Best Yoast SEO Settings to Improve On-Page SEO [2025 Setup & Configuration]

Are you looking for the best Yoast SEO settings? If you are, keep reading this post!

Setting up the correct SEO settings is crucial for improving your site’s visibility on search engines.

While the default settings in Yoast SEO provide a solid start, customizing the plugin to match your specific needs can further boost your site’s performance.

In this guide, we’ll walk through how to configure Yoast SEO plugin — basic settings and advanced configurations to improve on-page SEO and search engine rankings.

But first, let’s see what Yoast is and what it has to offer.

Yoast SEO: An Introduction

Yoast SEO is one of the best plugins that helps WordPress users optimize their sites for search engines.

Whether you’re managing blog posts, eCommerce products, or other content types, Yoast makes SEO data optimization simple and effective. It provides valuable insights for focus keyphrases, improving every piece of content for better search rankings.

With Yoast Premium, you gain even more control over your SEO strategy, including enhanced social network integration and the ability to customize every aspect of your site’s SEO.

Here are some of the best Yoast Seo features:

• SEO analysis
• Readability analysis
• Focus keyword optimization
• Meta title & description templates
• Social media previews
• XML sitemaps
• Internal linking suggestions
• Redirect manager (Premium)
• Breadcrumbs functionality

And so on.

Now you know what Yoast is and what it has to offer. Next, we will learn the main advantages of the Yoast SEO WordPress plugin.

What is the Main Benefit of Using Yoast?

The main benefit of using the Yoast SEO plugin is how it simplifies Search Engine Optimization for users of all levels.

From optimizing primary keywords to managing social sharing images, Yoast gives you complete control over how your content appears in search engines and on social media platforms.

With features like the breadcrumbs and content schema, the plugin makes your site search engine-friendly without any extra effort.

Yoast Premium takes things a step further with internal link suggestions, Video SEO, and features that help you optimize each post format better.

Even small features like Insert variable in titles and meta descriptions streamline your SEO workflow.

Overall, Yoast offers numerous benefits that you can use to optimize your WordPress website or WooCommerce store.

How to Install and Activate Yoast WordPress SEO Plugin

Installing Yoast SEO is a straightforward process. The first thing you need to do is log in to your WordPress website and navigate to the ‘Add New’ plugins section.

There, you can search for Yoast SEO. Once you have found the plugin, install it on your website.

Once you have completed the installation, you can activate it.

After that, you can see the plugin’s settings on the left-hand side of the WordPress dashboard.

If you have the Yoast SEO Premium plugin, you can install and activate it manually directly from the dashboard or using an FTP client.

You don’t need any special or advanced Yoast SEO requirements for installation or use. Simply make sure you have a functional WordPress website running the latest WordPress version, and you’re ready to install and use Yoast SEO.

What Are the Default Yoast SEO Settings?

When you first install and activate the Yoast WordPress SEO Plugin, it comes with a set of default settings.

Yoast enables features like SEO analysis, readability checks, and a basic XML sitemap.

It automatically handles meta robot settings for pages and posts, hides author archives (if there is only one author), and sets up structured data (schema) for your site.

Canonical URLs are also auto-generated to prevent duplicate content issues.

The default settings also provide a decent structure for SEO titles and meta descriptions, based on post types, using dynamic variables such as the post title, separator, and site name. These can be customized later, but the default configuration works well for most users starting.

Best Yoast SEO Settings to Improve SEO

Under the plugin’s settings, you can see these options:

• General
• Settings
• Integrations
• Tools
• Academy
• Upgrades
• Workouts
• Redirects
• Support

Below, we will show you how each option can be configured for the best search engine optimization results. Let’s begin with the Yoast SEO setup for beginners.

1. General

Under General, you can see three sub-options.

• Dashboard
• Alert Center
• First-time configuration

We will take a look at three options below.

1. Dashboard

The dashboard doesn’t have any configuration options.

2. Alert Center

Here, the plugin will show you the problems or conflicts Yoast is facing, or the major SEO issues.

3. First-Time Configuration

The Yoast SEO first-time configuration is the point where the actual setup begins. The first thing you need to do is let the plugin perform SEO data optimization.

On the next page, you will see the site representation options.

There, you have to choose:

• Whether your website represents an organization or a person
• The name of the website
• Name of the organization or person
• Logo

After adding this data, you can move forward with the option.

Next, you have to configure the social profiles. By default, Facebook and X profile boxes will be added. But if you need to add more social profiles, such as Instagram or Pinterest, click the + button and paste the link.

Now comes the personal preferences.

This is not an SEO configuration option. This is for keeping yourself updated with the latest SEO news, directly from the original source.

You have now successfully finished the plugin’s basic configuration.

