Creating an impact
Leaving our footprint in a global community
At Yoast, we care deeply for our local and global community. We express this by sponsoring events and organizations, by contributing to, for instance, WordPress, and by making SEO accessible for every person and every budget.
Yoast SEO for WordPress
Remember, this all started with a couple of plugins that were combined to be our flagship product: the Yoast SEO for WordPress plugin. Let’s take a look at some numbers:
Over 13 million active installs
of Yoast SEO for WordPress (June 2023)
Over 552 million downloads
since the launch of Yoast SEO for WordPress (June 2023)
Solved over 92%
of the issues in the WordPress support forum (June 2023)
25,848 5-star reviews
out of 27,575 reviews (June 2023)
55 languages
Yoast SEO is available in 55 languages (June 2023)
Numbers for our free plugin, taken from the WordPress plugin directory.
WordPress, WordCamps, and contribution
Yoast and WordCamps
When we started working with WordPress 12 years ago, we became actively involved in it. We’re giving back to the fantastic community that got us to where we are right now. So, that’s why we love to sponsor and attend WordCamps.
In 2019, we sponsored 38 WordCamps, helped organize four of those, volunteered at three WordCamps, attended 14 of them, and spoke at 11 WordCamps. Yoast visited more than ten meetups and organized four.
Unfortunately, in 2020 there were less live WordCamps than the years before, due to the pandemic. Most events took place online and that didn’t stop us from continuing our love and support for the WordPress Community; we sponsored 21 WordCamps, helped organise and volunteered at three of those, and spoke at eight online WordCamps!
Yoast and contribution
At Yoast, the open-source model is at the heart of what we do. We develop plugins for WordPress, which is also an open-source project. With the help of users and developers worldwide, this software powers over 40% of the web. Yoast is heavily involved in maintaining and improving WordPress. This content management system (CMS) helps over 455 million website owners globally. It enables people to build and maintain their blog, company’s website, and/or online shop.
As part of the, Five for the Future initiative, we sponsor 27 contributors for 213 hours per week. Are you a WordPress user, designer, developer, or would you just like to help out? Check out how you can get involved in WordPress as well!
We feel that to be in line with our core values of sharing, collaborating, and making the web better, we have to lead by example. Therefore, we’ve set up our own WordPress core team. This team is growing and continuously working on improving WordPress. If you want to know more, read all about the WordPress core team.
In addition to this, we regularly host WordPress contributor days at the Yoast office or via Zoom:
Yoast SEO Academy and Yoast Junior Academy
Yoast SEO Academy
Over 423,290 students enrolled in our courses program, the Yoast SEO Academy. In addition to paid training courses, we offer 5 free courses, including a regular update of SEO news. Everyone interested in improving their SEO skills or website can benefit from these courses that you can find in my.yoast.com.
Yoast Junior Academy
In addition to our online courses, we established the Yoast Junior Academy in 2018. In the same year, we hosted two courses and taught 60 children the beginnings of software development. In 2019, we organized two courses on building a website in WordPress for almost 40 kids.
Yoast funds
The Yoast Diversity fund
We believe that encouraging diversity among conference speakers and attendees is incredibly important. That’s why the Yoast Diversity fund was born. During 2018, 2019, and 2020:
- We were able to sponsor 70 people from underrepresented groups
- People joined a total of 56 events.
- The events were all around Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Europe, and Australia.
If you want to know more, you can read about the Yoast Diversity fund here. Or learn how to apply for this fund directly!
We’ve recently announced our Yoast Diversity fund 2021 recipients! Our 2021 Diversity fund offers sponsorship to people that work on a project that benefits WordPress. Check out our blog post to see what projects these awesome people are working on.
And, if you’re interested in this topic, you might like our digital story on stereotypes, prejudice and feminism too!
The Yoast Care fund
At Yoast, we value everybody contributing to WordPress; anyone who is doing remarkable work, also WordPress’s hidden heroes! The Yoast Care fund rewards these people who are doing extraordinary work on organizing events, providing support on the forums, writing patches for core, or any other non-commercial WordPress-related tasks.
Do you know someone who goes the extra mile for WordPress? You can nominate them for a $500 reward. Since we launched the Yoast Care fund, we’ve already rewarded 77 outstanding WordPress community members for their awesome contributions.
Yoast and charity
Yoast and the local community
In 2020, we sponsored 6 sports clubs, 3 cultural events, 3 charity events, 10 kids’ events. Just to drop some numbers! Also, we’ve volunteered at many organizations and sponsored 200 soccer balls for AWC, the local soccer club.
What else?
- Yoast supports Wakibi, a non-profit organization that helps entrepreneurs in developing countries with microcredits. Via Yoast employees, we have helped more than 515 entrepreneurs to realize their projects.
- At Yoast, our employees get paid 40 hours per year to spend on charity work, like volunteering or social work.
- While working in the office, we enjoyed a daily serving of fresh fruit and vegetables. Even though we’re now working from home, we keep ordering those snacks. Instead of delivering them at the office, we donate them to the staff of a local hospital.
- All of the lunches at our own conferences were vegetarian.
- We are the proud premium sponsor of the new Dutch Yoast United pro basketball team for the next three seasons.
In 2021, we will keep on updating this monthly impact report. To see for ourselves what we have done, but also to inspire you to do the same. Help your community in any way you can. These communities can help grow your business and educate your children. These are the communities you live in every single day. Make an impact.