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Elevating author and publisher entities in SEO

The SEO community has been buzzing following the release of internal Google documents, revealing more details about how author and publisher entities influence search rankings. These insights help you strategically optimize your author and publisher profiles. This article will explore these entities and give you some actionable strategies to incorporate their optimization into your existing …

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Google’s reversal on third-party cookies: what it means for you

In a happy yet surprising move, Google has announced it will not be phasing out third-party cookies as previously planned. This decision has significant implications for website owners, digital marketers, and SEO practitioners, particularly those using tools like Yoast SEO to optimize their WordPress sites. Here’s a closer look at what this means for Yoast …

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What is Search Experience Optimization (SXO)?

Today, you have to think beyond simply ranking high on search engines. Users want more than just a simple website visit. Your visitors and customers are looking for an engaging experience. Search Experience Optimization (SXO) can help provide this. This merges SEO with user-centric design to help you attract visitors and keep them engaged. The …

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WordPress 6.6: The 6 highlights in this release!

WordPress 6.6 is here and it comes with a suite of new features and improvements. Features that will give you more control over the look of your website, peace of mind when auto-updating plugins, and introduce you to some improved workflows. Here’s a sneak peek into the key highlights of this release. Page previews in …

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Curbing AI creativity: How to provide effective guardrails

AI models can generate astonishingly creative content. However, their outputs can become cliched, unpredictable, and problematic without proper guardrails. How can we harness their potential while maintaining control? In this article, we’ll show you what you can do to provide guardrails for your AI chatbot. Thanks to these techniques, you can ensure its creative outputs …

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Should your business start using Threads?

Social media can be a great tool for your business and your SEO, because it can help drive traffic to your website. That’s why it’s good to keep an eye on new social media platforms, like Threads. So, is it worth it to invest your time in Threads? Or should you focus your efforts on …

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Is OSO, organic search optimization, the new SEO?

There’s a new kid in town, and it’s one you want to be friends with: OSO. It stands for organic search optimization, and with the Search Generative Experience rolling out, this acronym is one you should pay attention to. It’s not here to replace our good old SEO. But it does want to change your …

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Google and Bing stress the importance of lastmod in XML sitemaps

XML sitemaps are essential for every site’s SEO strategy and are a big part of our core Yoast SEO product. Both Google and Bing have recently renewed emphasis on properly using the lastmod (last modified) tag in XML sitemaps. The leading search engines now advise site owners to use this feature properly for better crawling …

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The Google Leak: insights and implications for SEO best practices

In the SEO universe, paradigm shifting insights can suddenly appear out of nowhere, like a decloaking warbird a little too close to the neutral zone, catching even the most seasoned captains by surprise. The recent Google API leak has sent such a shockwave through the SEO quadrant, igniting intense discussions and debates within the community. …

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Optimize for rich results with the Rich Results Testing Tool

Google has many interesting free tools, but two important ones for helping you improve your site are Search Console and the Rich Results Testing Tool. Search Console helps you get a general feel for how your site is doing in the SERPs, plus keep an eye on any errors to fix and improvements to make. …

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AI Overviews by Google and how Yoast SEO helps you prepare

As Google rolls out its new AI Overviews, SEO professionals and website owners must adapt to these changes to maintain and improve their search rankings. Google’s AI Overview, powered by the advanced Gemini model, integrates generative AI into the SERP. It provides users with summarized answers to complex queries at the top — well above …

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The basics of email marketing

Why is email marketing an important element of your marketing strategy? Because it’s a great tool to create and nurture a dedicated audience. Plus, it’s relatively easy to set up. In this post, we’ll discuss the basics of email marketing and give you a few practical tips on how to get started. The four benefits of email …

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Using the focus keyphrase for product pages in Yoast SEO

SEO is crucial for any online store. One key aspect that Yoast SEO needs to help you improve the SEO of your product pages is a focus keyphrase. This guide will help you find and fill in the proper focus keyphrase using Yoast SEO. Understanding the focus keyphrase The focus keyphrase is the main keyword …

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What is ‘Crawled – currently not indexed’ in Search Console?

