How to Set Up SEO on WordPress? All in One SEO and Yoast SEO

What is SEO and why it is important to set up SEO for your website? The simple and short answer is to rank higher in search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo and get more organic traffic to your website. In this article, we want to teach you how to set up SEO on WordPress. We will give you easy to follow step by step instructions.

Also, we want to explain to you what SEO stands for and which plugins are the best to use for your WordPress site SEO optimization. Let’s sit comfortably and continue reading our post on how to set up SEO on WordPress.

Contents

1 What is SEO?
2 What is All in One SEO plugin?
- 2.1 All in one SEO plugin has these features:
3 What is Yoast SEO Plugin?
- 3.1 Yoast SEO plugin features:
4 How to Set Up All in One SEO plugin on WordPress?
5 How to Set Up Yoast SEO Plugin on WordPress?
6 All in One SEO or Yoast SEO? Which Plugin to Choose?
7 Key Facts
8 Conclusion

What is SEO?

SEO is search engine optimization which allows you to optimize your posts for search engines. Search engines will find your optimized posts quicker and will rank them higher in search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo.

Google and other search engines like Bing and Yahoo have their own criteria and algorithms for ranking posts. Knowing SEO and how to optimize it for the search engines can be a very powerful tool to help rank your post on the first page of Google, Yahoo or Bing and massively increase the traffic to your website, without spending lots of money on Ads. The higher you rank on search engines, the more traffic your website will get and more traffic you get more money you can make.

To learn more about SEO, please read our article How To Write a Blog Post for SEO.

What is All in One SEO plugin?

The All in One SEO plugin is used to help you to optimize your WordPress website and its content for search engines — increasing the chances of your website being found when people search for terms you’ve written about. It’s easy to use for beginner and has advanced features for developers.

All in one SEO plugins was created in 2007 by Michael Torbert and Steve Mortiboy. Since then, it has earned a massive user base and has become one of the most downloaded WordPress plugins of all time.

All in one SEO plugin has these features:

XML Sitemap support – submit your sitemap to Google and Bing and improve your SEO
Image XML Sitemap submitted to Google and Bing to improve your Image SEO
Google AMP support (Accelerated Mobile Pages)
Google Analytic support
Support for SEO on Custom Post Types
Advanced Canonical URLs
Redirect attachment pages to a parent post
Automatically notifies search engines like Google and Bing about changes to your site
Built-in API so other plugins/themes can access and extend the functionality
ONLY free plugin to provide SEO Integration for e-Commerce sites, including WooCommerce
Nonce Security built into All in One SEO Pack
Automatically optimizes your titles for Google and other search engines
Generates meta tags automatically
Avoids the typical duplicate content found on WordPress blogs
For beginners, you don’t even have to look at the options, it works out-of-the-box. Just install.
For advanced users, you can fine-tune everything to optimize your SEO
You can override any title and set any meta description and any meta keywords you want.
Compatibility with many other plugins
Translated into 57 languages
PHP 7 100% Compatible

Usually, WordPress comes with All in One SEO plugin so you just have to go to your WordPress Dashboard, press on Plugins, find All in One SEO plugin and press Activate.

You can download All in One SEO plugin if you can’t find it there. Go to your WordPress Dashboard and press on Plugins, then press on Add new.

In the search box type, All in One SEO and press Install. The plugin is installed. Now press Activate to activate the plugin.

All done, your All in One SEO plugin is up and running now.

What is Yoast SEO Plugin?

Yoast SEO is one of the most widely popular WordPress plugins around and it’s easy to understand why. Whether you’re running a personal blog or you’re an SEO professional managing a website for a client, Yoast is a powerful tool that can help you make your site as search engine-friendly as possible.

Yoast SEO plugins have many features that can help you optimize your SEO. The great thing about Yoast SEO is, that it tells you how good is your text readability and your post SEO. Also, it explains what you have to do to improve it, which is great, especially for people who don’t have any experience with SEO.

Yoast SEO plugin features:

Keyword optimization.
Tell Google exactly what your page is about.
Warnings about outdated content (older than six months).
Preview of your page.
Readability check.
Full control over your breadcrumbs.
No duplicate content.
Works in the block and classic editors.
Technical stuff in the background.
Always updated for Googles algorithm.
Internal Linking

To download the Yoast SEO plugin, go to your WordPress Dashboard and press on Plugins, then press on Add new.

