Avatar of Edwin Toonen

Edwin Toonen

Edwin is an experienced strategic content specialist. Before joining Yoast, he worked for a web design magazine, where he learned how to create great content.

You can find Edwin on: Twitter

In 2006, after working full time in a bookstore for many years, I boldly decided to return to school. I wanted to combine my love for writing with the lure of the internet, so I picked Digital Communication at the HAN University of Applied Sciences in Arnhem. Four years later, I graduated with honors.

In the meantime, I started working for The Netherlands’ largest monthly magazine on web design and development. As a managing editor, I wrote, edited, and translated hundreds of articles on this fascinating subject. I also made sure the magazine’s day-to-day operations went according to plan.

At Yoast, I do much of the same work, except on a bigger scale. As a content specialist, I am responsible for delivering quality content that is engaging and optimal.

In my spare time, I love rocking my 1972 Fender Precision bass with my band (Every Other Me), fiddling about with synthesizers, listening to music, watching an endless stream of – classic – movies, taking long cycling trips, and enjoying life with my sons and girlfriend.

Edwin

SEO in 2023: Your chance to shine!

28 December 2022 | 1 Comment Edwin Toonen

For most sites, SEO in 2023 will probably be similar to the past couple of years: you still need to improve your work but set the bar higher and higher. Competition is getting fiercer, and Google — and your potential customers — are getting better at recognizing true quality. Also, you should keep an eye […]

Read: "SEO in 2023: Your chance to shine!"
SEO in 2023: Your chance to shine!


Don’t relabel your old content as new; it’s a lousy SEO tactic

21 December 2022 | 4 Comments Edwin Toonen

Content freshness is a ranking factor in Google’s algorithm and has been that way for years. Google tends to favor unique, recent, and timely content on the search results page. However, there’s a repercussion stemming from this – many websites would relabel their old content as new to try to game the algorithm. This is […]

Read: "Don’t relabel your old content as new; it’s a lousy SEO tactic"
Don’t relabel your old content as new; it’s a lousy SEO tactic

Yoast SEO 19.13: Fixing a breaking issue in Gutenberg

20 December 2022 Edwin Toonen

Last week, we uncovered a problem in Gutenberg’s upcoming release that breaks the block editor’s link functionality when used in conjunction with Yoast SEO. The result is that users cannot create links using the editor. This release of the block editor will happen this week, so we’re proactively updating Yoast SEO to be sure to […]

Read: "Yoast SEO 19.13: Fixing a breaking issue in Gutenberg"
| Tag
Yoast SEO 19.13: Fixing a breaking issue in Gutenberg

Yoast SEO 19.11: Upgrading your SEO data

29 November 2022 | 6 Comments Edwin Toonen

At Yoast HQ, we’re doing our part to make your websites run like clockwork. One of the things we’re working on is optimizing our Yoast SEO plugin to use fewer resources. This helps make your site faster and more efficient. In Yoast SEO 19.11, we’re doing this by streamlining your database. Improved SEO data optimization […]

Read: "Yoast SEO 19.11: Upgrading your SEO data"
Yoast SEO 19.11: Upgrading your SEO data

Local ranking factors that help your small business’ SEO

8 November 2022 Edwin Toonen

If you have a local business selling products or services, you have to think about the local ranking of your website. Local SEO will help you surface related search queries in your area. As Google shows local results first in many cases, you need to make sure Google understands where your location is. In this […]

Read: "Local ranking factors that help your small business’ SEO"
Local ranking factors that help your small business’ SEO

Yoast SEO, Local SEO, and WooCommerce SEO updates

8 November 2022 Edwin Toonen

Today, we’re releasing updates for four plugins and add-ons: Yoast SEO 19.10, Yoast SEO Premium 19.5, Local SEO 14.7, and WooCommerce SEO 15.3. The updates mainly consist of enhancements and fixes, plus support for material structured data in WooCommerce SEO. Find out what else is new! Yoast SEO 19.10 and Premium 19.5 The overarching theme […]

Read: "Yoast SEO, Local SEO, and WooCommerce SEO updates"
Yoast SEO, Local SEO, and WooCommerce SEO updates

Performance improvements in WordPress 6.1: enhanced database peformance and more

4 November 2022 Edwin Toonen

WordPress 6.1 – the last major release of 2022 – is finally here! This release is a step in the right direction for full-site editing, bringing various customization options and improvements to the content creation and site creation experience. We’ve covered some notable changes in this update, which you can check out here. This post […]

Read: "Performance improvements in WordPress 6.1: enhanced database peformance and more"
Performance improvements in WordPress 6.1: enhanced database peformance and more

Yoast SEO: Enhanced support for Google Site Names

25 October 2022 Edwin Toonen

Yoast SEO 19.9 and Yoast SEO Premium 19.4 are out now. In these releases, we’ve enhanced support for Google’s new Site Names in the mobile search results. Yoast SEO for Shopify also has this expanded support for site names. We’ve also improved our Premium analysis and did many fixes and enhancements — including some provided […]

Read: "Yoast SEO: Enhanced support for Google Site Names"
Yoast SEO: Enhanced support for Google Site Names

Yoast SEO 19.8: Schema improvements and enhancements

11 October 2022 Edwin Toonen

Today, we’re releasing Yoast SEO 19.8 into the world. In this release, we’re focusing on general improvements and fixing several bugs. One of the main improvements this time concerns our Schema structured data output. Structured data helps search engines to understand your site, so they better get the right things to read! Schema structured data […]

Read: "Yoast SEO 19.8: Schema improvements and enhancements"
Yoast SEO 19.8: Schema improvements and enhancements