The Ultimate Guide to Yoast SEO | Simplemachine
Search engine optimization allows you to rank high on search engine result pages. An intuitive WordPress website allows you to achieve a unique and customized appearance. To improve the performance of your business as a whole, you need to set aside enough resources for SEO. Working with Yoast SEO allows you to have an easy time making your website SEO friendly. With the right tactics, you’ll be able to gain more subscribers and increase your sales. It is essential that you incorporate search engine optimization in all aspects of your online marketing and PR efforts. When you use Yoast Plugins, you gain access to tools and features that make it easy to optimize your website. Remember to write quality content, including both long tail and competitive keywords. You also need to pay attention to your site’s structure as it will determine where search engines will rank you on search result pages. An elaborate search engine optimization strategy allows you to tap into your business’ potential and exponentially grow. Outlined below is an elaborate Yoast SEO guide to ensure you are doing what it takes to keep your business on top.
Keyword Strategy
For every search engine optimization strategy, you will need to come up with a list of all the keywords you want your website to rank. The words you use in your articles greatly influence how Google and other search engines rank your content. You need to know the key phrases customers and prospects frequently key in when they are looking for the goods and services you offer. Aside from excellent website design and intuitive user interface, you also have to optimize your articles with relevant keywords. To achieve an excellent web design and layout, consider building a WordPress website. WordPress offers all features and plugins you need to come with a branded website.
Keyword Research
Keyword research allows you to identify all the keywords you want your website to rank for. For a search engine optimization strategy to be complete, you’ll need a list of such keywords that should be regularly updated. Besides, for you to generate traffic for your website, it is important that you know what your audience is searching. Aside from discovery the keywords you want to rank for, you also need to figure out the mission of your business, landing pages where the keywords will feature, as well as, the purpose each keyword will serve.
When you have an overview of all keywords you’d like to use, it offers a guide on how to write content. Keyword research greatly impacts SEO content. Always ensure that the keywords you choose to work with as similar to the key phrases your audience searches to make your efforts worthwhile. Aside from competitive keywords, you also need to use long tail keywords. The longer your keywords are, the easier it is for you to focus more on a niche with your content.
You need to come up with as many keywords as you can but remember not to overuse keywords in your text. Keywords should flow naturally so that readers are encouraged to continue reading blogs.
Lastly, remember to prioritize keywords based on what is immediately important. Timing is an essential aspect when it comes to keyword optimization. You can only get the timing of your posts right when you carefully plan for your creation. Keyword classification is an essential process as it ensures you generate sufficient traffic. Common keywords should appear on top-level pages of your website while long tail keywords are preferably included at the tail end of the website. Using Yoast plugins ensures you get insights on what best suits your business.
Fluid Keyword Strategy
Consider building a WordPress website or switching to WordPress if you already have a website on another platform as it is known to have all the tools you need to plan and implement your keyword optimization strategy practically. It is important to regularly update your keyword list since the keyword strategy should not be static. When you introduce new products or penetrate new markets, for instance, your keywords should reflect the evolution the business has gone through. Using outdated keywords beats the purpose of keyword optimization.
Aside from finding keywords that point customers to the new products you have and those that aim at specific markets, you also need to broaden your approach and add more content on different topics. Establishing your website as a reliable source of information encourages website visitors to keep coming.
Site Structure
Site structure is another important aspect of search engine optimization that needs your full attention. How you build your website determines if Google and search engines will have an easy time finding content on your website. If you have a website that is already up and running, consider finding a way of improving the site’s structure without significantly disrupting the core functions of your website.
Site structure is an important ranking factor that should be imperative for any SEO strategy. When the website is properly structured, not only does it become easy for search engines to rank your content, but visitors also have an easy time navigating your site. An elaborate structure gives search engines significant clues about where to find important content. Google needs first to understand what your site is all about to determine if the content it wants to rank is relevant. The structure is how search engines find index content relevant to your site’s purpose. That means that good structures are a guarantee to a higher ranking on Google.
Another important reason why you need to structure your website is so that you don’t end up competing with your own SEO content. Aside from helping Google understands what your site is about, you also need to clarify the most important articles, and site structure helps with both. Competing with your own article’s for Google’s top spot beats the overall purpose of search engine optimization.
Internal Linking Structure
Before your content can rank, you need to include links that Google will use to find your articles. It will be easier for Google to find your posts when you link from somewhere on the web. Aside from external links, you also need internal links as they help you establish a hierarchy to determine the most important content. The most important pages should be accorded more link value with the right internal link strategy.
