Working with Wordpress

Summary

This page is a short summary of how to effectively use the Yoast SEO plugin in WordPress to optimize your blog post's searchability and readability. It also briefly mentions other methods, not through the plugin, which could increase search success.

Yoast SEO

Yoast SEO is a tool which analyses blog pages and attempts to identify areas for improvement, both in terms of how the text is structured and how it is presented in search engines. If you want a more in-depth description of Yoast SEO and some of its main features, you may visit their online webpage [1].

The Yoast SEO tool has two tabs: Content and SEO. The Content tab focuses on analysis of trends within your content to check for basic readablity components. The SEO tab allows you to adjust your settings for how search engines find your post. In both tabs, the tool uses a color-coding system to indicate your performance for difference aspects of its analysis. If it is red, you should probably fix it (unless it is something we have chosen to ignore or take lightly). If it is yellow, you should try to fix it, but it isn't a huge priority. If it is green, leave it be, and way to go! Not all points need to be green; we will survive as long as we are happy with our content!

To get to the Yoast SEO tool for any post in the McNair blog:

1. Go to the McNair Center dashboard by scrolling over the "The McNair Center" tab at the top of the McNair blog homepage and clicking "dashboard"
2. On the left side of the screen, click on "Posts"
3. Scroll over the title of your chosen blog post, then click the "Edit" button which appears
4. Scroll past the content box for the blog. Below the content box, you should find the "Yoast SEO" tool

Content tab

The Content tab uses algorithms to determine whether your text may be too complex for readability by a general internet readership. It will provide you with information about trends in your writing and offer suggestions for altering the text to make it easier to read and understand. Try to get the general score in this tab to orange or green. These are relatively straightforward, but more information on content analysis can be found at the Yoast SEO webpage [2].

Our priorities

Although we don't need to satisfy all of the plugin's standards for readability, we do want to make sure that our posts are not so high-level or unreadable that people will not want to read our pieces.

• Reading ease: The Flesch reading ease test is used to determine what kind of reading level is necessary to read your post. Although we do not need to reach he plugin's standards for reading ease, try to keep your reading score to about 25-50. For reference, anything below 30 is meant for college graduates; 25-50 is approximately high school or college reading level [3].
• Passive voice: The plugin specifies 10%; this is a good goal.
• Sentence length: You should try to get your percentage of sentences with more than 20 words to approximately 40% or less. Click on the eye symbol next to the bullet point in the plugin to see which sentences are too long, and use this feature to find sentences which may be too complex or have too many points.
• Paragraph length: We are looking for one main point per paragraph. Try to keep paragraphs short, but do not cut them to a point where they are no longer effective.
• Subtitles: Anne has said that subtitles are a great idea for every blog post. Try to get at least 1 into every piece!
  • To make a subtitle: Type "<h3>Title name here</h3>" in the "text" function of WordPress for your blog post. The number after h (ex. 1, 2 3, ...) determines how big the subheading will be. For a big heading, use "<h1>". For a smaller heading, use a bigger number.
• Other: Use your common sense.

SEO tab

This section describes some of the more common features of the SEO tab. More information on SEO analysis can be found at the Yoast SEO webpage [4].

Slug

The "slug" is the part of the URL that identifies your article (ex. for mcnair.bakerinstitute.org/wiki/taylor_jacobe "/taylor_jacobe" is the slug). To choose your slug, use the "Snippet Editor" feature and use the "Slug" box. The plugin will say something if you slug includes a stop word. See below for more information on stop words and whether they will hurt or harm you in your specific case.

Focus Keyword

Note: We think that focus keyword may not be used by Google anymore, even though the plugin says otherwise. Google meta tags function similarly to the focus keyword, and we are allowed to have multiple. Because of this, you should just make your focus keyword something that will make the plugin happy and can be included in your meta description.

Your focus keyword is the word or phrase that you would put into a search engine to find this post. Picking a good focus keyword requires strategy in order to increase your chances of having your post ranked higher in search results. See link [5] for more on how to choose an appropriate focus keyword. Please also note that your focus keyword must also be in your meta description, so it should be a word or phrase that could be used in a sentence (ex. "Egan dog" for a post about Ed's dog would not be a good focus keyword because the phrase would be hard to use in a sentence in your meta description). We cannot specify more than one focus keyword per blog post, so be thoughtful in your choice.

Meta Description

The meta description is what is shown in the Google description when a link to your page comes up as a search result. It is important to use your focus keyword (see above) in your meta description. If there is no meta description or the meta description does not contain the focus keyword, Google will grab a random piece of text (usually the first sentence or two) from your blog and use that as the description. This is not optimal in terms of drawing in readers. To create the meta description, use the "Snippet Editor" feature in the SEO tab and input the description in the "Meta Description" box. See link [6] for tips on making a good meta description.

Common Pitfalls

Alt Attributes

For images, the alt tag describes the picture and its purpose. This function can also be used for disability access, as the description can be read aloud by a computer, allowing for individuals who are blind or cannot read to understand what the picture contributes to the post. See link for more details on how to create an alt tag and why it is important [7].

Stop Words

"Stop words" may be pointed out in the analysis, especially in your focus keyword or slug. These are words are often ignored by search engines, so if you include them in your URL or focus keyword, it could affect your chances of coming up as a search result. A list of Google stop words can be found here: [8]. Here is a tip on how to determine whether or not to use stop words in your title, keyword, or slug:

""Search for the title of your blog post, with stop words and without them. If the results are different in both the cases, then it is clear that Google is considering the stop words. So, it makes sense for you to retain stop words in your title"" [9].

Other Resources for Search Optimization

This link has some details on how to tag your blog posts for Google search optimization through meta tags: [10]