Newbie needs help!

We are sorry to hear that you’re having trouble with our plugin. You identified multiple queries that you want us to address and we’ll address them in order:

Single title assessment
By default, any standard WordPress themes add the page title using the H1 heading. If you add an additional H1 heading manually on a page, there would be multiple H1 heading. As a result of that, Yoast SEO shows the multiple H1 heading warning in the content analysis.

However, other WordPress themes don’t add the page title using the H1 heading. So, when adding an additional H1 heading manually on a page, there won’t be any multiple H1 heading. However, Yoast SEO can’t detect it since it depends on the currently active WordPress theme.

So, the best option is to manually check the relevant page source code and look for the H1 heading. If you see multiple H1 heading on the relevant page, you’ll need to remove or edit the corresponding H1 heading that you have added manually on the relevant page. If you don’t see multiple H1 heading on the relevant page, you can ignore the Yoast SEO content analysis multiple H1 heading warning.

That said, we looked at the blog post here https://seaviewcottageportland.letsgouk.com/booking-com-award/ on your website and can confirm that it has only one </h1> heading. So, Yoast SEO is showing you a false positive that you can completely ignore and it won’t affect anything negatively for the search engines.

Keyphrase in subheading assessment
We can confirm that H2 and H3 are considered to be subheadings. If Yoast SEO is showing to add the focus keyphrase or synonyms to subheadings, you’ll need to add them to get the green results.

However, please note that you won’t always need to get a green SEO score but you shall write naturally and just try to follow Yoast SEO content analysis as much as you can without hurting the readability of your content. At the end of the day, readers are humans who’ll read your content. You can find more about this here: https://yoast.com/want-green-bullet-wp-seo/

Keyphrase in title assessment
You’ll need to add the focus keyphrase to the SEO title. The SEO title option appears at the beginning of the Yoast SEO meta box. If you need to add the focus keyphrase on the SEO title, you can edit or remove all the variables that appear on the SEO title field as well. Alternatively, you can write something on the SEO title field and use the variables, too.

Thankyou so much for this Mazedul. I understand everything now except the ‘Keyphrase in title assessment’. I’ve read and re-read your explanation, but sorry I just don’t understand what I’m trying to achieve, now why I’m trying to achieve it. If you could provide a link to a Yoast document that explains this I’d be very grateful.

OK, I’ve been brave and altered the order of the elements of my SEO title to Site title, Separator, Page, Separator, Title. But what I have now as the SEO title of my home page at https://seaviewcottageportland.letsgouk.com is ‘Self Catering Accommodation, Seaview Cottage, Portland – – Home’. For the record my keyphrase is ‘Self Catering Accommodation’. The Keyphrase in title assessment is not showing up as a problem any more which is good, but I don’t understand why I’ve got two separators together, with nothing showing between them, and the page (Home?) at the end. If I could understand this then I think I’d be on the right track.

• This reply was modified 4 years ago by pengman.
• This reply was modified 4 years ago by pengman.
• This reply was modified 4 years ago by pengman.

@pengman Can you please let us know what you have set for the SEO Title template for the page? If possible please provide a screenshot. You can include an image by uploading a screenshot to an image sharing site such as https://pasteboard.co/ or something similar and then including a link to the image in your reply.

Thanks devnihil,

I don’t think Yeost does templates as such do they? (at least I can’t find any). As far as I see, SEO title for pages is defined in ‘Search Appearace – Yoast SEO – Pages – SEO title’. A screenshot of mine is at https://pasteboard.co/JQbsDGEZ.jpg

@pengman Thanks for your reply.

We reviewed the screenshot you provided and see that you are using the %%page%%variable in the template. This template variable will show the page number when the page in question is paginated (meaning it has a page 2, page 3, etc).

However, if the page doesn’t have additional pages, it won’t output anything. So if the page in question isn’t paginated, it would essentially result in %%sitename%% %%sep%% %%sep%% %%title%%, which would result in two separators in a row.

Can you please try removing the %%page%% variable and the separator following it and let us know whether that resolves the issue?

Hi again devnihil,

I THINK I’ve done what you requested, and the output from the SEO of my home page is as per the screenshot at https://pasteboard.co/JQbQkme.jpg which looks OK to me, but then I’m a newbie who’s not at all sure what he’s trying to achieve. But if I’ve got it right now, I guess I’ve learn two things:
1) I only need ‘Page’ in the equation when I’m applying SEO tro a paginated web page, and
2) Each time the cursor moves between the spaces between the SEO title elements, it is passing over a % character (I hadn’t appreciated that). I THINK (although I’m not sure) I’ve now got a single % between each element and is that correct, or do I need two of them (i.e. %%)?

