A Guide to the Yoast SEO Plugin

Overview
Yoast SEO is a WordPress plugin that helps website owners manage common search optimisation tasks, including page titles, meta descriptions, XML sitemaps, canonical URLs and indexing settings. Yoast SEO can also connect with Site Kit by Google, allowing Google Analytics 4 and Search Console performance data to be viewed within the Yoast SEO dashboard.

For businesses using WordPress, this creates a useful link between the changes being made to website content and the data showing how that content actually performs.

Yoast should still be seen as a tool rather than an automatic SEO solution. Its settings and recommendations can make everyday optimisation easier, but decisions about keywords, content, website structure and search intent still need to be made by the person managing the site.

How do you connect Yoast SEO to Google Analytics 4?

Yoast SEO now integrates with Site Kit by Google, Google’s official WordPress plugin.

Site Kit acts as the connection between Yoast and services including Google Analytics 4 and Google Search Console. Once connected, selected Analytics and Search Console information can be viewed from within the Yoast SEO dashboard.

This is particularly useful if you regularly optimise WordPress pages using Yoast because you can compare Yoast’s content information with actual search and visitor data without repeatedly moving between different platforms.

Yoast SEO does not replace Google Analytics or install GA4 tracking by itself. Site Kit connects the services and makes selected performance information available within WordPress.

How do you set up Yoast SEO with GA4?

Before starting, make sure you have administrator access to WordPress and access to the Google account associated with the relevant Google Analytics and Search Console properties.

Then follow these steps.

Open the Yoast SEO dashboard

The main Yoast dashboard should display an option to connect or install Site Kit by Google.

Install Site Kit by Google

If Site Kit is not already installed, select the option to install Site Kit by Google.

Once WordPress has installed the plugin, activate it.

If Site Kit is already installed on the website, you can move directly to the connection process.

Set up Site Kit

Select Set up Site Kit and sign in using the Google account that has access to the website’s Analytics and Search Console properties.

Google will ask you to approve the permissions required to connect the website.

Take a moment to check which Google account you are using. It is surprisingly common for businesses to have several Analytics properties or Google accounts, particularly when a website has been managed by different agencies or members of staff over the years.

Connecting the wrong property can leave you reviewing data for another website or an old version of the same site.

Connect Google Analytics 4

During the Site Kit setup, select the correct Google Analytics account, property and web data stream.

For an existing website, this will usually mean connecting the GA4 property already collecting website data.

Avoid creating another GA4 property simply because one does not immediately appear in the list. First check which property is currently installed on the website.

Creating duplicate tracking can make reporting unnecessarily complicated.

Connect Google Search Console

Site Kit can also connect the website with Google Search Console.

Search Console and Analytics answer different questions.

Search Console shows information about how the website appears in Google Search, including:

impressions
clicks
click-through rate
average search position.

Google Analytics shows what happens once somebody reaches the website, including organic sessions and subsequent visitor behaviour.

Having access to both gives you a clearer picture of the journey from search result to website visit.

Connect Site Kit to Yoast SEO

Return to the Yoast SEO dashboard and select the option to connect Site Kit by Google.

Approve the connection when prompted.

Once connected, Yoast can display selected information from Site Kit directly within its dashboard.

Check that Analytics data is appearing

Return to the Yoast SEO dashboard after the connection has been completed.

Depending on the data available for the website, you should be able to see information such as organic sessions alongside Search Console metrics including impressions, clicks, click-through rate and average position.

Yoast can also show popular content and search queries alongside its own SEO and readability assessments.

If the site has only just started collecting Analytics data, meaningful figures may take a little while to build up.

What can you see from Google Analytics in Yoast SEO?

The integration is useful because it adds real performance information to the optimisation advice already available within Yoast.

For example, you might find a page that Yoast considers well optimised but which receives very few organic visits.

That gives you something practical to investigate.

Perhaps the page targets a search with little demand. Perhaps it ranks too low to attract meaningful traffic. The title shown in Google may not encourage enough people to click, or another page on the site could be competing for the same search.

Equally, a page may receive considerable organic traffic despite having several amber or red Yoast recommendations.

That is a useful reminder that the coloured Yoast indicators are guidance. They are not Google ranking scores.

Real search and Analytics data should form part of the decision when choosing which pages need attention.

Does Yoast SEO install Google Analytics tracking?

Yoast SEO itself should not be treated as your Google Analytics tracking installation.

The current Yoast integration uses Site Kit by Google to connect Analytics information with the Yoast dashboard.

If GA4 is already installed through Google Tag Manager, Site Kit or another appropriate method, check your existing setup before adding additional tracking.

Running the same Analytics measurement more than once can result in inaccurate reporting.

