Yoast Review

Search engine optimization is critical when you’re trying to build your brand.

SEO is how you get exposure, traffic, and, hopefully, paying customers.

Yoast is a popular option that helps beginners and SEO experts discover ways to improve their business operations through higher rankings.

Our Yoast review is honest and presents all the details to help you decide if it’s the plugin for you.

What is Yoast?

Yoast is an optimization solution for businesses in need of SEO expertise.

The plugin can assist companies by helping them not only put out better content but keep their page ranking higher.

Yoast offers guidance and tools to fill the gaps in creating the best meta titles, descriptions, and relevant keywords.

Yoast also provides canonical URLs, search engine settings, redirects, internal linking support, and more.

How Does Yoast Work?

Simply put, The Yoast plugin scans your site from top to bottom using tools that check for any factors that will affect your SEO ranking positively or negatively.

It makes suggestions after analyzing your content, and these recommendations will help you to improve not only your SEO rank but your user’s experience.

You can even add keywords that Yoast will use to create a sitemap for you.

Yoast History

Created in 2010, Yoast SEO (originally called WordPress SEO) was a project initiated by Joost de Valk, who was a one-person army at the time.

As the plugin he created started being utilized by multiple websites and companies, he hired an official employee.

That was the birth of Yoast SEO, which is what he switched the name to in 2012.

Over ten million websites use Yoast SEO, and for the top one million sites worldwide, around 15 percent use Yoast to stay at the top of their industry.

There are more than five million current installations, and over 350 million downloads have occurred since its inauguration.

If you scour the comments on WordPress.org, you’ll see that Yoast has more than 25K 5-star reviews; that’s quite impressive!

There are now around 140 employees working on expanding and improving the company continually.

Pros and Cons of Yoast

Here are some of the notable advantages and disadvantages of using Yoast SEO:

Pros of Yoast

• Keyword optimization: You can type in your keywords, and Toasty will analyze whether they’re optimal in posts and pages where you’ve used them.
• Results previews: You’ll see how your page will show on the SERPs, allowing you to adjust the title and meta description to be more relevant and appealing to potential visitors.
• Readability: Yoast does a readability check on every page you publish to help you understand whether you should add elements like numbered lists, graphs, headers, break up the paragraphs, and more.
• Duplicate content checker: Yoast can detect whether there’s duplicate or redundant content on your page.
• Resources: The plugin offers many support articles, tutorials, and other educational resources compared to every other plugin developer.
• Automatic updates: The developers routinely update the tool around every two weeks.

Cons of Yoast

• Lack of automation: There aren’t many automatic features requiring a little more knowledge and expertise than manual tools.
• Constant updates: Some users dislike that there are constant updates to keep the plugin running smoothly.
• Bloated: The built-in XML sitemap generator causes excessive data usage as it produces new maps.
  It may make your site run slower.
• Doesn’t understand content intent: Since Yoast doesn’t score keyword usage based on what you intend to write and only focuses on exact keyword matches, it can lessen the quality of your writing.

How Much Does Yoast Cost?

Yoast is an expensive plugin, though they offer a free version with the many advanced features you need to get the most out of a virtual SEO consultant.

If you pay for the premium version, which costs $99/year for each website, this financial commitment can get costly.

They also offer an SEO plugin specifically for Shopify, costing each website $19/per year.

Lastly, you can pay for the plugin subscription, which costs $229/year, and it comes with five plugins, routine updates, access to tutorials, and much more.

Is Yoast Worth the Cost?

Though Yoast has outstanding reviews, we’d have to say that it may not be worth the cost for many businesses just starting, and even some of the larger ones.

Nearly $100 per website per year is quite expensive when there are less costly alternatives.

Why Yoast Isn’t Worth The Cost

The free version is good enough, as it contains most of the features you’ll need to see an immediate change in your SEO rankings.

Many notable websites and companies trust Yoast, which gives credence to the thousands of five-star reviews and its ranking as the most downloaded SEO plugin.

However, keep in mind that the customer service is also lacking with the free version, not to mention fewer updates.

It’s still one of the best choices for those who aren’t very familiar with SEO practices.

The Problem Yoast Solves

Poor SEO practices can have adverse effects on not only your website but your overall potential for success.

It can cause you to miss opportunities, harm your traffic flow, and create a mediocre user experience.

Why Would Somebody Want to Use Yoast?

The primary reasons to use Yoast are that you can add actual value to your customer’s journey, get a competitive edge over similar sites, and create optimized content.

When you have persuaded someone to choose your website over the competition, it’s likely because you’ve been able to answer their questions or pique their interest by targeting other topics relevant to your services and product.

When you appear in the SERP, you want to produce high-quality information with depth.

Nearly 70 percent of people’s online experiences start with a simple internet search.

Nailing the best SEO practices is vital, and it’ll help with better visibility and obtaining more meaningful traffic.

Who is Yoast Best For?

Yoast is perfect for small business owners and those needing expert services at a discounted price.

