How To Set Up Yoast WordPress SEO Plugin Correctly

This is the guide to configure Yoast SEO WordPress Plugin 3.1 and Upper. Whenever we talk about best SEO Plugins for WordPress and All In One SEO, WordPress SEO by Yoast emerges as a prominent name.

Many of you who are using the All In One SEO plugin should know about the much-advanced version of the plugin, which is available in WordPress with the name “WordPress SEO by Yoast“.

This plugin has integrated many known features of other plugins by Joost de Valk, for example, Meta robots plugin, RSS Footer plugin, and many others. Since this plugin offers many features, setting up Yoast WordPress SEO plugin is not that easy.

For this reason, I am sharing this tutorial, which will help you to transition from All In One SEO to Yoast SEO plugin, and configure this plugin for optimal performance.

WordPress SEO by Yoast is the powerhouse for WordPress search engine optimization. However, setting up this plugin might be tricky for some, and a new blogger or anyone without basic SEO skills, might find it difficult to configure.

An incorrect configuration can stop search engine bots from indexing your blog, or you might let bots crawl a part that might not be important.

Before we go ahead with our setup guide, let’s look into some of the SEO features offered by this plugin:

• Verify sites in Google, Bing, and Alexa
• Title meta settings
• Hide RSD, WLW, Shortlinks from head
• Meta-control for Taxonomies, author page
• Supports Facebook Open Graph
• Generate sitemap
• Advance permalink control
• Breadcrumbs support
• RSS feed footer plugin settings
• Import settings from other SEO plugins.
• Edit .htaccess files
• Hide date from Search engine snippets
• Add Google authorship for single author

These are some of the settings offered by this plugin. Now let’s get started with the tutorial to set up this free SEO plugin.

If you are using any existing SEO plugins like All In One SEO, Old All In One SEO, Headspace 2 or any other such plugins, or if you are using any plugins by Yoast such as RSS footer, Robots meta or Yoast Breadcrumbs, you should start by importing your settings into this plugin.

Once you have installed and activated WordPress SEO by Yoast, go to SEO > Tools> Import & export under the left panel, and select the plugin from which you would like to import your settings.

I suggest making a backup of your database, and then using the option that to “Delete the old data after import? (recommended)”.

Go to Yoast SEO "General Settings" Section

1. General Tab:- Leave this Section.

2. Company Info Tab:- Fill According to your Website.

3. Webmaster Tools Tab :- You can fill here Alexa, Bing, Google and Yandex Verification ID.

4. Security Tab :- "Disable" Advanced part of the Yoast SEO meta box.

5. OnPage.Org Tab :- "Enable" OnPage.org indexability check.

Go to Yoast SEO "Titles & Metas" Section

1. General Tab:- You can choose anything here but I rcommended "-" to use for Title Separator.

2. Homepage Tab:- Do yourself.

3. Post Types Tab:- USe only "%%title%%" and Remove "Archives %%page%% %%sep%% %%sitename%%" in Title Templates of Post and Pages to avoid Dublicate contents. Meta Robots "Index", Date in Snippet Preview "Hide", Yoast SEO Meta Box "Show".

4. Taxonomies Tab:- Leave the Title templates Settings, Just use Meta Robots "Noindex" for both Categories and Tags.

5. Archives Tab:- Leave the Title Templates settings jus use Meta Robots "Noindex" for Author archives and Date-based archives.

6. Other Tab:- Use Subpages of archives "Noindex", USe Meta Keywords Tag "Enable" and Add noodp meta robots tag sitewide "Enable".

Go to "Social" Section

1. Account Tab:-

2. Facebook Tab:-

3. Twitter Tab:-

4. Pinterest Tab:-

5. Google+ Tab:-

Go to "XML Sitemaps" Section

Enable XML sitemap functionality.

1. General Tab :- Max entries per sitemap "1000".

2. User Sitemap Tab :- Author/ USer Sitemap "Disable".

3. Post Type Tab:- Use Posts "In Sitemap", Page "In Sitemap" and Media "Not In Sitemap".

4. Exclude Posts :- Leave this Section.

5. Taxonomies Tab:- Use Categories "In Sitemap" and Tags "Not In Sitemap"

Go to "Advance" Section

1. Breadcrumbs Tab:- You can leave this Section.

2. Permalinks Tab:- Check the Setting, Like I have done in the bellow Image.

3. RSS Tab:- You can leave this Section.

Go to "Tools" Section

Click on "File editor" and Just leave other tools. This tool allows you to quickly change important files for your SEO, like your robots.txt and, if you have one, your .htaccess file.

If you are using Yoast Plugins First time then just create Robots.txt as then click on save. Now you have successfully configured Yoast WordPress Plugins.

In the end

This is one of the best free SEO plugins for your WordPress blog, though I highly recommend that you be sure of your settings before making any changes.

An incorrect configuration may bring negative SEO effects to your Blog.