Yoast SEO optimization plugin.

Posted on 17 November, 2019

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Yoast SEO is a very effective WordPress plugin to optimize a real estate site.

Managing a real site with WordPress has a great advantage among which is the possibility to install different plugins. WordPress plugins help the real estate to install effective functions on its websites.

Among the most used plugins on the professional websites, we can find especially the ones created for the improvement of the SEO of a site. Yoast SEO is one of the most used plugins along with others that were created for different targets.

The admin of a real estate site should choose a SEO plugin. His/her selection will be conditioned by different variables. Yoast is quite a simple complement to configure, apart from being one of the most used plugins for getting visibility on the professional webmasters.

However, webmasters critics focus on certain functions and a possible over-optimization of the website when we get to depend too much on it. Over-optimizing the contents of a real estate website is a negative thing.

One thing is to optimize the published contents and a totally different thing is to over-optimize them. It is necessary to find the balance of optimizing the contents and the different factors linked to the site.

In any of the cases and no matter the critics, Yoast SEO is a good plugin for the improvement of the visibility of a website.

It is simple to install, it is intuitive and it has functions that allow the real estate to position its contents on Internet in a better way.

Yoast SEO general configuration.

Once the plugin is installed, you have to perform a general configuration, and the free version of the plugin offers four basic configuration sections.

General.

This section is a kind of introduction, and the latest modifications made by developers are promoted.

An introductory tour and the first contact with the plugin.
The latest changes made by its developers.
Restore the predetermined configuration; the one before the installation of the plugin.
Information.

Real estate must reflect on the name of the site and should create an alternative name for it. We can choose between a particular or company on the slider menu.

For the particular case of the real estate, we need to select the option company.

Webmasters tools.

As the name suggests it, this is the section which includes specific info linked to tools for webmasters and where we get statistics of the real estate website.

These are the sections for this configuration area:
ID verification by Alexa.
Following code of Bing Webmasters Tools (Microsoft).
ID of Google Search Console (following joined code between the tool for webmasters and Analytics platform).
Admin code of the webmaster tool from Yandex.

Once the codes of each platform are generated, we only need to copy and paste them on the boxes in order to save the info. After finishing every step, we need to go to each platform and authenticate the codes in order to start generating the statistics of the real estate site.

Security.

The only possibility offered by this section is to mark and unmarked the boxes, leaving a box unmarked or redirect the articles. When that box is left unmarked, the contents can be configured as No-index and this is no good for the real estate interest for sure.

This is an interesting option, mainly for the site inside the group of websites managed by different editors, even if the webpage is managed by a single person, the latter will know for sure how to get the best of it in a more effective way.

Titles and meta tags.

This is a more technical section of the SEO positioning plugin which offers the possibility to start configuring different options in a more specific way.

One of the main points of the SEO plugin by Yoast is the fact that it offers a very high level of configuration. However, if the admin of the website does not know those functions by hear, we must take some precautions in order to avoid the harming of the real estate positioning.

These are the options offered by this plugin for this section

Force the rewriting of the tiles. Plugin detects if it is necessary to force the rewriting in an automatic way or not.
Title separator (allows us to use a series of symbols as separators).
Front page (title template).
Meta description template for the sites front page.
Template of front page title, its Meta (description), Robots Meta (No-index and follow).
Date of quick look of the front page of the website.
These two points can be applied both to front pages as to multimedia contents.
Taxonomy of the site categories (title templates, Meta description, Robots Meta).
Taxonomy of the site tags (title templates, Meta description, Robots Meta).
Format of the Taxonomies (title templates, Meta description, Robots Meta).
Archives of the author (title templates and Meta description).
Archives by dates (defining templates and the correspondent Meta).
Prevention of duplicated content (No-index or follow for the author´s archives.
Special pages of the websites (404 pages, etc.).
Meta general adjustments of the real estate site (apply No-index to sub-pages, use Meta on the keywords, add “noodp”, Robots Meta tags and used “nodir” in the same way but for the website).

Yoast SEO and social media.

On the social media configuring section, the real estate can link its different social media accounts to its site.

These are the options of this section:

General options (URL addresses).

URL addresses of the real estate on different social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube.

Linking website with Facebook page.

Yoast SEO allows us to link the real estate website to any Facebook Page. In order to manage the linking, the plugin uses metadata Open Graph System, a very flexible and complex tool.

The system allows us to upload a corporate image through URL address, assign a title and add a description.

We can also assign default configurations and use Facebook Insights with the ID of that social media platform only with the authorization of the administrator of the real estate Facebook Page.

Linking website with Twitter account.

Similar to Facebook system, this plugin allows us to link to Twitter by adding metadata on the <head> section both for the website.

In the same time, it shows the default system that needs to be used (summary or image summary).

Linking website with Pinterest.

Linking the real estate websites to Pinterest is a simple thing to do and it can be done through a verification code of that social media platform.

If the real estate wants to optimize its website with the help of Pinterest, or Facebook, it should activate the option called Open Graph and verify the link with the help of the corresponding Meta Tag.

Linking website with Instagram.

Each social media platform uses different systems to link metadata. This plugin offers options for Instagram which focus on the specific technical specifications of that platform. The option offered by Yoast SEO is to include specific metadata on Instagram.

A real estate must include URL address of its website on Instagram and include also the setback link on the section About.

Sitemaps with Yoast SEO.

Before focusing more on the specific functions offered by this plugin when we want to create sitemaps for the website, we need to remind the importance of them when we want to get good real estate SEO results.