Another related thing I’m confused about is the Site Title which I know is established site wide at WordPress Settings > General Settings > Site Title. That’s fine for my home page because the Site Title leads with my focus keyphrase (my Site Title in WordPress is ‘Self Catering Accommodation, Sea View Cottage, Portland’). But with other pages doesn’t it mean I’m stuck with the same site title as my Home page and can never get my focus keyphrase for that page in front of my (site wide) Site title? But I guess it must be possible because that’s the whole point of establishing a SEO title but I don’t understand how and I haven’t seen it explained anywhere. Maybe it means I should amend my Site Title to ‘Sea View Cottage, Portland’ then somehow get my focus keyphrase for each page ahead of that? But I can’t see how because if I click on ‘Insert Variable’ the drop down menu gives me a choice between Tagline, Site title, and Separator – there isn’t an option to insert Focus keyphrase (or does that come with Premium?).

@pengman Thanks for your reply. We’ve identified several concerns in your message and responded to each below:

I guess I’ve learn two things:
1) I only need ‘Page’ in the equation when I’m applying SEO tro a paginated web page

Yes, that is correct.

2) Each time the cursor moves between the spaces between the SEO title elements, it is passing over a % character (I hadn’t appreciated that). I THINK (although I’m not sure) I’ve now got a single % between each element and is that correct, or do I need two of them (i.e. %%)?

When you are in the SEO Title field and you enter a single % it brings up the template variables automatically to allow you to choose from them. However, it does technically require two %% when you simply inputting it into that field as text only and not selecting from the drop down menu that appears.

Another related thing I’m confused about is the Site Title which I know is established site wide at WordPress Settings > General Settings > Site Title. That’s fine for my home page because the Site Title leads with my focus keyphrase (my Site Title in WordPress is ‘Self Catering Accommodation, Sea View Cottage, Portland’). But with other pages doesn’t it mean I’m stuck with the same site title as my Home page and can never get my focus keyphrase for that page in front of my (site wide) Site title?

No, you are not stuck with the Site Title that is configured under Settings>General>Site Title for all your pages. Please understand that this is NOT the same thing as the <title> tag that is output for a page (aka SEO Title in the plugin).

But I guess it must be possible because that’s the whole point of establishing a SEO title but I don’t understand how and I haven’t seen it explained anywhere. Maybe it means I should amend my Site Title to ‘Sea View Cottage, Portland’ then somehow get my focus keyphrase for each page ahead of that? But I can’t see how because if I click on ‘Insert Variable’ the drop down menu gives me a choice between Tagline, Site title, and Separator – there isn’t an option to insert Focus keyphrase (or does that come with Premium?).

If you want to call the page/post’s focus keyphrase in the SEO Title by using a template variable, you can use the %%focuskw%% variable. This is not a feature that is restricted to the premium version of Yoast SEO.

Also, we checked on your page and the issue with the title does look to be resolved, as we confirmed in the source code that the <title> tag (aka SEO Title) is being output as the following:

<title>Self Catering Accommodation, Sea View Cottage, Portland - Home</title>

Yes, the issue is resolved on the home page, but only because I amended my Settings>General>Site title to commence with the keyphrase I wanted for my home page ‘self catering accommodation’. As I see it, in order for it to work for all pages I need to remove this keyphrase from Settings>General>Site title and set my SEO title for all pages as Keyphrase%%Separator%%Site title%%Separator%%Title. This will then give me a different SEO title for each page and one that commences with the keyphrase for that page – correct? However, I can find no way of achieving this.

You refer to the %%focuskw%% variable. I understand that the SEO title ‘Insert variable’drop down menu is populated by whatever elements I have set for SEO title in what you appear to call the template (but which isn’t referrred to as a template in the Yoast plugin itself). There are four elements offered to me in the template for the SEO title for pages – Site title, Title, Primary category, and Separator. There is not one for ‘Focuskw’ so I don’t appear to be able to bring that into my SEO title as you suggest I can. Also, the reference to Primary category appears incorrect because in WordPress only Posts have categories, not Pages, so that appears to me to be a fundamental error in Yoast programming. So I’m sorry but I cannot see anyway of getting my focus keyphrase into my SEO title other than to incorporate it with my Site title as I have done so far, which is fine for my Home page but no good for other pages where I want to use different keyphrases. I’ve also been looking for Yoast documentation that supports users trying to set SEO titles but it doesn’t appear to exist. So although you’ve tried to be very helpful, my patience is nearly exhausted and I’m close to abandoning Yoast which would be a shame because, other than this issue of setting SEO titles, I’m quite impressed by it and I’m sure that if I could get over this issue of setting SEO titles I’d upgrade to premium like a shot.`

Hi @pengman,

Yes, the issue is resolved on the home page, but only because I amended my Settings>General>Site title to commence with the keyphrase I wanted

One common way to set up the SEO titles is to set up the template variables under SEO > Search Appearance > Content Types with what you’d like to appear on all your other pages and posts, not the homepage. Since the homepage is usually the only exception, it might make sense to edit that page and override the default variables. For example, this would allow you to remove the page title variable and avoid displaying “Home”.

