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Yoast

Yoast

Overview

What is Yoast?

Yoast offers a set of tools developed by Joost de Valk and team, founder of yoast.com and Wordpress enthusiast. These tools are designed to help content rank higher and are subsumed under the Yoast Complete pack, which includes Video SEO…

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Recent Reviews

TrustRadius Insights

Yoast, the WordPress SEO plugin, has been widely used by various individuals and organizations to optimize their websites and improve …
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Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

Popular Features

View all 14 features
  • Integration with web analytics tools (42)
    9.7
    97%
  • Site recommendations (42)
    9.6
    96%
  • Keyword analysis (49)
    9.6
    96%
  • Page grader (53)
    9.2
    92%

Reviewer Pros & Cons

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Pricing

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Premium

$99.00

Cloud
Per Site

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee
For the latest information on pricing, visithttps://yoast.com/wordpress/plugins

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services
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Product Demos

Quick Demo Yoast

YouTube

Demo Toko Online Anisa Bags (beserta Yoast SEO)

YouTube

Demo: Instalación de Yoast SEO y uso

YouTube

#DEMO Instalação Plugin Yoast SEO PREMIUM

YouTube

Facebook Yoast Demo

YouTube

Video SEO for WordPress by Yoast demo

YouTube
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Features

SEO

Core features related to search engine optimization

7.2
Avg 7.8

SEO Channels

Features related to optimizing your website for specific channels

7.8
Avg 7.6

SEO Platform & Account Management

Features related to scalability and integration of the SEO platform

9
Avg 8.4
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Product Details

What is Yoast?

Yoast SEO helps to ensure a site meets the highest technical SEO standards. It also provides tools to optimize content for SEO and overall readability. Yoast is built to:
  • Include everything needed to start ranking in search engines
  • Automatically take care of all of a site’s technical SEO
  • Provide access to 6 free academy courses

Yoast Video

Yoast SEO Demo

Yoast Technical Details

Deployment TypesSoftware as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based
Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationNo

Frequently Asked Questions

Yoast offers a set of tools developed by Joost de Valk and team, founder of yoast.com and Wordpress enthusiast. These tools are designed to help content rank higher and are subsumed under the Yoast Complete pack, which includes Video SEO for rank climbing with embedded videos in a Wordpress site, WooCommerce SEO for the WP ecommerce plugin, News SEO for rank climbing in Google news, Local SEO for (as the name implies) climbing in local listings with more complete information so can be located (e.g. Google Maps, a store locator, etc.), and Premium SEO redirect manager for dealing with common redirect errors and issues. Yoast Complete for a single site license can be obtained for $279, for up to 5 sites for $479, and for up to 20 sites for $849. The plugins may also be bought individually, and yoast.com now offers a Google Analytics (GA) plugin.

Yoast starts at $0.

Reviewers rate Local SEO and Integration with web analytics tools highest, with a score of 9.7.

The most common users of Yoast are from Small Businesses (1-50 employees).
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(304)

Community Insights

TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!

Yoast, the WordPress SEO plugin, has been widely used by various individuals and organizations to optimize their websites and improve search engine visibility. Users have found Yoast to be particularly valuable for on-page SEO optimization, providing a comprehensive checklist for elements such as metadata, URLs, headers, and more. The plugin's red-yellow-green light icon serves as a visual indicator of how well optimized a page is, allowing users to stay on top of their optimization efforts.

Freelancers, small business owners, and marketing professionals have relied on Yoast to boost their online presence and attract potential customers. Additionally, Yoast has played a crucial role in helping bloggers optimize their pages for better rankings. The user-friendly interface and real-time suggestions provided by Yoast make it accessible to both non-expert users and SEO novices who are looking to optimize their own content. From optimizing blog posts and images to managing URLs and interlinking suggestions, Yoast offers a range of features that simplify the process of search engine optimization.

Furthermore, organizations and agencies have leveraged Yoast to set up SEO for each page or article on their websites, providing oversight of writers' SEO tasks. The structured markup capability of Yoast has proven invaluable in ensuring that pages meet SEO standards and comply with industry regulations. With its extensive training resources and comprehensive plugin options, Yoast has become the go-to tool for WordPress users looking to maximize their SEO efforts.

Overall, Yoast has proved indispensable in optimizing WordPress websites for search engines, attracting organic traffic, meeting deadlines, and maintaining structured content. By offering practical recommendations and insights into keyword density, readability scores, and meta data optimization, Yoast delivers valuable assistance in driving qualified traffic to websites.

