Here’s my step-by-step guide when using WordPress SEO by Yoast.I used this resource: How to Install and Setup WordPress SEO Plugin by Yoast, the most complete, all-in-one SEO solution.
General Settings:
- Check “Use meta keywords” tag. This will allow you to see the Meta Keywords in the post edit panel.
- Webmaster Tools: We add the Verification Meta Code here.
- Title Settings: Check “Force rewrite titles.”
- Based upon your/our keyword research, we will define the title for our homepage and then the title templates for post, page and attachments.
- Indexation: Click author archives, date-based archives, tag archives, disable the author archives.
- XML Sitemap: Click Enable XML, Ping Yahoo, Ping Ask.com.
- Permalinks: Click Enforce trailing slash, redirect attachment URLs.
- Internal Links Settings: Enable breadcrumbs.
- RSS Feed. The feeds should never be indexed. Also, we are already pinging search engines when a new post is published, so no need to have that option.
Just installing and setting up this plugin is not enough. In order for you to really maximize the benefit of this plugin, you need to really customize the settings on per post basis. Now this would not be a chore if you do it everytime you write a post. Let’s take a look at how you can maximize the benefits by customizing.
What about the Meta Description tag? Read this
Want to know about keywords? Read this
Want to know about Title Tags? Read this
Want to dig deeper? Try this post from sEOmoz.org