The last couple of months a true change has been noticeable within the Yoast HQ. That’s why the marketing team is so excited for the newest release of Yoast SEO: 11.7! Every week we share our favorite podcasts with each other. Or we come in earlier and stay in longer to finish a podcast episode and share it. It’s not the most ideal situation to spread awareness for podcasts, though. That’s why in the newest release of Yoast SEO podcasts are now set to index by Google – thank you development team. Now we can get back to less talking and more searching.
Will podcasts replace blog posts?
Unfortunately the obsession with podcasts by some coworkers is not the reason why podcasts are suddenly to be indexed by Google. Google now indexes podcasts through the RSS feeds and displays these in the search results. Previously this was not yet the case, so the feeds in Yoast SEO were set to noindex. This caused podcasts and other feeds to be no indexed. As podcasts are getting more and more popular, you do want to be able to be found on Google as well and not just through mouth to mouth and through the podcast apps.
A few years ago the buzz went around the web that blogging was dead. And look at blogs today: they’re still alive and kicking. Podcasts will not replace radio, just as ebooks are not replacing the printed books. And blogs are still as relevant as ever! And you can translate your podcasts into blog posts as well.
Schema, Schema, Schema
By now you probably know the 11.x releases of Yoast SEO are all about Schema. And if you didn’t yet know, you can read up about what it is in this ultimate guide. To give you a quick summary: Schema.org takes care of all the structured data needs on your website. Search engines can pick up data marked up this way to understand it better. We couldn’t have released Yoast SEO 11.7 without Schema improvements!
It’s now possible to use a subset of HTML tags in the FAQ and HowTo blocks! This means that you can now add links in your blocks and with a bit of luck, Google will show these links in your FAQ or HowTo rich results. Why this is useful, you might wonder? With this feature, you will give people more reasons to click through to your content and they won’t just stay on Google to read what you’ve written. We’ve also fixed a bug where the avatar in the knowledge graph settings would incorrectly overwrite the default user profile picture.
UX improvements and bug fixes in Yoast SEO Premium
Both Yoast SEO and Yoast SEO Premium have gotten quite some usability enhancements, bug fixes and accessibility improvements. In Yoast SEO Premium we’ve improved several messages regarding the internal linking tool. You’ll now get more accurate feedback when we’ve calculated the prominent words for a text, but no matching articles to link to were found. Also, the site-wide internal linking analysis now comes with more extensive explanation texts.
To see all enhancements in Yoast SEO Premium, read the Yoast SEO Premium changelog here.
Local SEO updates
Are you wondering whether you should start a local ice-cream parlor that also delivers at home in the direct area this summer? Our Local SEO plugin has gotten quite some attention this release! Not only did we pay attention to the user experience, but we’ve also fixed bugs with the 12h and 24h notation. Check the full Local SEO changelog here.
PS: if you have a bakery, a local company or any other local store, these improvements are, of course, for you as well!
Update to Yoast SEO 11.7
It’s always smart to keep your software up to date. But if you’re not yet convinced to hit that update button right now: Yoast SEO 11.7 gives you more Schema advantages and has slight plugin improvements to get and stay ahead of your competition!