How do I use the SEO tools?

You can control your SEO in the following management tools:

  • Articles
  • Authors
  • Directory Listings
  • Events
  • Products
  • Topic pages
  • Videos

The following is a description of the Article SEO tool. Other managers may not include each feature, but they all support editing Browser Title, Meta Description and Meta Keywords.

See below for special notes about each section.

In the article, click on the SEO tab to access SEO tools.

The following fields are available for an Article — Slug (friendly URL), Canonical URL, Browser Title, Meta Description, Meta Keywords and Meta Headers.

  1. The absolute URL. Click the Copy icon to copy to the clipboard.
  2. The Slug, or friendly URL can be changed. When you change the slug, an internal redirect will be automatically created, and any reference to the original "id-headline" url will be redirected to the new slug.
  3. If the Slug is not pre-populated, click to generate it.
  4. The Canonical URL specifies to search engines your preferred URL. If, for example, the article is a duplicate article from a related site, enter the full URL from the originating site. This informs Google and other search engines the URL to index that specific page content under.
  5. The Browser Title appears at the top of the window and is based on the headline. You may update it.
  6. The Meta Description is generated from the article teaser. If this copy is not SEO-friendly, you may want to update it, but most importantly, it should entice the reader. This is what shows up in search results under the Title.
  7. The Meta Keywords are created based on the keywords on the first page of the article.
  8. Meta Headers allow you to set custom information into the <header> section of the page, for example a specific code that a third party may need for site verification.

Click Save.

An important note about Browser Titles

There is a system setting called "site.name.on.title" which will automatically display the "official.site.name" (also a system setting) as "Browser Title | Site Name". 

If you don't want the site name to appear, simply set site.name.on.title to "false".

This change was made in November 2021. For older sites, we set the "site.name.on.title" to "true" for all client sites, and programmatically removed site name from the SEO Browser Title field wherever it appeared.

Authors

By default, ePublishing adds the following fields as SEO. Adding content in the SEO tab will overwrite the default information for whichever field(s) you fill in.

  • Browser Title: Prefix, First Name, Middle, Last Name, Suffix
  • Meta Description: Official Site Name - Prefix, First Name, Middle, Last Name, Suffix
  • Keywords: Prefix, First Name, Middle, Last Name, Suffix

Directory Listings

By default, ePublishing adds the following fields as SEO. Adding content in the SEO tab will overwrite the default information for whichever field(s) you fill in.

  • Browser Title: Company Name
  • Meta Description: Short Description
  • Keywords: All associated taxonomy tags

Events

By default, ePublishing adds the following fields as SEO when the product is saved. 

  • Browser Title: Title
  • Meta Description: Short Description
  • Keywords: Any keywords added on the General tab

In addition, you can click the Auto SEO update checkbox after making changes to these fields on the General tab and they will be updated when you Save the Event.

Products

By default, ePublishing adds the following fields as SEO when the product is saved. 

  • Browser Title: Name
  • Meta Description: Short Description
  • Keywords: No keywords are added in the SEO tab but the default site keywords are added to the page

In addition, you can click the Auto SEO update checkbox after making changes to these fields on the General tab and they will be updated when you Save the Product.

Topic Pages

By default, ePublishing adds the following fields as SEO. Adding content in the SEO tab will overwrite the default information for whichever field(s) you fill in.

  • Browser Title: Topic Taxonomy Title
  • Meta Description: Official site name "on" Topic Taxonomy Title
  • Keywords: Topic Taxonomy Title

You access the Topic Taxonomy SEO tab from Taxonomy > Topics then edit the topic and click the SEO tab

Videos

By default, ePublishing adds the following fields as SEO. Adding content in the SEO tab will overwrite the default information for whichever field(s) you fill in.

  • Browser Title: Title
  • Meta Description: Description from the Advanced tab or if empty, default site description
  • Keywords: default site keywords

You access the Video SEO tab from the Media library. Edit the video and click the SEO tab.