Is Yoast SEO Premium Worth It?

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Yoast SEO Premium offers advanced features that can significantly improve your website's search engine rankings and user experience.

The tool allows for internal linking suggestions, which can help you create a more cohesive and navigable site structure.

With Yoast SEO Premium, you can also get insights into your website's readability, helping you optimize your content for better comprehension.

This feature alone can make a big difference in how well your content resonates with your audience.

Features and Functionality

Yoast SEO Premium offers a range of advanced features that can help take your website's SEO to the next level. One of the key features is keyword optimization, which allows you to optimize your content for specific keywords.

You can use many features of the plugin for free, including meta title, meta description, snippet preview, and limited readability analysis. However, if you want more advanced features, you'll need to upgrade to the premium version.

Some of the premium features include multiple focus keywords, social snippet previews, internal linking suggestions, and a redirect manager. These features can help you optimize your website's structure and content for search engine visibility.

Here's a comparison of the free and premium versions of Yoast SEO:

Overall, the premium version of Yoast SEO offers a range of advanced features that can help improve your website's SEO.

Page Preview

Credit: youtube.com, Why is THIS the Perfect Homepage?

Page Preview is a useful feature that allows you to see how your page will look when shared on social media. You can use the "share" option in Yoast's social tab to see a default image.

The default image probably doesn't look good, but you can upload a custom image to improve it. To do this, enable Facebook and Twitter meta data in Yoast's social settings, and then upload an image with the correct dimensions for each platform.

The correct dimensions for Facebook are 1200 x 630px, and for Twitter are 1024 x 512px. Once you upload these images, your content will format perfectly on these social networks.

If you still want to see a preview, you can copy the page's URL and paste it into a Facebook or Twitter status.

Control Over Breadcrumbs

Yoast SEO Premium gives you full control over your breadcrumbs, which is a game-changer for website organization and user experience.

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Credit: pexels.com, Close-up of a camera placed on brown paper with 'Social Media Marketing' text, emphasizing digital marketing themes.

You can set a primary category for your post and determine the taxonomy, which helps search engines understand your content's structure.

With Yoast SEO Premium, you can easily manage your breadcrumbs and make sure they're accurate and up-to-date.

Here are some key features of Yoast SEO Premium's breadcrumb control:

  • Set a primary category for your post
  • Determine the taxonomy

This level of control helps you create a clear hierarchy of content on your website, making it easier for both users and search engines to navigate.

Internal Linking Suggestions

Internal linking suggestions are a powerful tool in Yoast Premium, allowing you to optimize your website's structure and content for search engine visibility.

This feature suggests relevant internal links on your website as you write, making it easier to create a web of trust among your different pages.

Yoast's internal linking tool is designed to automate suggestions without compromising quality, recognizing the importance of impeccable site architecture for search engine ranking.

As your site grows, manually selecting links can become cumbersome, but Yoast's tool addresses this by suggesting relevant content as you write.

Credit: youtube.com, The internal linking suggestions tool in Yoast SEO Premium | Yoast SEO features explained

This tool leverages the Insights feature, which identifies the most prominent words in a post, ensuring that the suggested links are contextually apt.

You can use the internal link feature to link all your internal site pages, improving SEO and site crawling.

Internal links help your website rank better in search and allow Google to get your site pages indexed faster.

This feature is especially useful for larger websites, such as blogs, eCommerce websites, and directories.

Here are some benefits of Yoast's internal linking suggestions:

  • Contextually accurate link suggestions.
  • Fortifies the site’s structural SEO.

Other plugins might hint at similar linkages, but Yoast's context-aware engine often leads the race.

The visual interface in Yoast aids in making swift decisions.

Redirect Manager

The Redirect Manager in Yoast SEO Premium is a game-changer for website owners. It automatically creates redirects when content is moved or deleted, ensuring that users and search engines are seamlessly directed from old URLs to new ones.

This feature is especially useful for avoiding 404 errors, which can be frustrating for users and detrimental to SEO. With the Redirect Manager, you can avoid these dead-ends and have a great workflow.