In the search box type Yoast SEO and press Install. The plugin is installed. Now press Activate to activate the plugin.

All done, your Yoast SEO plugin is up and running now.

How to Set Up All in One SEO plugin on WordPress?

Now it is time to learn how to set up All in One SEO plugin on WordPress and it is easier than you might think. Open your WordPress Dashboard and press on Posts and All Posts. Then select the post you want to set up SEO for.

Scroll to the bottom of your post where you will see Title, Descriptions, and Keywords. At the Title, section Add your post title which should include your keyword.

In the Description section add a short description of your post. It should include your keyword and has to be no longer than 160 characters.

And at the Keyword section add your post keyword. Then press update to update the post and your SEO for that post is done.

Try to have your keyword in the first paragraph of your post and few more times in the other paragraph. We recommend using keyword in your post between 3 to 5 times depending on your post length. Don’t try to use your keyword too often and do not force it, because search engines don’t like too many, unnaturally forced keywords and they might punish you by not ranking you at all.

How to Set Up Yoast SEO Plugin on WordPress?

Setting up the Yoast SEO plugin is very similar to All in One SEO plugin, but it has more features and will give you notes and advice on what you could improve.

To set up Yoast SEO plugin you have to open your WordPress Dashboard and press on Posts and All Posts. Then select the post you want to set up SEO for.

Scroll to the bottom of your post where you will see Yoast SEO. Press on SEO section and you will see the Focus Key phrase section. You should type your keyword in that section.

Press on snippet preview and you will see SEO title section. In SEO title section add your post title which should include your keyword.

Also, you will see the Meta Description section. In the Description section add a short description of your post. It should include your keyword and has to be no longer than 160 characters.

If you will press on SEO analysis it will show you, how you could improve your SEO. Green face means that your SEO is good and most likely you don’t have to improve anything. A yellow face means that your SEO is OK and you could improve your SEO. And red face means that your SEO is poor and you have to make improvements to your SEO.

We recommend aiming for a green face for the best results. Using SEO analysis you can check what you have to improve and how to do it.

Next, to the SEO section, you have Readability where you can check and improve your post readability. Green face means that your post readability is good and most likely you don’t have to improve anything. A yellow face means that your post readability is OK and you could improve your text. And red face means that your text readability is poor and you have to make improvements to your post.

We recommend aiming for a green face for the best results. Using readability analysis you can check what you have to improve and how to do it.

We, also recommend adding featured images to your posts with your keywords as your images ALT tags. To do that press on set featured image in your post editor.

Select or upload an image you want to use and under Alt tag section add your keyword and press set featured image.

All in One SEO or Yoast SEO? Which Plugin to Choose?

All in One SEO and Yoast SEO are both great plugins which both do a great job optimizing your SEO, any comparison between the two plugins has to be very close.

We personally use both Yoast SEO and All in One SEO Plugins just to compare which one does the better job. We are using Yoast SEO for one of our websites and All in One SEO for another website. They both do a great job optimizing SEO, but we prefer Yoast SEO. We think that using the Yoast SEO plugin, our posts ranking slightly better. It has more features to offer than All in One SEO plugin.

But, in our opinion, the best feature Yoast SEO plugin can offer is a content analysis which helps a lot of beginners understand how they should write post titles, descriptions, and use keywords in their content. It points out what mistakes you made and explains what and how you should improve it.

Key Facts

SEO is search engine optimization which allows you to optimize your posts for search engines.
The All in One SEO plugin is used to help you to optimize your WordPress website and its content for search engines — increasing the chances of your website being found when people search for terms you’ve written about. It’s easy to use for beginner and has advanced features for developers.
Yoast SEO is one of the most widely popular WordPress plugins around and it’s easy to understand why. Whether you’re running a personal blog or you’re an SEO professional managing a website for a client, Yoast is a powerful tool that can help you make your site as search engine-friendly as possible.
Use your keyword 3-5 times in your post depending on post length.
Meta Description should include your keyword and has to be no longer than 160 characters.
Add a featured image to your post using a keyword as your image Alt tag.
Both plugins do a great job optimizing SEO, but we prefer Yoast SEO, because using the Yoast SEO plugin, our posts ranking slightly better. It has more features to offer than All in One SEO plugin as well.

