Become a Yoast SEO pro:

How to Yoast your post

Do you want your articles to be as well optimized as possible? Do you aim 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 entirely on your own, but luckily, Yoast is here to help. In this post, we’ll talk you to the process of 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 should never come first. Writing has three phases. It doesn’t really matter if you’re writing a blog post or an article, or a novel even. First, you prepare, then you write and finally you edit. In that final editing phase, you will be able to Yoast your post.

Preparation is key

Before you start writing an article you should ask yourself some questions: What will be the main message of your post? What do you want to tell people? And: who are my readers? What search terms do I want to be found for?

You need to know who you are writing for and what their goal, or search intent is. What does that mean for the keywords you should use to be found in the search engines? 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. Preparing your blog post is crucial. 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 your content

After you’ve thoroughly prepared your blog post or article, you can start the writing phase. Make sure to start with filling out your focus key phrases and synonyms. What are the terms you want to be found for?

Writing should be something you just do. In the preparing-phase you have thought about what you’re going to write, so, in the writing phase, you should just go with the flow. 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 phase, the editing phase, you’ll be able to really Yoast your post. So, let’s look at the five steps you should take in order to optimize your post to the max.

  1. Make sure your text is readable

    The first step on how to Yoast your post is to check out our readability analysis. You could keep an eye on our readability analysis during your writing phase too, if you like. If your overall readability analysis is green, you’re good to go. But, perhaps, you use sentences that are a little bit too long. Or, you have been using 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.

  2. Check out your snippet preview

    You want people to click on your results in the search result pages. In order to make your result stand out, you need to write a kickass meta description. Let people know they’ll find what they’re looking for on your site! So make an effort and choose a title and a meta description that stand out. Read our article on how to use Yoast SEO to write an awesome meta description if you want more practical tips.the snippet preview in yoast seo

  3. Which SEO bullets need improvement?

    The third step on how to Yoast your post is to check out the SEO analysis. Which aspects of your SEO need improvement? Perhaps you should use your keyword or its synonym a bit more often? Or maybe you’re already overdoing it? What about headings and images?

    Check out the problems and improvements the Yoast SEO analysis indicates. Usually, you can easily make some tweaks that’ll make your copy a little better optimized for the search engines. But don’t overdo it! You do not need all green bullets. If your overall SEO bullet is green, you’re good to go!

  4. Add those internal links

    To really Yoast your post, we would advise you to take some time to think about your internal linking structure and to work on improving it. Are you linking to your most important articles? Are you linking to the articles that are most closely related to the article you’re currently writing? Make sure your site structure is tip-top. This will pay off in terms of rankings. Read more about the power of internal linking in our article about why you should use Yoast internal linking.

  5. Read and reread!

    Our SEO analysis is a tool. It is not just any tool, we’ve thoroughly evaluated all of the checks in a recent recalibration project. That being said, it remains a tool. You should always think for yourself. Read your blog post after you’re done editing and optimizing. Reread it. Let other people read it. That’s the final step to get your blog post to that next level.

Yoast your post

Writing is hard. Optimizing your post is hard. Yoast tries to make it a bit more easy for you. We’ll check things and make suggestions for improvements. We’ll help you to Yoast your post. But in the end, it’ll always remain hard work.

Good luck! Let’s Yoast it!

Become a Yoast SEO pro series

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34 Responses to How to Yoast your post

  1. hello1989
    hello1989  • 4 years ago

    I do not know why I do not appear in the searches for real village or even the name of my company.

    Does anyone know what I’m doing wrong?

    • Hanneke
      Hanneke  • 4 years ago

      Hi there!

      If your post doesn’t rank, but your bullets are green you could take a look at this post.
      Good luck!

      Hanneke

  2. Lucy Lee
    Lucy Lee  • 4 years ago

    Hey Marieke, Thanks for the great Yoast tips. Will definitely try it out in my next blog article. This was definitely very informative, especially for a beginner like me.

  3. Ataur
    Ataur  • 4 years ago

    Hi, thanks a lot for your tips. I am using your free seo tools and getting benefits too for more than 6 months. But at early, seobility would be green but now it makes just orange where as only flesch word bullet shows red. Except this all are green. What can I do for getting seobility Green

  4. Stijn Spijker
    Stijn Spijker  • 4 years ago

    Thank you for the tips! Is there a way how I can like the articles at Yoast? Like on Facebook (thumbs up).

    Thank you!

    • Willemien Hallebeek
      Willemien Hallebeek  • 4 years ago

      Hi Stijn, thanks so much! If you follow us on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn, you should see most of our new posts in your timeline. We’d love to see you like (or even share) them :-) Here’s our Facebook account: https://www.facebook.com/yoast

  5. Ghina
    Ghina  • 4 years ago

    Hi Marieke,
    When I‘m writing a new blog post, could Yoast tell me which other posts should link to the new post in Free Plugin?