Credit: youtube.com, The redirect manager in Yoast SEO Premium | Yoast SEO features explained

You can also use the Redirect Manager to import existing redirects from other plugins or .htaccess files. This is a convenient feature that saves you time and effort.

The Redirect Manager offers flexibility with various types of redirects, including 301 (permanent) redirects, 302 (found) redirects, and 307 redirects. You can also use REGEX redirects to redirect a whole group of URLs that contain a specific word or phrase.

Here are the pros and cons of the Redirect Manager:

  • Allows you to import redirects from Redirection Plugin and .htaccess
  • Comes with multiple redirect options: 301 (default), 302, 307, 410, 451
  • Existing redirects from other plugins must be added manually
  • You can only setup 1 redirect at a time
  • If you have to import redirects manually, you get a notification every time you add a redirect (gets annoying)

Overall, the Redirect Manager is a powerful feature that simplifies the process of managing redirects on your website.

Focus Keyword Export

The Focus Keyword Export feature is a game-changer for SEO audits. It gives you an extra option in the Yoast settings to export all your focus keywords, each page's SEO/readability score, and some additional SEO information.

This can save you a ton of time if you're doing an SEO audit and want to review your entire keyword list. Otherwise, you can simply go through each page and review its keyword(s).

Credit: youtube.com, Linkilo - Focus Keyword Feature

I admit to never having used Yoast's premium support, but I've heard mixed opinions about it. They won't configure the plugin for you or review your website – those are all paid services they offer.

Optimizing your keywords can improve the relevance of your pages and posts in searches and make sure that visitors find what they're looking for.

Edit Meta Tags / Auto-Generating Rules

Meta tags are snippets of code that provide additional information to search engine crawlers. They can help improve your SEO performance on each page. Yoast SEO Premium allows you to edit meta tags and set auto-generating rules.

You can add relevant meta tags to your pages and posts to help search engines understand their content. This is especially useful for improving your SEO performance on each page.

Meta tags can include information like descriptions, keywords, and titles. With Yoast SEO Premium, you can easily create and edit meta tags for each page or post on your website.

Improving Xml Sitemaps

Credit: youtube.com, SEO Tutorial - XML sitemaps for search engines

Yoast SEO helps users create XML sitemaps for all their web pages, ensuring that search engine crawlers have a comprehensive view of their entire site.

Enabling XML Sitemaps in Yoast is a straightforward process, and you can also customize sitemap entries by setting limits on the number of sitemap entries and even add external sitemaps.

Customizing sitemap entries is crucial for expansive websites with complex hierarchies, as it allows you to determine which content types appear in the sitemap and ensure only relevant content is indexed.

Large sitemaps are also split up for faster performance, and Yoast SEO allows users to integrate their sitemap with Google Search Console to monitor its status and any potential issues.

By submitting a sitemap through the Search Console, you can help Google discover your site pages and improve your site's visibility.

Here are some key features of Yoast's XML sitemap feature:

  • Automatic sitemap updates with every content addition
  • The sitemaps are structured to give a general overview
  • Integration with Google Search Console

Yoast offers simplicity but at the expense of depth and detail, making it a great option for smaller websites but potentially limiting for larger ones.

Features Review

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Yoast SEO offers a range of features to help optimize your website's content and structure.

The free version provides essential SEO features, including meta title and description, snippet preview, and limited readability analysis.

The premium version takes it to the next level with advanced features like keyword optimization, content insights, and internal linking suggestions.

One of the key differences between the free and premium versions is the ability to use multiple focus keywords, which is only available in the premium version.

Here's a comparison of the two versions:

The premium version also offers advanced features like content analysis and redirect manager, which can help improve your website's user experience and search engine visibility.

Insights

You can get a comprehensive automated SEO audit feature in the paid version of Yoast SEO, which helps to identify any issues and opportunities for improvement on a website.

This feature can be incredibly useful in ensuring that all technical aspects of the site are properly optimized for maximum visibility.

Credit: youtube.com, Yoast SEO Premium | Features of the Premium plugin explained

The free Yoast SEO version only allows you to input one keyword in the focus keyword area, while the premium version provides an in-depth analysis of a website's content and guidance on how to ensure that it is properly optimized for visibility.

