Attract More Readers
I’m about to show you 4 ways Yoast connects readers to your posts. More specifically, I’m going to demonstrate 4 Yoast features that you can apply to any of your posts. Those 4 features give Google insights into your post’s content so it can better match a potential reader’s keyword search.
In my previous post called “Four Easy Steps to SEO: Readers First!“, I talked about the most important idea in all of SEO. That idea is really simple, but I see writers often lose sight of it. The idea is simply this:
You write for your readers.
The techniques I’ll show you with Yoast will fail utterly if you don’t take your readers into account. They are the center of our universe, and to the extent that you try to share your authentic voice with them, these techniques will help them find you.
What Results Can You Expect from Yoast Connects Readers to Your Posts?
Let’s get this out of the way: There are so many variables that I can’t promise or guarantee anything. What I can do is share my results. Back in early 2017, I reviewed the Blue Exorcist Kyoto Saga series. I knew even less than I do now about SEO, and it showed. When I used Chrome’s incognito mode to search for each of my episode reviews, they were nowhere to be found. As in, they weren’t in the first 13 pages of Google results.
I searched using this format:
Blue Exorcist Kyoto Saga Episode 1 Review
Not a single one of my 12 reviews were anywhere to be found in Google. The only thing that showed up was my episode guide for the series.
Yoast is a WordPress plugin. It helps you present your post in a way that Google can more easily ingest it — and present it to readers. You typically have to make very few changes to improve your SEO. In fact, in my video, I’ll show you a real-life example using my Blue Exorcist Kyoto Saga Episode 8 review. Yoast showed me clearly and quickly what I was doing wrong, and I’ll explain it to you in the video.
Did applying Yoast’s suggestions help? Well, after following Yoast’s suggestions, Episode 1’s review showed up on page 1, position 7 of Google’s results. A fluke? Well, episode 2 was even better at page 1, position 3. And episode 3? Page 1, position 2.
In my case, doing exactly what I show you how to do in the video worked very well.
Check Out the Video about How Yoast Connects Readers to Your Posts
Please let me know what you think. Have you used Yoast? Do you like it’s light-touch suggestions? Or have you found them to be problematic? Let me know in the comments!
Great Video thanks for sharing!
Now that I have seen the video the way a few bloggers break up their blogs make sense. I am still battling with my inner-non conformist who wants to just write things my own way and not deal with anything that would interrupt the flow. Perhaps I should see it as a way to enhance things.
Price isn’t bad, but I don’t know how much I want to put into the blogging hobby in terms of cash.
“I am still battling with my inner-non conformist who wants to just write things my own way and not deal with anything that would interrupt the flow.”
I hear ya! That probably contributed to me waiting so long to try Yoast. I was convinced it would try to make me change the way I write.
The good news is that Yoast doesn’t (generally speaking) touch my actual content. It affects headings, but any suggestions it gives for textual changes are based on sound rules of grammar. I should favor active tense, for example. I hope I conveyed that idea in the video!
“Price isn’t bad, but I don’t know how much I want to put into the blogging hobby in terms of cash.”
I’m using — and demonstrated — the free version of Yoast! So the price is perfect!
My wife is a social media expert, and she uses the professional version. But for my purposes, at least for now, the free version is working well.
If you decide to implement it, I’d love to hear how it helps your Google page position!
All right, Crow, I’m giving this a spin after reading your post. Honestly, I didn’t know this (or stuff like it) existed. Thanks for bringing Yoast to my attention!
I hope it works for you. I’d love to hear how well it work!
I was expecting you to caw at least once…
Good video. I’m pleased to say I do most of those, but there’s always room to improve.
“I was expecting you to caw at least once…”
LOL. Pretty sure I don’t have enough courage to pull that off!
“I’m pleased to say I do most of those, but there’s always room to improve.”
Do you use Yoast? Another plug in?
Most of the folks I know who use an SEO plugin use Yoast. I’m interested in hearing about other experiences.
Well, hearing about all experiences, but other plug ins in particular!
Yeah, I use Yoast too. I find my image searches are my big gains at the moment. I use series title, episode number and character names in my alt text. On Google image searches I tend to show up pretty high.
My posts are all broken into sections with headers and I try to keep them short so don’t need sub-headers.
Until now, I have been using my first paragraph as my Twitter section but I’m going to start using a custom field for that so that I can get a proper intro in.
Might test out the keyword in the headers too on a series. Seems like an interesting idea, although worried about aesthetics. Will test it on one of my least successful set of posts.
Yoast also doesn’t recognize links in reusable blocks so always flags me on that big I’m sure Google don’t care where the links are in the design of the page.
One thing I did read that isn’t related to Yoast was the number of images in a post can help with 10 being the magic number. I don’t know how true that is but if you’re using alt-text correctly it’s more chances to show up.
“I find my image searches are my big gains at the moment. I use series title, episode number and character names in my alt text.”
I think that’s a good idea.
“Until now, I have been using my first paragraph as my Twitter section but I’m going to start using a custom field for that so that I can get a proper intro in.”
Over the years, I’ve experimented with various. Right now, I’m using the meta description I feed to Google. It’s a little short, but it forces me to be succinct.
“Might test out the keyword in the headers too on a series. Seems like an interesting idea, although worried about aesthetics. ”
I worried about aesthetics, too. I think i’ve found a compromise; at least, I hope I have! I haven’t done a controlled sampling, but my impression is that the more specific headings seem to help my page ranking.
“One thing I did read that isn’t related to Yoast was the number of images in a post can help with 10 being the magic number. ”
I haven’t heard that, either, though I’ve heard all sorts of unusual things folks think help SEO. That’s why I like Yoast: It isn’t trying to game the system. Instead, it’s trying to work from within the system. Plus, it’s non-intrusive to the writing process. I tried to convey that idea in the video.
“One thing I did read that isn’t related to Yoast was the number of images in a post can help with 10 being the magic number. ”
My experience confirms that!
ooohhh video! Sweet. I’m going to try this
I’d love to know if any of the techniques work for you!