Seamless integration: Users have praised Yoast for its seamless integration into the WordPress platform, eliminating the need to switch between different pages or platforms for optimization. This convenience has been highly appreciated by numerous reviewers.

Real-time tips: Many users have found Yoast's real-time tips to be invaluable. The ability to receive immediate feedback and guidance on optimizing their pages or posts through live scans of page templates, links, and copy has been highly valued by a significant number of reviewers.

Training resources: Yoast's training resources have received great praise from users. These resources are considered helpful in making the complex topic of SEO easy to understand and implement. They enable users to improve their knowledge of SEO effectively, as mentioned by multiple reviewers.

Unhelpful customer support: Some users have expressed frustration with the customer support provided by Yoast, stating that it has been unhelpful and lacking. This issue has been mentioned multiple times in user reviews.

Confusing user interface: The software's user interface has been criticized for being confusing and overwhelming. Users have found it difficult to navigate and complete tasks efficiently, leading them to believe that the software is not user-friendly.

Lack of comprehensive SEO insights: Users have expressed a desire for more comprehensive SEO insights and tools beyond just on-page optimization. They feel that the current features are lacking in providing competitive analysis and tracking SERP performance.

Users have provided several recommendations for Yoast based on their experiences with the product. The three most common recommendations are:

  1. Start with the free version: Users recommend starting with the free version of Yoast as it provides a range of useful features for optimizing website SEO. It is helpful for improving search engine rankings and increasing website traffic.

  2. Use for WordPress websites: Yoast is highly recommended for WordPress websites, as it offers specific plugins and tools tailored to this platform. Users find Yoast beneficial in expanding their understanding of SEO marketing and improving blog SEO, ultimately helping to boost website ranking in search engine results.

  3. Automate and save time: Users appreciate how Yoast automates various on-page metadata-related tasks, saving them valuable time. It is effective for day-to-day SEO activities and provides a helpful guide for implementing SEO improvements. By using Yoast, users can ensure proper optimization of content and keep up with changing SEO trends.

It's important to note that while many users recommend Yoast as a top SEO plugin for WordPress websites, some caution that it may not be the only tool needed for comprehensive SEO optimization. Additionally, some users express satisfaction with the free version and suggest that the premium version may not be necessary.

