How to Edit Meta Tags on WordPress Using Yoast

So, you have yourself a WordPress website and you’d like to increase the amount of organic traffic you are getting. Does that sound about right?  WordPress is a great CMS used by millions of websites and businesses around the world. And, the benefits of WordPress are endless, from its built-in blogging platform to the ability to create a free eCommerce store or a business website.

But once your website is built, how do you make it appear in Google for the keywords you are searching for? How do you drive organic traffic to your website?

This is where search engine optimization or SEO comes in to play. SEO is the process of optimizing your website to appear for specific targeted keywords to increase the amount of organic traffic your website receives. So, how do you optimize your WordPress website for SEO?

How to Add the Yoast WordPress Plugin

Yoast is a free WordPress plugin that helps to easily add metadata to your WordPress website. We recommend adding the Yoast plugin to your WordPress website.

1. Login to the WordPress admin dashboard.
2. Click Plugins in the menu on the left.

3. Click Add New.

4. Search Yoast or Upload the Plugin.
5. Click the Install Now button next to Yoast SEO.

6. Then click Activate.

Yoast has successfully been added to your WordPress website!

How to Edit the Title Tag, Meta Description and H1 on WordPress

Once Yoast is activated, you will notice a new menu option in the left menu, as well as additional features in the Page and Post edit settings. Now that the ability to edit the title tag and meta description is enabled, let’s go ahead and edit them.  

1. Click Pages in the menu on the left.

2. Select your homepage.
3. To edit the H1 tag, simply edit the page name.

4. To edit the Title Tag and Meta Description, scroll to the bottom of the edit page until you see the Yoast SEO settings.

5. Click Edit snippet.
6. To edit the Title Tag, replace the existing SEO title with an optimized Title Tag of 60 to 70 characters.
7. To edit the Meta Description, add a 150 to 160 character description of the page.

8. Once edited, click Close snippet.
9. Lastly, click Update in the top right corner.

How to Edit the ALT Tags

Alt text tells Google, or other search engine crawlers, what keyword the image should be indexed for. Alt text specifically helps with indexing images for Google Image Search.

To edit the Alt Text:

1. Click Media in the Menu on the left.
2. Then, click the image you’d like to add alt text to.
3. Add your alt text to the Alternative Text form fill.

To Sum it All Up

Yoast has made the process of implementing and optimizing SEO meta tags on WordPress very straightforward. The magic of SEO and ranking for targeted keywords comes down to your keyword research strategy, meta tags, and onsite copy.

Do you have a question that wasn’t answered above, or do you need help optimizing your WordPress website? Reach out to our SEO team by scheduling a Free Consultation!