How to Install WordPress SEO Plugin by Yoast

Step 9: RSS Settings

Joost added the functionality of another one of his plugins—RSS Footer—to this plugin to give you full SEO advantage. The feature allows you to add backlinks to yourself in your feed content. There are options to add your post link, site link, and site description. Get creative. Use the RSS Footer to feature a bonus download to your subscribers, advertise your new video or simply state the post came from your site.

Step 10: Export Settings

You spent a lot of time getting these settings just right, so you might want to export the settings as Backup (just in case something gets wonky in the future). You can also export settings as a guideline for your other sites you are going to integrate with this plugin.

NOTE: There is an Edit tab below the Import & Export section, but I do not cover it in this post.

Step 11: Customizing and Maximizing the Benefit

Just installing and setting up this plugin is not enough. To really maximize the SEO benefit of this plugin you need to optimize the settings on each post.

WordPress SEO for Individual Posts and Pages

On the editor page for each post and page there is now a box called WordPress SEO by Yoast which has data fields such as SEO Title and Meta Description. Get in the habit of optimizing each title and meta description to maximize the benefit of search engine optimization instead of letting WordPress auto-generate the content. It is okay for your post title and your SEO title to be different. Take time to write a custom Meta Description unless the first 170 characters are keyword rich and optimized for your audience. You can also customize the Breadcrumbs title if you click on the Advanced button.

WordPress SEO for Archives (Category / Author / Tags)

You can choose to override the Title Templates we created in Step 5. Simply edit any category, tag, or author to see the WordPress SEO settings added.

We hope we covered every aspect of this plugin. If we missed anything, please let us know in the comments. (The plugin has been updated, so some of the screen shots may vary.)