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-25 of 33)
Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Yoast SEO is best for SEO on page optimization it helps me to add schema like FAQs. One of the best parts of it is the updated version of Yoast. if you add FAQs by using the Yoast widget you don't need to add FAQs schema it will add automatically. Also, Yoast suggests the optimal meta tags limit so that you won't forget to optimize.
  • On Page Optimization
  • Allow to setup bulk meta tags
  • Yes, I have one major concern with Yoast Seo, I see that if I didn't update the plugin for a long time then it has created a breach and allowed bots to publish the bots website. I request the team please work on it.
It helps me to suggest the keyword density on the page. Yoast WordPress SEO Plugins provides me the reading score and many on-page things that help me to rank my content on the top of the page.
David Gev | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 5 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
[In my experience,] Yoast Premium does not function to its fullest potential if you use WP Bakery Page Builder. When I purchased the Premium version, I did not know it. It works well with other page builder plugins. I think that somewhere before committing to the Premium version, it should be made clear
  • the basic version is sufficient
  • [...]
[...]
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Yoast SEO Plugins is a major plugin on our website which has replaced an SEO freelancer who failed to provide a transparent service. We saw no ROI from his work. Now we do all SEO optimization ourselves and regret we had not installed a pro Yoast plugin earlier. Content marketing combined with Yoast plugin is the best combination for your website.
  • SEO recommendations for content
  • Good scoring system for every post
  • Pays attention both to optimizing text and images\video content
  • Some automatic features would be helpful
  • Before and after score
  • More tutorials
Yoast SEO plug-in is a must for WordPress websites. It is the best option to promote your site in search engines if you do not have funds for a SEO expert or you just have no time to learn how the SEO works. This plugin will guide you through the process. You just need to fill the fields and follow the recommendations
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Yoast Wordpress SEO Plugins in our content and digital development groups. The content team says "we can't work effectively without the SEO plugin". Yoast Wordpress SEO Plugins provides a number of important features our writers rely on:
  1. Internal links to other content. We have over 40,000 posts and this feature makes it simple to link to relevant content.
  2. Readability analysis. Our writers require this to ensure their work is consistent and reads well.
  3. Overall SEO score. Our editors
The digital group relies on Yoast Wordpress SEO Plugins for the following:
  1. Oversight of writers SEO tasks. The posts screen provides an overview of SEO scores of content as it's being produced.
  2. Yoast News plugin. This handles the publishing of content to Google News.
  3. Social media integration with Twitter and Facebook.
  4. Manage what types of content appears (and how) in search engines. Wordpress makes just about everything indexable and we use Yoast to tame some of that, especially custom post types.
  • Readability analysis is often overlooked but a poorly written article can turn visitors off. Yoast Wordpress SEO Plugins helps with that to the extent we don't need a bunch of full-time editors.
  • Helps to build accurate meta data. Though not as important as it once was on its own, metadata is still important for Knowledge Graphing and Schema.org. Yoast Wordpress SEO Plugins handles all of that without the need of developers.
  • The Insights section provides important data about content itself, including prominent words, internal links and link suggestions. Our writers rely on these features to provide the best content possible.
  • Yoast Wordpress SEO Plugins does many things and does them well; however, there may be a need for a separate Schema.org plugin if you require finer control when it comes to metadata and which schemas you may want to use. Same applies to XML sitemaps.
  • In a recent upgrade (version 14), Yoast Wordpress SEO Plugins added a new indexable feature that combined all metadata for objects on a site into a couple of new tables. For small to medium sites, this wasn't an issue. For larger sites (40,000 posts or more), it caused more problems than it solved to the extent we reverted to a previous version (13.5) and remained there until well after version 15 was released. Be aware that your database will grow more rapidly in size as a result.
  • We disabled the built-in XML sitemap generator as it caused excessive database usage when creating new maps. For now, we're using a different plugin for that function until the issue has been addressed with Yoast Wordpress SEO Plugins.
For very small sites, the free version of Yoast Wordpress SEO Plugins is sufficient. For small and medium sites, one should opt for the premium version. Not saying Yoast Wordpress SEO Plugins doesn't work well on larger sites; it certainly does, but be advised there could be some performance headaches along the way. I really cannot think of a scenario where you wouldn't want to use Yoast Wordpress SEO Plugins, but if you really don't care that much about SEO, there are a few alternatives that will provide SEO functions but without the depth of control available in Yoast Wordpress SEO Plugins.
Nahian Mahmud Shaikat | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
I [have been] using Yoast Wordpress SEO Plugins for the last few years to Optimize the Contents for search engine which ensures a better ranking in google and other popular search engine. Actually, it is the most popular and advanced SEO tool available in the market. Choice of target keywords and send a signal to the search engine.
  • Better Ranking in the Search Result
  • Target a particular keywords
  • Target related keywords
  • Add meta description
  • Although this tool is user friendly, i think there is scope of improving the color combination and visual outlook.
It is suitable for Wordpress platform rather than any other available platform like bogger. This plugin is suitable for beginner to advanced level users to rank a particular keyword in the search engine. For the free version, one target keyword can add but for the premium user, you can add multiple keywords which is the attractive section of this plugin.
Nabin Poudel | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Yoast Wordpress SEO Plugins are being used in our organization to quickly optimize posts and pages for various search engines and social media. With the bundle of plugins for SEO it is easy much easier to optimize video content, news posts, and woocommerce products. It provides a user-friendly interface to add meta keywords on any page and see its score with a preview from search engines result.
  • Optimize any post, page, or product with the best keywords
  • Get previews of sharing on social media and search engine result
  • Gives SEO and readability score and ways to improve
  • Generates clean XML sitemap
  • $199 for an annual subscription is quite expensive in the WordPress ecosystem
  • The plugins can integrate features to add rich snippets
  • The suggestions shown by the plugins are not applicable all the time
Yoast Wordpress SEO Plugins automatically configures metadata and open graph information required by search engines and social media. It is always best practice to use its plugins to quickly make any WordPress site search engine friendly. If any website has very high-quality engaging content, then it is not necessary to use its plugins as the content likely will rank in the search engine results without its SEO.
February 26, 2020

