Definitive guide
How To Add Meta Tags in WordPress
How To Add Meta Tags in WordPress – Ultimate Guide (2024)
Do you want to know how to add meta tags in WordPress?
You came to the right place!
Since WordPress does not have built-in support for meta tags, you must do some additional work if you wish to use them. Here, I’ll show you easy ways on how to do it with Yoast, Rank Math, and manually.
Here we go!
How To Add Meta Tags in WordPress using the Yoast SEO Plugin
The Yoast SEO plugin includes a description and keyword meta tag support, making it the most used method for adding meta tags to WordPress. Let’s take a closer look at how that works.
Step 1: Download and install Yoast.
Yoast SEO improves your site’s ranking in search engines such as Google. It also provides you with all the tools you need to improve your content’s SEO and overall readability.
After activating the plugin, go to Post > All Post.
Step 2: Select the article you wish to add a meta tag.
Step 3: Click “Edit”, then scroll to the bottom of the screen to find the Yoast SEO section.
You’ll immediately find the “Meta description” box to accomplish your agenda.
Step 4: Add your desired meta tag.
The meta description is a snippet of up to 155 characters — an HTML tag – that explains the content of a page. Search engines include it in search results when the phrase being searched for is included in the description. As a result, optimizing it is critical for on-page SEO.
If you consider the meta description to be your website’s ideal opportunity, you must consider your user and their (potential) motive to visit your page.
Make sure your description isn’t boring, complex, or cryptic. People must understand what they may anticipate finding on your page.
Step 5: Save your changes.
You can also publish your work if you are already done.
How to add meta tags in WordPress using Rank Math?
Now, if you have Rank Math installed as your Search Engine Optimization plugin for WordPress, adding the meta tags are pretty much the same with Yoast.
Rank Math can easily be configured according to your needs, track SEO success, identify issues in your SEO analysis, and comes with snippets that support various schema types.
Being an advanced SEO tool, it can assess the best meta description for your content after you have inputted it and automatically assign one for each of your posts.
Rank Math advises that assigning the highest priority for the meta description you made is the best way to override this automatic feature.
Here now are the steps in adding your SEO description:
1. Prepare an SEO description.
2. Login to WordPress and click on Products from the Dashboard.
3. Click Edit from the Products menu.
This will open the Rank Math SEO metabox
4. From The SEO metabox, click Edit Snippet.
This will open the window of Preview Snippet Editor.
5. Paste the SEO description you prepared in the description field and you’re done!
Another way to do this is if you are using the Divi Builder.
1. From the Divi Builder menu, click the icon of the Rank Math SEO.
The Rank Math SEO icon is beside the Divi Settings icon. Clicking this will display the Rank Math window.
2. Click the Rank Math General tab and choose Edit Snippet.
This will open a new window with several fields.
3. Enter the title in the Title field.
4. Next, enter the details for the Permalink field.
5. Then enter the meta description you prepared in the Description box.
Save it to go back to the General Tab.
5. Once you’re back in the General Tab, remember to add a focus keyword in the Focus Keyword field to complete the process.
Easy, right? But what if you happen to have no installed SEO plugin like Yoast and Rank Math in WordPress, how will you add meta tags
How to add meta tags in WordPress without plugins?
Unlike with Yoast and Rank Math, one would require some basic HTML background to add meta tags in WordPress without plugins.
One would also need to use an external application–a Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP) client or a File Manager–to access the necessary file from the back-end of WordPress.
No need to fret, though! Here’s how!
1. Run the SFTP Client and look for the header.php file.
2. Open header.php file.
In the header.php file, locate the <head> tag from the lines of code. This is easy to find since this is normally at the top of the screen.
3. Paste your meta description or data after the <head> opening tag and before the </head> closing tag.
Specifically, add the keywords within the quotation marks of the Content string of the code below:
<meta name=”keywords” content=”keywords related to the content of the website” />
4. Then add the meta description within the quotation marks of the Content string as shown in the code below:
<meta name=”description” content=”meta description for the content of the website” />
This procedure will update the header.php, which will be implemented in all the posts and pages of your website.
5. To circumvent it, you can set a conditional tag query for a single post’s meta tags.
Here’s how to set a conditional tag query:
5.1. From The Dashboard menu, click on Admin and choose Options.
5.2. Choose General from the Options menu to open the window of the Tagline section.
5.3. From the Tagline Section, input the details in the meta description field. Save it.
5.4. Add the following conditional query tag in your header.php file:
<meta name=”description” content=”<?php if ( is_single() ) { single_post_title(”, true); } else { bloginfo(‘name’); echo ” – “; bloginfo(‘description’); }?>” />
5.5. Save it and you are done!
See? Uncomplicated steps. Easy peasy.
Conclusion
Learning how to create meta tags in WordPress is a painless task. You may use the Yoast SEO plugin, Rank Math plugin, or do it manually.
You can even do it using a totally different SEO WordPress plugin since there are many to choose from.
Whatever your choice is, I hope you got everything you need on how to add meta tags in WordPress.
Sources Used:
FAQs
1. What Are Meta Tags?
Meta tags are a short introduction or description of a webpage’s or website’s content. They provide search engines the means to assess a webpage’s or website’s content whenever a search query is processed and display it accordingly in the search results page.
2. Are Meta Tags Important?
Meta tags are important as it helps people easily find websites based on their search query. Although it is not as important now in how websites are ranked in search engine results as it was before. Nonetheless, it helps your website increase Click-Through Rates (CTRs).