pengman

OK, I think I know what’s going on now. From experimentation I’ve found that if I set a landscape Featured Image on a Page or Post, then the description will not show up on Facebook. The same applies if there is no Featured Image set but I have a (default) landscape image set as a Facebook image in Yoast SEO. But if I have a porttrait image set in either of these two situations, then the descrption shows up in Facebook, to the right of the image. So I don’t think my reference to ‘Adults Only’ in my description on this page has anything to do with the description not showing up on Facebook. So armed with this information I can now display the image I want on any page or post but I have to accept that if use a landscape image, the description won’t be displayed in Facebook.

I thought I might have to upgrade to Yoast Premium to get this functionality but it appears I don’t have to, although I’m still considering upgrading to Yoast Premium but I figure that will demand more time to implement, and at present I haven’t got the time to do it justice. But I’ll probabaly upgrade in a month or two so I’m in the best shape possible to sell my holiday accommodation in the first 3 months of next year. Meanwhile, thank you @maybellyne for your excellent support and Yoast for a great product!

I’ve scraped a further 5 or 6 times but the description still isn’t appearing. I suspect this maybe because of the words ‘for adults’ which the Facebook bot may say is violating their commerce policy. That said it is allowing ‘for adults’ in the title, so why not the description? I’ve tried to post a link to this page in various Facebook ‘for sale’ groups today and it’s been reejected as viloating their commerce policy and I guess that’s because I was saying ‘Adults Only’ in my post (I’ve appealed the rejection), so maybe something similar is happening here?

But how do I excercise control over the site-wide Facebook image that appears on my site? (unless overridden by a Facebook image for a specific page as I’m doing here). If I can’t have a site-wide Facebook image, I guess I should set a Facebook for every page and post using the Yoast SEO plugin – is that my way forward?

I’ve deactivated the All-Meta-Tags plugin and now I’m getting the image I want on the page in question, so many thanks! However, I’m no longer getting the og:description for this page even though I’ve added the description in Yoast SEO. Is this because the red lips image is in landscape format as opposed to my site-wide image which was in portrait format?

I’ve no idea where my (portrait format) site-wide og:image is being set now the All-Meta-Tags plugin is deactivated – I haven’t set it in Yoast SEO for my home page or any other page, so where is it likely to be set from now? I’d like to change it to a different image in landscape format and I guess I can do that for in Yoast SEO for my home page in the same way as I have done for the this page, but I wouldn’t want to lose my og:description as Ive done on this page. Any clues as to how I do this without losing my og:description?

It was my mistake actually. There’s a difference between the url the ad points to, which can have my ‘cottages-with-dogs’ slug or any length slug I choose, and the display url that you choose for the ad where you can choose 2 phrases of up to 15 characters each. I’ve chosen /cottages/ (8 chars) and /dog friendly/ (12 chars), but together they point to my actual url with the ‘cottages-with-dogs’ slug. I just hadn’t figured this out when I raised this query.

BTW, although I’ve only been using Yoast for a couple of weeks now, I have to say I’m very impressed. I put my Yoast SEO’d site up on the Google Search Console last weekend and, although it took a few days to report anything, for the UK (my target audience at present due to the pandemic) from 6th to 9th March I got 3 clicks, 19 impressions, a CTR of 15.7% and an average position in the search results of 19.2, so just into the second page of Google’s search results I guess. I’ve read online (not in Yoast) that a CTR above 2% is considered good. Is that correct, because if so, my 15.7% sounds amazing for my first serious attempt at SEO! I’ve been taking baby steps so far but I guess my next step is to upgrade to Yoast Premium. Keep up the great work Yoast!

• This reply was modified 4 years ago by pengman.

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.

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?

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 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?).

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

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.

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.

Resolved

Hi Michael,

Thanks for your comments. I’ve given in gracefully and now don’t attempt to frame the page https://seaviewcottageportland.letsgouk.com/book However, in the coming weeks I should be recreating a Squarespace site https://www.intraspectrumstudios.com/ on WordPress as faithfully as I can, principally because of the issues with doing SEO work on Squarespace sites. This site has a lot of embedded videos, many of them full width, so I have a feeling I may end up using Advanced iFrame Pro for that.

Many thanks,

Graham