It's Okay

Score 3 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
My company has a few websites that are off our platform and using WordPress, so as their SEO analyst I had to become familiar with the software. The SEM department of the company uses Yoast and quite honestly it becomes useless when we are trying to target a handful of focused keywords.
  • Creates a redirect when I change permalinks, something most other redirect plugins don’t do.
  • It gives internal link suggestions.
  • The internal link suggested aren't always great suggestions.
  • I don’t need the content insights feature telling me what words I use most on a page.
There are so many other software out there that give you so much more helpful information than Yoast SEO Plugins. If you're new to the digital scene this this is something that's great to start out with. But if you've been in the field for a while then Yoast can actually be really frustrating to use because you're smarter than the system.
NaveenKumar Namachivayam | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Yoast fulfills the need of search engine optimization. It integrates with WordPress and quite easy to get started. It helps me to attract the organic traffic from the internet search engines like Google, Bing, etc. It also helps to keep structured and organized content throughout the blog. Search engine algorithm often changes, but with Yoast plugin, no need to worry it.
  • Keyword optimization.
  • Quick indexing.
  • Expensive.
  • Social media previews are limited.
For freelancers, bloggers, the free version of Yoast might be very useful. If you are a beginner, Yoast is a good plugin to get started with your search engine optimization. It gels with WordPress well and it comes with the wizard to set up and get started. You can also generate site map.
Jeff Smith | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I run a small SEO agency. If a client has their site on WordPress then they have Yoast Premium, at the least, running on the site. For our clients that are geo-located, we also run Yoast Local. Yoast makes managing a site much easier. In fact, Yoast has become so robust that we almost consider it more of a platform than just a plug-in. Managing URLs, the interlinking suggestions, the ability to have some control over SERPs and now with the structured markup it is capable of it, would be hard to live without. The other really nice thing about Yoast is they have very good training when it comes to the use of the plug-in.
  • Yoast does a great job of managing many of the back-end functions in WordPress. Especially when it comes to handling things like the robots.txt and xml.sitemaps. But this is just the beginning of what Yoast can do.
  • One key feature is the ability to do 301's and 410's right in Yoast. This is really helpful when re-designing a site.
  • I have quite a few Yoast products in my account. One thing I have found with the Yoast Web Dashboard is that it can at times be a bit confusing as to which Lic is associated with which site. Not a huge deal but can be a little frustrating
  • One thing Yoast needs to do at the moment is to figure out what to do with the "Search Console" menu choice in the plugin. that area for the moment is broken due to the loss of a Google API.
As far as our company is concerned, if a site is running on WordPress then it has Yoast running. From a technical standpoint, WordPress can get a bit out of control if not managed properly. Yoast does a good job of keeping many of these areas from getting out of hand. And if you are really working on your on-site SEO, then Yoast can be a great help in making sure that your content is up to today's best practices. As Yoast has matured over the years it has become a decent writing tool, not just for the SERP elements but for the overall content as well. It is an excellent tool.

