Yoast SEO is one of the most powerful tools for optimizing content on WordPress. While the basic features are accessible to most users, the advanced settings unlock a world of possibilities for experienced users and site administrators. Turning on advanced Yoast SEO gives you deeper control over your site’s SEO performance, allowing you to fine-tune variables, templates, and security settings. This guide will walk you through the steps to enable advanced settings, explain what each feature does, and how it can help improve your site's visibility in search engine results.
To begin, it’s important to understand the difference between the basic and advanced settings in Yoast SEO. Basic settings typically include options like SEO title, meta description, and readability analysis—tools that are useful for optimizing individual pages and posts. Advanced settings, on the other hand, offer more complex features such as XML sitemaps, internal link counters, and security configurations. These settings are designed for users who are familiar with SEO best practices and want to take their optimization efforts to the next level.
One of the first things to note is that the advanced settings are not visible by default. This means that most users will not see these options unless they are specifically enabled. This is a deliberate design choice by Yoast to prevent confusion among less experienced users. However, for administrators and power users, turning on these settings can provide a wealth of additional tools and insights.
The process of enabling advanced settings begins in the Yoast SEO dashboard. From there, you can navigate to the "Features" tab, which allows you to activate or deactivate various Yoast SEO features. This is where you’ll find the option to enable advanced settings pages, giving you access to a suite of new tools and options in your WordPress dashboard.
Once activated, you’ll find a new set of options in your WordPress dashboard, including the "Titles & Metas" area, which is one of the most powerful tools for automating your on-page SEO. This section allows you to set templates for SEO titles and meta descriptions for all content types, including pages, posts, custom post types, and more. You can also use variables to dynamically insert information from custom fields into your titles and meta descriptions. This not only saves time but also ensures consistency across your site.
Another important feature available in the advanced settings is the ability to control who has access to the advanced areas of the Yoast SEO meta box. By default, only administrators have access, but this can be adjusted if needed. This security feature is crucial for maintaining the integrity of your SEO settings and ensuring that only authorized users can make changes that could impact your site’s visibility.
In the next sections, we’ll explore each of these features in detail, explaining how they work and how they can be used to improve your site’s SEO performance.
How to Turn On Advanced Yoast SEO Settings
Enabling the advanced settings in Yoast SEO is a straightforward process that involves navigating through the Yoast SEO dashboard and activating specific features. Here’s a step-by-step guide to help you get started:
Log in to your WordPress dashboard. Make sure you are logged in as an administrator, as only administrators can access and modify advanced settings.
Navigate to Yoast SEO. In the WordPress dashboard sidebar, look for the "Yoast SEO" menu and click on it.
Go to the Features tab. Under the Yoast SEO menu, click on the "Features" tab. This is where you can manage and activate advanced settings.
Enable advanced settings. In the Features tab, look for the option to enable "Advanced settings pages." Toggle this setting to "On" to activate the advanced settings.
Access new options. Once the advanced settings are enabled, you’ll see a new set of options appear in your WordPress dashboard. These include sections such as "Titles & Metas," "Crawl Optimization," "Breadcrumbs," and more.
Customize advanced settings. You can now navigate through the new sections and customize the advanced settings according to your site’s needs. For example, you can set up XML sitemaps, adjust internal link counters, and configure security settings.
By following these steps, you can unlock the full potential of Yoast SEO and take advantage of the advanced tools designed to enhance your site’s SEO performance. These settings allow you to fine-tune your site’s SEO strategy and ensure that your content is optimized for both search engines and users.
Understanding the Advanced Yoast SEO Features
Once the advanced settings are enabled, you gain access to a variety of powerful tools and configurations. These features are designed to give you greater control over your site’s SEO, allowing you to tailor your optimization efforts to your specific needs.
Titles & Metas
The "Titles & Metas" section is one of the most important parts of the advanced settings. It allows you to set templates for SEO titles and meta descriptions for all content types, including pages, posts, custom post types, and more. You can use variables to dynamically insert information from custom fields into your titles and meta descriptions. This ensures that your SEO elements are consistent and optimized for each page or post.
One of the key benefits of this feature is the ability to automate on-page SEO. By setting up templates, you can ensure that every new page or post follows the same SEO best practices without having to manually configure each one. This not only saves time but also improves the overall consistency of your site’s SEO strategy.
Crawl Optimization
The "Crawl Optimization" section allows you to manage what search engines can crawl on your site. This includes settings that can help prevent search engines from indexing pages that you don’t want to be visible in search results. It’s important to use these settings carefully, as accidentally blocking important pages can negatively impact your site’s visibility.
For example, you can use crawl optimization to prevent search engines from indexing duplicate content or pages that are not intended for public viewing. This helps ensure that your site’s most important pages are the ones that get indexed and ranked in search results.
