Yoast SEO features most WordPress sites never use

Most WordPress sites install Yoast SEO, chase green lights in the editor and never open the settings. The bigger wins are in configuration: telling Google who you are, turning off archive pages that create thin duplicates, setting the right schema type per content type, generating an llms.txt file for AI tools, and using the bulk editor and file editor to fix titles and crawl rules at scale. Here are the features worth twenty minutes of your time, as they appear in current versions of Yoast SEO.

Site representation: tell Google who you are

Where: Yoast SEO, then Settings, then Site representation.

Choose whether the site represents an organization or a person, then add the name, logo and social profiles. Yoast uses this to build the Organization or Person entity in its schema markup, which helps search engines and AI assistants connect your site to your brand, your Google Business Profile and your social accounts. Many sites skip this and leave the entity blank.

Also set site name and tagline under Site basics, since they feed titles and structured data.

Schema per content type

Where: Settings, then Content types (and per post in the editor's Schema tab).

Yoast lets you choose the default Page type and Article type for each content type. Pages can be marked as, for example, an About page, Contact page or FAQ page; posts can be set as a blog post or news article. You can override it per post in the editor. For custom post types like services, locations or team members, choosing a sensible default makes your JSON-LD far more accurate than the generic "WebPage" most sites ship with.

Search appearance templates

Where: Settings, then Content types and Categories and tags.

Each content type has templates for the SEO title and meta description built from variables such as the title, separator and site name. Set them once so every new page gets a sensible title tag and meta description even when an editor forgets. You can also choose whether a content type appears in search results at all, which is the right move for things like testimonials or internal landing pages.

Archives that create thin pages

Where: Settings, then Advanced.

• Author archives: on single-author sites, disable them. They duplicate your blog index.
• Date archives: almost always disable. Nobody searches for "posts from March".
• Format archives: disable unless your theme uses post formats meaningfully.
• Tag archives (under Categories and tags): if you use dozens of one-off tags, consider setting them to noindex.

Each change removes pages that compete with your real content and waste crawl attention.

Media pages

Where: Settings, then Advanced, then Media pages.

WordPress creates a separate "attachment page" for every uploaded image. Those pages are thin and can end up in search. Yoast can redirect attachment URLs to the file itself. Check that this is on, especially on older sites that predate the setting.

Breadcrumbs

Where: Settings, then Advanced, then Breadcrumbs.

Yoast can output breadcrumbs with matching BreadcrumbList schema. Many themes support Yoast breadcrumbs directly; others need a block or a small template change. Breadcrumbs help visitors, internal linking and how your URL path displays in results.

RSS feed backlinks

Where: Settings, then Advanced, then RSS.

Add a line to the end of each post in your feed linking back to the original. If scrapers republish your posts, the link points search engines to your site as the source.

Crawl optimization (Premium)

Where: Settings, then Advanced, then Crawl optimization.

Yoast can remove WordPress output that bots crawl but nobody needs, such as unused feeds, extra links in the page head and some unnecessary URL variants. It is in Premium per Yoast's documentation. Turn options on one at a time and check that nothing your site relies on breaks.

llms.txt for AI tools

Where: Settings, then Site features, then AI tools.

Yoast can generate an llms.txt file, a plain-text summary of your most important pages for large language models. You can let Yoast choose the pages or pick them manually, per Yoast's setup guide. It is not available on multisite. We explain what llms.txt does and does not do in llms.txt, schema and Open Graph.

Other Site features worth checking

Where: Settings, then Site features.

• XML sitemaps: keep on, and submit the sitemap index to Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools. See optimizing an AI-built site for search and AI for the submission steps, which are the same for WordPress.
• Text link counter: shows internal links in and out of each post in the posts list, which makes weakly linked pages easy to spot.
• Cornerstone content: mark your most important pages so Yoast applies stricter analysis and you can filter for them.
• Inclusive language analysis: off by default; useful for public-facing organizations.
• REST API endpoint: lets a headless front end fetch Yoast's metadata. Relevant if you run headless WordPress. See what is a headless CMS.
• Slack sharing: adds extra details, such as author and estimated reading time, to link previews when your posts are shared in Slack.
• Open Graph and X card data: leave these on so shared links display a title, description and image.

Tools most people never open

Where: Yoast SEO, then Tools.

• Bulk editor: edit SEO titles and meta descriptions for many posts and pages on one screen. The fastest way to fix a site full of missing or duplicate descriptions.
• File editor: create or edit robots.txt (and .htaccess on Apache) from the dashboard, if your install allows file editing. Test changes, because one wrong line can block crawling.
• Import and export: copy Yoast settings between sites, or import from another SEO plugin when switching.

Per-post settings in the editor

In each post's Yoast panel:

• Advanced: set a canonical tag when a page duplicates another, set a single page to noindex (thank-you pages, landing page variants), and adjust the breadcrumb title.
• Schema: override the page or article type.
• Social: set a custom title, description and image for sharing.

What Premium adds

Yoast lists these as Premium features on its free vs Premium page: a redirect manager, internal linking suggestions, an orphaned content finder, multiple and related keyphrases, word form support, social previews, a stale cornerstone content reminder, and AI features that generate titles and descriptions or suggest improvements. IndexNow, which notifies Bing and other participating engines of changes, is also listed as Premium on the Site features page.

The redirect manager alone justifies Premium on sites that rename or restructure pages often. See how to redesign a website without losing SEO for why redirects matter.

A twenty-minute setup checklist

1. Fill in Site representation: organization or person, logo, social profiles.
2. Set Page and Article types for each content type.
3. Write title and description templates per content type.
4. Disable date archives, and author archives on single-author sites.
5. Confirm media pages redirect.
6. Turn on breadcrumbs and add them to your theme.
7. Enable llms.txt and choose the pages.
8. Submit the sitemap to Google and Bing.
9. Use the bulk editor to fill missing descriptions.

The short version

Yoast does much more than score your writing. Configure site representation, schema types, title templates, archives, media pages and llms.txt, then use the bulk and file editors to clean up at scale. For the bigger picture on WordPress, see why we choose WordPress for content sites and WordPress security that actually matters. Want your WordPress SEO configured properly? Get in touch.