About the only situation that I can think of where Yoast is not appropriate is a site that is not on WordPress.
David Hoffman | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Because of regulations within our industry, we aren't allowed to do very much in terms of outbound marketing. That being said, a good portion of our new business relies solely on prospects finding us, becoming interested, and passing our pre-qualification checks. In addition, because our company name is fairly common, with some examples even operating within our industry, having good SEO practices in place equates to survival. Yoast is integrated within our Wordpress installation (managed by myself and accessed by one other user within marketing), and its automatic checks and ratings for page/content scoring have proven invaluable as we continue to create and organize educational content within the different verticals on our website and educational portal.
  • Content assistance - Focus keyword reports, content insights, and Yoast's active content checker have been incredibly helpful as we continue to produce new content and refresh old content.
  • Redirect manager and technical configuration - An organized and regularly-updated site structure is crucial for ensuring an effective behavior flow throughout our website and educational portal. Yoast helped us avoid crawler confusion by updating our link structure and removing orphan links, deleted pages, and content pages that had been moved and/or consolidated.
  • Conflicts with other plugins - Occasionally, Yoast is the number one enemy of site optimization plugins and has caused the site to crash a small handful of times when updates are mismatched. It's also fairly resource-heavy, which can present some issues for developers/admins looking for a lean Wordpress install.
Any company that has a web presence should not only be dedicated to and focused on SEO practices, but should also have a tool like Yoast in their arsenal. It's easy to set up (a few clicks), easy to manage, and the benefit it provides is worth far more than the price. Yoast is basically like an SEO consultant that works for free, and that's great for smaller businesses that don't always have the budget for dedicated help.
Jim Nelson | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We migrated all our WordPress websites to using Yoast WordPress SEO Plugins to help improve SEO for all posts and pages. I host 1500+ blogs on the Tripawds multisite network and make the plugin available to all members who wish to implement SEO on their blogs. The Yoast WordPress SEO Plugins scoring system allows us to optimize key phrases and content efficiently.
  • The Yoast WordPress SEO Plugins Score is beneficial for optimizing key phrases and content.
  • Yoast WordPress SEO Plugins Analysis and ranking provides expert direction for optimization.
  • Import of previous SEO plugin keywords did work as expected.
  • The Yoast Readability highlighting feature does not always work due to specific plugin conflicts.
I highly recommend Yoast WordPress SEO Plugins Premium for its ease of use and built-in rank scoring system for optimizing keyphrases and content. Yoast WordPress SEO Plugins is especially helpful for those with limited understanding of optimization thanks to its wizard interface and "green light" SEO score feature. I never rate any product a service as 10 out of 10 except in extreme cases of superior functionality and customer service.
Ben Rubenstein | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Yoast for our marketing website, with the goal of making sure all our pages our structured optimally for search engines, and to flag any potential indexing issues. In particular, we use the snippet tool on individual pages to ensure that the right title and description shows for each page; we also use it to discourage search engine indexing across landing pages, or pages that are in development or for limited audiences only.
  • Intuitive interface that makes it clear what elements of a page/site you need to address for search engine optimization.
  • Very customizable - You can choose whether you want a setting to apply to an entire category or just a single page.
  • The readability feature is nice in theory, but I feel like it should adapt to the content/ audience focus of your site (or have the ability to manually set the desired level). I work on a site that is more advanced, and the flags for readability can be distracting.
  • It seems as though more and more features are being moved to the Premium version, which is understandable but can be frustrating. For example, it'd be nice to be able to manage robots.txt files directly in Yoast.
Yoast is the best SEO tool I've used for Wordpress. It's great for everyone from SEO beginners who just want to catch the low-hanging fruit, to more advanced/technical editors who appreciate things like breadcrumb customization and canonical URLs. The free version may be sufficient for most users, especially those teams who fall into the more novice category - there's definitely enough to make a difference without the cost.
Maddy Osman | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I use Yoast on every website I build and the vast majority of the blogs I write for. Yoast makes it easy to ensure that you're doing everything in your power to optimize for a given keyword (or multiple keywords), as well as cover your bases regarding related onsite SEO best practices. If you have a WordPress blog, you need Yoast. Best of all, the basic plugin is completely free to use!
  • Useful readability checker with feedback.
  • User-friendly interface for editing meta data.
  • Readability checker could get more specific (like Grammarly).
  • It's hard to understand the difference between premium plugin offerings (like Yoast SEO Premium versus the WooCommerce SEO plugin).
If you have a WordPress website/blog, you really need some type of SEO plugin and Yoast is the best one on the market. If you're not optimizing for SEO, you're missing out on relevant organic traffic.
Dragan Nikolic | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Yoast WordPress SEO plugin is what we install on every WordPress website we maintain. It makes the websites SEO friendly and easy to configure in terms of titles, meta descriptions, visibility, Schema.org, robots.txt and sitemaps, taxonomies...which roughly translates to Onsite and Technical SEO.

It takes care of several key things that WordPress doesn't do well upon clean install.
  • Onsite SEO (titles, descriptions, content analysis...)
  • Technical SEO (breadcrumbs, robots, sitemaps, Schema.org)
  • UI (it doesn't use standard WordPress dashboard elements or design language and it should).
  • Marketing (it should slow down with ads).
Yoast WordPress SEO plugin fixes several key things when it comes to WordPress websites. It handles taxonomies and prevents duplicate content issue. It is good if you want to improve your content marketing as it analyzes the content and suggests improvements. It handles technical SEO issues in the background so your sitemaps and Schema.org markup is taken care of upon installation.

If you're looking for a solid SEO plugin, this is the one to have, but don't update it the second new releases comes out, because it can be buggy.

