Wordpress pluginThere have been several people that have had questions about configuring the All in One SEO plugin for WordPress, so I thought I would post some information here to share to everyone.

All in one SEO Configuration

First you need to login to your WordPress Admin panel.  From your WordPress admin, go to the Settings area, then select “All in one SEO”.

There are a lot of options here, but don’t feel intimidated, I’ll walk through each one.

  • Plugin Status – Make sure that Enable is checked.  After a new update is installed you will need to come back here and make sure that the plugin is enabled.  In past releases, the developer had chosen to disable the plugin.
  • Home Title – Enter the name of your blog.  For example my blog is MarketingWithRick.com so I have mine listed as Marketing With Rick.  If you leave this field blank, WordPress will default to the site name you defined during the WordPress configuration process.  Page Title is important for SEO rankings so choose wisely.  I could probably do a better job with mine.
  • Home Description – Enter a description or a tagline in this field.  This will show up as the meta description tag.  If you leave this filed blank, WordPress will not even give a description meta tag so make sure you fill this in.
  • Home Keywords – Enter the keywords that describe your blog and that you want to rank for.  These will show up as your meta keyword tags.  Even though we constantly here that keyword tags aren’t important any more, I say why not enter some keywords here just in case.  Make sure you enter commas between each keyword or keyword phrase you enter.
  • Canonical URLs – Go ahead and check this box.  This option will automatically generate Canonical URLS for your entire WordPress installation. This will help to prevent duplicate content penalties by Google.
  • Rewrite Titles – Go ahead and check this box.  This is all about the title tag. This is what you see in your browser’s window title bar. This is NOT visible on a page, only in the window title bar and of course in the source. If set, all page, post, category, search and archive page titles get rewritten. You can specify the format for most of them. The Rewrite Title rewrites the post title bar format to “Post Title | Blog Name”. If you have manually defined a title (in one of the text fields for All in One SEO Plugin input) this will become the title of your post in the format string.
  • Post Title Format – I leave this field as is “%post_title% | %blog_title%”.  This is optimal for SEO purposes.
  • Page Title Format – I would leave this as is “%page_title% | %blog_title%”.
  • Category Title Format – I would leave this as is “%category_title% | %blog_title%”.
  • Archive Title Format – I would leave this as is “%date% | %blog_title%”.
  • Tag Title Format - I would this as is “%tag% | %blog_title%”.
  • Search Title Format – I would leave this as is “%search% | %blog_title%”.
  • Description Format – I would leave this as is “%search% | %blog_title%”.
  • 404 Title Format – This provides the format for the title of your 404 error pages.  I think it is okay to leave this as is.
  • Paged Format – I would leave this as is “- Part %page%”.
  • Use Categories for META keywords – Make sure this is checked.  Checking this will list your categories for a given post as the META keywords for this post along with any other keywords and tags you specify on the post edit page.
  • Use Tags for META keywords – Make sure this is checked.  Checking this will list your tags for a given post used as the META keywords for this post along with any other keywords you specify on the post edit page.
  • Dynamically Generate Keywords for Posts Page – I would leave this unchecked.  Only check this if you want your keywords on a custom posts page (set it in Options-Reading) to be dynamically generated from the keywords of the posts showing on that page. If unchecked, it will use the keywords set in the edit page screen for the posts page.
  • Use noindex for Categories – Check this for excluding category pages from being crawled. Useful for avoiding duplicate content.  There is still some debate about if there are truly penalties for duplicate content, so until this is more clear I would check this.
  • Use noindex for Archives – Check this for excluding archive pages from being crawled. Useful for avoiding duplicate content.  There is still some debate about if there are truly penalties for duplicate content, so until this is more clear I would check this.
  • Use noindex for Tag Archives – Check this for excluding Tag pages from being crawled. Useful for avoiding duplicate content.  There is still some debate about if there are truly penalties for duplicate content, so until this is more clear I would check this.
  • Autogenerate Descriptions – Go ahead and check this.  Checking this will allow your META descriptions to be autogenerated if you do not fill in the excerpt field.
  • Capitalize Category Titles – Go ahead and check this.  Checking this will automatically capitalize the first letter of your Category Titles.
  • Exclude Pages – I leave this blank.  Pages listed in this filed will not be processed by the All in One SEO plugin. This is useful if you have other, non-WordPress, dynamic content running on your site.
  • Additional Post Headers – I leave this blank.  Honestly, I am not sure when I would even use this field and what SEO purposes is serves.
  • Additional Page Headers – I leave this blank.  Honestly, I am not sure when I would even use this field and what SEO purposes is serves.
  • Additional Home Headers – I leave this blank.  Honestly, I am not sure when I would even use this field and what SEO purposes is serves.
  • Log important events – I leave this unchecked.  This is a troubleshooting tool for the developer.

All in One SEO Configuration – Post Settings

After creating a new post you’ll want to scroll to the bottom of your post editing page to the All in one SEO Pack section. There you will see the following four options.

  • Title – You can optionally enter a page title here, if left blank SEO Pack will use the post’s title. If you are attempting to rank in a competitive market (who isn’t right), entering an alternate title here allows you to make use of additional keywords or keyword phrases.
  • Description – This is the META-description for the post. Carefully enter a description of your post using your keywords or keyword phrases.  I am not sure but I read somewhere that you should try to get strongest key word/phrase as close to the front of the description as possible.
  • Keywords – This is the META-keywords for the post. As mentioned above, use of the keywords tag is not as important as it once was but it is still used by some engines.  Put your most important ones closer to the front.
  • Disable on this page/post – Check this If for some reason you wish to NOT use the SEO pack on a page.

All in one SEO Pack Configuration – Page Settings

When creating a new page, be sure to update the All in One SEO pack settings, found near the bottom of the editing screen.  Page settings are almost identical to the post settings, with just two additional options – Title Attribute and Menu Label.

  • Title – You can optionally enter a page title here, if left blank the All in One SEO Pack will use the WordPress page title. Remember, entering an alternate title here allows you to make use of additional keywords or keyword phrases.
  • Description – This is the META-description for the post. Carefully enter a description of your page using your keywords or keyword phrases.  I am not sure but I read somewhere that you should try to get strongest key word/phrase as close to the front of the description as possible.
  • Keywords – This is the META-keywords for the page. As mentioned above, use of the keywords tag is not as important as it once was but it is still used by some engines.  Put your most important ones closer to the front.
  • Title Attribute – I leave this filed blank.  The text you enter here will become the link title text for links to this page. Link titles appear when you hover over a link. The SEO affect they have on ranking is debatable, but it’s minimal at best.
  • Menu Label – I leave this field blank.  The text entered here is used in your site menus for this page, left blank it will be the same as the WordPress page title.
  • Disable on this page/post – Check this If for some reason you wish to NOT use the SEO pack on a page.

So, Now What?

There you have it, all the info you need to configure your All in One SEO Pack and get your page rankings climbing. This plugin makes it easy for anyone to optimize their WordPress blog posts and pages for better search engine placement.  So what are you waiting for, download (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/all-in-one-seo-pack/) it and use it.

Do you have any other questions or comments about the All in One SEO plugin?

Related posts:

  1. My Top 10 WordPress Must-Have Plugins
  2. WordPress Plugins – Which ones do I use
  3. Optimizing Older Posts on Your Blog
  4. Blogging Tip – Title Can Be Everything
  5. More WordPress Plugins I’m Using

Filed under: Internet Marketing • SEO - Search Engine Optimization

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