I appreciate what people are saying about the Yoast “Fluff”, however for me the fluff is important.
Most of my clients have heard that SEO is “important”, but they do not really know what it is. They like to see SEO featured in the cms. Yoast provides that, and also gives them a useful set of hints on how to improve their SEO on a page by page basis.
It may not be ideal, but it gives them a starting point for thinking about SEO, and it makes sure they don’t ignore the essentials.
Also, I have had many many clients who, the minute their site goes live, get contacted by various dodgy “seo specialist” companies trying to instil fear and doubt in them about their SEO, in order to poach the ongoing site maintenance and basically steal my work. Therefore it is important to demonstrate to the client that SEO is already a feature of their site.
However, if Yoast ignores ACF fields it can give them wildly inaccurate “scores”. It is too much to expect non technical clients to get their heads around the fact that this does not really matter, or to explain why, they want things to “just work”. It undermines the clients confidence in their site.
I am not aware of any other plugin that does what Yoast does, imperfect as it is, and I feel they have invested so much in their product that surely they will eventually come out of the awkward patch they seem to be going through at the moment.
If anyone does know of other SEO plugins that might be a good alternative, I would be keen to know. It may be that the problem with Yoast is precisely a lack of competition, no one snapping at their heels.
