In this video, I will go over my favorite SEO plugin for WordPress, but it is important to note there are many other tools you can use to achieve the same sort of stuff. So I prefer to use Yoast SEO as my SEO plugin for WordPress. You also have Rank Math and All in One SEO, and of course, if you’re on a different platform like Wix or Shopify or Squarespace or Webflow, you won’t have the option to use these plugins, but those website platforms do have these features built in so you can still optimize them. I’ll leave, of course, links in the description so you can find the resources if you’re using a different SEO plugin or you’re using a different platform altogether.
So, you will start by installing the Yoast SEO plugin; the page looks like this. I don’t use the premium version of a plugin. I don’t think you need it, but it is available if you want additional support. Once you have the SEO plugin installed into WordPress, you will see something that looks like this. If you’re using Rank Math, I think it’s generally on the right-hand side.
First, you will want to fill out the focus key phrase (aka target keyword). The target keyword for this blog post is how to get traffic to your website without social media. This is considered a long-tail keyword because it’s quite long. How to get traffic to your website is a shorter keyword variation. When you add without social media, it’s long and very specific. So every blog post should target one focus keyword phrase, not multiple. That’s not to say that you still can’t rank in Google for variations of this keyword, but it is very important when I see a perspective that each piece of content specifically targets one focus keyword. And that focus keyword should always go right here. As a rule of thumb, I also like to make my focus keyword my URL, also known as the slug, which is the last part of the URL. So if you were to look at this page, you would see that the URL is samanthadigital.com, how to get traffic to your website without social media. Best practices for your slug – don’t put the year because then you’ll have to update it and set up a 301 redirect every year, and it just becomes a mess. So, there are very few use cases where the year is appropriate for the slug. This is definitely not one of those cases. And then the SEO title. So this is what is displayed in the search results, and that’s exactly what this little box is. It’s a preview of how the post will look in the search results. And so you’ve got it in two different ways here. And then you’ve, of course, got your meta descriptions. So this should be a click-worthy description of your blog post that makes users want to click. And you want to also deliver on that promise. Like whatever kind of click-worthy title or description you come up with. I sometimes even like to include a call to action like learn more today, call today, um click read now something like that. Like it does go a long way like specifically telling the user what to do. You also want to ensure you include your exact focus keyword phrase. So again. I’m just phrasing it as a question wondering how to get it in this comprehensive guide, and then I even use this dot dot to show the user that there’s going to be more without going over the kind of recommended length of the meta description. Now it is really important. To note that with both the meta description the title and this image. This featured image which is set over under post. Um, Google can change it. Google if Google feels like they have a better version of a meta description. Or a better version of a title that they want to use. They can do that. So don’t feel like you’re going crazy if you see your post in Google search results and it’s not showing this exactly. Um, this exact title or it’s not showing this exact meta description. That is okay, but you do want to do your due diligence. And make sure that it includes the focus key phrase. So those are just the foundational basics.
Most of the SEO plugins in WordPress will also provide recommendations. And this is not a matter of making sure you check every box. It’s just guidelines, like the bumpers in bowling, to keep you on the right track if you’re a newbie regarding SEO. And so I don’t always pay attention to some of these, but some are very valid. You just need to use your best judgment and do your best. It’ll even link to what it means and how to do it. So it is very, very valuable, especially if you’re just getting started out with just getting started with SEO, and the same thing goes for readability. It will tell you what the readability is. It’s saying we’re using an active voice that’s good, transition words, consecutive sentences, etc. I’m not going to go into like each and every one of these little things, but at a glance, it’s very helpful. You can even highlight certain text. It’s not enough, so let’s highlight those trends. So it’ll do stuff like that, which is pretty nice. Alright. So yeah, the rest of this is just premium stuff. Again, I don’t think it’s necessary. I don’t even have it on my website, but if you want extra support, you can. So that is all that I want to go over for your WordPress SEO plugin. Again, I’ll leave more resources in the description, and let me know if you have any questions. Bye.
