Call: (209) 560-6611

Meta Tags In WordPress

Date: July 9, 2012 Author: ang Category: Affordable Web Design How To Blog Internet Tips SEO Tutorials WordPress Tags: , , , , Comments: 0

You need to add meta tags in WordPress specifically the Description Meta Tag. If you read some of WordPresses's forums or official posts, you might get the impressions that meta tags are obsolete. It is true that Google doesn't use the keyword meta tags for ranking web pages anymore, but they are still useful in other ways and to other search engines.

The ‘description meta tag’ is the most important meta tag, because Google does pay attention to it, and Google is the major search engine right now. If you log into Google Webmaster Tools, then navigate to ‘Optimization’ > ‘HTML Improvements’ > ‘Duplicate meta descriptions’ you will see a tool Google gives you to check for meta description duplicate content. By default a WordPress website doesn't have meta tags. Not only should your WordPress website have meta tags, but they should be unique on each page of your website.

How to create manage your WordPress website meta tags?  The best way is to install a meta tag WordPress plugin. Below is a list of WordPress meta tag management plugins and the pages PR(Page Rank) as an indication of popularity or credibility.

Meta Tag plugins for WordPress

  1. meta-tag-manager pr4
  2. add-meta-tags pr3
  3. meta-tags-optimization pr3

Note: I have not tested these meta tag plugins. If you use a meta tag plugin, make sure your meta tag descriptions are unique for each page or post.

You can also manually add code to your WordPress website to make sure your meta descriptions tags are unique using a code snippet with a WordPress 'conditional tag'. When using a conditional tag to create a unique meta tag on each page or post, the title of the page of post is used. Follow the instructions below to create a dynamic meta tag description for your posts and pages using a conditional tag.

  1. Log into your WordPress website.
  2. Click on 'Editor' under 'Appearance'.
  3. Click on the 'Header' link from the link list on right hand side of the screen.
  4. Where your meta description tag is, or should be, insert this code snippet. If this code is already there, don't add it again. Consult your theme author about why the meta tags aren't appearing.

     PHP |  copy code |? 
    1
    	<title><?php if ( is_single() ) {
    2
            single_post_title('', true); 
    3
       	 } else {
    4
            bloginfo('name'); echo " - "; bloginfo('description');
    5
        	}
    6
        	?></title>
  5. Click the 'Update File' button to save your changes.

Now your pages and posts will have the page or posts title as the meta descriptions tag.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Before you post, please prove you are sentient.

What do bees make?

Before you post, please prove you are sentient.

what is 6 in addition to 7?