In May, Google announced support for how-to structured data. In response, Yoast’s SEO plugin has been updated and revamped with new how-to blocks. This update also makes the meta box easier to use with a tabbed interface along the top, and fixes to security and schema to round things out. These updates come in support of Google’s changes and local SEO Consultants.
The new content block has been designed to be compatible with the WordPress block editor, available starting with version 5.0. Yoast incorporates all the generated data code into your website’s graph. This means that search engines are informed about how the data relates to your website, giving it proper context.
Here is what you can find in the new Yoast SEO 11.6 to boost your Search Engine Optimization.
An Improved Meta Box Experience
Making the user experience simple and enjoyable is important. Given the amount of time spent with the meta box, ease-of-use is a factor. This is accomplished with some changes to the Yoast SEO meta box itself.
Previous improvements included the relocation of the keyphrase field, the introduction of the mobile snippet preview, a set of tabs, and a top-of-box menu. The new update changes the alignment of tabs from horizontal to vertical, making everything easier to read and find.
In the previous version, there was an optimization tab. This tab has now been split into two new ones: SEO and Readability. Each tab features a smiley icon which will light up to indicate the status of your post. The SEO tab contains SEO-related checks and the snippet preview. The Readability tab relates to the actual language of your post and means to improve it.
An Updated Implementation of How-To Structured Data
As mentioned above, ease-of-use is vital, and the Yoast SEO structured data content blocks allow you to easily add specific content with Schema structured data attached automatically. For example, if you wish to take advantage of Google’s featured snippets by including an FAQ, it’s easy to do using the FAQ content block. How-to content blocks allow you to add valid structured data to your pages.
These how-to blocks are in alignment with Google’s latest changes. Additionally, they add the structured data code to your website’s graph. This means that search engines are informed of how the content relates to the overall site.
Security Fix
The new Yoast SEO 11.6 addresses a WordPress security issue on term pages. The unfiltered code was permitted in some fields. There will be no problems for single-user sites, though on multiple installs there may be specific cases that experience issues due to the way user roles function.
Schema Fixes
While the updated how-to content blocks are the major addition to this update, there are also several fixes to Schema bugs, such as one where the Organization and Article Schema nodes did not output correctly if a website did not set the name and/or logo of the organization. Another bug fix addresses incidents where the Schema @id were incorrect on posts where the author archives were disabled.
Yoast SEO 11.6 aligns with Google’s adoption of how-to structured data markup, meaning that users may be shown instructional information as a rich result with greater frequency. It is now easier than ever to add how-to markup to your content.
LinkedIn
19/07/2019
Christian is a British-born entrepreneur and founder of Marwick. For over 19 years, Christian has successfully helped businesses excel in digital marketing. Founded in 2012, Marwick has grown from a start-up to the 11th Fastest Growing Company in Canada in 2020 and expanded into the UK in 2019.