We’re excited to roll out Yoast SEO 21.8. This release is about refining your experience and enhancing your website’s performance. We’ve zapped some bugs for our users, making your SEO journey smoother and more reliable. But the real headline here is for our Yoast SEO Premium users – a feature we know you’ve been asking for: functional highlighting within Elementor!
Elementor users rejoice!
Many of you use Elementor to design and manage your WordPress sites. That’s why we’ve gone the extra mile to ensure this release makes your editing and optimizing process ten times better.
What’s new for Yoast SEO Premium users?
A seamless experience is what we are going for. Here’s what changed in Yoast SEO 21.8:
Elementor in-editor highlights for the SEO, readability, and inclusive language analyses: Watch as our plugin intuitively highlights feedback from the various analyses right where you’re working – inside the Elementor editor.
User experience upgrade: No need to disrupt your creative flow by manually searching for where to make edits. Now, you have the power of immediate SEO insights as you edit.
Targeted improvements: This enhancement is designed explicitly for the huge Elementor community within our user base, showing our dedication to catering to your needs.
We’re passionate about making SEO accessible and efficient for all our users. Our latest update is a testament to that commitment, bringing you closer to highly optimized websites.
Ready to revolutionize your SEO workflow?
If you’re already enjoying the benefits of Yoast SEO Premium, this update is ready and waiting to take your Elementor experience to new heights. Update your plugin to the latest version, and you’re all set!
Haven’t upgraded yet? There’s no better time to get Yoast SEO Premium. Unlock the full suite of features and join the community of SEO pros who maximize their online potential with our plugin.
Other improvements and fixes
One of our improvements in Yoast SEO 21.8 is the enhanced sitemap rewrite rules mechanism, ensuring smoother functionality and improved performance. In addition, we’ve made significant optimizations to the update process. From now on, rewrite rules will no longer be cleared for every option update, eliminating unnecessary operations. Instead, the rewrite rules will only be cleared when changes are made to the ‘strip category base’ option.
We’ve also fixed several issues related to a recent release of the Gutenberg plugin. The first one was an issue where the highlighter for the keyphrase density assessment would not work when using the latest version of the Gutenberg plugin. In Yoast SEO Premium, we’ve fixed a bug where our Table of Contents block would prevent editing a post in Gutenberg.
Update now to Yoast SEO 21.8
Upgrade to Yoast SEO 21.8 today and experience the ultimate convenience and efficiency. We can’t wait to hear how this update helps you thrive online. Here’s to your success – optimized and amplified!
Whether you have a company website, a blog, or an (online) store, chances are you’ve got a lot to do. You’re probably busy leading your company, blogging, or making your customers happy with the necessary goods. SEO might not be top of mind at all times. Yet, you also know that higher rankings would most likely benefit your business. So, how do you do SEO efficiently? Here, we will give you some tips on how to save time in SEO!
Disclaimer: it’s a known fact that SEO also stands for Seriously Effortful Optimization, so you will only get to the top by putting in the work. You should focus on stuff that matters (creating excellent content, making your site fast, and providing the best user experience, i.e., doing holistic SEO). The biggest time saver is choosing the right SEO tools to help you perform these tasks.
Table of contents
1. Unlock time-saving optimization with AI
Embrace the cutting-edge AI capabilities of Yoast SEO Premium to streamline your content optimization process. This powerful feature effortlessly generates titles and meta descriptions for your content. It even extends its benefits to your product meta descriptions when using WooCommerce SEO.
By leveraging AI, you can say goodbye to hours spent brainstorming catchy titles and compelling meta descriptions. Let the AI-powered tool handle the heavy lifting, ensuring your content is search-engine friendly while freeing up valuable time. You can focus on delivering high-quality content to your audience while our generative AI feature handles the optimization.
Yoast SEO Premium uses generative AI to help you work faster
2. Improve existing content
Are you considering writing yet another post on topic X? Think twice. Before you write something new, please check which posts you already have on this topic. Do you find something similar that you’ve written two or three years ago? You can refresh the existing post instead of writing a brand new post. Add new insights, add a hook to current news, improve the quality, and merge it with another post on the same topic on your site. Update it, and you can even share it again in your newsletter or on social media.
