This article explains how to set what Google reads on your pages: their title, description, indexing and structured data. You will also learn how to write a template for a whole content type, connect Google Search Console and read the Search.
Before you start
- Every published page gets a title, a canonical URL, structured data and a place in the sitemap.xml. You only set what you want to change.
- Your Staging is never indexed. Its pages carry the
noindexdirective and itsrobots.txtfile forbids any crawling. Your site becomes indexable in Production. - The settings in the SEO tab are saved with the content, by the Save button. They go into its revisions. They go live at the next publication of the site.
Open the SEO tab
- Open the page, post or entry in the editor.
- In the right-hand column, click the tab named after the type, for example Page.
- Click the SEO tab. It opens on the Metadata panel.
A composition has no SEO tab: it has no URL of its own.
Write the title and description
The Metadata panel starts with the Google preview, the result as Google may display it. It follows what you type, keystroke by keystroke.
| Setting | Effect | Left empty |
|---|---|---|
| SEO Title | The title of the result in Google and of the browser tab. It can differ from the title shown on the page. The counter shows its length out of 60 characters. | The template’s SEO title, otherwise the content’s title followed by the site name. |
| Meta Description | The text under the title in the results. The counter shows its length out of 155 characters. | The template’s description, otherwise none: Google then shows a passage from the page. |
| Canonical URL | The reference URL the page declares to search engines. | The page’s own URL. |
| Noindex | Removes the page from search results. It stays reachable through its link. | Off: the page is indexable. |
Beyond 60 characters for the title and 155 for the description, the preview cuts the text as Google would.
Write a template for a whole type
The title and description of a template apply to all the pages displayed with it. A page that has its own keeps its own. This way you write once the template for all your posts or all the entries of a type.
- In the Templates menu, open the template of the type, for example the one for your posts.
- Open the SEO tab. A box reminds you that these values apply to all pages displayed with this template.
- In SEO Title, write the template, for example
%title% %sep% %sitename%. - Save the template.
On a post titled “Our ten tips”, this template gives “Our ten tips – Atelier Sauge”.
Insert a variable
A variable is replaced by the value of the visited page. The Variables panel, at the top of the SEO tab, offers them all.
- Click in the field to complete, for example SEO Title. The Variables panel shows Insert into: SEO title.
- Place your cursor where you want it.
- Click a variable, for example Site name. Its code is inserted at the cursor.
Hovering a variable shows its description.
| Variable | Code | Replaced by |
|---|---|---|
| Title | %title% | The title of the page or content. |
| Site name | %sitename% | The name of your site. |
| Separator | %sep% | A dash surrounded by spaces. |
| Excerpt | %excerpt% | The excerpt of the content. |
| Category | %category% | The name of the first term of the content’s main category, for example “Bordeaux” for a property filed under the category “Cities”. |
| Author | %author% | The author’s display name. |
| Published | %date% | The publication date of the content. |
| Modified | %modified% | The date of the last significant update, otherwise of the last modification. |
| Year, Month, Day | %year%, %month%, %day% | The current year, the name of the month and the day number. |
| Content type | %post_type% | The name of the content type, in the singular. |
| Page # | %page% | The page number of a list, empty on the first. |
Set the structured data
Structured data describes your page to Google so it can display it as a rich result. The site writes it from your content. In the SEO tab, each schema has a collapsed panel and a switch that turns it off on this page.
| Panel | Source | Settings |
|---|---|---|
| Schema Article | The content’s SEO title, description, image and author. | Last significant update and its Today button, Schema type (Article, NewsArticle or BlogPosting, Article by default), Author name, Author URL. |
| Schema FAQ | The accordion titles of the page that end with “?”. | One editable answer per detected question. |
| Schema Breadcrumb | The page’s Breadcrumb block, otherwise its parent pages. | Virtual child items: the headings of the page, each with its Label in breadcrumb. |
| Schema Rating | What you enter. | Schema type (Product or LocalBusiness), Name, Rating value (1 to 5), Review count. |
| Schema Organization | The Identity screen. | Disable on this page. The panel only appears once the organization is filled in. |
Under each active schema, the JSON-LD preview shows the code sent to Google.
Fill in your organization’s identity
The Identity screen describes your business once for the whole site. Google uses it for its information panel and its local results.
- In the Visibility menu, open Identity.
- In Organization, choose the Type. A Local business (LocalBusiness) or one of its subtypes opens the address, contact details, opening hours and the Price range.