December 13, 2019

Easy breezy page editor

Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
SEO is a buzzword that's been around for a while. For many, it's this elusive mysterious thing, that businesses have heard of and should be doing, but many don't know how to implement. This is especially true, in my experience at small companies, that don't have a dedicated SEO specialist. Enter Yoast WordPress SEO. This plugin makes it easy to identify SEO problem spots on your website.
  • It is extremely easy to use. You don't have to be an SEO expert to make improvements to your site.
  • There are multiple price levels of service. This makes it affordable for businesses.
  • Yoast WordPress SEO plugin doesn't take formatting into consideration. The plugin often suggests that I don't have enough transition words in my text. With multiple paragraphs, text divided into columns taking that suggestion would read strangely.
If you are getting started with keyword and SEO research and writing, this is a great start. It checks every page, and leave you notice of what is good and what needs improvement. Even if you are not new to SEO this is a good program to use.
Michelle Green Arnson | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
The Yoast SEO Plugin for WordPress helps us make all of our web content more searchable- and findable- by making it super simple to optimize every post and page. The ability to audit new and existing content in real-time and get concrete suggestions on ways to improve our SEO makes it easy to keep up with ever-changing best practices.
  • SEO Analysis: This is the best. As you create content, you get a real-time audit of what you're doing right and, more importantly, what you need to fix in order to make that content as optimized as possible.
  • Set up wizard: Once Yoast is installed, their wizard helps ensure it can get to work immediately at making your website more Google-able. Could not be simpler.
  • Free training: Just getting started with SEO or Yoast? They have free training videos that make it so easy to get up to speed and start optimizing your content.
  • Density: Because even the free, basic Yoast SEO tool has SO MANY FEATURES, if you're brand new to SEO as a concept/practice, you might feel a little overwhelmed at first. Just go watch the training videos!
  • Bulk Title Editing: I'm sure this tool can be useful, but I've never found it to be particularly intuitive or helpful.
  • Limitations: I'm grasping at straws here, but it would be nice if some of the premium (paid) features- specifically the social media previews- were available in the free version. Like I said, grasping.
The Yoast WordPress SEO Plugin has been ideal for our small shop. In designing a new website, we got lots of expert advice on how to structure it to be SEO friendly in its launch state, but there's no way we could pay the pros to continually optimize all of our new content day after day, month after month, year after year. Fortunately, our pros included the Yoast SEO plugin with our new WordPress site and gave us a quick and dirty tutorial before handing it all over. The free plugin has allowed us to make our content super SEO-friendly without taking up a dime of our nonprofit budget.
Victoria Hoete-Dodd | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Currently, Yoast SEO Premium is used to help make it easy to quickly make adjustments to blog articles before publishing to ensure they are as optimized as possible. The other great use is the simple redirect tool which automatically detects and creates when a URL has been changed - this is a great feature, particularly at times when you are doing multiple tasks and may forget to go back and set one up!
  • Readability - makes it easy for you to assess the reading level of your piece to ensure it is correct for your intended audience.
  • SEO tips - red/orange/green traffic light system to provide tips on what aspects need improving to be SEO-focussed.
  • Redirect tool - easy, automated detection and setup.
  • Internal link counter - tool failed with other plugin capability and the "help" desk haven't actually helped...
  • Customer service/support - only offered for those who pay for a subscription but even when you have one they aren't exactly helpful (in my experience).
  • SEO notifications - it would be great to be able to specify which pages you want these for as currently, we get hundreds for irrelevant pages.
When the Internal link counter was working it was brilliant! Perhaps one of the features I utilized the most. It was a simple way to find orphaned posts and resolve that. However, the tool subsequently failed when the plugin was updated and I was told the problem was with other plugin capability and the "help" desk hasn't actually helped solve the issue. So - useful if it works!
December 04, 2019

We're toasty with Yoast!

Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use it on most of our online magazines. Even though we don't really need SEO as part of our business model, the readability score, etc. are rather important for actual users as well. We trust that the developing algorithms help us create better content and increase our revenue.
  • Color coded signals for rating content
  • Previews of the content in Google
  • We don't use it enough to have problems with it. What we use is perfect.
We are building an informational website as a side project and create content there in our free time. We can't afford to go wrong there, because time is at a premium, so we make sure that all content is on point. Seeing the green lights next to each post is what we strive for. We hope everyone will find us first with the help of Yoast.
Ayo Bamgbose, Assoc CIPD, MSc | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Yoast SEO is a popular WordPress plugin that helps websites to rank higher in various search engines. I started using the plugin back in 2016, as it was a free tool recommended for beginners and said to be easy to get started with. Yoast is the only tool I currently use to help optimize blog post content, images, and for social integrations.
  • Free plan: for startups not yet ready to invest in an SEO tool, Yoast provides a free option with plenty of useful features.
  • Insights and analytics: Yoast provides a useful comprehensive analysis with the use of meta descriptions, keywords, and post length.
  • It's useful in helping to customize the text snippets when blog posts are shared from the website to Facebook and LinkedIn.
  • Lack of useful tutorials and tips on how to improve scores.
  • We've found that it frequently marks down scores due to passive voice assumptions, even though you might not have spoken with a passive voice.
  • I've found that at times it can slow down my site.
  • For it to truly help with SEO, you’ll need the advanced premium features.
The free Yoast SEO version is what I would only recommend to those interested in getting started with optimizing their website images and blog content.
For those that truly want to improve the visibility of their website in search engines, I would suggest an investment in the premium plan, as it offers plenty of integrations and features.
For those who create and embed video content on their website, the premium feature is a must, as you can SEO your videos with advanced add-ons with Yoast.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I am personally using Yoast for promoting my personal website and my clients' sites. The SEO plugin (Yoast) is the tool I use to assure that Google and other search engines are detecting the keywords that I assign to a given site (either mine or a client's). I am a private web developer and offer services for SEO to clients. Yoast is the first plugin I began using many years ago for an individual client. When I saw the results that were showing in Google Analytics, I then used it for my site. As sites are developed, I have continued to provide the installation of Yoast, and I strongly encourage web clients to purchase the paid version in order to then have access to more tools within Yoast.
  • It has a user-friendly interface.
  • Directions for beginners to advanced users are provided.
  • My phrases and/or search terms are easily placed in the form during setup.
  • The installation is as simple as any other plugin, if not simpler.
  • It shows to slow down the sites I have used it on - so it is slow loading on the end-users part which could discourage them from using the site. It makes a WP site more bloated than it may already be.
  • The premium version is required for some of the simple items. I understand that the programmers have to be paid for the Premium, but more may use it if all or more of the basics were available to test it with.
  • A subscription payment is a bit much in my opinion. The option for support payments would work better, I think. I could get more clients to use the premium if that were the case.
  • Something that I have experienced is that other SEO techniques can't be used, as they often conflict with Yoast.
Yoast is one of the first of the main five plugins I advise WordPress clients to purchase. Within the recent six months of writing this review, I developed a WordPress site for an organization that is unique in its product offerings for physical health/fitness/rehabilitation, etc. The client was willing to pay extra for my SEO services, and I ultimately found this scenario to be a bit challenging because "physical fitness" and "personal trainer" are commonly used phrases that my client preferred. Yoast helped me in expediting the process of testing search terms, phrases, descriptions of the site and services, etc. I highly recommend this product to any that are trying to boost their site.
Jillyn Dillon | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Yoast SEO in one way or another on nearly every site we build. It's a great SEO tool that is very simple to use and understand. As with so many things in life, it's easier and better to do search engine optimization as you go. Yoast SEO's stop-light rating system and easy to follow improvement suggestions make it ideal for non-expert users who want to write their own blog posts.
  • Easy to install and set up.
  • Easy to optimize posts and pages.
  • Simple to understand suggestions for improvement.
  • The free version is great, and there are even more benefits from the paid versions.
  • I can't think of a thing — we love Yoast!
For beginner to intermediate users, Yoast is tough to beat. They even offer free training to help users better understand why the suggestions improve search engine visibility. The installation and setup wizards are easy to follow too.
As with any plugin, occasionally conflicts occur. That's just the nature of using plugins from different developers. However, the issues we've experienced with Yoast have been few and far between — maybe three issues in more than six years across 70+ sites.
It's stable. It's useful. Install it!
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
The Yoast WordPress SEO Plugin is being used as a marketing tool on our website. It reviews and "grades" pages and posts based on SEO and readability. It is a quick way to address SEO on pages.
  • This plugin is extremely easy to use. The interface is clean and simple. If you are at all familiar with the concepts of SEO, you shouldn't have a problem using this program.
  • With a simple toggle, this plugin will highlight areas within your text that need improvement. For example, if you write very long sentences, with a click of a button you can see which need attention.
  • The stoplight-type color coding is quick and easy to see how a page's SEO and readability are measured to industry standards.
  • As much as I like the highlighting of errors, as I fix one area I lose the highlight and have to scroll to the bottom and ask to show the highlights again.
The Yoast WordPress SEO Plugin is a great overall tool for search engine optimization. If you are new to SEO this is a great start to search engine optimization. The program knows the standard rules and scans your pages to see if your content, images, URL, etc. reflect standard practice. Divided into what you're doing well and what needs improvement, you will start to see what the rules of SEO are. If you are familiar with SEO, this tool with the paid premium version opens a greater amount of control over the page's optimization.
