What is Zapier? And 5 things you can do with it!

The automation tool Zapier works with Zaps that you can create from scratch. These Zaps can link different apps and services to each other to create a smarter workflow and save you lots of time. But that still doesn’t give you a clear answer to this question: What is Zapier exactly? In this post, we’ll discuss how Zapier works, what it can do for your workflow and why we’ve created a Zapier integration in Yoast SEO Premium.

What is Zapier?

Zapier is an online platform that helps you automate workflows by connecting your apps and services you use. This allows you to automate tasks without having to build this integration yourself. Or hiring someone to build this integration for you.

To give an example, Zapier can automatically send out a custom tweet right after you’ve published a post. The custom part meaning that you set up once what these automatic tweets will look like and what they will contain. But with over 2000+ destinations other than Twitter, Zapier can handle lots of automatic tasks for different platforms or destinations.

It does so by letting you create “Zaps”, automated workflows that consist of a trigger and one or more actions. When you set up and activate a new Zap, it will run its action(s) every time the trigger event occurs. To get back to that example: let’s say you set a Zap for a custom tweet that goes out for every published post. In this case, publishing a post is the trigger event and the custom tweet is the automated action that follows.

How to get started with Zapier

To use Zapier, you need to create an account. You can sign up for a free account, which allows you to use Zapier for 100 tasks per month. Note that a task is different from a Zap, as you can set up a Zap that will probably be used more than once. Otherwise, what’s the point of creating a Zap for it?

Every time you trigger this Zap you’re asking it to perform a task. That means that one Zap that you use once a day, accounts for around 30 tasks in a month. There is also the option to choose one of their paid plans, which gives you more tasks per month. But you can always start with a free account to figure out what Zapier can do for you.

What can you use Zapier for?

Sending out a custom tweet for every post you publish is cool, but it’s just one of the many possible automated workflows that you can create with Zapier. So let’s take a look at what else you can let Zapier automate for you.

The idea behind this automation tool is to help you create a smarter and customized workflow. To save you time and make it possible to focus on the important parts of your work. And because everyone has different apps or services that they use throughout their workday, Zapier offers integration with so many different destinations. If you’re wondering if your favorite app is among these, check out all the apps that Zapier integrates with.

What this means is that you can use Zapier for lots and lots of different things. Sharing your new post on LinkedIn right away, adding events from several apps to your Google Calendar, or even receiving an alert in Slack when you’ve received an email with an attachment that automatically gets downloaded to your Dropbox. Whatever automated task that can help you find more focus and rest in your workday.

Automatically share your post with Zapier

If you’re like us and regularly post new content to your site, it would be great to automatically share this on your favorite platforms, right? That’s why we’ve created a Zapier integration in Yoast SEO Premium. This integration lets you send out your published post, that you’ve optimized with Yoast SEO, to any of its 2000+ destinations. You’ll only have to set it up once to make use of this integration. Go to the Integrations tab in Yoast SEO Premium and follow the steps to activate the connections.

When you’ve done this, you’re ready to connect to the platform you want to publish to and make your own Zaps. This allows you to customize what you want to publish and how you want to do that. After doing so, make sure to test your new automated workflow and it’s ready to automatically run whenever you publish a post using Yoast SEO! Check out all the steps in our help article on how to use Yoast SEO with Zapier.

Top 5 Zaps in Yoast SEO Premium

To give you an idea of the options, we’re sharing this realtime overview of the five most popular Zaps in Yoast SEO right now. Of course, this isn’t all you can do, as Zapier lets you connect to lots of other platforms. But it can give you an idea of the things you can do with Zapier in Yoast SEO:

What do you think, is Zapier for you?

To summarize all of the above: Zapier is an automation tool that allows you to automate certain parts of your workflow. What parts and how this automation looks is totally up to you. But it does allow you to save time and focus on the work that needs your attention most.

So check it out, and if you’re a Yoast SEO Premium user, check out our integration with Zapier. With this integration, you can automatically share your freshly published content on the platform of your choice and attraction attention to it!

Read more: Does social media influence your SEO? »