Improve SEO in WordPress Page Titles
I have always thought that one of the main flaws of many WordPress themes is that the main page navigation, when called by using the wp_list_pages() function, applies a title to each of the navigation links with whatever value is used in the the_title() of that particular page.
Don’t get me wrong, this is a good idea, but because of the way most navigation links are designed, the page titles need to be quite short and not very descriptive. Similarly, these themes tend to also use the_title() as the main H1 or H2 tag for the page display itself. In other words, if the navigation link says “Home”, the page title for that page usually displays as “Home” as well. This may be the way a designer wants it, but often it seems that a more descriptive page title is what’s really needed.
Stop on over at my other blog and read more about this great WordPress technique.
[...] [Thanks to Mike, Charity, Tara, Lisa, David Zemen, Paul Johns and Paul B for some fantastic comments on my last post] [...]
In the title’s case no compromise should be accepted! Any compromise could lead to poor S.E.O. results.
You are correct, Respiro. The H1 tag is so important to S.E.O. that its content needs to be handled with great care.
You’re absolutely correct. The titles are too long when the pages are called using wp_list_pages(). You would think they would have done that already to help WordPress’ SEO, but maybe they didn’t notice. Anyways, I’m sure in a couple months, WP will be so SEO-ed (lol) that we won’t need to worry about it.
@Design Inspiration: Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment. I would have thought that WordPress would have handled this matter in the core files by know, but they have not.
Wordpress Page Titles are very beneficial to SEO. I have seen my blog shoot up in SERPs because of the titles of my pages.
Thanks for stopping by and for making a comment. I agree that Pate Titles in WordPress are a key element in SEO. Thanks again.
You are correct, Respiro. The H1 tag is so important to S.E.O. that its content needs to be handled with great care.