This is beneficial in more than one way:
It will prevent keyword cannibalization: if you have multiple similar posts on the same topic, your rankings for that query can deteriorate.
And, of course, you’ll save time by reusing content. In most cases, rewriting and updating content takes less time than writing something from scratch.
If you want to refresh your content smartly to benefit your SEO, check out our blog post on updating your content in 10 steps. A tool that saves time in the updating process is Yoast Duplicate Post. This free plugin allows you to duplicate and rewrite an existing post as a draft. When it’s ready, you can just hit ‘republish’ (or schedule) it. No more copying and pasting or inconveniently working in docs!
Creating a new draft or clone with Yoast Duplicate Post
One of the first things many SEOs do when auditing a site for the first time is to check the internal linking profile of a website. You could write a thousand articles, but if they don’t get links (external and internal), not many people will find them, making all the writing you’ve done a waste of time. A good site structure can boost your rankings, especially if you structure your site according to the cornerstone content principle.
In a nutshell, the cornerstone content principle means linking related posts. And most importantly, link these posts to the best, most complete article you’ve written on that topic. This is the article that touches on all aspects of the topic. It’s the article that you surely want to rank with! Because this post (or page) gets the most internal links, it sends signals to Google that this is the most important post on that topic.
Internal linking with Yoast SEO Premium
Without any help, implementing this is a lot of work: finding out which posts are related, making sure they’re linked, and manually checking whether they all link to a cornerstone article. Fortunately, Yoast SEO Premium has an excellent feature to help you save time: the internal linking suggestions tool. It will find and show suggestions for related articles to link to next to the post editor in the Yoast SEO sidebar. Pick the ones that you think fit best in the context of your post.
Easily add contextual links with Yoast SEO Premium
Moreover, you can mark your posts as cornerstone content in the backend with Yoast SEO. If you’ve done this and you’re writing a related post, this cornerstone article will show up on top in the suggestions. So you won’t forget to link to those!
Of course, you need more than just internal links for SEO. Nothing beats getting an external link from a high-authority website to build your authoritativeness (part of E-E-A-T). So, building backlinks remains key to achieving good results in SEO. Unfortunately, there’s not a shortcut here. You’ll need outstanding and genuinely original content to earn backlinks nowadays. Plus, you must put effort into the necessary outreach to get the word out about the fantastic things you do, create, or write.
SEO can be overwhelming. You’re never done with SEO, and the tasks you want or need to do can pile up. As a result, you can lose track of everything on your plate, which can even lead to overwhelmed paralysis. It is stressful and not helpful if you want to save time. It’s good to get an overview of the SEO improvements you want to work on to prevent feeling overwhelmed or regain control. Productivity tools like Trello or Todoist can help you attain and keep this overview.
When you’ve organized your board, you’ll need to prioritize. But you might wonder: which tasks on your board come first? Well, as always in SEO, the answer is: it depends. Are significant technical flaws preventing Google from correctly crawling and indexing your site? The obvious answer is to start with that. Do you use huge images on your site, causing pages to load for ages? That might be a good starting point, too.
As for content improvements, it’s impossible to give one-fits-all advice. One principal recommendation, and maybe stating the obvious: make sure your priorities are aligned with your business goals. Are you focusing on getting more sales right now? Optimizing your product pages probably makes sense. Do you want to establish sustainable growth? Focus on the long-term with sustainable SEO.
Are you still feeling overwhelmed? Then, starting with more minor, easy-to-accomplish tasks might be a good idea. Getting into a flow of achieving things and moving cards to done can give that positive energy needed to take up the more significant tasks.
5. Optimize your post for synonyms and related keyphrases
What if you want to rank for multiple queries with one post? That would be a huge time-saver, right? The good news is that you can and might even already do. Of course, there’s one significant constraint: the queries must be very similar. For instance, if you write about sustainable hen houses, it might be worth optimizing for a synonym such as eco-friendly poultry houses too. Using synonyms is a best practice not only for SEO but also for readability. Generally, people don’t like repeatedly reading the same word in a text.
