In Nov 2015, Yoast released a major update to his SEO plugin with version 3.0. And in this MaAnna Minute, we’ll get you up to speed with all of the changes.
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Major Updates in Yoast SEO 3.0
Once you upgrade the Yoast SEO plugin, you may see this notice at the top to recalculate your SEO scores. Just click the link to do that.
The biggest change in version 3.0 is to the on-page module.
You’ll notice that it has a whole new look.
Snippet Editor
And now the snippet preview has been turned into a snipped editor. It updates on the fly as you make changes. Previously it would only update after you published the post. So, if you’re using the focus keyword and page analysis tool to help you create better SEO content, then this will be a huge perk.
The User Interface has changed as well. To change the title or meta description, hover over them and you’ll see a blue edit box.
Click on it to begin editing.
Real Time Updates to Page Analysis
When you input a keyword or key phrase, the page analysis updates in real time.
You’ll see your score in a new traffic light looking icon in the upper left. You’ll also see that icon in the Publish module.
With the premium version of this plugin, you will be able to click the little plus sign up here and enter additional keywords or phrases.
Tabs Replaced by Icons
Instead of tabs across the top, now you have icons down the left side.
The gear icon will take you to the Advanced section.
And the social icon will take you to the Social media section.
The tabs for it have had a little tweak too.
Category and Tag Customizer
Yoast has also included this same module on category and tag archive pages. This will be especially helpful to folks who use custom taxonomies.
Checked by OnPage.org
OnPage.org produces SEO analysis reports via their tool that crawls your site and evaluates what can be indexed by search engines.
The Yoast SEO plugin will request that OnPage check your site once a week and will pop up a notification to tell you if a page or post cannot be crawled by OnPage. That notification will pop up in your WordPress Dashboard and you’ll receive an email.