Breadcrumbs
If your theme supports breadcrumbs, the "Breadcrumbs" feature allows you to enable this functionality. Breadcrumbs provide a visual trail that helps users navigate your site and understand where they are in the site hierarchy. They also provide additional context for search engines, which can help improve your site’s visibility in search results.
Enabling breadcrumbs is a simple process that involves toggling the option to "On" in the advanced settings. Once enabled, breadcrumbs will appear on your site according to the settings in your theme.
XML Sitemaps
The "XML Sitemaps" feature allows you to create and manage XML sitemaps for your site. XML sitemaps are a valuable tool for helping search engines discover and index your site’s content. They provide a list of all the important pages on your site, along with additional information such as the last modified date and the priority of each page.
By default, Yoast SEO generates an XML sitemap for your site, but you can also customize it to include or exclude specific pages and posts. This allows you to fine-tune your sitemap and ensure that search engines are indexing the most relevant content on your site.
Internal Link Counter
The "Internal Link Counter" feature provides valuable insights into the internal linking structure of your site. It allows you to see how many internal links are pointing to and from each page or post. This is a powerful tool for identifying opportunities to improve your site’s internal linking strategy, which can help improve your site’s SEO performance.
By analyzing the internal link counter data, you can identify pages that are not being linked to as much as they should be and take steps to improve their visibility. This can help improve the overall SEO performance of your site and ensure that your most important pages are being properly indexed and ranked.
Security Settings
The security settings in Yoast SEO allow you to control who has access to the advanced areas of the Yoast SEO meta box. By default, only administrators have access to these settings, but you can adjust this if needed. This is an important feature for maintaining the integrity of your SEO settings and ensuring that only authorized users can make changes that could impact your site’s visibility.
You can also use the security settings to hide advanced SEO settings from authors and other non-administrator users. This helps prevent accidental changes that could negatively impact your site’s SEO performance.
Readability Analysis
While not technically an advanced setting, the readability analysis feature is an important part of Yoast SEO that helps you optimize your content for both search engines and users. The readability analysis provides feedback on the readability of your content, offering suggestions on how to improve it.
This feature is particularly useful for ensuring that your content is easy to read and understand, which can help improve your site’s user experience and SEO performance. By following the readability analysis suggestions, you can ensure that your content is optimized for both search engines and users.
SEO and Readability Scores
Yoast SEO also provides SEO and readability scores for your content. These scores give you a quick overview of how well your content is optimized for search engines and how easy it is to read. The SEO score is based on a variety of factors, including keyword usage, meta data, and internal linking. The readability score is based on the complexity of your content and how easy it is to read.
These scores are a valuable tool for ensuring that your content is optimized for both search engines and users. By following the suggestions provided by Yoast SEO, you can improve your content and ensure that it is optimized for maximum visibility and engagement.
Cornerstone Content
The "Cornerstone Content" feature allows you to mark your most important pages and posts as cornerstone content. Cornerstone content is your most important content and should be optimized for the highest level of SEO performance. By marking these pages as cornerstone content, you can ensure that they receive the highest level of SEO attention and optimization.
This feature is particularly useful for ensuring that your most important pages and posts are properly optimized and indexed by search engines. By focusing on your cornerstone content, you can ensure that your site’s most valuable content is receiving the highest level of SEO attention.
Ryte Integration
The "Ryte Integration" feature allows you to connect your site to Ryte, a third-party service that checks your site weekly and notifies Yoast SEO if your site is deindexed. This is a valuable tool for ensuring that your site remains visible in search engine results and for quickly identifying and addressing any issues that could impact your site’s visibility.
By enabling Ryte integration, you can stay informed about the visibility of your site and take steps to address any issues that arise. This can help ensure that your site remains visible in search engine results and continues to attract organic traffic.
Admin Menu Bar
The "Admin Menu Bar" feature allows you to show the Yoast SEO menu in the toolbar of the WordPress admin page. This is a useful feature for ensuring that the Yoast SEO menu is easily accessible to administrators and other authorized users.
By showing the Yoast SEO menu in the admin toolbar, you can ensure that administrators have quick access to the Yoast SEO dashboard and other important features. This can help improve the overall efficiency of your site’s SEO management and ensure that important SEO tasks are completed in a timely manner.
SEO Analysis
The "SEO Analysis" feature provides a detailed analysis of your content and helps you improve your SEO performance. This feature checks your content for SEO best practices and provides suggestions on how to improve your content. By following the suggestions provided by the SEO analysis, you can ensure that your content is optimized for maximum visibility and engagement.
This feature is particularly useful for identifying areas where your content can be improved. By following the SEO analysis suggestions, you can ensure that your content is optimized for both search engines and users.
