WordPress SEO – Page Title Optimization

Here is another “hot topic” on SEO for your blog (and, of course, any other website you might be working on). The ProBlogger site has an article on this as well, which you can view here: “Optimizing your Title Tag for SEO on 3 Different Platforms”

But I think I should have it on this site as well, to have all my WordPress tips in one place…

The main reason you would want to optimize your page’s TITLE is because Google also looks at it for clues and keywords to the content of your site. You also have to remember a KEY point: It is your page’s TITLE that is shown on Search Engine results, and if it stands out, it is more likely to get clicked.

So, how do you go about doing this? You will need to edit your WordPress “Header” template for this. Here is a quick guide on doing this:

1. Log into the Admin console of your WordPress installation
2. Click on “Presentation”
3. Click on “Theme Editor”
4. On the right, select the template for your Header section, most likely named something like “header.php”

It is always a good idea to keep a copy of the original template in case you make any mistakes…

Now, you just need to find the code where it has your TITLE tags, and remove anything between them. Then, you can just paste the required code between your TITLE tags, so that it looks like this:

   <title>
      <?php
         if(is_home()) {
            bloginfo(‘title’);
            echo ‘ » ‘;
            bloginfo(‘description’);
         } else{
            wp_title(”);
            echo ‘ » ‘;
            bloginfo(‘name’);
         }
      ?>
   </title>

This will give you the Title of your Blog and it’s description on your homepage.
For example, on this blog it’s: “Easy Money » Getting paid to do the things you enjoy”

And on all your other pages, like your Category/Archive pages or single Post pages, it will be the Post/Category Title and the name of your blog.
For example, for this post, it’s: “WordPress SEO – Page Title Optimization » Easy Money