Scroll to the bottom of the post. When the Yoast plugin is installed, you’ll see some SEO fields that need to be filled. Type in an SEO title and meta description for the blog post. Yoast uses green highlight under these fields to indicate that you’re within the ideal character count. If it’s orange, you’ll need to decrease the length of the text in these fields.

When you save the post as a draft, it automatically fills out the “slug” field. But you can also go into the slug and tweak the keywords to better optimize the blog post link. For instance, you can add the location you’re targeting or popular keywords in the slug.

Add a focus keyword for your post. Yoast will offer suggestions for improving your copy. On the right side of the post, navigate to the “categories” section. Select the category or categories that best fit your post. That way this post will come up in search results when readers are sifting through your blogs by category. Set featured image. Add “alt text” which is a basic description of what the picture is of. Next, enter a title for the image. These two fields are great for SEO. (NOTE: Make sure any other images you use in the post are optimized this way, as well.) Include hyperlinks in the post. These are a great tool for connecting readers to other useful resources on your website, whether it’s a previously written blog or downloadable content on a similar topic. (Bonus tip: Here’s how to fix broken links in WordPress to further boost your blogs’ SEO.)