Yoast Premium provides insights into different aspects of SEO, such as keyword research and optimizing content for visibility. It also offers guidance on optimizing a website's internal linking structure and creating high-quality content that is likely to be found by the right people.

The Yoast SEO content analysis tool critically examines the readability and SEO aspects of your content, ensuring that your content is user-friendly and optimized for search engines.

Here are some key insights you can get from the Yoast SEO content analysis tool:

  • Readability analysis focuses on the text's structure, sentence length, use of passive voice, and overall ease of reading.
  • SEO analysis checks for the presence of the focus keyphrase in various sections of your content, such as the SEO title, meta description, URL, and body text.

SEO Optimization

SEO Optimization is a crucial aspect of Yoast SEO, and it's a key factor in determining whether Yoast SEO Premium is worth it. The tool offers a one-focus-keyword approach for on-page optimization, which helps search engine crawlers understand what a page is about.

Credit: youtube.com, The Best WordPress SEO Plugins (It’s Not Yoast)

Yoast SEO also provides a readability check, which ensures that the content is easy to read and understand for website visitors. This is a vital aspect of SEO, as it directly impacts user experience.

In addition to readability, Yoast SEO offers a content analysis and optimization feature, which provides an in-depth analysis of a website's content and guidance on how to ensure that it is properly optimized for visibility. This includes making sure that relevant keywords are used in the correct context, which is essential for improving the relevance of your pages and posts in searches.

Here are some key features of Yoast SEO's SEO optimization:

  • One focus keyword for on-page optimization
  • Readability check
  • Content analysis and optimization
  • XML sitemap creator

These features are essential for improving the visibility of your website and driving more traffic to your pages.

Keyword Optimization Helper

Keyword Optimization Helper is a crucial tool in SEO optimization. It helps search engine crawlers understand what a page is about, and optimizing your keywords can improve the relevance of your pages and posts in searches.

Credit: youtube.com, On-Page SEO Pt 2: How to Optimize a Page for a Keyword - 2.2. SEO Course by Ahrefs

Yoast Premium allows you to choose up to 3 focus keywords in a single post, which helps to rank for multiple keywords in a single post.

A keyword optimization helper on WordPress will allow you to identify potential keywords that could be used on your pages and posts.

To optimize your keywords effectively, you should analyze the content on your website to ensure that it meets all of the relevant guidelines and standards for SEO and is easy to understand and read.

Yoast Premium provides an in-depth analysis of a website's content and guidance on how to ensure that it is properly optimized for visibility.

Here are some key features of Yoast's keyword optimization helper:

  • Focus Keyphrase Selection: Determine your primary focus keyphrase, which should stem from thorough keyword research.
  • SEO Analysis for Keyphrase: Check for the presence of the focus keyphrase in critical areas of your content, such as the SEO title, introductory paragraph, URL, and body text.
  • Optimization Recommendations: Get feedback on your use of the focus keyphrase, including recommendations on where to include it and how to strike a balance for optimal SEO performance.

By concentrating on a focus keyphrase and its strategic placement, Yoast SEO aids in fine-tuning your content to enhance its visibility and ranking potential in search engines.

Google Search Console

Google Search Console is a powerful tool that helps you understand how your website performs in search engine results pages (SERPs). It provides detailed data and insights on your website's visibility and rankings.

Credit: youtube.com, Google Search Console Tutorial: Rank #1 on Google (Tips & Strategies)

Yoast SEO Premium integrates with Google Search Console, allowing you to access this valuable data and take necessary steps to improve your website's performance. This integration helps you quickly identify any issues affecting your website's performance.

By optimizing your content and using Yoast SEO Premium, you can improve your website's visibility and SERP rankings.

Canonical URLs

Canonical URLs are a crucial aspect of SEO optimization, and they help search engines identify duplicate content on different web pages.

This is to fix canonical SEO errors by eliminating potential conflicts between multiple page versions and helping search engines index the correct version.

Yoast Free SEO version makes it easy to set canonical URLs for each page or post, ensuring the most relevant version of the post is indexed by search engine crawlers.

By doing so, webmasters are not penalized for duplicate content, which is a common issue that can negatively impact search engine rankings.

