Why every website needs Yoast SEO

You’ve just launched your dream website. You’ve spent weeks perfecting the design, crafting compelling content, and setting up every feature. You hit publish with excitement, expecting visitors and customers to flood in. Then reality hits, crickets. Your site sits invisible in the vast ocean of the internet, buried on page ten of Google, where nobody dives into it.  

Sound familiar? You’re not alone. This scenario happens thousands of times daily for website owners who assume that building a WordPress site automatically means people will find it. The harsh truth is that WordPress, while powering 43.6% of all websites, doesn’t come with SEO-rich readiness out of the box. It’s like building a beautiful store in a town, away from the hustle and bustle, but with no signs pointing to it.  

Most people aren’t aware that 68% of online experiences begin with search engines, and 75% of users never scroll past the first page of results. With 99,000 searches happening on Google every second, the competition for visibility is fierce. Your website isn’t just competing with your direct competitors with similar keywords and key phrases; it’s competing with over 810 million other WordPress sites for attention.  

This is where Yoast SEO comes in. It’s not just another plugin; it’s the bridge between your content and the people who need to find it. With over 13 million websites trusting Yoast SEO to handle their search engine optimization, there’s a reason we’ve become the world’s most popular WordPress SEO solution, not just for website owners, but also for e-commerce stores.  

The WordPress SEO challenge nobody talks about  

There is no doubt that WordPress is an incredible platform, but it has limitations that become apparent at the moment you want people actually to discover your content. WordPress handles basic meta tags and creates somewhat clean URLs, but that’s where its SEO capabilities come to a standstill. It doesn’t automatically generate the structured data that helps search engines understand your content, doesn’t optimize your images for search, and certainly doesn’t guide you through the complex world of modern SEO, with AI in the mix.  

SEO in 2025 dramatically differs from what it was five years ago. Google now prioritizes mobile-first indexing, with 92.3% of internet users accessing the web via mobile devices. Core Web Vitals have become an important factor, measuring everything from how fast your pages load to how stable they are while loading. The rise of AI and large language models like ChatGPT and Perplexity has created new ways to discover and consume content.  

Without proper SEO optimization, you hope people will stumble upon your website by chance. The mathematics of this approach is brutal, and it’s like going into a battle with no winning strategy. Organic search drives almost half of all website traffic, making it the most important source of visitors for most websites. When you’re not optimized for search engines, you voluntarily give up more than half of your potential audience.  

Why 13 million websites choose Yoast SEO  

Numbers tell an incredible story, and our story is one of consistent trust and proven results. Since our inception, we’ve reached over 850 million downloads, making us not just the most popular SEO plugin for WordPress, but one of the most downloaded WordPress plugins of any category. Our 25,960 five-star reviews out of nearly 28,000 total reviews speak to our real-world impact on websites daily.  

But popularity doesn’t tell the whole story. What sets Yoast SEO apart is the expertise behind it and the mechanics of making SEO easy for everyone. Our team includes WordPress core contributors and SEO professionals with over 15 years of experience. We’ve handled some of the most complex SEO migrations in the world, like helping The Guardian successfully transition from guardian.co.uk to theguardian.com without losing their search rankings.  

Significant publications and organizations trust us with their SEO. The New Yorker, The Next Web, Search Engine Land, and Yoast SEO even empower the websites of Taylor Swift and The Rolling Stones, plus the company blogs of tech giants Spotify, Microsoft, and Mozilla. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. 

This trust is backed by continuous innovation and industry recognition. We were finalists at the Global Search Awards and won the 2025 Women’s Choice Awards, as well as acknowledgments from peer recognition and user satisfaction.  

The hidden technical SEO engine  

When you use Yoast SEO, you’re outsourcing your technical SEO to a team of professionals who make it their full-time job to stay current with best SEO practices.

• XML sitemaps: We generate and maintain comprehensive sitemaps that help search engines discover and index your content efficiently. Our sitemaps automatically update whenever you publish new content, ensuring search engines always have the latest map of your website. 

• Canonical URLs: We implement proper canonical tags to prevent duplicate content issues that can hurt your rankings  

• Structured data markup: We implement rich, comprehensive schema.org markup that transforms how your content appears in search results. We add detailed structured data that makes your pages eligible for rich snippets, knowledge panels, and enhanced search result features that dramatically improve click-through rates.  

• Social media optimization: We handle OpenGraph and X card markup, so your content looks great when shared  

Additional technical SEO-checks

• Robots.txt generation: Combined with our advanced crawling settings, you maintain complete control over how search engine bots interact with your site, helping reduce server load while ensuring your most important content gets indexed first. 

• Schema graph creation: We automatically build and maintain a complete Schema graph for your entire website, creating a sophisticated web of connections between your content, organization, and brand identity. If you use one of our API integration partners, this graph seamlessly connects to their infrastructure, creating a rock-solid technical foundation that search engines trust. 
   
