Yoast SEO is a plugin for WordPress that adds search engine settings and checks to a website. It lets you set the title and description each page shows in Google, creates an XML sitemap, adds canonical tags and structured data, and scores every post for keyword use and readability while you write. The free version is available from WordPress.org, and Yoast SEO Premium is a paid upgrade.
According to its WordPress.org plugin page, Yoast SEO has more than 10 million active installations, which makes it one of the most widely used plugins for WordPress sites.
What Yoast SEO does
The free version covers the technical basics that WordPress does not handle fully on its own:
- Titles and meta descriptions. Each page, post and product gets fields for the title and description shown in search results, with a preview of how the result may look on desktop and mobile. Templates fill these in automatically for pages you have not edited. More on these fields in our entry on meta tags.
- XML sitemaps. A list of the site’s pages for search engines, updated as you publish.
- Canonical URLs. A canonical tag on each page, which you can override for a single post in the Advanced tab.
- Indexing controls. Settings that tell search engines whether a page, or a whole type of page such as tag archives, should appear in results.
- Structured data. Schema markup that describes the site and its pages to search engines, plus breadcrumbs.
- Content analysis. A keyphrase check, a readability check and an inclusive language check, shown as coloured scores in the editor.
Settings for archives, tags, media pages and author pages are worth reviewing once after installation, because they decide which kinds of pages Google is invited to index.
What the coloured scores mean
When you write a post, Yoast compares it with a set of rules and shows the results as red, orange and green lights. Say a florist writes a post called “Choosing wedding flowers in Oxford” with the keyphrase “wedding flowers Oxford”. Yoast may flag that the keyphrase is missing from the first paragraph, that the meta description is too short and that several sentences are long.
These checks are a useful reminder, but they are rules of thumb, not Google’s judgement of the page. Yoast says so itself: its article on the pitfalls of chasing the green light states that not every light has to be green to rank. A post that answers the reader’s question well, with an orange light for keyphrase density, is better than a post rewritten until the phrase appears in every paragraph.
What Yoast SEO cannot do
Installing the plugin does not make a site rank. It cannot:
- tell you which keywords to target, since it only checks the keyphrase you type in;
- speed up a slow theme or poor hosting;
- write content that answers your customers’ questions;
- earn links from other websites;
- fix a confusing site structure or pages that compete with each other for the same search.
Those are the bigger parts of SEO, and they need research and decisions the plugin cannot make for you.
Free or Premium?
The free plugin is enough for most small business sites. According to the plugin page, Premium adds AI-generated titles and descriptions, up to five keyphrases per post, internal linking suggestions, a redirect manager, social previews for Facebook and X, and the Local, Video and News SEO add-ons.
The redirect manager is the feature most businesses notice. When you rename a page or remove a product, it can send visitors and search engines from the old address to the new one, which matters during a website migration. The same job can be done by a free redirect plugin or at server level, so Premium is a convenience, not a requirement.
Running Yoast alongside other plugins
A site should have one SEO plugin. Two plugins, or a theme with built-in SEO settings plus a plugin, can output two titles, two canonical tags or two sets of structured data that contradict each other. Rank Math, All in One SEO and SEOPress do much the same job as Yoast. If you switch between them, check afterwards that titles, descriptions, indexing settings and redirects have carried over.
How we work with Yoast SEO
On a WordPress site, the useful question is usually how the SEO plugin is configured and what it cannot cover. Our one-off WordPress SEO audit costs the same as a full SEO audit: £370 for a small site and from £690 for an online shop. You get a report, a prioritised task list and a presentation call, and the fixes are a separate piece of work for our development team.
FAQ
How much does Yoast SEO Premium cost?
On 31 October 2026, Yoast’s product page listed Premium at $118.80 a year, excluding VAT, for one site. Each additional site needs its own subscription, with a discount for buying several. Prices change, so check the current figure before you buy.
How do I find my sitemap in Yoast?
In the WordPress dashboard, go to Yoast SEO, then Settings, then Site features, and make sure the XML sitemaps toggle is on. The “View the XML sitemap” link next to it opens the sitemap. That is the address to submit in Google Search Console.
Is Yoast still relevant?
Yes, as a tool for the technical basics of a WordPress site: titles, descriptions, sitemaps, canonicals and structured data. Other plugins do the same job equally well, and the choice between them matters less than setting one up correctly. What has never been true is that a plugin alone will lift a site in search results.
Does Yoast SEO work on sites that are not WordPress?
The plugin described here is built for WordPress and will not run elsewhere. Yoast sells a separate, paid app for Shopify, and Shopify also has SEO fields of its own. On a custom site, for example one built on Laravel, the same features (titles, descriptions, sitemap, canonicals) are built into the admin panel by the developers.