Readability Analysis
The "Readability Analysis" feature provides feedback on the readability of your content and offers suggestions on how to improve it. This feature is particularly useful for ensuring that your content is easy to read and understand, which can help improve your site’s user experience and SEO performance.
By following the readability analysis suggestions, you can ensure that your content is optimized for both search engines and users. This can help improve your site’s visibility and engagement, leading to better SEO performance and higher user satisfaction.
XML Sitemaps
As mentioned earlier, the "XML Sitemaps" feature allows you to create and manage XML sitemaps for your site. XML sitemaps are a valuable tool for helping search engines discover and index your site’s content. They provide a list of all the important pages on your site, along with additional information such as the last modified date and the priority of each page.
By default, Yoast SEO generates an XML sitemap for your site, but you can also customize it to include or exclude specific pages and posts. This allows you to fine-tune your sitemap and ensure that search engines are indexing the most relevant content on your site.
Text Link Counter
The "Text Link Counter" feature provides valuable insights into the internal linking structure of your site. It allows you to see how many internal text links are pointing to and from each page or post. This is a powerful tool for identifying opportunities to improve your site’s internal linking strategy, which can help improve your site’s SEO performance.
By analyzing the text link counter data, you can identify pages that are not being linked to as much as they should be and take steps to improve their visibility. This can help improve the overall SEO performance of your site and ensure that your most important pages are being properly indexed and ranked.
Google Webmaster Tools
The "Google Webmaster Tools" feature allows you to verify your site with Google’s webmaster tools. This is a valuable tool for ensuring that your site is properly verified and that you can access important data about your site’s performance in Google search results.
By verifying your site with Google’s webmaster tools, you can gain valuable insights into how your site is performing in search results, identify any issues that may be impacting your site’s visibility, and take steps to address them. This can help ensure that your site remains visible in search engine results and continues to attract organic traffic.
Social Media Settings
The "Social Media Settings" feature allows you to customize how your content looks when shared on social media platforms. This includes settings for social media titles, descriptions, and images. By customizing these settings, you can ensure that your content is optimized for maximum visibility and engagement on social media platforms.
This feature is particularly useful for ensuring that your content is presented in a way that is appealing and engaging to users. By following the social media settings suggestions, you can ensure that your content is optimized for both search engines and users.
Premium Yoast SEO Versions
In addition to the standard Yoast SEO plugin, there are several premium versions that offer additional features and functionality. These versions are designed to address specific use cases and provide advanced SEO capabilities for users who need them.
Video SEO
The Video SEO version of Yoast SEO is designed for sites that use a lot of video content. This version allows you to optimize your videos for search engines by providing additional metadata and information that can help improve your video content’s visibility in search results.
This is particularly useful for sites that rely heavily on video content, such as video blogs, YouTube channels, and other video-based platforms. By using the Video SEO version, you can ensure that your video content is properly optimized and visible in search engine results.
Local SEO
The Local SEO version of Yoast SEO is designed for local businesses that want to improve their visibility in local search results. This version provides additional features that allow you to optimize your site for local search engines, including Google’s local search and Google Maps.
This is particularly useful for businesses that operate in a specific geographic area and want to attract local customers. By using the Local SEO version, you can ensure that your site is properly optimized for local search results and that you are reaching the right audience.
WooCommerce SEO
The WooCommerce SEO version of Yoast SEO is designed for e-commerce sites that use the WooCommerce platform. This version provides additional features that allow you to optimize your site for search engines and ensure that your products are properly indexed and visible in search results.
This is particularly useful for e-commerce sites that want to improve their visibility in search engine results and attract more organic traffic. By using the WooCommerce SEO version, you can ensure that your site is properly optimized for e-commerce SEO and that your products are receiving the highest level of visibility.
WooCommerce Local SEO
The WooCommerce Local SEO version combines the features of both the WooCommerce SEO and Local SEO versions. This version is designed for local businesses that operate an online store and want to improve their visibility in both local and e-commerce search results.
This is particularly useful for local businesses that have an online presence and want to reach both local and online customers. By using the WooCommerce Local SEO version, you can ensure that your site is properly optimized for both local and e-commerce SEO and that you are reaching the right audience.
News SEO
The News SEO version of Yoast SEO is designed for news websites and blogs that publish a large amount of content. This version provides additional features that allow you to optimize your site for news search engines, including Google News.
This is particularly useful for news websites that want to improve their visibility in news search results and attract more organic traffic. By using the News SEO version, you can ensure that your site is properly optimized for news SEO and that your content is receiving the highest level of visibility.
Configuration Wizard and Site Basics
In addition to the advanced settings, Yoast SEO also provides a configuration wizard that can help you set up your site for optimal SEO performance. The configuration wizard walks you through a series of steps to optimize your site’s SEO data and ensure that your site is properly configured for maximum visibility.