Using synonyms will also help Google to understand the topic better. You’re giving them more context on the topic, making it easier to identify which entity you’re writing about. The same goes for related keyphrases; it will provide Google with the context to show your post or page for the correct query. If you want to optimize your post for related keywords, our Semrush integration can save time finding these. It will show related queries to your focus keyphrase with search volume.
Related keyphrase suggestions by Semrush in Yoast SEO
In Yoast SEO Premium, you can set keyphrase synonyms and related keyphrases. The SEO analysis will consider these phrases when analyzing your text and give you feedback so you can also optimize for these phrases. As explained, this will result in more natural writing and a better understanding of the post’s topic by Google. And it can save you time because you won’t write essentially identical posts. As a bonus, you’re not creating duplicate content or causing keyword cannibalization.
6. Preview your social post in the admin
We think sharing your content on social should be part of your SEO efforts. When you’ve written a blog post and plan to share it on social media, you want to ensure it looks good on your timeline. But if you need to do that on the social media platform itself, it does take some time. You must go back and forth between platforms, adapt and upload improved images, etc.
A small but easy time-saving feature in Yoast SEO Premium is our social media preview functionality. It will show you what your post looks like when shared on Facebook or X. Does the image fit, and does the title look good? If you use it, you’re no longer in the dark about the appearance of your post on your timeline. And it saves you time switching between platforms and copy-pasting URLs.
Moreover, you can even set default templates for specific post types. For instance, at Yoast, we set those for help articles. We don’t share these frequently on social media, so we won’t create individual images for all these articles. But setting a good fall-back image prevents these posts from looking misfitted when shared by someone else. Read more about our default social templates.
Save time in SEO
So that’s it. These are our tips on saving time in SEO. It mostly comes down to focusing on what matters and using the right tools. Over to you! Do you have any tremendous time-saving tips? Please share them in the comments!
Ready to elevate your website’s SEO to new heights? Yoast SEO 21.7 has plenty of enhancements designed to give you the edge you need to thrive online. We’re also launching a new version of WooCommerce SEO, with an option to import and export global identifiers for your online store! Find out more about these great releases.
What’s new in Yoast SEO 21.7?
As we near the end of the year, we keep releasing updates and improvements to our products steadily. So, what can you expect from Yoast SEO 21.7?
Simplified setup: Get started faster than ever with an improved first-time configuration experience. We’ve refined the setup process, making it more intuitive, streamlined, and user-friendly. You’ll be up and running quickly with the proper settings.
Language analysis improvements: Not everyone writes in English, so our language analysis tools are available in many languages. In this release, we’ve improved the accuracy of the word complexity assessment in French. Whether targeting specific regions or a diverse international audience, our tools ensure your message hits home.
Easy management of Global Identifiers in WooCommerce SEO
Listening to you, our valued users, is at the core of what we do. You asked for a more efficient way to handle global identifiers in WooCommerce, and we’ve delivered. With the latest Yoast WooCommerce SEO release, we’re announcing an awesome feature streamlining the management of GTINs and other global identifiers directly within your online store.
One of our customers highlighted a common challenge faced by many:
“I have already set GTINs on hundreds of products by hand. I don’t want to type them all in, so can you tell me how I can set them in bulk?”
We understand the importance of these identifiers for your Google Shopping feeds and other marketplaces. That’s why we’ve prioritized simplifying this process so that working with our plugin is smooth and hassle-free.
Bulk management and seamless imports/exports
No more manual entry. No more database headaches. With the introduction of our enhanced import/export functionality, updating your products with global identifiers is now as simple as editing a CSV file. We’ve integrated our solution directly with the WooCommerce Product Importer/Exporter, so you can easily incorporate fields for GTINs, UPCs, EANs, and more within your standard product data workflow.
Whether you’re migrating 300 or 3,000 products, our plugin now supports the inclusion of global identifiers every step of the way. This integration means that bulk updates are now just a matter of a few clicks, saving you valuable time and effort.