- Fill in the Name, the Logo, the Description, the Phone, the Email and your Social profiles.
- Optional: add your Opening hours (up to three time ranges per day) and your Exceptional hours.
- Click Save.
The Organization schema is published on the home page, as Google recommends. The Publish on all pages box, under Diffusion, publishes it everywhere. Left empty, the Logo reuses the light logo set in Appearance > Images.
The Identity screen requires the Administrator role, like the whole Visibility menu.
Find the pages to complete
The list of your contents filters the pages whose SEO is missing.
- Open the list of the type, for example Pages.
- Open Add a filter. The SEO group offers Missing SEO title, SEO title too long and Missing meta description. The Indexing group offers Hidden (noindex) and Indexed.
- Choose a value. The list keeps only the contents concerned. Combine the two groups to get, for example, the indexed pages without a description.
A title or description that comes from the template counts as filled in. A page set to Noindex carries the label Hidden after its title. The SEO button, above the table, shows the title and description of each content and edits them in place. Read the list of your contents covers it in detail.
Let the site maintain the sitemap.xml
The sitemap.xml is the list of your URLs that search engines follow. The site regenerates it in the Staging each time a content is published, edited or unpublished. Publishing the site updates it in Production.
- One file per content type and per language, gathered in an index at
/sitemaps/sitemap.xml. - Pages set to Noindex are removed from it.
- In Production, the
robots.txtfile tells search engines the URL of the sitemap.xml. - A Google News sitemap.xml carries your most recent posts, as Google News requires. A content type enters it when its Include in sitemap.xml and Include in the Google News sitemap.xml boxes are checked.
On the Visibility > sitemap.xml screen, the Reset button of each type rebuilds its sitemap.xml file.
Connect Google Search Console
Search Console tells you which searches Google shows your pages for and how many clicks it sends you. Once connected, it fills the Search tab of your analytics and its figures are kept on your site.
- In the Visibility menu, open Google Search Console.
- Click Connect with Google and allow access to your Google account. You return to the screen, which shows Connected and the date.
- Read the Property card. The site looks for the property of your Production domain.
- If the card offers Create and verify my property or Verify ownership now, click it. The site creates the property, places the verification tag on your live site and confirms the property.
The card then shows Property connected: followed by your domain. The data syncs every day. Sync Search Console data now starts a sync. The line below gives the result of the last one, for example Last sync succeeded, 3 hours ago.
If Google has not yet seen the tag, a message says so. Wait a moment and click again. As long as your Production domain is not set, the card shows Your production domain is not configured yet.
If the property disappears from your Google account, the card turns orange and offers Recreate and verify my property. The collected data stays on your site.
Your site keeps Google’s figures from the connection onward. It never erases those of each page and keeps the per-search detail as long as your visit analytics. Search Console only shows the last 16 months.
Verify without connecting your account
As long as the account is not connected, the Verify manually card accepts the code of the google-site-verification tag that Google gives you. Paste it, then click Save verification code. The tag is placed on your Staging and your Production without waiting for a publication.
Connect Bing Webmaster Tools
The Visibility > Bing Webmaster Tools screen works the same way, with Connect with Bing, the Site card and Create and verify my site. Its Bing visibility card gives the impressions and clicks of the last 30 days and your Top queries. Bing powers Copilot, DuckDuckGo and Ecosia.
Read the Search tab
In the Statistics menu, the Search tab shows your presence in Google over the chosen period. A selector in the tab switches to Bing.
- Clicks, Impressions, Click-through rate and Average position, compared with the previous period. A smaller position is a better spot.
- Top queries: the searches that show your pages.
- Pages in Google search: a click on a page opens its detail, with its clicks by device and the queries that lead to it.
- Google clicks and visits from Google: the clicks counted by Search Console against the visits that arrived from Google. The gap is normal, because a visitor who clicks twice makes only one visit.
Google’s figures arrive a few minutes after the connection, starting from the last few days, then every day. Older history stays in Search Console. Bing sends everything it keeps as soon as you connect.
Notify search engines on every publication
On every publication of the site, the published, edited or removed URLs are reported through the IndexNow protocol to Bing, Yandex, Naver, Seznam and Yep. They crawl them sooner. You have nothing to set.
- Pages set to Noindex are never reported.
- The ownership key the protocol requires is created and published at your first publication.
- A report refused by an unavailable search engine is retried later.
The IndexNow card of the Visibility > SEO screen gives the link to your key and the count of URLs notified, waiting for publication, to retry and refused.