What you need to know about securities and metas variables on Yoast SEO

What is a variable?

First of all: a variable is a name or a symbol that represents a value. For example, Yoast SEO uses the variable%%sitename%% to get the name of the website. This way you, as the user, don't have to type in this information by hand.

Read also: Yoast SEO: Introduction of SEO roles

Now, when the website name changes, the variable automatically gets the new name. If you added the name manually to your articles, you would have to change everything manually. Consider doing it on hundreds of pages and you will see the power of the variables.

How does Yoast SEO use variables?

Yoast SEO uses variables to give you the freedom and flexibility you need when working on your SEO. It is much easier to find common ground for your text fields. 

Also, if you need to change something, variables allow you to do that as quickly as possible.

See also How is the Yoast SEO Redirection Manager useful?

You can only find the relevant options in the Titles and Metas section of the Yoast SEO plugin if you enable advanced settings. There you will find plenty of options for setting variables to automate your SEO efforts. 

The complete list of variables can be found in the tab Help center plugin. Just go to SEO → Titles and Metas and click on the help tab at the top right.

You are free to change all settings as you see fit, but remember, the default settings are almost always suitable for all websites. That said, you can define variables for:

• The home page
• The title of the website
• The articles
• The pages
• The media
• Custom types
• The categories
• Keywords
• Archives

How to set variables in Yoast SEO

You can use variables in a number of ways. Most website owners only use the simpler ones, while experts might use the advanced ones.

There are even variables to use with WooCommerce, so that you can automatically extract information from your store for use in metadata. 

We will keep this tutorial simple and give a small example. Let's take a look at the different variables that you can use to determine the title of a post on a website.

See also How to configure the WordPress plugin Yoast SEO

* Open the advanced settings of Yoast SEO and go to Titles and Metas.
* Go to the Articles section and find the Title Template field.
* The field is pre-filled, but you can change it for what you want.
* If you need the list of supported variables, click Help Center.

Fragment editor

If you want, you can edit the SEO title by articles in Yoast SEO snippets editor. There you will find the title according to the variables you have chosen. Besides, you also have the option to replace this title with a custom variant if you think it will get more clicks from search engines.

The default title variable string is:

%%title%% %%page%% %%sep%% %%sitename%%

Which, can give a result similar to the following:

These combined variables form the SEO title of the publication. In this chain, the title  takes the title of the publication, adds a page number  if there is one (page 3 of 4), the symbol separator that you chose and the name  of the website on which it is displayed.

You can add a lot of other variables there, but remember, you are working with limited space for snippets. If you add  %%category%% for example, the title would become too long and Google would reduce it. 

Try to find common ground between readability, discovery and branding. Yes, your branding is important, so don't forget %%sitename%%.

Using variables for SEO

Yoast SEO supports a wide range of variables and can be used for almost any situation. However, you should always ask yourself if the change you want to make improves your metadata.

Read also : 8 premium WordPress plugins for blog referencing

If not, why not let the default settings do their job?

SEO pros will appreciate the use of advanced variables, and online store owners can use WooCommerce's additional variables.

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Recommended Resources

Find out about other recommended resources to help you build and manage your website.

Conclusion

Here! That's it for this tutorial. Feel free to share this article with your friends on your favorite social networks. 

However, you will also be able to consult our resources, if you need more elements to carry out your projects of creation of Internet sites, by consulting our guide on the WordPress blog creation.

If you have suggestions or remarks, leave them in our section Comments.

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