Here’s what you can now look forward to in Yoast WooCommerce SEO 16.0:
Direct integration: Seamlessly synchronize your global identifiers within the WooCommerce Product Importer/Exporter.
Bulk handling: Manage GTINs and other identifiers in bulk, ensuring a quick update to your entire product catalog.
Streamlined processes: No need to tackle complex database manipulations — we’ve simplified the process, making it accessible to everyone, regardless of technical expertise.
Consistency and compatibility: Maintain the integrity and consistency of your product data across all channels, bringing structure to your online business.
Upgrade now to WooCommerce SEO 16.0
Transform how you manage your online products with WooCommerce. Keep your focus on growing your business, and let our plugin handle the complexities of SEO and product identification.
Upgrade to Yoast WooCommerce SEO 16.0 today. Get ready for improved visibility, enhanced customer trust, and the kind of product management that sets you apart from the competition.
SEO success without the stress
Our mission is SEO for everyone. We ensure that SEO is accessible and effective for everyone – from SEO novices to seasoned professionals. So, whether launching your first site or perfecting your thriving online store, Yoast SEO and WooCommerce SEO are your go-to solutions for achieving top search engine rankings, attracting more traffic, and converting visitors into loyal customers.
Make sure your website is seen, heard, and loved by the audiences that matter most. Upgrade to our newest releases and start optimizing!
Yoast SEO 21.6 helps you rethink how you approach search engine optimization. With the power of generative AI integrated into our SEO tools, crafting compelling titles and meta descriptions was never faster or more effective. We added generative AI to Yoast SEO a while back, but now you can also improve your products in WooCommerce SEO.
Here’s how Yoast SEO helps you
Whether you’re a blogger, a digital marketer, an online store manager, or a business owner striving to climb the search engine ranks, we designed Yoast SEO 21.6 to enhance your workflow like never before:
Generative AI capabilities: Leveraging cutting-edge AI technology, the tool assists you in generating unique, relevant, and attractive titles and meta descriptions that help increase your click-through rates — for posts and WooCommerce products.
Efficiency at scale: Say goodbye to the days of laboring over the perfect wording. Our generative AI tools let you produce multiple options in seconds, allowing you to choose the best fit for your content.
Optimized for SEO: Our AI doesn’t just produce creative copy; we’ve trained it to align with SEO best practices. This ensures that the output resonates with your audience and aligns with what search engines love to see.
Online store owners: WooCommerce SEO just got smarter
Expanding the power of AI to ecommerce, the Yoast WooCommerce SEO add-on now comes with the same generative AI capabilities. You need Yoast SEO Premium to run this add-on. Then, online store owners can enjoy an array of benefits:
Product titles and meta description magic: Generate AI-driven product titles and SEO-friendly meta descriptions. It helps you stand out in the search results. It enables you to convert and sell more.
Save time and resources: Investing time in producing great product titles and meta descriptions can be exhausting. With our AI assistance, create compelling copy within seconds and focus your efforts on other aspects of your business.
Customized for WooCommerce: This feature is seamlessly integrated with WooCommerce, meaning you can boost your store’s SEO directly from your product editor.
An example of generative AI in WooCommerce SEO
Easy to use, hard to beat
Getting started with the AI feature in Yoast SEO is easy. First, upgrade to Yoast SEO Premium to unlock this invaluable tool. Once set, navigate to the ‘Use AI’ button in the search appearance section in the post editor. A simple click reveals a user agreement; review and accept the terms to proceed.
Instantly, the AI works, crafting multiple titles and meta descriptions tailored to your content. Take a moment to review the generated options. If they’re not quite what you were looking for, no worries! With the push of a button, prompt the AI to generate additional choices until you find the perfect match for your SEO needs.
Yoast SEO supercharged
We’re committed to providing you with the most advanced tools to help you reach SEO success. This update empowers you with smarter, faster, and more effective SEO solutions.
Join us on this exciting journey and take your SEO to the next level. Try our generative AI features in Yoast SEO Premium and WooCommerce SEO today and witness the impact on your site’s performance.