XML Sitemaps

Credit: youtube.com, XML Sitemap SEO Optimization (Create, Optimize & Submit to Google)

XML sitemaps are an important part of SEO as they help search engine crawlers quickly and easily find all the pages on your website.

By creating XML sitemaps, you can ensure that search engine crawlers have a comprehensive view of your entire site, making it easier for them to index all the content on your site.

You will not get organic traffic if Google does not index your pages, so it's essential to submit a sitemap to help Google discover your site pages.

Google can still crawl and index pages without submitting a sitemap, but it's recommended to always submit a sitemap to make the process easier.

With the Yoast SEO plugin, you can easily generate XML sitemaps for all your pages, and it's one of the best sitemap plugins for WordPress.

Publishing a new page or post will automatically include it in the XML sitemap, making it a convenient feature to have enabled.

Once you've enabled the XML Sitemap feature, the plugin will notify the search engines whenever a new post or page is published, keeping them up-to-date with your latest content.

6. Rss Feeds

Credit: youtube.com, Off page SEO RSS Feed Submission

Having a well-optimized RSS feed is a great way to syndicate your content across multiple platforms and websites.

Yoast SEO helps users create RSS feeds for each page on their website, allowing them to distribute their content more efficiently.

This can help improve your site's visibility and its content across multiple platforms, helping to boost traffic levels and visibility.

By syndicating your content through RSS feeds, you can reach a wider audience and increase engagement with your online presence.

Yoast SEO makes it easy to create and manage RSS feeds, so you can focus on creating high-quality content that resonates with your target audience.

Comprehensive Feature Evaluation

Yoast SEO Premium offers a range of features that can significantly improve your website's search engine ranking and overall performance. The free version of Yoast SEO is a great starting point, but it lacks some essential features that can take your SEO efforts to the next level.

Credit: youtube.com, Yoast SEO Premium | Features of the Premium plugin explained

The premium version includes features like multiple focus keywords, social snippet previews, and internal link suggestions, which can help you optimize your content more effectively. This is particularly useful for larger websites with complex structures.

One of the standout features of Yoast SEO Premium is its content analysis tool, which provides insights into your content's readability and quality. This can help you identify areas for improvement and make data-driven decisions about your content strategy.

Here's a comparison of the free and premium versions of Yoast SEO:

As you can see, the premium version offers a range of advanced features that can help you optimize your website's content and structure. These features can be particularly useful for larger websites or those with complex SEO needs.

Yoast SEO Premium also includes a redirect manager, which can help you manage and create redirects more efficiently. This can be a huge time-saver and can also help improve your website's user experience.

In terms of pricing, Yoast SEO Premium costs $99 per year, which is a relatively affordable price considering the range of features it offers.

Cost and Value

Credit: youtube.com, Top Tips for Using Yoast SEO Premium

Upgrading to Yoast SEO Premium costs $99 a year, or roughly $8 a month, which might not be a lot compared to some tools, but the cost-to-value ratio isn't the best.

Several free alternatives do nearly the same thing, making you wonder if Yoast SEO Premium is worth the investment.

Yoast SEO Premium charges $99/year for its premium version per site, with a catch: there's no multi-site package in its standard pricing, implying that if you're managing several sites, the cost multiplies rapidly.

For example, managing 5 sites costs $495/year, and 10 sites costs $990/year, which can accumulate rapidly for agencies or professionals managing multiple projects.

Rank Math's PRO Plan, priced at $5.75/month, caters to unlimited personal websites, offering substantial value, especially when overseeing multiple client websites.

Here's a comparison of the costs for managing multiple sites:

Considering future expansion, if there's potential for you to manage more sites in the future, Yoast might not be the most economical in the long run.

The cost multiplication with Yoast can exceed that of All in One SEO or Rank Math, especially if you're running multiple sites, making it essential to weigh the features against the cost.

Melba Kovacek

Writer

Melba Kovacek is a seasoned writer with a passion for shedding light on the complexities of modern technology. Her writing career spans a diverse range of topics, with a focus on exploring the intricacies of cloud services and their impact on users. With a keen eye for detail and a knack for simplifying complex concepts, Melba has established herself as a trusted voice in the tech journalism community.

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