Why is Yoast Best for Small Businesses?

Yoast is best for small businesses because it is easy to use, and the tools it provides are valuable for small businesses that don’t have much room in the budget for SEO development.

The free version will help them to rank higher Immediately, driving more organic traffic to their site as they continue to grow and expand.

Who Should NOT Use Yoast?

Yoast isn’t for individuals or companies that rely on analytics tools and SEO content scoring.

Additionally, for SEO scores, the plugin continually makes suggestions that may lead to over-optimizing your site, and that doesn’t include partial keyword matches, only exact.

Why Companies Focused on Analytics Should Not Use Yoast

The company has made it clear that you can’t integrate with other analytics platforms because they don’t want to bloat their plugin by trying to implement that type of data which can make the tool-less responsive.

They should instead go with an SEO plugin such as Rank Math.

What To Think About Before Buying Yoast

Consider the following factors before buying Yoast:

1. Compatibility

It’s hard to find a plugin that incorporates every feature you’ll need and also doesn’t slow your site down.

More than likely, you’ll need several plugins that focus on different aspects to work together to create the best website possible.

Before choosing an SEO plugin, ensure that your work tools are compatible.

2. Price

The price is essential when you purchase a product, especially when you’re a small business just starting or haven’t begun to earn working capital yet and can’t afford monthly fees.

The price of your plugin depends on the available features and the number you require.

Some plugins offer free versions, so check to see if a free version is available so you can get started with an upgrade somewhere down the line.

3. Reviews

Remember to read the directory’s reviews and other services such as Trustpilot.

Reviews will give you insight into plugin practices as a company and a better idea of what level of product you’re thinking about buying.

A review can save time and money by directing you away from bad and stellar products.

4. Security

Choose a plugin compatible with the most recent version of WordPress and receive constant updates.

This factor lessens the chance that the plugin causes more harm than good for your website.

5. Customer Support

Quality plugins often provide exceptional customer support.

Conversely, free plugins receive support from ratings in the forums and directory.

The speed at which developers meet your request is integral and something you should note.

Features and Benefits of Yoast

Here are the top features that you’ll get when you choose Yoast as your WordPress SEO plugin:

1. Automated SEO

Yoast is a popular plugin that optimizes WordPress’s standard SEO functionality, improving it considerably.

It optimizes meta tags and links that search engines read to show search results to your users.

If your site isn’t well optimized, the plugin will suggest enabling permalinks.

Additionally, Yoast SEO enables you to control which pages will remain hidden and which ones will be displayed to the public—a great feature that can come in handy at some point.

2. Content Assistant and Page Analysis

After creating a new post, Yoast can track your work and propose new ways to improve your post in real-time.

For example, your plugin can assess whether you used a keyword correctly.

Yoast plugin will also take it a step further and suggest a more appropriate and effective headline; you will receive a notification alerting you to ways to enhance writing elements to increase the chances of your article ranking well in the search results.

Alerts may resemble suggestions that propose rewriting a sentence or two that are too long.

While you’re choosing titles and descriptions, Yoast SEO will preview the snippet.

Consequently, you’ll have the option to simulate a search engine result before going public with the post.

This feature is fantastic because it allows you to get an idea of what the results will look like before the work is complete.

3. Hide Content or Allow Access for Search Engines

When you create an advertising campaign, you don’t always want your landing page to appear in search results.

Yoast SEO allows you to make no-indexes for pages you would instead not have indexed.

Therefore, search engines will not index such pages.

Moreover, you can hide archives on no-index categories, single-author blogs, archive pages, and tags.

With Yoast SEO, you can add canonical link elements to every part of your website.

As a result, search engines will analyze this information and decide which links to index.

More specifically, content from your blog posts will inevitably find its way onto your archive pages.

A Yoast SEO post on your archive page will have a canonical link that directs you to the original post; this increases the visibility of your post to Google.

4. Multiple Keywords

The Yoast SEO Premium plan allows you to set five focus keywords.

When trying to drum up more traffic for your site, having the ability to focus on multiple keywords can drive more traffic to your site.

So while your content may seem search optimized, the content may not be valuable to your users.

If you Google two keywords, the same results will show for both.

To optimize your keywords, ensure that you incorporate your primary keyword as an exact match and designate the secondary keyword as a partial match.

Remember to place pieces of your secondary phrase over your snippet and content.

5. Use Social Media Previews to Increase Your Social Media Engagement

When a post contains too many images, there’s a good chance that you might select the wrong one.

The goal of a post is to make it as appealing as possible to draw readers to your blog.

Yoast SEO Premium gives you a leg up in this regard by allowing you to see how your post will look on Twitter and Facebook without having to visit those sites.

All you have to do is upload the image you want to show in the Yoast SEO meta box.

Yoast Customer Service

If the plugin seems to malfunction, you may have to ask for assistance to resolve the problem.

If the program isn’t updating, working as intended, or you need help understanding how to navigate it, you’ll have access to great support with the premium version.