Once you’ve finished with this, move on to the next SEO configuration option.

2. Settings

Here comes the major Yoast SEO settings. Here, you can see options such as

• General
  • Site features
  • Site basics
  • Site representation
  • Site connections
• Content types
  • Homepage
  • Posts
  • Pages
• Categoris & tags
  • Categories
  • Tags
• Advanced
  • Crawl optimization
  • Breadcrumbs
  • Author archives
  • Date archives
  • Format archives
  • Special pages
  • Media pages
  • RSS

Below, we will take a closer look at each option.

1. General

Here’s how you can adjust the General settings of Yoast.

1.1 Features

All the necessary features are enabled on the website.

• SEO analysis
• Readability analysis
• Focus keyword optimization
• Meta title & description templates
• Social media previews

If you need to disable a specific function, you can do it from this page.

1.2 Basics

Here, you can tweak the basic information like the website’s name, alternate name, separator, and so on.

As the name says, these are just basic configuration options. You can do it yourself without any advanced knowledge.

Save the settings once you are done.

1.3 Representation

Here, you can switch between the ‘Organization’ and ‘Person’ options. We have already tweaked this option via the first-time configuration tab.

However, if you need to switch it up, you can use the representation tab.

1.4 Connections

From the Connections option, you can complete the Search Console verifications.

As you can see in the screenshot, you can add verification codes of:

• Baidu
• Bing
• Google
• Pinterest
• Yandex

Once you have pasted the code, save the settings. You’re good to move forward.

2. Content Types

Under content types settings, you will find the Yoast Seo Search appearance settings. This section will help you customize the search appearance of the homepage, posts, pages, and custom post types, if you have any.

2.1 Homepage

Here, you can choose how your homepage should look in the search results.

If you are using a static homepage, you can visit the individual page and customize the SEO title and meta description.

From the same page, you can customize the social title, social image, and social description.

2.2 Posts

Now, if you go to the posts settings, you can see similar configuration options.

Besides the SEO title and meta description, you can see some schema settings.

If you have to choose a default schema type for the individual blog posts, this is the option.

Make the necessary changes and save the settings.

2.3 Pages

The final settings in the content types section are the page configuration.

As we did with the post settings, you can tweak the pages. The available options are SEO title, meta description, and schema settings.

3. Categories & Tags

Next is the categories & tags settings.

3.1 Categories

The next option is for categories. Showing category archives in search engine result pages is a good idea.

You can enable this option and save the settings. Feel free to customize the SEO title with the available variables.

3.2 Tags

Usually, people won’t list tags in the search engines. So, you can disable this function.

Do not enable tag archives unless necessary, as this can cause duplicate content issues.

On the other hand, If you’re a news organization, enabling tag archives may be useful.

4. Advanced

Configure the advanced settings as follows:

4.1 Crawl Optimization

By default, WordPress adds a lot of metadata and content formats to the <head> section of your website. This will make the website bulky, and it will take longer to crawl its contents.

By removing this unnecessary data, you can further optimize the website and reduce the overall carbon footprint by eliminating the time required for crawling.

4.2 Breadcrumbs

Breadcrumbs are a good way to let the website visitor know about he current path. Without using any third-party breadcrumb plugin, you can use Yoast SEO’s built-in breadcrumbs feature.

Open the breadcrumbs tab first.

You can configure the separator and anchor text however you like. Once you’re done, enable it in the theme and save the settings.

4.3 Author Archives

If you are running a single-author blog, you can disable the author archive. On the other hand, if you’re handling a multi-author blog, such as a news website, the author archive must be enabled.

4.4 Date Archives

Date archives are not that mandatory for most websites. It is recommended for news websites only.

4.5 Format Archives

Sometimes, format-based archives will cause duplicate content issues. For most websites, owners do not need to enable this feature. Hence, we recommend disabling this feature.

4.6 Special Pages

From the special pages settings, you can configure the SEO title for 404 pages and the search result page.

Feel free to use variables to customize the SEO titles as you like.

4.7 Media Pages

We will not recommend creating media pages. It can cause thin content issues on your website.

4.8 RSS

The final option is RSS settings. If you send a daily or weekly newsletter using your website’s RSS feed, this configuration will be helpful.

As you can see in the screenshot above, with these settings, you can add content before and after each post in the feed. By default, Yoast SEO will add some code to the after section.

But that is fully customizable. You can use variables like:

• %%AUTHORLINK%%: A link to the archive for the post author, with the author’s name as anchor text.
• %%POSTLINK%%: A link to the post, with the title as anchor text.
• %%BLOGLINK%%: A link to your site, with your site’s name as anchor text.
• %%BLOGDESCLINK%%: A link to your site, with your site’s name and description as anchor text.

