Thread

Most of the EE sites I build have at least one Channel where all it’s Articles are displayed on a single page, but none of the SEO solutions I’ve looked at (admittedly I’ve only looked at the free ones) seem to acknowledge this approach; they all seem to think that SEO tags need to be provided for each Article.

Maybe I’m missing something (probably), but considering the origins of EE, I find this odd.

If the SEO info is set at the Article level, then there is a lot of unecessary duplication as only one set of info needs to be displayed, it’s also very confusing for clients as they are presented with entry fields for each Article, but most are not used.

Is there a simple-ish method for setting up SEO entries for each template/Channel, rather than for each Article? I could create a SEO channel, and display an entry on each template, but there must be a more elegant solution?

I usually create snippets (either the EE native way or with Low Variables) for each “list page” meta description, and then pass it on to my document header template either as an embed variable or with stash. Something like this (in my news list template):

...
   {embed="_inc/document_header" meta_description="{snp_news_list_meta_description}"}
   ...

But, I do it this way with meta description on article pages too, I don’t use any third-party addons since I find it easier and more flexible to do it manually.

One method would be to use a separate Channel to hold data for top level/section pages, you’d then assign an entry to the template to control things like Page title, Meta data, Page main heading, text, blurb, images whatever you need.

Another method is to add custom fields to your Articles channel then use a Status to pull in data from an entry to populate Meta data etc.

Thanks for responding.

Do you use a separate channel for the data?

—our posts crossed - this was in response to aelvan!—-

Hi bluedreamer thanks for responding,

The problem with adding seo fields to the Articles channel is that it’s not obvious to clients how to use it, and there are redundant fields.

I’m leaning towards using a separate channel, but I think this would only be suitable for sites with relatively few channels.

I hope this can help others, but if anyone can improve on this, please do so.

Add this in each ‘listing’ page template:

{embed="page_elements/html_header" seo_title="home"}

Then in html_header snippet:

{exp:channel:entries channel="seo" search:seo_title="{embed:seo_title}" limit="1"}
<title>{seo_title}</title>
<meta keywords="{seo_keywords}">
<meta description="{seo_description}">
{/exp:channel:entries}

To make this a little more robust for users, I would create a SEO user who cannot Publish/Unpublish to this channel, they can only Edit existing entries.

Improvements very much welcome (certainly from a SEO perspective as I’d freely admit I know very little in this area)!

—- One shortcoming I’ve just thought of - there is no default data to fallback on, it would be useful if I could use a summary of the page data—-

Perhaps I’m misunderstanding the direction of the conversation a bit, but is this to suggest that SEO data at the entry level is not needed because an entry will never be viewed on a single entry template?  A means to displaying SEO data on the list view is definitely needed, but in my view that is in addition to the entry-level SEO data, not instead of.  What SEO data would display on a single entry view?  A repeat of the list-view meta data?  That duplication would then be of a nock against you from Google’s perspective with multiple pages containing, for example, the same description.  I always do both - constructing the site’s templates to provide meta data for every distinct URL, with that data administered at the entry level - with a bit of education, my clients eagerly complete these important fields.  And when they forget, I do still implement a fall-back to a combination of entry-level and site-wide defaults.  I’m no SEO expert, i just figure if every page view is accurately reflected in its meta data, it has to help.

Sorry, I didn’t mean to suggest that SEO data isn’t needed for single entries, my requirement is in addition to this, if a site has a page containing a single entry then that entry will of course require it’s own unique seo data.

I was, initially, confused as to why there was no out-of-the-box solution to applying seo data on a channel level (given weblog origins of EE), but I suppose the problem would be, where would it go, you can’t add seo fields to a channel admin page.

I find that clients are happier if you don’t have to explain how to use something; if you add seo fields on an Entry level, but have a template displaying a Channel, having to explain to the client that the seo fields for only one Entry will actually be used is a bit messy, and it’s not ideal to have redundant fields.

Ah, so in your case, multiple entries make up the content of a single page and you don’t have a view in your template set for the entry one-on-one? Yes, those are the circumstances where group level or at least template level SEO would be the more practical approach.  I basically build my approach around anything that will have its own view.  And so while I do have group level SEO going on, in my case it’s rare for most entries not also to have a single entry viewpoint in the site, in which case I wind up tackling SEO at the entry level for more granular control.

Cheers.

Thanks for shearing important information