Is Yoast Premium Worth It?

Since Yoast was released, it’s been one of the top-rated WordPress plugin downloads. WordPress SEO Plugins like Yoast are helpful for on-page SEO.

You may wonder if it’s worth spending extra money on a Yoast subscription. After all, you don’t want to pay for something that isn’t going to help your website’s search engine rankings.

The free version of Yoast is an excellent tool that provides more than enough features for most users. However, the premium package offers many features that you may need someday. You can get a Yoast premium discount if you pay annually. The Yoast SEO premium discount is also offered as bulk pricing for multiple websites.

Yoast Premium Features

In this guide, you’ll learn the upgraded features in Yoast Premium to help you determine if upgrading to Yoast Premium is worth it. I upgraded for the redirect feature, but you may not care about that, so read on.

Internal Linking Suggestions

Yoast will make suggestions on each page or post of other pages on your website that could be valuable to the consumer for you to link to.

Why is this important?

Internal linking helps with internal site search and keeps customers on your site longer – both of which help with the overall SEO ranking.

How does it work?

After setting up your internal links once, Yoast will suggest potential internal links per blog post in the right column.

While it’s not an auto-linker like you would see with the Link Whisper internal link tool, or with Thirsty Affiliates automated links, it does make suggestions based on the content on the page.

SEO Training Courses

Yoast has created an academy of SEO training courses. As a premium license holder, you can take these courses.

There are five levels to the courses. Each level covers a certain topic in SEO, which continues into the next course.

It is not too difficult to go through, and it will teach you everything from keyword research to formatting your content for more traffic. The information covered is extensive, which makes sense given that Yoast has been an SEO authority for years.

Why are SEO Courses important?

Clearly, if you are using YOAST and comparing the free version vs. premium, you must understand the value of SEO.

These courses can help you learn more about SEO. That’s a good thing, especially if you need a refresher or have previously worked with another SEO company and want to take your skills to the next level.

Premium Readability Analysis

Premium Readability is an integral feature of the Yoast SEO Plugin, and it’s a big part of what makes this plugin so beloved among webmasters.

This feature lets you review your content and see how readable your posts are. You can then use that information to edit or rewrite before publishing your post.

Why is this important?

It’s important because Google has been putting increasing emphasis on user experience when ranking sites in search results. This means they want to make sure their users find easy-to-read content because if they don’t…they’ll go somewhere else for their answers.

You should also know that writing in general, even for non-SEO purposes, benefits from having easy-to-read text:

People prefer to read text that they don’t have to work hard to decipher.

How does the Premium Analyzer work?

Yoast SEO Premium can analyze a variety of keywords, synonyms, and word forms. It also includes a related keyphrases tool that you may utilize to make your content more interesting and relevant!

Redirect Tool

Another helpful feature is the redirect tool. You can use it to make sure any old pages you want to delete are redirected properly.

That way, if someone tries to access that page, they’ll still be able to find what they’re looking for. It also helps update your website and make changes without worrying about broken links or lost content.

Why is this important?

It’s important because Google will demote sites with tons of 404 errors in their search engine rankings. When users land on a dead link, they will simply go somewhere else where there are no dead ends!

How does the redirect tool work?

After uninstalling the Yoast SEO Plugin and clearing your site cache, click on the ‘Redirects’ tab.

From there, you can search for a URL to delete or upload a file containing URLs to delete…and voila! You’ll be able to clean up your errors in no time flat.

If you change the permalink on a blog, Yoast will allow you to redirect to any page rather than showing a 404 page.

The redirect feature is why I upgraded to a premium license, personally.

Rest API

The premium license also includes a rest API.

Now, this is great news for developers, but if you’re not one, you may not see its value.

A Rest API lets other applications tap into your WP site and interact with it. Imagine that your website was a big toolbox containing all of this great SEO stuff…the Rest API gives developers access to take things out of the box to use on their own sites!

Why is this important?

It’s important because other webmasters want to leverage your content for their own purposes. Using the Yoast SEO plugin with a premium license, you can help them do that without worrying about costs or licensing issues.

Cornerstone Content

Another great feature is Cornerstone Content, a SEO Workout feature. It allows you to mark your key pages as cornerstone content so that Yoast will remind you to link where relevant.

You can also see all of your cornerstone content in one place, rather than looking throughout the site for posts you might want to link elsewhere.

Why is it Important?