• Link Value
Links boost search engine optimization as it helps Google determine the value of different articles and identify the content related to different posts. Google usually divides link value between all links on a web page. Naturally, your homepage usually has the greatest link value and backlinks redirected to the homepage gives an article more link value. The more links you have to a new post, the faster it will be found by search engines and website visitors.
An ideal website structure is one that appears as a pyramid. At the top of the pyramid, you’ll have the website’s homepage. An effective content SEO strategy is one that incorporates keyword optimization and an internal linking structure. These to work hand in hand to ensure your posts rank high on search engine result pages.
How to Practically Improve Your Site Structure
• Focus Your Efforts on Cornerstone Articles
Being serious about content SEO means making a point to improve your site’s structure if it was not initially set up in a pyramid structure. You need to focus your efforts on cornerstone articles as they are more likely to rank high on search engine result pages. Cornerstone articles are posts you are most proud of. They should be well written and clearly represent what your website is all about. If you still do not have cornerstone articles, consider making a point of identifying and capitalizing on them to boost your ranking. Naturally, cornerstone articles should fit the mission of the website. Otherwise, they won’t be ranked high by Google.
• Avoid Duplicate Content
Another tip for improving the structure of your website is avoiding duplicate content since the same SEO content should not turn up at multiple places on your site. Search engines cannot show the same content twice, meaning that your efforts will go to waste. This can be solved using canonical URLs which are HTML links with the attribute rel=canonical. When you use a canonical URL on a given post, this lets search engines know that there is another post similar to the one in question. Search engines will that know which article to rank and your search engine optimization efforts will not go to waste. This is an excellent way of sorting the issue of multiple articles without messing up with the structuring of your website.
• Updating or Removing Old Content
When you have outdated content that no longer serves the purpose of optimizing SEO on your website, it is recommended that you remove or update them. If you settle for deleting old content, consider redirecting valuable links, so you benefit from them even after the outdated content is removed. Yoast premium plugin ensures you have an easy time taking care of link redirects.
A suitable place to redirect such links is to product pages that have replaced the old ones. Ensure that the links are relevant where you place them, so they serve the right purpose. Redirecting links ensures that the removal of outdated pages does not interfere with the site’s structure.
• Ensuring You Don’t Have Orphaned Content
Orphaned content is those that do not have a link from other articles. Aside from readers having a hard time finding such content when they visit your website, Google also sees them as not important. Such content falls out of the pyramid structure you’ve created for the website, and that is how they get their name.
Usually, Google follows links to find and rank content, and that is why it is not recommended that you have orphaned content on your website. Adding contextual links to your articles allows Google to save them in the index and then rank them. Orphaned content usually arises when you are creating and publishing many articles at a time. Having Yoast plugin ensures you are reminded to include a contextual link to articles you are publishing.
Every article needs external and internal links to them, so they can fit into your site’s structure. However, there are seasonal articles that serve a purpose for a limited period. For such articles, you can either redirect links when it’s time to delete them or let them fall out of the pyramid structure. For such an article, you don’t have to rectify the orphaned status because they won’t be relevant once their purpose is done.
Copywriting
Last but not least, you need to invest time and effort in writing high-quality content. Writing articles that attract the right audience allows you to advance your agenda. You need to come up with write-ups that make readers want to stay on your website. The content also needs to be attractive for Google as well.
It is important that you do not over optimize articles with keywords when you are creating content for your website. When keywords naturally flow, readers have an easy time understanding the message you are putting across. Over optimization can adversely affect the originality of your idea. The readability of your write-ups is important because the purpose of creating them is so that website visitors can go through them.
Original Idea
When you are creating content for your website, ensure you begin with an original idea, so you end up with fresh, new content. However, originality does not mean you cannot have different articles on the same topic. The most important thing is to make sure each article gives the reader new insights and a different perspective. Talking about completely new stories within the same topic or giving your professional opinion on different topics is also acceptable.
Keyword research comes in because you need to ensure that your articles are optimized with competitive, as well as, long tail keywords. When you naturally incorporate keywords in your write-ups, they will not only be easy to read but also rank high on search engine result pages. Keywords have a prominent place in copywriting because they are the ones that help prospects find your content.
When you think about the audience and who they are, it becomes easier to find topics to discuss.
Consider asking yourself the following questions:
• What would you like to tell your audience?