Linda Sasenick | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We are an affiliate for a primarily digital product. Web presence is practically the only entry into the sales funnel, so building traffic is fundamental. We use Yoast WordPress SEO plugins for all our blogging, because it encourages "best practices" for SEO - good SEO plus thoughtful keyword selections are the keys to getting traffic to the site.
  • SEO coaching - best practices for SEO are always in flux. Yoast gives step by step guidance for APPROPRIATE use of keywords in text, headings, subheadings, titles, and images. Yoast also provides reminders for other elements - outbound and internal links, customized meta and the like.
  • Readability analysis - Whether readability is essential to SEO, I'm not sure, however, I do believe good writing will provide a better guest experience, which helps entry into the sales funnel. Yoast provides a variety of analytics on readability, such as use of subheadings, sentence length, passive voice, reading ease, etc. Great discipline in becoming a better writer, and hopefully improving SEO!
  • Integration - Yoast "plays nice" with other tools! You can integrate Yoast with Google Search Console and your social media for a better, more comprehensive view of your traffic, your site, and your audience.
  • Great for beginners and experts alike - even if you had to google "SEO," Yoast is for you! It's easy to set up and walks you through everything you can and should be doing. As you get more advanced, it's highly customizable -- well, there's settings for advanced customization, I'm not an SEO expert, so I haven't gone there yet!
  • SEO is complex, and Yoast can seem a little overwhelming just going through all the options available. It would be nice if there were some help with prioritization - "this is essential," "this will is useful, but may only marginally improve your reach," or some other priority generalization.
  • Over-reliance on Yoast can be detrimental to your traffic! It's not entirely their fault, but, it's easy to "fall asleep at the wheel," and let your Yoast dashboard become your sole SEO adviser. Well, like every product, there are sometimes bugs and issues which can affect rankings, so, you have to be aware and make sure you also independently check your results!
  • Keyword research integration would be great - I don't know if it's available in the premium package, but, I still use my google adwords to research appropriate keywords
I don't mind getting in the weeds, a bit, and, it is easy to spend a lot of time in the early part of the SEO learning curve, "in the weeds." Unless you already know what are the most essential elements for your application, it's easy to find yourself spending more time learning than doing.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I use Yoast Wordpress SEO Plugins on our main website to help improve our SEO and to check-- whenever changes are made-- that our site is still all clear without errors.
  • Ease of operation -- Install the plug-in and follow their step-by-step instructions. It's really that easy.
  • Level of detail -- This plug-in will inform you when your page is not optimized, but also shows you the steps you need to correct the problems without any of the guesswork.
  • Plays well with WordPress -- I know this seems like a no-brainer, but it does not mess up your site. Yoast does a great job of making sure that their plug-in works correctly with the most current version of WordPress.
  • Can be a little too aggressive -- Sometimes you just don't need the level of detail that it recommends. And also sometimes even after completing their recommendations, it still kicks back errors.
  • The interface hasn't been updated in a while, so while it does work it is starting to look stale in comparison to similar products.
  • They could make it easier to change things site-wide.
Yoast is great for beginners like myself who know that they need to optimize their site for SEO but aren't sure how to get started or what to adjust. If you are an advanced user, you probably wouldn't like it very much (and probably wouldn't be using it anyway!) since it seems to do a good job at the basics, but lacks ways to adjust things on a more granular level. I am fine with that, but some may find that to be a deal breaker.
Liz Wade | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I am a professional freelance photographer. As such, SEO is extremely important to my business. Since I don't have a storefront or physical presence, I need to be found online by potential customers. My website is powered by WordPress, so I chose Yoast SEO to accomplish the task of boosting my online presence.
  • The biggest plus to me is how user-friendly the plugin is. I'm not very proficient in the area of web design and SEO, so having a plugin that is so powerful yet so easy to use is important. The snippet previews which show how a post will appear in a search engine make content-creating much more effective.
  • Yoast helps identify technical issues within my website. Web design, even within the WordPress platform, is very complicated, and I would not be able to identify problems, such as with indexing, on my own. These problems are clearly shown in my WordPress dashboard, so I never miss them and always have the opportunity to correct them.
  • Keywords are one of the most important factors when it comes to being found online. Yoast guides me through my posts by checking my content against the keywords I'm using, reminding me to include these keywords in specific areas and to use them the proper amount of times. It makes post-creating so much easier and I have more confidence in my writing.
  • While Yoast is an important tool to use when writing posts, its guidelines shouldn't always be followed 100%, since it is, after all, a plugin and not a human. The green "go" lights can be misleading. I always try to trust my instincts when Yoast is encouraging me to word a phrase in a way that I know is not best. Yoast is a guide, not a science.
  • With Yoast, it is possible to fall victim to keyword stuffing. It wants me to use a keyword a certain number of times, but it doesn't account for variations of that keyword I've already written that would be recognized in Google, such as the plural form, for example. So even though I've used a keyword in various forms the proper number of times, Yoast might not be giving me the green light yet, so I might stuff in more of that keyword, ultimately to the detriment of my post.
  • My last complaint about Yoast is that the plugin does not keep up with Google, which is a huge problem since I use Yoast precisely to boost my website's presence within Google. And, when it doubt, I don't find that I can turn to Yoast support for help because their customer service is truly lacking.
Yoast can be a powerful and easy tool to use to help boost your website's presence online. It guides you in your writing and warns you about technical problems within your website. However, it can actually be detrimental if you follow Yoast's guidelines exactly and shy away from your instincts as a human reader. You should use Yoast as a guide, but do not tailor your posts precisely to achieve the plugin's green light.
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