI features, which is where we need your input. We value your feedback and ideas to ensure our products serve you better each time. We understand how quickly the world moves, particularly in areas like LLMs and generative AI. So, we are ready to make numerous tweaks and changes to keep pace and maintain high quality. Together, let’s explore this exciting new chapter!
Powered by generative AI
The new feature in Yoast SEO 21.0 uses advanced generative AI to create engaging, creative, SEO-optimized titles and meta descriptions. Relying on large language models, machine learning algorithms and fed with vast amounts of data, our AI understands your content to provide you with optimal suggestions.
Generating SEO titles and meta descriptions is now easy as pie with Yoast SEO Premium
Why use AI for SEO
SEO involves techniques and strategies to rank your site higher in search results. One of them is to have good, catchy titles and relevant meta descriptions that appeal both to readers and search engines.
But the challenges are real. Manually crafting these pieces of content can be tedious, and time-consuming and may require an advanced understanding of SEO. This is where our new feature steps in.
Here’s how the AI in Yoast SEO Premium benefits you
Saves time: You can focus more on creating quality content when you automate the generation of titles and meta descriptions.
Enhances creativity: It helps stimulate creative and engaging titles and descriptions, ensuring they grab the reader’s attention in search results.
Improved CTR: Leveraging AI for your SEO efforts can revolutionize your content optimization strategy and helps the number of people clicking through to your site.
Integrated workflow: By integrating different tasks — in this case, content creation and SEO optimization — into a seamless workflow, you save time, reduce complexity, and increase productivity. It also ensures that all your work is aligned toward one goal, increasing the effectiveness of your efforts.
Let us walk you through the functionality to show how this new feature will help you do SEO.
How does it work?
The AI feature in Yoast SEO 21.0 works for all your content. Here’s how:
Get started: Activate the AI feature in the Yoast SEO settings. Locate the ‘Use AI’ button. You’ll find this in the Google Preview in the Yoast SEO Premium sidebar or by scrolling down your post. Once your content is ready, click this button, and our AI feature will appear.
One-time consent: We’ve powered the AI features in Yoast SEO with external services. We need your consent to allow you to use them. Remember that we’ll transfer your data once you consent to use the AI feature.
AI at work: Ask it to generate titles or meta descriptions. Our advanced algorithms analyze your content after you click the button. The AI then uses this to generate a list of engaging and SEO-friendly titles or meta descriptions that align with your content.
View suggestions: You’ll see five unique suggestions for the title and meta description. Check them to see which ones suit your content the best. They are in the context of a Google SERP result. You can immediately see how it might look in the search results.
Choose or refresh: Find a title or meta description you love? Wonderful! Select it and click the ‘Apply AI title/meta description’ button next to the selection, and it will automatically populate the appropriate fields. Not entirely satisfied with the first round of suggestions? No problem! Click the ‘Generate more’ button, and five fresh suggestions for titles and meta descriptions will appear.
Finalize: The generated titles and meta descriptions are not set in stone. Tweak them to your liking.
Remember, there’s no need for any configuration. It also doesn’t cost you anything extra, like AI credits or an extra subscription — it’s all included in Yoast SEO Premium.
Keep Google in mind
Even as you use our AI feature to create SEO meta tags, it’s worth remembering that Google often rewrites titles and meta descriptions. This process is based on their algorithms’ understanding of your content and what they consider will be most helpful to users.
What does this mean? Google’s systems serve the user the best content according to their search query, which means it will occasionally adjust your titles and meta descriptions. This fact underlines the importance of your on-page content aligning with your meta tags.
Something else to keep in mind
While our generative AI is a powerful tool designed to deliver high-quality, SEO-friendly titles and meta descriptions, we want to remind you that it doesn’t replace the human touch. The technology provides incredible choices by learning from your data, but it might only partially grasp the unique context, branding, or tone of voice your content requires.
The suggestions generated by our AI feature provide a solid foundation for your SEO data, saving you time and effort. However, it’s still important to review these suggestions to ensure they align with your brand’s voice and your content’s context and are factually correct. We have a blog post explaining how to evaluate the generated titles and meta descriptions.
The power of generative AI in SEO is immense, offering time-saving benefits and efficiency; still, the technology should complement human intelligence, not replace it. We ensured that Yoast SEO 21.0 allows and encourages you to review, refine, and tailor the AI’s output.
Stay involved in the process, use this tool to enhance your workflow, and remember — the magic truly happens when human creativity and advanced AI work together!
Get Yoast SEO 21.0 now
We can’t wait for you to dive in and use this helpful feature in Yoast SEO Premium. We firmly believe it has the potential to improve your SEO work and make it more efficient. It helps free up that valuable time to do what you do best — create fantastic content.
The update is free if you use the Premium version of our SEO plugin. If you’re not a Premium subscriber, upgrade today to enjoy this and many more advanced features to help your SEO.
We’re excited about this new chapter in simplifying and optimizing your SEO work. As always, we are open to feedback and suggestions about Yoast SEO, and we’re looking forward to hearing about your experiences with this new feature.
Get ready to harness the power of AI for your SEO efforts!
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:
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.
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!
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.