Conclusion

Now you know everything you need to know about All in One and Yoast SEO plugins and how to set up SEO on WordPress. Follow our step by step instructions and you will set up SEO for your post in no time. Don’t forget that you have to write quality content and do not force your keywords in your posts too much.

Also, don’t forget adding keywords as your pictures Alt tags.

If you ever need a hand or have any questions or concerns don’t hesitate and feel free to leave them below and we will be more than happy to help you out and answer your questions as soon as possible.

All the best,

Marius & Ndidi

Founders of howtoquit9to5job.com

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10 Comments

Helen
July 12, 2019
I changed from All in one SEO to Yoast and I have to agree that I also prefer Yoast. My posts are ranking well and I like the traffic light system pointing out where improvements can be made. The only issue I have with Yoast is that the text highlighter is not working in the Gutenberg editor. This is something I will need to look into as that is a useful tool.
Thanks for a great comparison review.
- Marius
  July 15, 2019
  Thank you for reading my post Helen, I’m happy that you found it helpful. I prefer using Yoast too, but All in One SEO is great plugin too, I just think that Yoast plugins are better for beginners, because it gives you tips and guidance on how to improve your SEO and post readability too. I didn’t know that text highlighter doesn’t work with Gutenberg editor, because I have never used Yoast SEO plugin together with that editor. Thank you for letting us know and sharing this.
Todd P Matthews
July 16, 2019
Hi, Marius, I’ve never tried Yoast and have always stuck to All-In-One. If I were to make the switch to Yoast on one of my niche sites, would my search engine rankings stay afloat? I have one niche site that is doing very well in the Search Engines but I love what I read about Yoast, yet at the same time I don’t want to lose any rankings.
- Marius
  July 17, 2019
  Hi Todd, thank you for reading my article and I’m glad that you found it helpful. It should not affect your rankings, but you have to make sure that you will enable your keywords and meta descriptions again, which can be a lot of work if you already have lots of posts on your site. You might also need to link your site to Google Analytics again. All in one SEO plugin is great too and does the job, so I would recommend stick to it if you already know how to use it. But if you don’t mind to do some extra work and really want to try Yoast go for it, it shouldn’t affect your rankings.
Kendra
July 17, 2019
As a new blogger I really appreciate this post – especially the little tips, like repeat your keyword 3-5 times. I will definitely be downloading this plugin, thank you.
- Marius
  July 17, 2019
  Yes Kendra it is very important to know how to use SEO properly so your posts could rank better in search engines and I think Yoast SEO plugin can be very helpful, especially for beginners, because it gives instructions and tips how to improve your SEO and readability.
Kevin McNamara
July 17, 2019
Hi Marius,
Great post! SEO is so important and so many people tend to forget about it because they don’t understand it and just let it ride. Then they wonder why their site is not ranking.
I have also used both Allin one seo and Yoast and for me Yoast wins by a fair way. I love that it tells you what you need to do, how many times you have used your keyword and what kind of a writer you are with its reading score. Yoast for me. Thanks again,
Kev
- Marius
  July 17, 2019
  Hi Kev, thanks for reading my post, I’m really glad you enjoyed it. I can totally agree so many people forget about SEO or have no idea how to use it properly and then they are demotivated why their posts not ranking in search engines. I’m using both plugins too, because I have two sites, but I prefer Yoast SEO as well.
Anthony
July 18, 2019
This is really helpful. The step by step screenshots allows me to follow through without much struggle, especially with me being new to blogging. SEO’s are highly important but I have faced the challenge of using it appropriately to get the desired effect. This will definitely go a long way to my understanding and applying it better, thank you very much.
- Marius
  July 18, 2019
  I’m really happy that you liked and find my post helpful. It is not easy to master SEO, but once you start getting hang of it gets easier and easier. With SEO you just have to keep learning all the time, because search engines have updated constantly and you have to learn new SEO techniques along the way. I’ve tried to make this post as simple as possible for beginner, so they could easily set up SEO plugins for their WordPress sites. There are a lot more things to learn about SEO, but in this article, I have covered the main ones.