Tutorial & How-To, Wordpress

How to create WordPress SEO titles, descriptions & XML sitemaps

Posted on by Manish Bhagat
27
Feb

WordPress websites are already designed to be search engine friendly, and you can take some easy steps to enhance your search engine optimization (SEO) even more.

Why are page titles important in WordPress SEO?

Page titles are seen as one of the single most powerful factors in a site’s SEO. Search engines worth them very highly: they’re one in all the most ways in which a search engine will tell what a web page or post is regarding. Page titles additionally build a distinction between real people that visit your website. They’re the primary factor people see within the search results for your website and that they additionally seem at the highest of the user’s browser. If somebody bookmarks your website then by default, the page title is going to be used as the bookmark name. therefore it’s important to get your page titles right, each for search engines and real people. By ‘Page title’, I’m really relating the meta page title that seems within the <head> section of the HTML for the page or post. This is often completely different from the title that you simply enter at the top of the ‘Add Page/Post’ screen – though, by default, WordPress can use this as your meta page title. I strongly recommend overriding this function by setting a custom meta title for every page and post on your WordPress website.

Do meta descriptions matter in WordPress SEO?

The meta description also seems within the <head> section of the HTML for the page or post. These days, search engines don’t use descriptions in their rankings. However, it’s still value adding a description as a result of they will be shown in search results – particularly if they contain the keyword someone has to explore for. If you haven’t added your own description then the search engine is probably going to choose a less relevant snippet of text to show within the search results, therefore individuals are less likely to click on your website.

What is an XML sitemap?

An XML sitemap provides search engines with a ‘map’ to your whole website and makes it additional likely that they'll index all of your pages and posts. WordPress plugins are available to form XML sitemaps in a single click, thus it’s positively worth making one whatever the size of your website. Now I’m about to show you a straightforward technique to form SEO titles, descriptions and XML sitemaps for your WordPress website.

In this WordPress tutorial, I will show you ways to use the leading WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin to feature custom page titles, descriptions and XML sitemaps. this is the leading WordPress SEO plugin and in addition to being liberal to use, it comes extremely suggested by WordPress designers worldwide.

Install the plugin

  1. In your website’s WordPress admin, go to Plugins > Add New
  2. Search for ‘WordPress SEO by Yoast’
  3. Click to install and activate the plugin

Add page titles and descriptions

A section called ‘WordPress SEO by Yoast’ will now appear on the Add/Edit screen for all your pages and posts.

      1. Scroll down to the relevant section
      2. Enter your desired meta title in the ‘Title’ field

Create your WordPress XML sitemap

  1. Hover over the SEO link in the WordPress item and click XML Sitemaps
  2. Tick the ‘Check this box to enable XML sitemap functionality’ box
  3. Tick the ‘Ping Yahoo!’ and ‘Ping Ask.com’ boxes
  4. Scroll down and click ‘Save Settings’
  5. In future, the XML sitemap will automatically be updated and submitted to Yahoo! and Bing whenever you publish a new post or page. This will make it quicker and easier for them to find your new content.

Now you’ve came upon what I see as the fastest and most important components of the WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin. it's much more to offer, thus it’s price going through the settings in more detail and taking advantage of its alternative features too.