To customize it.

3. Integrations

As the name suggests, if you need to integrate third-party plugins or services with Yoast SEO, this option is the right place.

Integrating the plugins you use with Yoast will help ensure compatibility issues are avoided.

4. Tools

The tools section covers these options:

• Import and Export
• File Editor
• Bulk Editor

Here is what these settings have to offer.

1. Import & Export

If you need to import Yoast configuration from another website or export the current configuration, this is the right place to do it.

Besides importing and exporting Yoast configurations, you can also import the configurations of other SEO plugins (a premium feature).

2. File Editor

Using the file editor function, you can edit the robots.txt file.

3. Bulk Editor

With the bulk editor, you can edit all the content types (posts, pages, or even custom post types) that are available in your WordPress website.

Since everything is available in one place, editing those would be easy.

5. Academy

If you need to learn some SEO skills, this is the right place. The Academy contains several SEO courses that you can use to improve your SEO knowledge.

Some of the courses are free, while others are available only for the Yoast SEO premium users.

6. Upgrades

If you visit the Upgrades section, you’ll see the major extensions available for the Yoast SEO plugin.

The major extensions available are:

• Local SEO
• Video SEO
• News SEO

You can buy individual add-ons or purchase everything in a bundle.

7. Workouts

SEO workouts are another premium feature offered by Yoast. These will help you optimize your content even further.

8. Redirects

Redirects are a feature of Yoast SEO Premium. If you’re using the free version of the plugin, you won’t be able to access this feature.

Hence, if you need to set up redirects on your website, you have to rely on a third-party plugin like Redirection.

9. Support

Here, you won’t see any configuration options. This support section contains mostly FAQs and their answers. If you need help setting up the plugin or configuring a specific feature, check out the support section.

Yoast SEO Free vs Yoast SEO Premium

Here, we will compare both the free and premium versions of the Yoast SEO plugin.

Feature	Yoast SEO Free	Yoast SEO Premium
Focus Keywords	1 Per page	Up to 5 Per Page
SEO & Readability Analysis	Yes	Yes
Internal Linking Suggestions	No	Yes
Redirect Manager	No	Yes
AI-Powered Content Suggestions	No	Yes (Beta Version)
24/7 Support	No	Yes
Advanced SEO Settings	Limited	Full Control
Automated Internal Linking	No	Yes

How to Use Yoast WordPress SEO Plugin

Here is how you can optimize your blog posts with the help of the Yoast SEO plugin. The first thing you need to do is open the classic or block editor.

How to use Yoast SEO in WordPress:

When editing a post or page in WordPress, scroll down to the Yoast SEO box.

• Enter your focus keyphrase.
• Edit the SEO title and meta description.
• Review the SEO and readability analysis for suggestions.
• Edit Schema data, social image, and more.
• Apply Yoast’s recommendations to improve your content before publishing.

This process helps you optimize each page or post for better search engine rankings and readability.

However, some of the advanced features will be available only with the Yoast Premium plugin.

You can save or update the blog post or piece of content you’ve worked on after optimizing it using the available suggestions.

Bonus Tips on Optimizing the Website for Better SEO and Ranking

To truly optimize your website for higher rankings, there are several tips to keep in mind. Here are some of the main points you need to know:

• SEO Settings: Ensure your SEO title and permalink settings are optimized for better rankings.
• Internal Links: Use internal links to connect related content, helping search engines crawl your site more effectively.
• Focus Keyphrase: Optimize your pages and posts for your focus keyphrase and primary keywords.
• Cornerstone Content: Create and promote your cornerstone content, which is the most valuable and meaningful content on your site.
• Content Optimization: Regularly update and improve content, using both primary and secondary keywords for better optimization.
• Use a table of contents block: With the help of a table of contents block, website visitors can navigate easily. You can also improve your overall SEO with it.
• Google Analytics: Use Google Analytics to track your site’s performance and identify opportunities for improvement.

Frequently Asked Questions

Now, let’s see some frequently asked questions regarding this topic.

Conclusion

Setting up the Yoast WordPress SEO plugin properly can be a real game-changer for your site’s Search Engine Optimization efforts.

By fine-tuning the default settings, improving post titles and meta descriptions, and utilizing features like SEO analysis and internal links, you can create a strong SEO foundation.

Yoast helps you stay aligned with what search engines value most.

As you can see in this guide, setting up Yoast is not a challenging task. By following our step-by-step tutorial, you can remove the default Yoast settings and optimize your individual posts and pages even further.

If you want to get more interesting features, we recommend getting the Yoast SEO Premium. The premium plugin is a good investment if you wish to do more optimizations.

Which other plugin configuration do we need to cover next?

Let us know in the comments.