Set page and site SEO

Goal

Give each important page or post a clear search title and description, provide safe site-wide defaults, and verify the public metadata without promising a ranking.

Before you begin

• Use an Admin or Superadmin account.
• Prepare one primary topic, a public page summary, the approved site name, and a suitable social image.
• Confirm whether the site is ready to be visible to search engines.
• Use public copy only; metadata is visible outside the CMS.

Hazard: Hide site can remove the site from normal search discovery. Change search-engine visibility only with launch-owner approval.

Separate page metadata from site defaults

A specific page value should describe that page. A default fills a gap; it should not make every result sound identical.

Write the page SEO title

Open the page or post editor and find its SEO controls. Write a unique, human-readable title that states the page's outcome. Put the important subject early and include the site name only when it adds clarity.

• Match the page's visible promise.
• Avoid repeated keywords and clickbait.
• Keep important words before likely truncation.
• Do not use private campaign codes or internal labels.

Write the meta description

Summarise what the reader will find and why it is useful. Aim for a concise sentence in the interface's recommended range, but prioritise accuracy over an exact character count. Search engines may choose different visible text.

Use a focus keyphrase as an editing aid

Choose the phrase that best represents the reader's task. Use it to review title, description, headings, and body copy. Do not force it into every field or treat the field as a ranking guarantee.

Choose a social image

Select an approved public image that remains understandable when cropped. Provide accurate alt text in the Media Library. For the site default, the interface recommends a 1200 by 630 image. A page-specific image should override the default when it represents the page more accurately.

Set site-wide defaults

1. Open SEO.
2. Choose the Settings tab.
3. Under Default Meta Information, enter a concise fallback description.
4. Set OG Site Name to the approved public name.
5. Under Social Sharing, choose the approved Default OG Image.
6. Review Technical SEO before saving.

Choose search-engine visibility

Do not use Hide site as access control. Private or sensitive content must remain unpublished or protected by the appropriate feature.

Review sitemap and robots controls

Keep XML Sitemap enabled for a public, indexable site unless a specialist plan says otherwise. Treat robots.txt Content as an advanced public instruction. A syntax mistake can block important paths, and robots instructions do not protect secrets.

Save and verify the document head

1. Save the page or post and the site SEO settings.
2. Open the published URL in a private browser window.
3. Inspect the document title, meta description, canonical URL, and social tags.
4. Confirm the social image loads without authentication.
5. Compare the metadata with the visible H1 and body.
6. Repeat on a page without custom metadata to test the fallback.

Stored values are not enough: verify the public document head in the running host.

Review the search preview critically

The preview is an editorial aid, not a promise of how a search engine will display the result. Check for truncation, duplication, misleading language, and missing site context. Then verify the actual public source.

Recover from a problem

• Old title appears: confirm the correct record was saved, then reload the public page before investigating caching.
• Every page has the same description: add page-specific metadata to important pages and make the default more general.
• Social image is missing: confirm a public image is selected and inspect the public social-image tag.
• Site disappeared from search: review visibility and robots settings with the launch owner; do not promise immediate re-indexing.
• Metadata exposes private text: remove it immediately and follow the content-incident process.

Completion check

The page title and description accurately match the content, site defaults provide a safe fallback, the social image is public and appropriate, visibility matches the launch decision, and a second reviewer has inspected the anonymous document head.

Publication gate: keep this guide private until page-specific metadata, fallback metadata, social output, canonical URL, and visibility have been independently verified in the clean runtime.