If you’re running a WooCommerce store, then you’re probably aware of the importance of search engine optimization (SEO). After all, without good SEO your store is unlikely to get much traffic from organic search.
Fortunately, there are plenty of plugins available to help with WooCommerce SEO, including Yoast SEO. In this article, we’ll show you how to use Yoast SEO on your WooCommerce store.
Once you’ve installed and activated the Yoast SEO plugin, you’ll need to configure it. You can do this by going to SEO > General in your WordPress dashboard. On the General settings page, you’ll need to select a Default article settings and a Default social settings.
For the Default article settings, we recommend selecting “No” for both the “Force reindexation after changing settings?” and “Enable advanced settings pages?” options.
Now that you’ve configured the general settings, it’s time to start configuring Yoast SEO for your WooCommerce products. To do this, go to SEO > Titles & Metas.
On the Titles & Metas page, you’ll see a number of options that you can configure. These include:
- Homepage: This is where you can set the title and meta description for your homepage. We recommend including your brand name and a brief description of what your store sells in the title, and then including a more detailed description in the meta description.
- Products: This is where you can set the title and meta description for your product pages. We recommend including the product name and a brief description in the title, and then including a more detailed description in the meta description.
- Categories: This is where you can set the title and meta description for your category pages. We recommend including the category name and a brief description in the title, and then including a more detailed description in the meta description.
- Tags: This is where you can set the title and meta description for your tag pages. We recommend including the tag name and a brief description in the title, and then including a more detailed description in the meta description.
As well as configuring titles and meta descriptions, Yoast SEO also allows you to set canonical URLs. Canonical URLs are used to avoid duplicate content issues.
They tell search engines which version of a page is the “master” version that should be indexed. For example, if you have a single product that’s available in multiple colors, each color variant would have its own URL. By setting a canonical URL, you’re telling search engines which URL they should index.
It’s important to note that setting canonical URLs is an advanced feature of Yoast SEO. If you’re not comfortable editing code, then we recommend leaving this feature disabled.
Another advanced features of Yoast SEO is breadcrumbs. Breadcrumbs are used to improve navigation on your website and they also help search engines understand the structure of your website. You can enable breadcrumbs by going to SEO > Advanced > Breadcrumbs
and selecting “Yes” for the “Enable breadcrumbs?” option.