  This level of Schema implementation, developed in collaboration with Google in 2019, gives us credibility in ways that basic plugins simply cannot match. 

• Technical foundations: We create proper meta robots’ directives, implement best-practice permalink structures, and ensure your site follows hundreds of technical SEO guidelines that would otherwise require an experienced developer’s expertise to implement correctly. 

Behind the scenes, dozens of technical SEO optimizations happen automatically every time you publish content. When Google’s algorithms crawl your site, they find clean, well-structured code that clearly communicates the essence of your content. This comprehensive technical infrastructure operates silently in the background, providing you with the competitive advantage of enterprise-level SEO without the associated complexity. 

Search engines make thousands of algorithms updates every year. Google alone made over 5,000 updates in recent years. Keeping up with these changes is impossible for most website owners and requires expertise. That’s where our team of SEO veterans becomes invaluable. We monitor every major search engine announcement, test its implications, and update our plugin accordingly.

What happens automatically when you use Yoast SEO:  

AI-powered SEO for modern content creation  

The introduction of AI tools has changed how we create and optimize content in real-time. Yoast SEO has embraced this transformation, integrating AI capabilities that make content optimization faster and more effective than ever before. Our AI-powered title and meta description generator can create multiple optimized options in seconds, saving you hours of brainstorming and testing.  

But AI in Yoast SEO goes beyond just content generation. Our content analysis provides real-time feedback as you write, helping you structure your content for readers and search engines. The system analyzes your content for keyword usage, readability, internal linking opportunities, and dozens of other factors that impact how well your content performs in search results.  

Yoast SEO Premium extends these capabilities even further for websites that are serious about their online presence. You can optimize each piece of content for up to five key phrases, dramatically expanding your content potential to rank multiple search terms. The internal linking suggestions help you build a stronger site architecture, while the social media preview tools ensure your content looks great when shared across platforms.  

The future of search is increasingly conversational and AI-driven. Our Yoast SEO AI+ package addresses this evolution by monitoring how your brand appears across AI platforms. As more people get answers from AI assistants like Google AI Mode rather than traditional search engines, understanding and optimizing your AI visibility becomes crucial for maintaining online relevance.  

Addressing e-commerce and specialized SEO needs  

For e-commerce websites, SEO requirements go far beyond basic content optimization. Product pages need structured data that displays prices and availability, and reviews ratings directly in search results. Category pages require careful handling to avoid duplicate content issues. Extensive product catalogs need efficient bulk optimization tools.  

Yoast WooCommerce SEO delivers specialized e-commerce features:  

• Product schema markup – Automatic structured data that displays prices, reviews, and availability in search results   

• Smart breadcrumbs – Enhanced navigation that helps both users and search engines understand your store structure   

• Optimized XML sitemaps – Priority-based sitemaps that highlight your most important products and categories   

• Bulk optimization tools – Efficient management features for stores with thousands of products  

With WooCommerce powering $368 billion in e-commerce, having proper SEO optimization for your online store isn’t optional; it’s essential for competing in the digital marketplace.  

Our ecosystem extends beyond WordPress:  

• Shopify App – Brings Yoast SEO framework to Shopify stores with platform-specific optimizations
  
• Google Docs add-on – Helps content teams optimize articles before they reach the website
  
• WooCommerce Store – Extends the Yoast SEO framework to WooCommerce stores with ease of platform-specific optimizations

This comprehensive approach ensures that you have access to professional-grade SEO tools that work seamlessly, whether you’re using WordPress, Shopify, or creating content in Google Docs.  

Real results from real websites  

The accurate measure of any SEO tool is the results it delivers for real websites. After implementing Yoast SEO, our users regularly report improvements in their search rankings and organic traffic.

These improvements aren’t just anecdotal. The ROI of proper SEO is well-documented, with organic search often providing the highest return on investment of any marketing channel. Studies show that businesses can see $42 in returns for every $1 spent on content marketing, and much of that success depends on content being discoverable through search engines.  

What makes us particularly effective is our balance of power and usability. You don’t need to be an SEO expert to use it effectively, but it’s sophisticated enough to satisfy the needs of professional SEO agencies managing hundreds of client websites. Therefore, the plugin guides beginners through basic optimization while offering advanced features for users who want more control over their SEO strategy.  

Why Yoast paves the path for better SEO  

The WordPress SEO plugin space has become increasingly competitive over the years. Yoast SEO’s combination of longevity, innovation, and support sets us apart from the alternatives.  

