Yoast SEO is the most popular WordPress SEO plugin. Most bloggers install it, run through the configuration wizard once, and never look at the advanced settings. Those advanced settings are where the real SEO wins (and losses) hide. This post is what to actually change.

Short answer: Configure the search appearance per content type, set noindex on tag and date archives (most blogs), enable breadcrumbs, configure social images, set canonical URLs correctly, and verify the XML sitemap is being submitted. Skip the keyword traffic light obsession.
Yoast SEO settings dashboard in WordPress admin

The traffic-light trap

Yoast’s red/orange/green dots for each post pull most users’ attention. They’re the least important part of the plugin.

Google does not care about Yoast’s green dot. The traffic light measures keyword density, paragraph length, and other 2014-era heuristics. Write naturally for humans. A red dot doesn’t mean a post won’t rank.

Ignore the lights. Focus on the settings below.

Search Appearance: the most important section

SEO → Search Appearance. This is where you configure how each content type appears in Google.

Content Types tab

For each post type (Posts, Pages, custom types):

  • Show in search results: Yes for posts and pages. No for any internal/admin custom post types.
  • SEO title template: usually %%title%% %%page%% %%sep%% %%sitename%%. Keeps post title first.
  • Meta description template: leave blank — manually write per post.
  • Schema page type: “Web Page” for pages, “Article” for posts (or “Blog Posting” for blog posts).

Taxonomies tab

For categories and tags:

  • Categories — show in search results: Yes. Category archives are useful landing pages.
  • Tags — show in search results: Usually No. Most tag archives are thin content that competes with category archives.

The tag archive default of “indexed” creates duplicate-content-like issues on most blogs. Set to noindex unless you’ve deliberately built out rich tag pages.

Archives tab

  • Author archives: Disable entirely on single-author blogs (the archive duplicates the homepage). Enable but noindex on multi-author blogs unless you want author SEO.
  • Date archives: Disable. They duplicate content and rarely rank usefully.

Breadcrumbs

SEO → Search Appearance → Breadcrumbs. Enable.

Breadcrumbs help users and Google understand site hierarchy. They also generate breadcrumb schema, which Google sometimes displays in search results.

Add the breadcrumb code to your theme (or use a Yoast block / shortcode). Most modern themes support it natively.

Social: Open Graph and Twitter cards

SEO → Social. Two important settings:

  • Default social image: Set a site-wide fallback image (1200x630px). When you share a post without a featured image, this image is used.
  • Per-post social images: The Social tab on each post lets you set custom OG and Twitter card images. For high-traffic posts, customize these.

The default behavior (using the featured image) is usually fine. The per-post customization matters when the featured image isn’t optimized for social sharing aspect ratios.

Yoast social settings panel showing default OG image upload

XML sitemaps

SEO → General → Features → XML Sitemaps. Enable (default).

Your sitemap is at yourdomain.com/sitemap_index.xml. Submit this URL in Google Search Console.

Verify:

  • Posts are in the sitemap.
  • Pages are in the sitemap.
  • Categories are in the sitemap (if indexed).
  • Tag archives are NOT in the sitemap (if you noindex’d them).

Yoast handles sitemap inclusion based on your noindex settings automatically. Sanity-check anyway.

Canonical URLs

The canonical URL tag tells Google which URL is the “official” version of a page when duplicates exist (e.g., trailing slash vs no slash, www vs non-www).

Yoast sets canonicals automatically. You can override per post in the Yoast post settings (Advanced tab → Canonical URL).

When to override:

  • You republished a post on Medium and want Google to credit your blog. Set the Medium copy’s canonical to your blog post.
  • You have a series of near-duplicate posts and want one to be canonical.
  • You’re migrating content and want to consolidate signals.

Don’t override casually. Wrong canonicals tank rankings.

Advanced settings per post

On each post, the Yoast meta box has an Advanced tab:

  • Allow search engines to show this post: Yes (default). Set to No to noindex a specific post (legal pages, thin pages).
  • Should search engines follow links: Yes (default). Affects whether outbound links pass PageRank.
  • Meta robots advanced: Additional directives like noimageindex, nosnippet. Rarely needed.
  • Canonical URL: see above.

Internal linking suggestions

Yoast Premium offers internal linking suggestions while you write. As you type, it suggests existing posts to link to.

Internal linking is one of the highest-ROI SEO activities. If you have Premium, use this. If you don’t, manually link to related posts as you publish.

Cornerstone content

Mark your most important posts as “cornerstone content” in the Yoast meta box.

Effects:

  • Yoast Premium internal linking suggests these posts more often.
  • Cornerstone posts get stricter readability analysis (they should be flagship-quality).
  • Helps you mentally organize what your pillar content is.

Schema settings

Yoast generates schema markup automatically. Verify:

  • Your About page has its schema type set to “About Page.”
  • Your Contact page has “Contact Page.”
  • Your blog posts use Article or BlogPosting (configurable in Content Types tab).

You can override per post if a specific post should use a different schema type (e.g., a recipe post should use Recipe schema — usually via a recipe plugin that adds its own schema, not Yoast).

Webmaster tools verification

SEO → General → Webmaster Tools. Paste verification codes for Google Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools, Yandex.

This is an alternative to dropping verification meta tags directly into your theme. Easier and survives theme changes.

RSS feed customization

SEO → Search Appearance → RSS. Add a backlink to your post at the end of every RSS item.

Why: content scrapers republish your RSS. The backlink at the bottom means scrapers automatically include a link back to your site, which can actually help SEO from the scraped copies.

Settings to leave alone

  • Readability analysis tweaks — useless.
  • Keyword density settings — irrelevant.
  • Most “Tools” features unless specifically needed.

Yoast Premium vs free

The free version does 90% of what most bloggers need.

Premium adds:

  • Internal linking suggestions.
  • Multiple keyword optimization per post.
  • Redirect manager.
  • Social previews.
  • Workouts (guided multi-step SEO tasks).

The redirect manager alone is worth Premium for many bloggers — it tracks 404s and lets you redirect them without editing .htaccess.

Premium is $99/year. Worth it if you’re growing actively. Skip if you’re just starting.

Yoast vs Rank Math vs SEOPress

Yoast is the most popular. Rank Math has more features in free tier. SEOPress is lighter and faster. All work fine. The plugin choice matters less than configuring whichever you use correctly.

The honest summary

Yoast’s defaults work but leave SEO wins on the table. Configure search appearance per content type, noindex tag and date archives, enable breadcrumbs, set default social images, verify your sitemap is submitted, and use cornerstone marking on flagship posts. Ignore the traffic lights. The advanced settings are where the actual SEO lives.