Blogging Tip - WordPress Title Optimization

I've been setting up a lot of WordPress blogging sites over the past week or so.  Some are for me, some are for clients, etc.  But, in my goals to optimize them (boy is WordPress ever configurable!), I've noted that I need to change quite a few things to maximize the placement of these pages in the Search Engines.

So, here's something you might find handy if you're setting up a WordPress blog for yourself.  Maybe you already have one and just didn't know how to optimize this (You know who you are!) because you're as Stupid as George Bush.

To do this you’ll have to update your header.php file – the simple way to do this is to navigate to the current theme folder on your web server (in the wp-content/themes/ area) and copy the header.php file on to your PC. There, make a backup of the file (in case you need to restore it later on), open it in a text editor or an html editor and locate the following tags:

<title>
</title>

Once you find that chunk, delete it and replace it with this snippet of html, instead:

<title>
<?php if(is_home()) { bloginfo('title'); } else{ wp_title(''); echo ' » '; bloginfo('name'); } ?>
</title>

Then, rather than your blog name or, heaven forbid, the word "Archive" appear first in the title -- the title of your post actually appears first in the title.   Then the search engines will believe that your page has more to do with that particular title, and get you more search engine traffic for the keywords which appear in your title.

Enjoy!

 

Comments

Gravatar
By: Workflow Automation
On: 02/01/2008 08:38:16
Wow.. WordPress really uses a default title like that? I've never even looked at that, assuming it just did the 'right thing'.

Oh well, off to make that change.

Thanks so much for that tip.
Gravatar
By: Salena
On: 01/13/2009 09:07:49
Very useful little, but very important tip. I'm not a seasoned html-er, but will follow the instructions to the letter! p.s. I shall make 2 back ups just incase!

Thanks
Salena Newport
http://www.myleatherchaps.com
Gravatar
By: Jonathan
On: 01/13/2009 13:25:00
Thanks for the tip, Daiv. I actually had to replace the right angle quote with '»' for it to display correctly using my browsers (and it could make the title more compatible).
Gravatar
By: Don
On: 01/13/2009 18:42:29
Have you tried all in one SEO, does it do the same?
Gravatar
By: Chris Colon
On: 01/17/2009 14:59:24
Yes, the All-in-one-SEO pack does for you, too, through a snazzy config page in the WP Admin. It has a lot of other neat features, too; I highly recommend it!

Cheers,
Chris

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