select environment for blog

Step 3 is the website type. Choose blog and click next.

site type blog screenshot

The next step is to set yourself up as a company or person. We already set this up before, so you can
skip this step.

blog is a person or company screenshot

In step 5, you can add any social profiles that are associated with your blog. Click “Next” when complete.

Step 6 is about post visibility. The default settings are fine to use. Set your “Posts” and “Pages” to visible
and “Media” to hidden.

page visibility for blog

Next, you’ll have to decide whether you’ll have multiple authors or a solo blogger. If you choose to add
another writer in the future, you can change these settings later.

blog multiple authors in wp screenshto

If you wish to have the Yoast SEO plugin pull in data from Google’s search console, step 8 is the place to
do it.

Click on the “Get Google Authorization Code” button.

google search console for blog setup

A new pop-up will appear where you can allow Yoast to access your search console data. Click the
“Allow” button to confirm access.

give yoast access to your blog screenshot

In step 9, you can verify your website name and choose a title separator.
The title separator is a symbol used to separate your blog post’s title and your website’s name in the
meta title information. This is what Google searchers will see when finding your blog through a search
query.

For instance, if you found this post on Google, you might have seen “How to Start a Blog – Neil Patel.”

The symbol is a matter of personal preference. Click “Next” when you’re ready to move on.

meta title separator blog screenshot

The final step is no step at all. It’s a congratulatory message confirming that you have successfully
optimized your SEO settings for your budding WordPress blog.

XML Sitemaps

The last Yoast SEO setting worth configuring is an XML sitemap. An XML sitemap is a file that lists the
URLs for your website.

It helps Google and other search engines crawl your site for new posts and pages. Fortunately, Yoast has
a built-in feature that automatically updates your sitemap, so you can click it and forget it.

In the “Features” tab, set the “Advanced settings pages” to “Enabled” and save the changes.

enable yoast sitemap feature for your blog

A new group of menus will appear in the sidebar, under “SEO.” Select the “XML Sitemaps” menu.

blog XML sitemaps screenshot

Select the “User Sitemap” tab and toggle “Author / user sitemap” to enabled. Don’t forget to save your
changes.

yoast user site map feature for your blog

You can play around with these settings endlessly, but everything that we’ve set up to this point will get
you started on the right track.