Completing the Configuration Steps
The configuration wizard starts by optimizing your site’s SEO data. This includes optimizing your site title, tagline, and other important SEO elements. This process may take some time, especially if you have a large amount of content.
After optimizing your SEO data, the wizard will ask you whether your site represents an organization or a person. This is an important step for ensuring that your site is properly represented in search engine results. You’ll also have the opportunity to upload a logo, which can help improve your site’s visibility and branding.
Next, the wizard will allow you to add your social media profiles. This is an important step for improving your site’s connectivity and visibility. By adding your social media profiles, you can ensure that your site is properly connected to your social media accounts and that your content is being shared and promoted on these platforms.
Finally, the wizard will give you the option to subscribe to the Yoast newsletter. While this is optional, it can be a valuable resource for staying up to date with the latest SEO best practices and updates.
Site Basics
In the "Site Basics" settings, you can modify essential information about your website. This includes your site title and tagline, which are the title and description that appear in search engine results. By customizing these elements, you can ensure that your site is properly represented in search results and that your content is easily discoverable by users.
This is an important part of your site’s SEO strategy, as your site title and tagline play a crucial role in attracting users to your site. By optimizing these elements, you can ensure that your site is receiving the highest level of visibility and engagement.
Key Terminology
To fully understand the advanced features of Yoast SEO, it’s important to be familiar with some key terminology. Here are a few important terms to know:
| Term | Description |
|---|---|
| SEO Title | The title that appears in search engine results for a specific page or post. |
| Meta Description | A brief description that appears in search engine results for a specific page or post. |
| XML Sitemap | A file that lists all the important pages on your site and provides additional information about each page. |
| Internal Link | A link that points to another page or post on your site. |
| Cornerstone Content | Your most important pages and posts that are optimized for the highest level of SEO performance. |
| Readability Score | A score that indicates how easy it is to read and understand your content. |
| SEO Score | A score that indicates how well your content is optimized for search engines. |
| Crawl Optimization | The process of managing what search engines can crawl on your site. |
| Breadcrumbs | A visual trail that helps users navigate your site and understand where they are in the site hierarchy. |
By understanding these terms, you can better navigate the advanced settings in Yoast SEO and ensure that your site is properly optimized for maximum visibility.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I enable advanced Yoast SEO settings?
To enable advanced Yoast SEO settings, you need to navigate to the Yoast SEO dashboard and activate the "Advanced settings pages" feature. This will give you access to a suite of new tools and options in your WordPress dashboard.
Can I enable advanced settings for non-administrator users?
By default, only administrators have access to advanced Yoast SEO settings. However, you can adjust the security settings to allow other users to access these settings if needed.
What is the difference between SEO title and meta description?
The SEO title is the title that appears in search engine results for a specific page or post, while the meta description is a brief description that appears in search engine results. Both are important for ensuring that your content is properly represented in search results.
What is the purpose of XML sitemaps?
XML sitemaps are a valuable tool for helping search engines discover and index your site’s content. They provide a list of all the important pages on your site, along with additional information such as the last modified date and the priority of each page.
How can I improve my site’s SEO performance?
You can improve your site’s SEO performance by using the advanced settings in Yoast SEO to optimize your site’s content, structure, and visibility. This includes using SEO titles and meta descriptions, optimizing your internal linking strategy, and using readability and SEO analysis tools to improve your content.
What is the purpose of the readability analysis?
The readability analysis provides feedback on the readability of your content and offers suggestions on how to improve it. This is a valuable tool for ensuring that your content is easy to read and understand, which can help improve your site’s user experience and SEO performance.
How can I use the internal link counter?
The internal link counter provides valuable insights into the internal linking structure of your site. You can use this data to identify opportunities to improve your site’s internal linking strategy and ensure that your most important pages are being properly indexed and ranked.
Final Thoughts
Turning on advanced Yoast SEO settings is a powerful way to enhance your site’s SEO performance and ensure that your content is properly optimized for both search engines and users. By enabling these settings, you gain access to a suite of powerful tools and features that can help you fine-tune your site’s SEO strategy and improve your site’s visibility in search results.
From setting up templates for SEO titles and meta descriptions to managing internal links and XML sitemaps, the advanced settings in Yoast SEO provide a wealth of options for optimizing your site’s content and structure. These settings are particularly useful for administrators and power users who want to take their SEO efforts to the next level.
By understanding and using these advanced features, you can ensure that your site is properly optimized for maximum visibility and engagement. Whether you’re running a small blog or a large e-commerce site, the advanced settings in Yoast SEO can help you achieve your SEO goals and improve your site’s performance.