Google Search Console (GSC) is a powerful tool for site owners. It helps you monitor and maintain your site’s presence in the SERPs. One of the common issues you might encounter is the “Crawled — currently not indexed” status. This message means that Google has crawled your page but hasn’t indexed it. As a result, …

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How does Google understand text?

At Yoast, we talk a lot about writing and readability. We consider it an essential part of SEO. Your text needs to be easy to follow and it needs to satisfy your users’ needs. This focus on your user will help your rankings. However, we rarely talk about how search engines like Google read and …

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Are Google’s new AI Overviews the future of search?

Artificial intelligence (AI) continues to reshape how we interact with information. Google introduced AI Overviews in its search engine yesterday, marking a new milestone. These new features promise to enhance user experience by providing quick, comprehensive answers to complex queries. However, they also raise important questions about the future of content creation, monetization, and information …

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What is off-page SEO?

SEO can be explained as any effort you make to improve your website. But did you know there’s an important distinction between on-page and off-page SEO? Optimizing your website is called on-page SEO and includes things like site structure, content and speed optimization. Off-page SEO entails, among other things, link building, social media, and local …

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How to write better blog posts for your Shopify store

Having awesome products is why people would shop in your Shopify store. But there are many options to get people to notice those amazing products. One of those is content marketing, and then specifically blogging. This article will give practical tips on improving your Shopify store’s blog posts. Main reasons to publish blog posts on …

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Yoast SEO for Shopify receives a brand new overview page

Exciting news! Yoast SEO for Shopify’s latest update brings a brand new dashboard feature. Say hello to the Optimization overview – a pre-made priority list for your store’s SEO. Get a quick bird’s-eye view of your store’s performance and know exactly where to optimize first! We’ve also fine-tuned the sidebar menu for smoother navigation and …

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How to get more value from site visitors with A/B testing

Beyond getting visitors to your site, you have the crucial task of converting them into engaged customers—whether they sign up for a newsletter, complete a contact form, or make a purchase. A/B testing is an important tool to maximize the value of your organic (and paid) traffic and grow your business. But do it wrong, …

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Yoast SEO 22.6 brings more enhancements

Yoast SEO 22.6 is out today! This release has many performance and quality-of-life fixes to improve your favorite SEO plugin. Plus, we’re asking you to update your PHP versions. Find out what’s new in this post! Performance enhancements We’ve upgraded the processing of user metadata in this release, leading to improved performance, especially in generating …

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Surviving the March 2024 Google core update

Google’s algorithm updates can shift the visibility of your sites. In March 2024, Google launched one of its biggest core algorithm updates yet, giving many people food for thought. This update differs from previous ones, as it targets low-quality, often AI-generated, content that’s cluttering search results. All of this affects the quality of information users …

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5 tips on how to use TikTok for your business

If you want to reach a younger audience, you need to look into TikTok. Almost half of TikTok’s user base is under 30 years old. So if that’s a market you want to target, you should consider creating a TikTok account and a TikTok strategy. In this post, we’ll give you 5 tips on how …

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Yoast SEO 22.5 delivers improvements and fixes

Continuing the theme of optimization and refinements, our Yoast SEO 22.5 release includes general maintenance updates across the plugin. We also improved guidance around best practices for taxonomies and a more effortless user experience overall.  Fine-tuning for taxonomy pages Taxonomy pages, including categories and tags, are crucial in structuring website content, especially for e-commerce platforms. …

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How do you improve your mobile site?

Your site should be mobile-friendly. Because nowadays, most people are searching on Google with their phone. But what does it mean to have a mobile-friendly site? And where do you start? In this SEO basics article, you’ll find an overview of what you could do to improve your mobile site. When is a site mobile-friendly? …

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Word count and SEO: how long should a post or page be?

We often get the question of how long an online text should be. As this often depends on different factors, it’s difficult to give just one answer. But looking from an SEO and user-oriented perspective, there is a rule of thumb you can follow. We advise writing more than 300 words for posts or pages, …

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Out now: AI for SEO training course!

Want to start using AI? Are you interested in the challenges and opportunities of generative AI? Or are you curious about how AI impacts search engines and the web? We’ve now added a new course to Yoast SEO academy: AI for SEO. In this course, you’ll learn about AI so you can take your SEO …