What sets Yoast SEO apart:  

• 15-year track record – We’ve weathered every major Google algorithm update and helped millions of websites adapt  

• Expert multilingual team: Our team includes SEO professionals with real-world experience and a rare linguistic team. Their expertise is increasingly critical in the age of AI engineering. Linguists who understand how language models process and interpret content are invaluable assets as search evolves toward conversational and AI-driven experiences. 

• Google-validated Schema infrastructure: Our Schema graph implementation, developed in collaboration with Google in 2019, signals quality and trust to search engines in ways that competitors cannot replicate. This partnership-level Schema integration gives your website an authoritative foundation. 

• Proven reliability – Over 850 million downloads and consistent performance across platform updates  

• Industry recognition – Global Search Awards finalist and Women’s Choice Awards winner  

The depth of our support ecosystem is unmatched in the SEO plugin space. Premium users also get 24/7 expert support, along with other essential features. 

Complete support ecosystem includes:

• 24/7 expert support – Real SEO professionals available whenever you need help   

• Yoast Academy – Comprehensive SEO education with professional courses   

• Extensive knowledge base – Thousands of articles covering every aspect of SEO   

• Active community – Forums where users share experiences and solutions  

When you choose Yoast SEO, you’re not just getting a plugin; you’re joining a community supported by genuine SEO expertise and a commitment to your long-term success.  

Yoast SEO is built by pros

Yoast SEO is built by a team of professional developers, many of whom contribute to WordPress core too. But on top of that, we’re professional SEOs. We have done some of the biggest SEO projects in the world, like the migration of the Guardian from guardian.co.uk to theguardian.com. Our team of SEO experts has reviewed thousands of websites in the past and helped them grow. All that knowledge is used to improve Yoast SEO.

Our SEO experts follow every announcement from Google. Weigh it. Test it. Check what it means. Thereafter, we decide whether or not to make changes to our plugin to keep it up to date. As Google does hundreds of algorithms updates every year, this is a continuous process. Therefore, we update our plugin regularly due to these changes.

Because Yoast conscientiously follows all the SEO news and makes sure that the plugin is adapted to the SEO changes, you don’t need to do anything! You do not need your web developer to make SEO changes all the time. That’s the beauty of the WordPress plugin system: you can outsource your SEO to a team of pros.

In the past years, the number of plugin installs of Yoast SEO has grown immensely. On professional hosts like WP Engine, we’re the most installed plugin. Many sites like SearchEngineLand, The Next Web and the New Yorker use Yoast SEO. And did you know that even NASA recommends you to use Yoast SEO?

So, install Yoast SEO and keep it up to date. And of course, subscribe to our newsletter. That way, when there are things that we can not fix for you, we can tell you to change them.

Read more: WordPress SEO: the ultimate tutorial »

Getting started with Yoast SEO  

The beauty of Yoast SEO is that you can start improving your website’s SEO immediately. The setup wizard walks you through basic configuration, and within minutes, you’ll have proper sitemaps, optimized meta tags, and technical SEO improvements working for your website. 

For beginners and growing websites:

• Yoast SEO (Free)– Essential optimization features available immediately from the WordPress plugin directory   

• Quick setup – Setup wizard handles configuration automatically   

• Immediate improvements – Technical SEO enhancements start working right away  

For businesses and people serious about growth:  

• Yoast SEO Premium – Multiple keyphrase optimization, internal linking suggestions, and much more  

• Premium support – 24/7 access to product experts when you need guidance  

• Advanced features – Social previews, redirect management, and comprehensive analysis  

Catering Specialized needs:  

• E-commerce stores – Yoast WooCommerce SEO with product-specific optimization features  

• Shopify users – Our Shopify app brings Yoast expertise to Shopify stores.  

• Content teams – Google Docs integration for optimizing before publishing  

• Brand monitoring – AI Brand Insights for measuring visibility across AI platforms

The key is to start somewhere. Every day you delay optimizing your website’s SEO is a day of lost potential traffic, customers, and opportunities. With Yoast SEO handling the technical complexity and providing clear guidance for content optimization, there’s no reason to wait.  

Your website deserves to be found 

Today, search engines serve as the primary gateway to information, products, and services. This means proper SEO isn’t a luxury; it’s a necessity. Your content might be brilliant, your products exceptional, and your services invaluable. However, none of this matters if people can’t find you.  

Yoast SEO has spent 15 years perfecting the art and science of making websites discoverable. We’ve helped over 13 million websites improve their search rankings, and we’re ready to help yours too. The tools, expertise, and support you need to succeed online are just a plugin installation away.  

 Your website’s journey to better visibility starts with a single decision: prioritize SEO. With Yoast SEO, that choice becomes a partnership with experts who understand the current SEO landscape and where it’s heading. Don’t let your website remain invisible in the vastness of the internet. Give it the SEO foundation it deserves, and watch as search engines finally send you the visitors you’ve been waiting for.