We’ve had a busy April with platform enhancements and a lot of exciting client work. For example, we’re doing a complete restructure and new user journeys for one of our legal client sites right now. We’re also doing a couple of full sites for both current and new clients in broadcast media and financial services. If you have something you’ve been putting off because you don’t have time or resources, reach out.
In addition, we want to remind you that if you know anyone that hasn’t started to build their business online yet, we have a handy guide to help. Pass it on — we’d love to hear from them.
Last month we covered the tools available through Yoast SEO on your Rainmaker Platform site. For this month’s State of the Platform, we’ve got a quick look at our latest update and a follow-up to last month’s article with a walkthrough of best practices for using Yoast SEO on Rainmaker Platform. Let’s dive in.
Rainmaker Platform Update 3.5.1.1
We released one update this month: 3.5.1.1.
Our latest version of the platform includes a ton of fixes and enhancements to many of our most popular features, including Debloat, LearnDash, MemberPress, Ninja Forms and more. If you want to see it in more detail, see the changelog here.
Best Practices for Yoast SEO on Rainmaker Platform
Last month, we talked about the Yoast SEO settings on your posts and pages — what they were and where to find them.
This month, we’re getting a little more in depth with some practical tips and best practices. Now, be aware, some of these won’t help your site rank higher on Google — much. However, they will help people click through to your site, increase time on site and make your content more attractive to AI models.
When you start a new page or post, scroll down to the bottom of the page and you’ll see the Yoast SEO pane. We covered that in depth in last month’s State of the Platform. Here are the best practices for the most important of those settings.
SEO Title
The SEO title is populated with a few variables by default. There are a number of different variables you can add here; you can also add text manually. This title is what users will see on the search engine results page (SERP) when this page or post is shown.
If you want to add more variables here, click the “Insert Variable” button at the top right.
Current standards say that the length of this SEO title should be between 55 and 70 characters. Yoast’s length is slightly tighter, but well within the parameters of best practices. You can see whether the title length is correct or not by the color of the bar below the text box — green is good, red is bad.
SEO Slug
Your slug should be as short and descriptive as possible.
There’s no real optimal length, but shorter is better. You should include a keyword or two that’s relevant to the content — in this case, “test.” Bear in mind, though, that this is the slug that people will see on the search engine results page (SERP). This needs to work for both machines and people.
As much as possible, this slug should be easily readable by people who will see it on the SERP. And secondarily, if possible, it ought to be memorable.
Keyword stuffing here is an awful idea. Short being better, you have limited real estate, and stuffing doesn’t work. Don’t make your slug something like “test-title-page-for-testing-test,” for example.
Finally, here are a few things to avoid:
- Special characters. Not memorable for humans, can mess with machines.
- Underscores. Use hyphens instead; underscores are less intuitive for people.
- Dates or unnecessary numbers. If you do “best-seo-programs-2025” and update it in 2026, people will see 2025 in the slug and avoid it because it feels dated.
- Articles, conjunctions, prepositions or other connecting words. Think “the,” “and,” “but.” For example, our example title would be better as “test-title-article.”
Meta Description
This is the description people should see when your page is displayed on the SERP. That’s not guaranteed — sometimes the search engine will pull a part of the page it thinks fits better — but the meta still has value, as it may be displayed in other places and the information is still used to inform the search engine what your page or post is about.
Your optimal length for the meta description is between 150-160 characters. Just like the SEO Title, the Meta Description box in Yoast has an indicator which will turn green once you’re in the optimal range.
The meta description should follow a clear structure — this is designed to get people to click on your site, so there’s a bit of copywriting that goes into it.
- Arouse interest. Ask a question, showcase value, give a bit of a tease.
- Say what the page is about.
- Encourage action. This is a call to action (CTA), with everything that implies.
Metas are fairly straightforward. There are a couple of trouble areas you might run into, though. First, a vague meta means people won’t click. Detailed beats fuzzy. In addition, some people think this is a good area to stuff keywords. Keyword stuffing hasn’t worked in decades; don’t do it here.
Schema
Your schema is not going to directly affect your search rankings. However, what it does do is give search engines, LLMs (AIs) and hybrids a better understanding of the context of your page. If the machine knows the page is a contact form, for example, it will treat it differently than it would a landing page. You need certain schemas to be allowed to show up in rich snippets, shopping widgets, local businesses or other rich results.
The default settings apply to most posts. However, when you’re building new pages, take the time to set the schema to the correct settings for the type of page you’re creating. It only takes about 10 seconds and it can significantly help your visibility.
Social Media
This controls how your page is shown on social media, including everything from Facebook to Slack. X (Twitter) is the only platform with its own settings; if you leave them blank, the main social media settings will also be applied to X.
If you have a default image that will display awkwardly on social media, the social image is a good option to set. Create and add a new image designed for social media display sizes and aspect ratios. Though each platform is different, most support anything between a 1:1 and 2:1 ratio. LinkedIn specifically prefers 1.91:1.
Most of the time you probably won’t touch the social title and description if you’ve done a good enough job on the SEO title and meta description.
For X (Twitter), you can probably use the default social media settings most of the time. But if you want to add a different photo, use the Twitter ratio: recommended 1600 x 900 pixels, but the picture can be 2:1, 3:4 or 16:9 and still display correctly on the timeline even on mobile.
Set Your SEO Settings Up Right
These five major settings in your Yoast SEO panel are critical. Make sure you adjust them correctly. It only takes a short time, and it can improve your visibility on the SERP, search engine rich listings and LLMs, and your click-through on various search engine platforms. Need a hand with best practices on your site? Don’t hesitate to reach out. Just drop us a line, anytime.
Best Regards,
David Brandon
Copywriter
Rainmaker Digital Services