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Beginner SEO

The WordPress site title is one of the most important pieces of the /wp SEO puzzle. As noted in the image, the site title appears very prominently on Google search returns pages when your home page is being displayed. It’s importance cannot be overstated thus I won’t drone on about it. Ignore at your own peril.

In the screenshot below you’ll see:

1. the location of the site title editor on /wp-admin.
2. where to add your custom title.
3. adding the custom tagline and
4. though not pictured, make sure you click save!

wordpres site title and seo

It’s all really simple and after a while it will be second nature to you, but you’d be surprised how many websites out there still have the tagline “Just Another WordPress Site”, LOL. Google it.

WordPress and many WordPress themes will display the site title followed by the tagline, when you’re on the home page. Then when you navigate to a page other than the home page, the page title will display, followed by the site title. So craft your site title to be short, sweet and relate-able to all the pages on your blog.

WordPress page title SEO is another beginner SEO consideration. Using standard WordPress settings, when creating a page the title you name the page is normally shown as the page title on Google SERPs, simple! This page is “WordPress Site Title & Page Title SEO”. But that’s not the end of it as you can see if you hover on your browser’s tab. The site title is also added to the page title and depending on your SEO plan this might not be the most optimal method for titling pages. This page has a complete page title of: “WordPress Site Title & Page Title SEO – Naples FL”

…which is the page title followed by the site title. Simple. That title is fine with me but if we find the WordPress native delivery of titles is hindering our optimization there are themes or plugins that allow us to override WP’s out of the box features and add custom page titles via a GUI or by using custom fields. Examples are; Elegant Themes supports custom fields(my fav method) and Yoast SEO plugin adds a easy GUI to the publishing interface.

If you need help there’s always the comment box. Too shy? Email with questions. This is part of a knowledge base I’m writing for my clients who want to manage or help manage their website.

Lightly edited for 2019