It’s important because Google now encourages the use of rich anchor text when linking to authoritative content. Think about it! When you link to Wikipedia, what do you put in the hyperlink?

That’s right…the title of their article!

If your site isn’t using cornerstone content, you’re losing out on free optimization opportunities that don’t take much extra effort but can make quite a big difference for your rankings.

Search Console Integration

Yoast SEO Plugin with premium license also integrates Search Console (AKA Webmaster Tools). This lets you quickly see possible errors or warnings so that you know what needs correcting or deleting before getting started.

Why is this important? It’s important because Google will hold you to a higher standard if you have a premium license. It’s one of the reasons I decided to get a premium license for my own website.

How does Cornerstone Content work?

After you’ve set up your website and added some pages, head over to ‘Features’ under the Yoast SEO section of your WP dashboard menu.

There, you’ll be able to find ‘SEO Workout.’ Click on it and follow the steps! When done, click save changes.

Then, when you create a new blog post, Yoast will automatically check your post to see if it’s worth linking elsewhere on the site.

Yoast will let you know via an alert box that pops up at the top of your screen if you’ve assigned a page as cornerstone content. You can then decide whether or not to link to that page in your new blog post.

You also control how anchor text is used when using Cornerstone Content. For instance, you might want to use branded terms rather than generic ones so that you don’t dilute your brand voice or confuse Google about what topic your site is really about!

Orphaned Content

Google views content with links as more valuable. If you have created content, and are not linking to it from any other page on your website, then it’s considered orphaned content.

Why is linking to content important?

Linking to your content is important because Google wants to reward those who take the time to link out within their posts.

As such, by marking specific content as orphaned (content that you aren’t linking to from anywhere), Yoast will let you know and encourage you to improve the discoverability of that content through internal linking.

This is beneficial because it keeps you on track with best practices and encourages the discovery of more of your own work!

How does orphaned content work?

After setting up a few pages and adding some blog posts, go into SEO Workout under Features. Then, locate ‘Orphaned Content’ and follow the steps. When done, click save changes!

Then, when you write a new blog post, an alert box will pop up at the top of your screen.

If the content is orphaned, you can decide whether or not to link to that page in your new blog post.

If it isn’t orphaned, then no changes will be made.

This is very helpful for keeping your site updated with best practices and recommended linking strategies!

Estimated Reading Time

The estimated reading time is the amount of time it would take someone to read that blog post. If you’re working on a post over 2,000 words, the estimated reading time could be up to 3 minutes.

Why is this important?

Giving the user an estimated read time can get their early buy-in, which may result in them spending more time on the page.

How does Yoast estimate reading time?

By default, Yoast estimates reading time-based on word count. However, if you prefer a different estimation from what they’ve provided by default, you can always change it under the ‘Features’ section of your WP Dashboard menu.

In the ‘Reading Time’ section, you can change it to another estimation such as minutes or hours.

Then, when you create a new blog post, an alert box will display at the top of your screen, letting you know how long it would take to read that article!

Social Previews

This feature lets you see your post’s appearance when shared on Facebook and Twitter.

Why is previewing how content looks when shared important?

Previewing how your content will look when it’s shared contributes to better engagement because the user has a more realistic view of what they’re about to share!

How do Yoast Social Previews work?

By default, Yoast only displays the link preview for Facebook and Twitter. You can also add previews for Google+, Reddit, Tumblr, and many more sites under the ‘Features’ section of your WP Dashboard menu:

In the ‘Social Previews’ section, choose between including all available site previews or just adding specific ones like Facebook and Twitter:

When you create a new blog post, you’ll see previews of how your content will look when it’s shared on various social media platforms.

This can preemptively help with engagement because the user has a more realistic view of what they’re about to share!

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Focus Keyword Export

The Focus Keyword Export is a premium feature. It allows you to set a specific focus keyword or phrase for each page and then export it to a spreadsheet or CSV file.

With the export, you can also include the readability and SEO scores if desired.

This allows you and/or your team to create SEO projects.

I use SEMrush to track which keywords I rank for on Google, which position, and on what pages.

Using the focus keyword with Yoast, it’s great to compare your results using the two tools.

So is it worth upgrading to Yoast Premium?

For me, yes.

For those who have many websites to manage or care deeply about website SEO best practices, yes! Upgrade to Yoast Premium.   It’s more of an investment but worth it if you can afford it.

FAQ’s