How to Use the Yoast WordPress SEO Plugin

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Yoast WordPress SEO plugin installation is easy, but if you aren’t sure how to set it up, give this article a careful read.

How to Install and Setup WordPress SEO Plugin by Yoast

Writing for Robots and Humans Demands Balance

This how-to article (and the Yoast WP SEO plugin itself) are AWESOME!  Thanks to a tip from Haden Interactive I found and installed the WordPress SEO plugin by Joost de Valk aka “Yoast.“ But the Yoast WordPress SEO plugin reminds me of a chainsaw on full throttle:  powerful and intimidating!  Right off the bat WP SEO requires that you migrate away from other SEO plugins, such as All in One SEO or Headspace2,  a tough decision, but well worth the switch and handled through a painless process.  Then the fun begins.

The Yoast WordPress SEO Plugin includes an extremely cool post and page Analysis Tool

From Linkdex, the Page Analysis guides you though the process of writing a post designed for search engine optimization SEO.  The Yoast/Linkdex combo takes out the guesswork and turns SEO into a solvable puzzle that lets you take care of the robots with minimum effort so you can focus on writing for humans.  The Linkdex analysis page (once you enter a target keyword) holds your hand while your fill in the Yoast WordPress SEO plugin boxes for meta description, slug, and SEO title.  Linkdex also grades your post in real time with red, orange and green flags for the presence of absence of items such as images, headers that include your keyword, number of words, “stop words” in your slug, and more.  Linkdex even generates a Flesch Reading Ease score!

But as easy as the Yoast WordPress SEO plugin is to use in post/page edit mode, the dashboard/global settings are bewildering and intimidating

And not without good reason it turns out: Take care with Yoast or your site could be toast! To quote the article, referring to the Indexation settings, “This page is a scary page because if you mess up, you can truly screw yourself over.”  Thankfully, the article

How to Install and Setup WordPress SEO Plugin by Yoast

takes you step by step through the settings, explains what they do, and offers the settings you probably will want to use.  As I ran the gauntlet of the steps to set up the Yoast WordPress SEO Plugin, I felt that I understood what each switch and setting is doing. Despite a few grammar errors, the quality of writing is clear, succinct, and all too rare (compare Why Computer Experts Are Like Rural Folk When It Comes to Giving Directions).

Most importantly, the article gave me the confidence to change the settings; something I would not have had just fooling around with the WordPress SEO plugin on my own.  Even if I have checked something that causes a conflict, I feel confident that I know how to undo the issue.  Bookmark it, because you will be back.  Don’t think this is the original source, but I searched for awhile to find this!  Hope it helps you.