Does Yoast Offer Customer Service?

Unfortunately, the Yoast free plugin doesn’t offer any support.

That’s because it would be impractical to provide free support to hundreds of thousands of users worldwide.

What Types of Customer Service Does Yoast Offer?

There are extensive tutorials and documentation that come with the Yoast SEO plugin.

All of the plugin’s features have instructions you display on-screen when you use the plugin’s admin panel.

Additionally, you’ll find the SEO principles written on the plugin author’s WordPress site to offer clarity and assistance.

Many guides and tutorials online are made by other users for Yoast SEO because it’s such a popular WordPress plugin.

Why Should You Trust Us?

We understand how integral SEO is to a business, whether a startup or a seasoned company.

Staying relevant and being visible online is essential to the continued growth of any business.

Yoast dedicates itself to providing the tools they need to flourish.

We’ve evaluated their plugin for ease of use and efficacy, scoured the web for customer reviews, and reviewed case studies to get empirical evidence so we could present the facts.

What Yoast Users are Saying

Yoast users state that they are satisfied “beyond belief” with the tool.

One user stated that Yoast helped him reach number one in search results for many of the terms they prioritized.

Another user stated that even the free version of Yoast provided him with lots of tools and resources to optimize his content.

A Premium user stated that they’ve been using Yoast for eight years and experienced a quadruple increase in traffic from previous years.

Yoast Alternatives

While Yoast is undoubtedly the most popular, here are a few alternatives that are top competitors, for a good reason.

They each have a lot to offer that may make you consider them over Yoast for one reason or another.

1. Rank Math

Rank Math is a fairly new plugin developed in 2018.

It has countless features and SEO tools (maybe more than any plugin listed in this Yoast review), and it all comes at an affordable price.

Top features include Google Search Console and Analytics integration, and XML sitemap.

How Does Rank Math Differ From Yoast?

The primary difference between Rank Math and Yoast SEO is that Rank Math offers multiple features for free that you have to pay for with Yoast.

For example, the internal link suggestions, redirect management, analyzing various keywords, and more are free with Rank Math.

The packages are also more affordable with Rank Math.

For a further breakdown of the similarities and differences between the two companies, check out our Rank Math vs Yoast comparison.

Who is Rank Math Best For?

Rank Math is the best SEO plugin for anyone beginning to build their website, and they appreciate many features at a low price.

2. SEOPress

SEOPress is also pretty young, having just arrived in 2017.

It’s a powerful yet straightforward plugin that gives you all the best features.

Expect to increase your ranking with open graph support, XML sitemaps, meta titles, image sitemaps, redirects, internal linking, and more.

How Does SEOPress Differ From Yoast?

SEOPress costs less than Yoast’s paid subscriptions and has more website capabilities.

Yoast’s premium features also require multiple licenses, which you don’t have to worry about with SEOPress.

You can also use SEOPress with white labeling and Woocommerce integrations.

Who is SEOPress Best For?

SEOPress is the best choice for site owners redesigning their pages to promote a more meaningful user experience.

It’s also great for large corporations that want to remain at the top, easily managing high traffic and massive amounts of content.

3. All in One SEO Pack

All in One SEO makes SEO easy for any experience level, and they’ve been doing it since 2007.

This comprehensive plugin offers social media integration, XML sitemaps, optimized metà titles, content analyses, and more.

How Does All in One SEO Pack Differ From Yoast?

Compared to Yoast, AIO SEO gives you more control over most of its features, and the user experience may be slightly better.

It depends on how familiar you already are with SEO practices.

Due to the issue of understanding content, AIO SEO will likely be better for enabling your website to produce more organic and relevant rankings on Google.

Who is All in One SEO Pack Best For?

AIO SEO saves you time and money if you’re a small or local business that relies heavily on online search rankings for revenue and sales.

If you’re new to the world of SEO and optimization solutions, go for AIO SEO to make it easier to learn as you go.

Yoast SEO vs Rank Math vs SEOPress vs AIOSEO

Wrapping Up

Yoast SEO optimizes your content by offering a variety of resources and services that can ensure you’re providing the best to your customers and potential clients.

Yoast is the most popular SEO plugin for a reason.

You can undoubtedly improve your website with their readability checker and XML sitemap alone without paying a dime.

Rank Math is an excellent alternative that offers a free version with similar features and a few extras.

Their paid version is also around $40 less, with nearly the same features as Yoast’s premium version.

Either Yoast or any of their alternative on the list, especially Rank Math, will do wonders for the visibility of your website.

Since Yoast offers a free plan with great support, we suggest giving it a try first to determine if it produces the necessary results as it has for millions of other site owners.

By Brett Helling

Brett has been starting, growing, and monetizing websites since 2014. While in college, he began to learn about digital marketing. After graduating, he continued to build a diverse portfolio of websites while working a full time job. After years of building the portfolio on the side, he made the jump to run his websites full time.