SEO: List of Transition Words for Yoast – Complete

28 March, 2022

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Having trouble with adding Transition Words to your post?

What are Transition Words?

Transition Words or phrases are “connecting” words and phrases. They help to emphasize a point and establishes the relationship between ideas. Words like “because” or “also” are simple examples of Transition Words.

Readability Analysis in Yoast SEO

Yoast Transition Words — Yoast Readability Metrices

Yoast SEO plugin is certainly one of the best SEO plugins for WordPress. Not only does it provide you focus keyword analysis, its also provides readability analysis. Since I am a developer, writing good articles does not come naturally.

Luckily, Yoast helps in improving my writing by giving readability suggestions. Yoast uses a few metrics to judge content. One metric that seems especially hard to achieve, at least for me, is the Transition word metric.

Is readability important?

The post from Yoast Blog, “Does Readability Rank?“, concludes that “Posts that are nice and easy to read will definitely result in more returning visitors and a higher conversion rate”. From the reader’s perspective, it is easier to process ideas if sentences are short. This creates a better user experience for the readers. And would encourage reading of an article in its entirety.

How does Transition Words apply in Yoast SEO?

Yoast recommends inclusion of transition words in at least 30% of the article. That’s about 1 in 3 sentences. That can be a challenge. Especially, if like me, your grammar of transition words consists primarily of “also” and “but“.

List of Transition Words for Yoast SEO

To effectively use Transition words, obviously, you’ll have to know them first. With reference to the Yoast source code and smart-words.org, we present you a list of easy to reference list below.

Addition Words

Addition Transition words and phrases help to convey additional points to your sentences. If you find your article littered with “and“, you’ll probably need to break up your sentences. Try using words such as, “additionally” as well as “another“.

additionally	also	another
further	furthermore	moreover
too

Addition Phrases

another key point	as a matter of fact	as well as
at least	by the same token	coupled with
for example	for instance	in addition
in another case	in detail	in other words
not to mention	such as	to clarify
to say nothing of	together with	what’s more

Emphasis Words

Emphasis Transition words and phrases help to emphasize important points. These range of emphasis words have a different degree of assertiveness. And can certainly help you express an opinion or fact in a strong manner.

altogether	basically	certainly
chiefly	doubtedly	emphatically
especially	evidently	explicitly
generally	indeed	obviously
markedly	overall	particularly
significantly	specifically	surely
surprisingly	undeniably	undoubtedly
unquestionably	without a doubt	without doubt
without reservation

Emphasis Phrases

by all means	equally important	for one thing
important to realize	in particular	in similar fashion
in the light of	in the same fashion	in the same way
most compelling evidence	most important	must be remembered
of course	on the positive side	point often overlooked
that is	that is to say	to be sure
to repeat	to rephrase it	with attention to
with this purpose in mind

Condition / Contrast / Compare Words

These series of words can be used to pivot your ideas from one idea to the next. Otherwise, you can consider using emphasis phrases or illustration words to build on the same point.

albeit	although	besides
but	comparatively	consequently
contrarily	conversely	despite
equally	however	identically
instead	nevertheless	nor
notwithstanding	otherwise	rather
regardless	similarly	still
though	unless	unlike
whereas	while

Condition / Contrast / Comparison Phrases

analogous to	although this may be true	analogous to
as much as	balanced against	by comparison
compared to	be that as it may	different from
even more	even so	even though
in contrast	in either case	in that case
in this situation	in view of	inasmuch as
on condition that	on one hand	on the contrary
on the negative side	on the other hand	provided that
seeing that	take the case of	to put it another way
to put it differently	up against	vis a vis
while it may be true	while this may be true

Illustration Words

Transition Words can also be used to help to illustrate complex ideas. By giving examples in your article, readers would be correspondingly understand your article better.

accordingly	correspondingly	e.g.
i.e.

Illustration Phrases

as an illustration	at length	in like fashion
in like manner	to demonstrate	to emphasize
to enumerate	to explain	to illustrate
to list	to point out

Cause and Effect Words

Cause and effect Transition Words help readers understand the “why” of your passages. Therefore, cause and effect words may occur less frequently than others.

because	hence	since
so	than	therefore
thereupon	thus

Cause and Effect Phrases

above all	after all	as a result
being that	due to	even if
for fear that	given these points	given that
in case	in light of	in order that
in effect	in order to	in spite of
in the event that	in the hope that	in this case
on account of	on the condition that	only if
owing to	so as to	so long as
so that	then again	under those circumstances
with the result that	with this in mind	with this intention

Time and Sequence Words

Time and sequence Transition words are used when you are need to provide a context of time for the reader.

afterward	afterwards	before
concurrently	during	earlier
eventually	finally	firstly
following	formerly	forthwith
fourthly	henceforth	last
lastly	later	meanwhile
occasionally	presently	previously
secondly	shortly	simultaneously
soon	straightaway	subsequently
then	thereafter	thirdly
till	until	when
whenever

Time and Sequence Phrases

after that	all of a sudden	as long as
as soon as	at first	at last
at the present time	at the same time	at this instant
at this point	at this time	by the time
first thing to remember	from time to time	in due time
in the final analysis	in the first place	in the fourth place
in the long run	in the meantime	in the second place
in the third place	in time	now that
on this occasion	once	once in a while
prior to	so far	sooner or later
this time	to begin with	until now
up to the present time	without delay

Summary Phrases

In general, Transition Words help your sentences flow better and help break up the monotony of passages.

all in all	all things considered	all things considered
as can be seen	as has been noted	as I have said
as I have noted	as I have shown	as shown above
at any rate	by and large	for that reason
for the most part	for the purpose of	for the same reason
for this purpose	for this reason	in a word
in any case	in any event	in brief
in conclusion	in essence	in fact
in general	in reality	in short
in sum	in summary	in truth
on balance	on the whole	summing up
to conclude	to sum up	to summarize
to that end	to the end that	to this end

Two Part Transition Words

Not only does Yoast recognize Words and Phrases, but also phrases that consists of two parts. For example:

Both…. and…

If… then….

Not only … but also…

… neither… nor…

…either … or …

…not… but …

whether …. or …

no sooner … than ….

Conclusion

We hope that this guide will help you in improving your writing and getting a better score on Yoast metrices. Don’t fret if you are unable to meet a perfect score on Yoast. It’s a guideline not a rule! I am no expert in writing (as you can probably tell). If you have a pointer or two to share with us and our audiences, please do leave a comment or share this article!

Check out our other guides and collection:
Learn WordPress : How to Use WordPress
SEO Resources List
SEO: Shortcode for sidewide links

2 Comments

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Amy

5 months ago

I’m perplexed by Yoast-approved transition words. Does the Yoast-highlighted text INCLUDE a transition word, or does it NEED a transition word? I’m using lots of approved transition words in my text, but Yoast tells me that my score is low. In fact, when I click on the “eye” to show me what I need to correct, some of the approved transition words are highlighted, while others are not. So I wonder why Yoast isn’t registering all of them?

Jeff Syblik

Reply to Amy

3 months ago

Amy you’re not alone. I discovered the same problem in my use of Yoast yesterday.

I found the position of where you use the transition has a lot to do with it registering in the plug-in metric.

For example, the word yet if used at the beginning of a sentence, doesn’t highlight.

But in a compound sentence, all typical fanboys transitions do highlight. However, it’s rare that online writing contains compound sentences due to the length of most of them.