Yoast’s WordPress SEO 2.0 has been released with a new feature and a more streamlined menu. I had a feeling this would happen just a week or two after my Tampa SEO Meetup about Yoast’s WordPress SEO plugin. J
Re-Structured Menu
Yoast WordPress SEO Dashboard Menu Before
Yoast WordPress SEO Dashboard Menu After
First, you’ll notice that the Yoast administration menu on the dashboard is much simpler. RSS, Permalinks, and Breadcrumbs have been moved to the Advanced menu item, and Bulk Editor, File Editor, and Import/Export have been moved to the Tools section. All other menu items remain the same.
This is helpful as it puts the settings that don’t need to be adjusted often into their own sections, and the menu now focuses on the more important sections of the plugin.
Knowledge Graph Implementation
The other big change is the inclusion of Company Info in the General section. This information can help you highlight yourself or your company in search results with a Knowledge Graph block. To add even more information to your Knowledge Graph block, Yoast SEO now has an Accounts tab in the Social section. Here, you can add all your URLs to all your social media accounts.
You’ve probably seen Knowledge Graph blocks in search results for larger websites, but now you might be able to get one too. However, just because you’ve added this information it doesn’t mean that you’ll automatically get a Knowledge Graph block on your search results. Also, I discussed Google’s Knowledge Graph and the future Knowledge Vault that is in the works.
Yoast General Settings in 2.0. Now you can add your company or personal info and image.
Add all your social media links for better Knowledge Graph potential.
Conclusion
While this new version only has a handful of changes, Yoast‘s inclusion of adding the necessary information for Knowledge Graph is going to be incredibly helpful to small business. If you’ve ever used the “Ok Google” command on your smartphone or tablet, you might have heard Google read the Knowledge Graph block to you.
Yoast has again made sure that their plugin continues to be one of the best SEO plugins for WordPress (if not the best), as well as an essential WordPress plugin in general. They continually make it easier for even non-experienced or tech savvy WordPress administrators and business owners to manager basic on-page SEO.
Steve Scott is the CEO & Director of Training at the Tampa SEO Training Academy. He has taught SEO skills to people from around the world and currently offers his hands-on search engine optimization training workshops in Tampa to individuals and businesses of all sizes. Corporate SEO training classes and consulting are also available.
