Dental Design welcomes Yoast
For a few months now we have been installing the SEO WordPress Plugin, Yoast, across 
new WordPress sites we’ve been designing. Having gotten to grips with the functions, features and detailed support in the form of blogs, videos and how-to guides, the overall review is positive.
We were previously using All-in-One-SEO, but after a bit of research into what Yoast can offer us and time with our ears to the industry ground, we decided to uptake the installation for all new web designs at Dental Design.
An SEO widget on WordPress allows webmasters (the SEO team!) to manage our sites on-going SEO. Amongst the other tools we use to diagnose, repair and enhance our sites to gain optimum rankings, the basics of SEO work are fundamental. An SEO widget fills in the gaps in WordPress and enables current SEO tools to be implemented effectively such as analytics, sitemaps, title tags and Meta descriptions. Here’s a breakdown of just some of the widget’s features and what we’ve gained from them.
Post titles and meta descriptions
A really useful tool in allowing us to see exactly what the search engine will see and also sets as a template, so that title and meta descriptions are never empty, though they maybe duplicate. This is then something we can address much more easily, with the backbone of the titles already set up. This doesn’t stop the work involved in writing effective compelling titles optimised to a keyword and page, (no widget will do that) but it does help.
It highlights where you’re going wrong and rates the page for effective SEO depending on the keyword that you have put in. To be honest I find this particular aspect of the feature a bit pointless as I like to review the titles with the SEO knowledge I have, which may vary from the desired ‘green light’ that you get when Yoast thinks you’ve gotten the title and mete description just right.
Meta Robots Settings
There is an easy to find, easy to use button in the meta box allowing you to individually adjust the meta robot settings per post (page). If you have a certain page or post you don’t want found on a search engine or even indexed, then it’s really easy to adjust this with a few w easy clicks.
XML Sitemaps
A stalwart for SEO work; Sitemaps allow search engines to crawl their site more easily. The Yoast plugin provides easy installation and verification, and is streamlined to recognise noindex pages, so pages you tell the search engines you no longer want crawled wont then still show up in the sitemap. In addition the plugin holds an XSLT stylesheet which means your sitemap can be read by a human. Happy days!
Features which limit the change of duplicate content, keep code clean (another essential SEO tool) and provide greater control over breadcrumbs results in better organisation of the site with greater flexibility.
The plugin is regularly at the top of the most downloaded plugin chart on WordPress.org and a few days ago, the developer, Joost de Valk, posted an update to his blog introducing some big names in the developer’s community who have recently joined his team. With constant updates, bug-fixers and the ability to post to Joost directly (and get an answer), our SEO team have been really happy with the decision to use it.
For more information about new website design using WordPress SEO by Yoast or online marketing in general call Dental Design on 01202 677277.
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