Yoast, an Important SEO Guide
December 13, 2018
Yoast, an Important SEO Guide
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Yoast Wordpress SEO Plugins
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.
- My main objective with Yoast is to boost my online presence. As a freelance photographer, I rely on online customers finding me, therefore increasing my sales. Effective blog posts are a major component in Google's search algorithms, so I do believe Yoast helps with this.
- I use the free version of Yoast, so I don't have to worry about investing anything other than my time. Luckily, the plugin is easy to use, and I'd be spending time writing content anyway - so I believe it only has a positive impact on my business.
- It is difficult as a person not super knowledgeable in web design to look at analytics and know for certain that Yoast is directly impacting my sales. The success of my business sales relies on high traffic to my website, and I do know that since I began implementing Yoast, my website has seen more traffic than in all previous years.
I don't know of any other plugins that do just what Yoast does.