There is not one for ‘Focuskw’ so I don’t appear to be able to bring that into my SEO title as you suggest I can.

We’re sorry this dropdown isn’t working as expected. We have several open feature requests and bug reports to improve the UI, so we’re aware of the issues you’re seeing.

Although the list doesn’t contain all the available variables, you can always add them by directly typing in the characters %%focuskw%% in the SEO title field. This means that there’s no need to enter your focus keyword in the Site Title.

You can find a complete list in the List of available snippet variables in Yoast SEO.

The way the SEO title feature was designed assumes that users would follow the suggestion that appears in Yoast content analysis tool to add your focus keyphrase in the page or post title. See why Yoast SEO checks if your keyphrase is in your page title.

This would allow you to use default snippet variables like the Page Title instead of directly using the focus keyphrase field. Would this help to solve the problem?

Also, the reference to Primary category appears incorrect because in WordPress only Posts have categories, not Pages

That’s correct. In a default setup that categories only apply to posts, but some sites also add them to organize pages as well.

If you’d like to see more improvements for this feature, we would appreciate it if you can create a new GitHub bug report or feature request for our developers or add a comment about the impact of a problem on an existing one. You’ll need a GitHub account to create a new issue.

At last the penny’s dropped – I’ve got it!! HALLELUJAH!!! The key was your mention of and link to snippet variables in Yoast. I read that and at last it all made sense!! So I’ve now got a ‘standard’ SEO title page template of ‘Keyphrase, sep, Site title, sep, Tagline’ which seems to do what I want. Still got a final few questions before I end this thread though.

On my Gallery page, now called https://seaviewcottageportland.letsgouk.com/the-holiday-cottage-gallery/ , my keyphrase is ‘my holiday cottage’ which, amongst other places, is in the slug, the sub-heading element of the main H1 heading at the top of the page, in a line of text immediately thereunder, and in the title of the first image thereunder. However, I’m still getting a Problem flagged up of ‘Keyphrase in introduction: Your keyphrase or its synonyms do not appear in the first paragraph’. Why should that be? – as I see it I’ve got all bases covered.
Also on my Gallery page, I only had something like 90 words, these being the image titles, and was getting a readability problem of being less than 300 words. So right now I’ve got a 15 word sentence repeated 15 times in 1 1px high font the same color as the background color, right at the end of the page and I’m getting a Yoast readability issue of ‘Consecutive sentences: The text contains 15 consecutive sentences starting with the same word.’ I can understand that, but why is Yoast not also flagging up that I’m repeating the sentence 15 times and also that I’m using an unreadable font the same colour as the background and therefore clearly trying to fool Google? This was frowned upon over 20 years ago when I first started using SEO (the name Bruce Clay comes to mind), but according to Yoast, it’s OK for me to do this. Is it OK to attempt to fool Google in this way now then?

One final question – on the Yoast page https://yoast.com/slug/ the point is made that one shouldn’t change the slug for a post, and therefore it’s address, after publication. Does this apply to pages too? My web site has been up nearly 2 years now and the number of pages, and particularly posts, have grown since then but I’m only now getting around to doing SEO work and I guess this must be a fairly common situation. So right now I propose to adopt a strategy of leaving the home page with no slug (because I figure this would effectively change the address of my home page and possibly have major repercussions for me) but amend the slug for all other pages and posts to incorporate the keyphrase for that page or post. Any comments on this strategy?

One final final point ?? , re my home page at https://seaviewcottageportland.letsgouk.com/ (no slug), Yoast is not flagging up that I’m not incorporating my home page keyphrase in the slug (as I said, I’ve got no slug on my home page). Any reason why?

Hi!

We have responded to the different issues below

A. However, I’m still getting a Problem flagged up of Keyphrase in introduction: Your keyphrase or its synonyms do not appear in the first paragraph’. Why should that be? – as I see it I’ve got all bases covered.

We went to the page here: https://seaviewcottageportland.letsgouk.com/the-holiday-cottage-gallery/ and looked at the words near the top and we are not seeing the phrase “my holiday cottage”. See image: https://ibb.co/LNFmQQx.

We are not familiar with the site so we are not sure what was added where. However, if you add a line of text at the top of the page with that keyword does the issue resolve?

Note that we have a guide on how to best SEO your image gallery pages here https://yoast.com/optimize-wordpress-gallery/. We do recommend including some kind of introductory content at the top.

