Is Yoast Worth Using for SEO?

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Yoast has become the most reliable, comprehensive SEO plugin for WordPress users. The free version has the majority of things you need to create SEO-friendly content for your website. A premium version is also available for $89/year. It’s a small price to pay for the additional features that include internal linking suggestions and content insights. However, most of our clients do just fine with the free version.  If you are here to learn more about Yoast SEO and why it’s worth using, read on for more information. 

Why Every Website Needs an SEO Plugin

Every website needs an SEO plugin to optimize content for humans and the search engines. After all, SEO is the most important factor for a site’s growth. Without SEO, a website will lose traffic and drop in the search rankings. Having a plugin on WordPress allows you to create SEO-friendly content that can be easily crawled and indexed by the search engines. You can’t rely on content to just sound good – it must perform well, too.

Benefits of Using the Yoast Plugin 

There are a number of SEO plugins you can use, but we highly recommend Yoast SEO. Here are the reasons why we put our full trust in this tool. 

  • Covers technical problems. Yoast addresses a number of technical issues that could be wrong with your website. For example, it tells the search engines not to follow links for login and registration pages and outputs a structured data graph.
  • It’s built by professionals. Yoast is built by a team of professional developers, many who work for WordPress as well. You can trust its performance and ensure it’s regularly updated.
  • It focuses on content. Writing good content is extremely important for SEO. With Yoast, you can write content that your audience will find helpful and run it through the tool to optimize it. This is the best strategy for creating content that humans and the search engines will love.

Is the Premium Version Worth Paying For? 

The premium version of Yoast comes with added features, so it’s personal preference as to whether or not you want to pay for the features. Here is a chart you can use for reference: 

SEO Premium 

SEO Free 

Keyword optimization 

Only 1 keyword 

Preview of your page on Google, Facebook and Twitter 

Only Google preview 

Readability check 

Same

Full control over your breadcrumbs 

Same  

No duplicate content 

Same 

Technical configuration like robots.txt 

Same 

Automatic updates and upgrades 

Same 

Internal linking suggestions 

None

Content insights 

None

Redirect manager

None 

Focus keyword export 

None 

24/7 support for 1 year 

None 

Ad free 

You will see ads 

Final Thoughts 

When building websites for our clients, we download the Yoast SEO free plugin. We find this to be the most comprehensive SEO tool. If you choose to upgrade to the premium version, you will have access to more features. That said, most of our clients find that the free version is enough. You can, however, use other plugins to fill in the gaps, such as a redirect tool.

Magna Technology builds, optimizes and manages websites. Contact us today and let’s create something beautiful!