• What is the main message of your article?
• What is the purpose of the article?
• What action would you like the audience to take after reading your article?
Readability in Relations to Copywriting
As earlier mention, readability is an important aspect of search engine optimization because the main purpose of writing articles is so that they can get read, not only by website visitors but also by Google. Search engines have to go through your articles to determine if they are worthy of the top spot on search engine result pages. A well-structured and written article allows readers and search engines to understand the message you are putting across.
Ranking on search engine result pages depends on:
• Text structure
• Length of your article
• Clarity of the write-up
Since reading from a screen is challenging, you need to give your readers a reason to read on to the end of the article. When you have more returning visitors and a high conversion rate, your revenue is bound to increase. Yoast SEO offers a readability check that ensures you do not post articles that website visitors will not enjoy reading. The readability check comes in different languages, ensuring you get the services you need no matter the language your website is written in.
Important Tips for Readability
An important tip for ensuring your posts are readable is ensuring you do not make the text more difficult than it has to be. Consider using tools like Hemingway and Grammarly which help with grammar and readability. Another thing you should have in mind each time you are creating content is the context. Search engines have advanced to the point that they can now understand context when browsing your website. Google looks for co-occurring terms and phrases, as well as, related words and synonyms to establish context on your website.
The main function of Google is to determine search content for users. Whether your site is information-based, or you have products and services you are marketing, you need to ensure that the context of your write-ups communicate that. You should also think about the words you use around your keywords to seamlessly incorporate the keywords without having them sticking out like a sore thumb.
When you choose a topic you want to write about, ensure you discuss it clearly so that the purpose of your article is evident from the get-go. Yoast SEO premium allows you to optimize your SEO content with synonyms that make the article to flow better.
Optimization for Search Engines
When it comes to discussing SEO, the first thing that comes to mind is search engines. This is because even though you aim to drive traffic to your website, readers first have to interact with Google and other search engines before they can get to your website. You want to focus on findability because if Google cannot find your articles, you won’t be in a position to drive traffic to your website.
Google is programmed to find reasons before it can pick your article let alone rank it high on SERP. With Yoast SEO, you can tweak your text to ensure Google is convinced your article is worth reader’s time. Consider looking at Yoast’s SEO analytics as it points out which aspects of findability need more attention. When you are satisfied with Yoast SEO analytic overall score, then you can go ahead and post your article.
Why You Should Use WordPress
It is recommended that you use WordPress as is SEO friendly out of the box to get the best out of Yoast SEO. This means that it allows you to build a suitable website even when you are not a programmer or a web designer. WordPress is a powerful website builder that began as a blogging tool. It comes with a robust content management system (SMC) that is easy to use. You also enjoy the flexibility of the website builder as you can create different types of websites with it. When you use WordPress to power your website, you can successfully implement your SEO strategy with minimal professional help.
Free Software
The most attractive feature about WordPress is that it is free software and all you need to do is download it. The guaranteed flexibility allows you to install, modify and use it how you see fit. WordPress matches your needs as you can create any website with just a few clicks. The WordPress blog setup service is also free, meaning that you can also create content for your website at no extra cost.
With the wide variety of themes and plugins, you can easily come away with a branded website that is not similar to anyone else’s. Coming up with a branded website is the first step towards SEO since prospects need to identify you as a stand-alone business. Even without prior knowledge in designing websites, you can easily come up with a website that encapsulates what you stand for.
Perfect Solution
WordPress is the perfect solution for you because it offers you multiple free website templates and plugins that allow you to add custom functionality. The premium plugins can transform your website into a completely new platform.
Since WordPress is SEO friendly out of the box, your website has a fair chance at ranking high on search engine result pages even before you implement SEO and marketing strategies. The software has been written with standard compliance high-quality code that produces a semantic makeup.
Easy to Manage
The main issue most website owners have is management as it takes a lot of time and effort to do. WordPress however, helps you build an easy to manage a website that comes with a built-in update system. You also have data protection offered by WordPress backup plugins which safely store your data at a remote location. In case of a malware attack, you can successfully restore your data and have your website up and running again.
Having a WordPress website and choosing Yoast SEO ensures you have an SEO friendly website. Search engine optimization allows you to drive traffic to your website. Using the Yoast SEO guide allows you to maintain a high-quality website that attracts the right audience. If you need assistance with SEO and content marketing, contact Simplemachine to get your questions answered.