    • Willemien Hallebeek
      Willemien Hallebeek  • 4 years ago

      Hi Ghina, Thanks for your question. This isn’t possible in the free version of Yoast SEO, but it does work in Yoast SEO Premium: https://yoast.com/reasons-to-upgrade/

      • Lutfor Rahman
        Lutfor Rahman  • 4 years ago

        Thanks. It solves problems.

  6. Zaky
    Zaky  • 4 years ago

    appreciated. I just started SEO by Yoast. but not available the keyword setting, only focus keyword supply. Might be better using the Premium one.
    Thank you…

    • Willemien Hallebeek
      Willemien Hallebeek  • 4 years ago

      Hi Zaky, Great you’ve started using Yoast SEO! Not sure what you mean with the keyword setting? If you enter your keyphrase in the focus keyphrase field, the SEO checks should tell you what to improve. Here’s a detailed guide on choosing your focus keyword: https://yoast.com/focus-keyword/ Perhaps that helps?

  7. Dr.Amrita Basu
    Dr.Amrita Basu  • 4 years ago

    I liked the tips for better preparation of what to write and also the use of readability tips.Thanks for making life easier.

    • Marieke van de Rakt

      thank you!

  8. Gerard
    Gerard  • 4 years ago

    I have been going through cleaning up an old site with the SEO Yoast free version. I have already seen improvement in the rankings. Including some page one rankings. Thanks for such a great product.

    • Marieke van de Rakt

      thank you! Keep up the good work!

  9. Matt
    Matt  • 4 years ago

    Much appreciated. I just started blogging a few weeks ago, and I always Yoast it until my readability and SEO are green and green! The rest will come with time. Thank you!

    • Marieke van de Rakt

      thank you! that’s nice to hear!

  10. Jack
    Jack  • 4 years ago

    Does Yoast offer a version of the app that works without using WordPress? Like a standalone app?

    I do a lot of freelance writing for others and I am usually writing in Word. Right now I have to cut and paste into a new WordPress article in one of my blogs, then make the corrections for SEO and readability, then cut and paste back into Word.

    Is there a faster, better way?

    • Marieke van de Rakt

      We have been working on such a tool and it’s still somewhere on our roadmap. It is a good idea for sure. Can’t promise you anything about when we’ll be rolling it out…. we have a lot of plans and limited development capacity.

  11. David
    David  • 4 years ago

    Hi Marieke,

    What i really would appreciate is a reverse link building suggestion. What do i mean?

    I‘m writing a new blog post. And it would Be great if yoast could Tell me, which other posts should link to the new post.

    Have a nice day,
    David

  12. Kris Grey
    Kris Grey  • 4 years ago

    One of the difficulties I have is with text length having to be 300 words which is often very difficult to achieve as I sell vintage items and you can only say so much about one product which I may only have a small amount of information about. I am a writer by trade and even I struggle!! Thanks

    • Marieke van de Rakt

      It is difficult with product pages! Do you have our Woo commerce extension? Our Woo Commerce Yoast SEO add-on allows for shorter texts.

  13. Guddu
    Guddu  • 4 years ago

    Hi Marieke,
    I am managing a blog in Urdu (Pakistan Language). Whenever i use yoast to optimize my blog post, it always shows red bullets. Plz, write a guidelines for the bloggers who are using eastern languages like me.

    • Marieke van de Rakt

      We are expanding our languages, but we’re not available in Urdu. Thanks for your feedback, we’re going to look into that!

    • Dr.Amrita Basu
      Dr.Amrita Basu  • 4 years ago

      I think Yoast softwsre is not available yet for Urdu.

  14. Christina
    Christina  • 4 years ago

    Thanks for these amazing tips to improve the quality of your post. I will definitely implement these amazing tips for my next blog.

    • Marieke van de Rakt

      thank you

  15. Prashant
    Prashant  • 4 years ago

    i am using free version of Yoast seo plugin and i am doing the same but, i haven’t seen any changes in my ranking yet. So is there any advantage of taking paid?

    • Dr.Amrita Basu
      Dr.Amrita Basu  • 4 years ago

      Hi Prashant ,I used the free Yoast for three years and then shifted to the paid one.ThEd best part is with the paid one uou have option of targening multiplr keywords and synonyms unlike the free one with only one.

    • Hanneke
      Hanneke  • 4 years ago

      Hi Prashant, maybe you could give Why you should buy Yoast SEO Premium a read!

      Hanneke

  16. Liton Biswas
    Liton Biswas  • 4 years ago

    Hi Marieke,

    It’s sometimes not possible to add keyphrase in the first paragraph of the introduction.
    But Yoast shows it as a red point.
    Is it really hurt SEO?
    Thanks in advance.

    • Marieke van de Rakt

      Totally get that! You should look at our suggestions as merely that suggestions. You don’t have to have all bullets green. In order to score an overall green bullet, you are allowed to miss a few. That’s totally fine. For more info: https://yoast.com/want-green-bullet-wp-seo/

    • Marcin
      Marcin  • 4 years ago

      I think that Liton makes a good point here. It is not always passible to put that keyphrase there, so I wonder if it is that bad for SEO that we should sacrifice the readability, or context, just to do that anyway.