Search engines have different algorithms for ranking the content on each site. However, all search engines have a common set of components that play a major role in the algorithm. These components include the post/page title, description, tags, and URL. WordPress was first built as a blogging tool. Therefore, the default features allow search engines to quickly track and rank posts from WordPress sites. However, we can always make certain modifications to improve and optimize the content for search engines.

The Yoast SEO plugin provides a set of fields in the post and page edit screen to check the content quality for search engines and suggest necessary modifications. The main keyword plays a major part in search engine ranking. When someone searches for a specific thing, we want our site to be ranked at the top of the search engine results for that specific term. So, for each post/page, we have to decide on a keyword that we want to be searched for and ranked higher. So, we added the key aspect of the post content as the Focus Keyword.

Then, we kept the SEO Title and Slug fields as their default values. The title and slug play a major part in search engine ranking. So, we have to use a title that clearly explains the content, as well as include the focus keyword in it. The default features of this plugin use post/page title followed by a separator and site title. If we can improve the title for search engines, we can manually change it here. Similarly, the slug should be meaningful with possible keywords. We kept the default value as WordPress Pretty Permalinks generates search engine friendly slugs.

Meta description is the next most important thing used by search engines. We have to create a summary of the content, including the main points and keywords of the content. The default feature doesn't provide a summary, and hence we have to manually add a meta description for the post. If you keep this field empty, search engines will take a part of your post and use it as a description. So, it's recommended to edit it manually to optimize for search engines as we don't have control over what a search engine will pick as a description from our content.

Then, we checked the SEO Analysis section, which shows how good or bad the content is for search engines. In this case, we found several problems and improvements, such as the following:

• Outbound links: These are links from your site to external sites. If you link to good external sites that have similar content to your site, the search engines will be able to use the links to get a clear idea about your content by comparing it with the content on the external link. Even though it's not mandatory, it's good to link to higher-ranked sites in the same category when you have relevant content.
• Internal links: These links allow search engines to track the other resources, help optimize other sections of the site, and improve the ranking of your site.
• Keyphrase in introduction: Apart from the title, the first paragraph of a post is important for search engine optimization. So, including keywords in the first paragraph can help boost the ranking. 
• Keyphrase in meta description: We added a summary of the post as meta description. However, it doesn't contain the main keyword. We have to include the keyword in the meta description because search engines look for content in the meta description.
• Image alt attributes: Search engines use alt tags of images to understand their content. So, adding a description of the image with possible keywords may help improve the content for search engines.

• Text length: This post only contains 7 words and is therefore considered to be too short. The recommended text length for search engines is 300 words.
• Keyphrase in the title: The title and keywords make a huge impact on Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Having the keyword inside the title makes the content even better for search engines. In this case, the feature is suggesting to move the keyword to the beginning of the title to make it more appealing. Search engines consider the first 3-4 words as the most important ones in the ranking.

These are only some of the suggestions based on the content of the post. Depending on your content, the plugin will provide other suggestions. We have to fix as many of the problems and suggestions as possible. Once these are fixed, the content on our posts and pages will contain the details that search engines are looking for through the algorithm. So, the content is likely to be ranked higher than the content we had before using the plugin.

Apart from improving the content and titles for search engines, the plugin will add a set of meta tags for the post. The meta tags that start with the og: prefix refer to open graph meta tags. These tags are used by social networks such as Facebook and Twitter to decide what content will be shown on social networks when you share links from your site. Twitter: prefix tags are used by Twitter to identify which content is to be used for Twitter cards.

The content on social engines doesn't have a direct impact on the search results. However, if your site content looks good on social media, more people will share it and link to your content. Links from higher-ranked sites help improve search engine ranking. So, adding the necessary details for sharing your content on social media indirectly optimizes the content for search engines.