B. Also on my Gallery page, I only had something like 90 words, these being the image titles, and was getting a readability problem of being less than 300 words. So right now I’ve got a 15 word sentence repeated 15 times in 1 1px high font the same color as the background color, right at the end of the page and I’m getting a Yoast readability issue of ‘Consecutive sentences: The text contains 15 consecutive sentences starting with the same word.’ I can understand that, but why is Yoast not also flagging up that I’m repeating the sentence 15 times and also that I’m using an unreadable font the same colour as the background and therefore clearly trying to fool Google? This was frowned upon over 20 years ago when I first started using SEO (the name Bruce Clay comes to mind), but according to Yoast, it’s OK for me to do this. Is it OK to attempt to fool Google in this way now then

No, it is not OK to fool Google (and is still frowned upon today). They can scan the source code and determine what is happening and make any appropriate penalties as necessary.

Instead, rather we recommend being honest. If you know the audience and purpose of that page does not need 300 words then it is OK if not all dots are green. This guide explains more: https://yoast.com/want-green-bullet-wp-seo/.

It makes no sense to just add content to add content if it does not have a specific purpose for your audience.

However, we do recommend making sure you have some kind of introductory content. It could be 90 words or less. It could be 300 words. It could be somewhere in between. If you add 300 words to resolve green dot that is great! If not, that is great too!

C. One final question – on the Yoast page https://yoast.com/slug/ the point is made that one shouldn’t change the slug for a post, and therefore it’s address, after publication. Does this apply to pages too? My web site has been up nearly 2 years now and the number of pages, and particularly posts, have grown since then but I’m only now getting around to doing SEO work and I guess this must be a fairly common situation. So right now I propose to adopt a strategy of leaving the home page with no slug (because I figure this would effectively change the address of my home page and possibly have major repercussions for me) but amend the slug for all other pages and posts to incorporate the keyphrase for that page or post. Any comments on this strategy?

You are right that the homepage does not need a slug. In regards to changing the slug on the other pages you should consider doing it. Google considers the slug as clue as to what the page is about. This guide explains more: https://yoast.com/slug/.

However, we highly recommend reviewing the analytics and traffic on the pages. It could be that a page is ranking for different keyword than what you may have originally intended and that changing the slug would impact the traffic on the page.

You may wish to change a couple page’s slugs to include the keyword and then monitor the results. If you are seeing the right kind of results (whatever those might be) you can roll it out to other pages overtime.

The last thing you want to do is make a bunch of changes to the page’s slugs and then see unexpected negative results.

D. One final final point ?? , re my home page at https://seaviewcottageportland.letsgouk.com/ (no slug), Yoast is not flagging up that I’m not incorporating my home page keyphrase in the slug (as I said, I’ve got no slug on my home page). Any reason why?

If you have a homepage and Yoast is asking you to change the slug, we shouldn’t be doing it. As it gives a false impression you need to add a slug (when because it is the homepage you do not).

We have a request open with the right team to look into how we can improve this notification on homepages. At this time, you can ignore it.

• This reply was modified 4 years ago by Pcosta88.
• This reply was modified 4 years ago by Pcosta88.

OK and thanks – I understand all that now. Re my gallery page at https://seaviewcottageportland.letsgouk.com/the-holiday-cottage-gallery/ I would make 2 points:-

1) I’ve now removed the 15 identical sentences in a small font same color as the background. I’ll have a think about adding a bit of introductory text at the top of the page, but it won’t be 200 words+ – in my view people need to see the images immediately, not wade through text to get to them

2) in my last email I said my keyphrase for this page was ‘my holiday cottage’. I got that wrong – it’s actually ‘THE Holiday Cottage’ (with upper case THE, H & C) which as you will have seen from the image image: https://ibb.co/LNFmQQx is right at the top of the page although in a different case (does case matter?). However, Yoast is saying it doesn’t appear in the first paragraph.

If you’ve got any comment on (2) above I’d like to hear it. If not I guess we’re done and I should like to thank all at Yoast for your patience with me over the last few days. In future I’ll concentrate on searching for articles at Yoast University and will only post here as a last resort.

Hi,

We have responded to the points below.

A. in my view people need to see the images immediately, not wade through text to get to them.

No worries! This part will be a bit of a judgement call on your end. We do recommend having some kind of text at the top but at the end of the day you know your audience and the page’s purpose better than Yoast does.

So if adding text makes no sense given the context of the page, it is also OK to leave it blank too.

B.However, Yoast is saying it doesn’t appear in the first paragraph.

Capitalization does not matter in regards to keywords. However, we looked at that section on the page and it appears to be added via some kind of module or is some kind of subheading field?

Yoast not finding it is likely the result of how the page has been configured and/or how that text has been exactly added.

In this case, you can ignore the warnings that Yoast is throwing out. As long as you know you have added it, so will Google as Google will be able to scan the source code of your page and use what it finds for ranking.

We are going ahead and marking this issue as resolved due to inactivity. If you require any further assistance please create a new issue.