Where there is uncertainty, checking the website’s existing GA4 and Tag Manager configuration before changing anything is usually worthwhile.

Why should you connect Search Console as well as Google Analytics?

Analytics tells you what people do after visiting the website. Search Console provides information about what happened before the click.

Consider a service page receiving 5,000 Google impressions but only 50 clicks.

Analytics alone tells you about those 50 visitors.

Search Console reveals the much larger number of occasions where Google displayed the page and nobody clicked it.

That could lead you to review the page’s ranking position, title, description or relevance to the searches generating those impressions.

Using both data sources gives you more context when deciding what to optimise.

What is the Yoast SEO plugin?

Yoast SEO is one of the widely used SEO plugins available for WordPress.

Once installed, it adds controls and guidance to WordPress that make several common optimisation tasks easier to manage without manually changing website code.

There is a free version and a Premium version with additional functionality.

For many businesses, the free version covers the everyday basics required for managing page titles, descriptions, indexing rules and XML sitemaps.

What can you do with Yoast SEO?

Yoast contains a large number of settings, although only a handful tend to be used regularly when optimising normal pages and blog posts.

How can you change SEO titles and meta descriptions?

Yoast allows you to set the SEO title and meta description for individual pages and posts.

These influence how the page may be presented in search results, although Google can sometimes choose alternative text when it believes another description better answers the search.

Templates can also be created for different types of content.

This saves time on larger websites, while important pages can still receive individually written titles and descriptions.

What does the Yoast focus keyphrase do?

A focus keyphrase tells Yoast which search phrase you are considering when optimising a page.

Yoast then checks elements of the content and highlights potential improvements.

This can be useful as a checklist, especially when learning SEO, but achieving a green indicator does not guarantee rankings.

A page also does not need to repeat the exact keyphrase every time Yoast suggests doing so.

Readability and usefulness should come first.

Does Yoast SEO create an XML sitemap?

Yes. Yoast can automatically generate XML sitemaps containing the content search engines may need to discover.

These update as relevant pages and posts are added or removed.

A sitemap helps search engines discover URLs, although having a URL in a sitemap does not guarantee that Google will index or rank it.

Can Yoast manage meta robots tags?

Yoast provides controls over whether individual content should be available for indexing.

This can be useful for pages that need to remain accessible on the website but should not appear in search results.

These settings need to be used carefully. Accidentally applying a noindex directive to an important service or category page can remove it from Google’s index.

Can Yoast manage canonical URLs?

Yoast automatically handles canonical tags for standard WordPress pages and also allows users to specify another canonical URL where required.

Canonical tags help search engines understand which version of similar or duplicated URLs should be treated as the preferred version.

Most straightforward WordPress sites will rarely need to alter these manually.

Can Yoast verify Google Search Console?

Yoast provides site connection settings that can be used when verifying ownership with services including Google Search Console.

This is separate from the Site Kit integration used to display Search Console and Analytics data within the Yoast dashboard.

What do the Yoast SEO traffic-light scores mean?

Yoast analyses content and presents recommendations using green, amber and red indicators.

These checks can flag issues involving areas such as keyphrase use, titles, descriptions, links and readability.

They are useful prompts, particularly when publishing content frequently.

However, they should not become the objective of the page.

A perfectly green Yoast score does not tell you whether customers are searching for the subject, whether the information answers their question or whether the page is performing well in Google.

This is where the Analytics and Search Console integration becomes particularly useful.

If Yoast says a page is well optimised but Search Console shows that it receives thousands of impressions and very few clicks, there may still be an important SEO opportunity.

Do you need Yoast SEO Premium?

For many smaller WordPress websites, the free Yoast SEO plugin provides the main functionality needed for everyday on-page optimisation.

Premium adds further features and support that may be useful for businesses managing larger amounts of content or wanting additional automation.

The decision should be based on which features you will actually use rather than assuming the paid version will automatically improve rankings.

Neither version can replace keyword research, technical SEO work or the judgement required to decide what information a customer needs from a page.

How should businesses use Yoast SEO in practice?

Yoast works best as part of the publishing and optimisation process.

Before writing a page, establish what question or search need it should address.

Use Yoast to check practical elements such as the title, description, indexing settings and internal links.

Then use Search Console and GA4 data to see what happens after publication.

If impressions increase without clicks, review how the page appears in search and which queries trigger it.

If clicks increase without enquiries or useful engagement, examine whether the page delivers what visitors expected.

That feedback loop is more valuable than simply turning every Yoast indicator green.

For WordPress businesses already using Yoast, connecting Site Kit, Google Analytics 4 and Search Console is therefore one of the more useful improvements to make. It brings optimisation guidance and real performance information into the same working environment, making it easier to decide what actually needs attention.