A plain-English Yoast SEO setup for contractors. Titles, meta descriptions, sitemaps, and schema that help local customers find you on Google.
Yoast SEO is the free WordPress plugin that handles the plumbing of search: titles, meta descriptions, sitemaps, and schema. It does not write your content, but it makes sure Google reads it correctly.
You do not need to be an SEO expert to set it up. Here is the short version for a contractor who wants local customers to find the site.
Every page needs a title that includes the service and the city, and a one-line description that makes someone want to click. Yoast gives you a box on every page to write both, with a preview of how it looks in Google.
Write for a homeowner searching, not for a search engine. Drywall Repair in Rockville, MD beats a generic Home or Services title every time.
Yoast generates an XML sitemap automatically, a map of every page on your site. Submit that sitemap inside Google Search Console so Google can find and index your pages quickly. This is the single most important webmaster step after launch.
Schema is structured data that tells Google your business name, address, phone, service area, and hours in a format it trusts. Yoast lets you set your organization details so this gets added across the site. It is what helps you show up in the local results and in AI answers.
For most contractors, yes. The free version covers titles, descriptions, sitemaps, and basic schema, which is the foundation you need.
In Google Search Console. Yoast generates the sitemap automatically; you paste its address into Search Console once.
No plugin can. Yoast makes sure Google reads your pages correctly, but ranking still depends on your content, reviews, and local signals.