Main advantages of the sitemaps.

Effective indexing of the site contents for the search engines.
Improve the visitors´ experience on the real estate websites.
Strengthen the resources management.
Once configured, resources are automatically updated.

In the same time, it is important to highlight the fact that the creation of sitemaps can be done differently, taking into consideration the specific necessities of the real estate websites.

A real estate can generate different sitemaps such as:

One for each language of the contents published.
Image sitemaps to index them in a more effective way.
A specific one for the multimedia contents shared.

These are only examples of sitemaps that can be generated in order to help the positioning of the website and bring better levels of SEO results.

Yoast SEO offeres the following sections for the creation and optimization of the sitemaps on the real estate site:

General options of the sitemaps.

Exact location of the generated sitemaps (articles, pages, tags, etc.).
Define the number of clicks on the page ( default 1.000).
Plugin reminds us that sitemaps are generated automatically.

Sitemaps users of the website.

Deactivate or activate a specific sitemaps of the author or user of the site.
Disable the users without published entries.
Exclude users roles (admin, editor, author, collaborators and subscribers).

Content exclusion by type of entry.

Articles and entries (posts).
Real estate website pages.
Multimedia contents (attachments).

Exclude entries manually.

This is a very useful option offered by SEO plugin which allows us to manually exclude those contents of the website that we do not want to include on sitemaps.

These contents that are to be excluded manually from sitemaps must be introduced by their ID numbers in a row and separated by commas.

Taxonomy of the website.

On that section we can define the taxonomies that we want to exclude from the sitemaps by marking the following boxes:

Categories of the website (category).
Tags of the site (post_tag).
Contents format (post_format).

Advanced optimization options.

Although basic, advanced options for SEO configuration that Yoast offer are very important functions that have a great relevance for getting a good result for the real estate SEO.

These are the advanced options of SEO configuration that this plugin offers:

Breadcrumbs.

Breadcrumbs allow us to improve the experience of the visitors of the real estate site and the users of the real estate webpage.

Apart from improving the navigation on the real estate sites and the visitors´ experience, breadcrumbs are a very important factor inside any real estate SEO. They index the contents of the real estate in an easier way because they present a better structure.

When marking the correct boxes, some options for the configuration of breadcrumbs appear:

Breadcrumbs separators.
Link to the homepage.
Prefix of the breadcrumbs route.
Prefix of the linked archives.
Prefix for the search page of the breadcrumbs.
Breadcrumbs for 404 error pages.
Leave the last page of breadcrumbs on bold.
Define the taxonomy in order to show the type of entry (none, category, tag, format).

Yoast plugin provides a link to an article where developers explain the simple way to configure breadcrumbs for any websites admin who does not know how to configure the breadcrumbs in a correct way.

A correct configuration and editing of the breadcrumbs setting for the real estate websites will bring a good positioning and good results of real estate SEO.

Permanent links settings.

These are the configuration options of the permanent links for the site:

Change URL addresses (exclude the base category of the URL address of the categories).
Redirect URLs of the attached archives to other addresses (parent post).
Clean permanent links (exclude words from the generated slugs).
Remove replytocom variables.
Add a diagonal bar at the end of the URL addresses of the categories and tags.
Redirect addresses in order to clean permanent links.
Clean <head> of the real estate site (hide RSD, WLW, RSS links).

A correct configuration of the permanent links is another factor to take into consideration, because of its importance inside the real estate SEO. Yoast plugin is a simple task to achieve.

RSS feeds optimization.

Yoast brings the editing function of the RSS for a website, allowing in this way the adding of setback links targeting the real estate website.

That function is also used to include contents to the different RSS feed for real estate site in an automatic way. It helps the search engines to identify the original font of the content and get better levels of indexing.

This plugin offers the possibility to define some factors related to the RSS feed content and it brings also the function of adjusting some variables inside the contents (which will eventually be replaced by the selected value).

Content to share on the feed of every entry.
Content located after every entry on the feed.
Archive of the entry´s author with name as anchor text.
Specific entry of the real estate site using the title as the anchor text.
Use the real estate webpage and name of the company as an anchor text.
A real estate site with the name of it and a text description as an anchor text.

Yoast SEO extra options.

This plugin offers some very efficient extra tools which strengthen the position of the website, only when the latter are correctly used. There are three tools that are part of this plugin on the free version:

Archive editor.

allows us to modify the important archives for the real estate SEO in a faster way (robots.txt or htaccess).

Massive editor.

Modify titles and descriptions of the contents without the need to enter on each o them.

Import and export.

This option allows us to import and export the configuration used with another SEO plugin in order to reuse it on another real estate site.

Google Analytics.

Apart from the extra tools mentioned before, this plugin offers the possibility to link it to the Google Analytics account.

In order to get this, we need to introduce the authorization code of Google Search Console. Yoast SEO includes the link sent directly to the Google account of the user, in order to get the authorization code.

Yoast is a free plugin for the optimization of the real estate website, but it has also some payable options. If it chooses the Premium version, the real estate can access more functions for the real estate SEO.

However, the free version of the plugin is basic but effective for the improvement of the SEO of a real estate website. It is a simple and intuitive tool that can be used by all users and it has some advanced options of configuration.

There are other SEO plugins for the optimization of the real estate site positioning that are also very effective. The main advantage offered by Yoast SEO for a real estate is its simple use. However, as it is a tool for optimizing contents, we need to take some precaution measures.

Anyway, the most negative thing that we could do is to not optimize the contents in a proper way.

Source: Yoast SEO WordPress