Wordpress "All in One SEO Pack"?

[MrktTimingAcdmy]

We use Wordpress for our blog site and I'm not sure we are using the SEO settings properly. When I enter a new post, I enter tags, but never fill out the "All in one SEO" areas, which ask for topic, description and key words. My web person said it is not necessary because the search engines already pick everything up. Is this correct? Help!

[Abledragon]

You should fill out the Title, Description and Keyword fields for each post. If you installed the AIOSEO after you'd already published posts then you need to go back through those old posts and fill in the Title, Description and Keywords details for them too.

Filling in those fields gives you control over what the search engines display. Titles are important SEO fields, and good description fields should be thought of in the same way as a PPC ad: they should encourage people to click through.

If you leave it up to the search engines they will display data in the relevant parts of the search results but you'll not have any control over it, and the data they select may not be what you want displaid - or may not be ideal for SEO for your page.

Cheers,

Martin.

[Leslie B]

The search engines do pick those things up themselves if you haven't filled it in, but when they do, they just go with what is there. If you fill in the info for the AIOSEO plugin, you can make the title for your posts that appears in the search engines more enticing to click on.

The same goes for the description. If you leave it blank, the search engines will use the first part of the text they find on your page, if you fill it in, you can make it say what you want it to say. Again, making it better so you get more clicks.

Leslie

[FamilyFrugal]

Originally Posted by Leslie B

The search engines do pick those things up themselves if you haven't filled it in, but when they do, they just go with what is there. If you fill in the info for the AIOSEO plugin, you can make the title for your posts that appears in the search engines more enticing to click on.

The same goes for the description. If you leave it blank, the search engines will use the first part of the text they find on your page, if you fill it in, you can make it say what you want it to say. Again, making it better so you get more clicks.

Leslie

So you can actually use a different title? I didn't know that! I just moved to wp over the weekend and didn't quite know how to utilize the SEO stuff.

[mad.hat]

Originally Posted by MrktTimingAcdmy

We use Wordpress for our blog site and I'm not sure we are using the SEO settings properly. When I enter a new post, I enter tags, but never fill out the "All in one SEO" areas, which ask for topic, description and key words. My web person said it is not necessary because the search engines already pick everything up. Is this correct? Help!

Your web person is right that search engines pick up everything if you don't indicate the values yourself but its ALWAYS better to do it yourself. Search engines will just choose what they think you want but it may not really be what you want.

The whole purpose of having AIOSEO is so that you can easily input all those values.

[Darla]

I make a point to fill in all the details in the AIOSEO plugin. Title, description, keywords etc. Its quick and easy to do using the plugin and I figure it can't hurt to give the SE's a little help. :-)

[maryparker]

AIOSEO is a great WP plugin which takes the key areas of your site and allows you to add the keywords. The All in One SEO plugin posts the settings title, and it overrides the actual title that you would specify for a given post. This can really help you, since you can explore more keywords.This is your easy gateway to get more unique visitors every day from your blog posts.

[thetruth23]

Originally Posted by MrktTimingAcdmy

We use Wordpress for our blog site and I'm not sure we are using the SEO settings properly. When I enter a new post, I enter tags, but never fill out the "All in one SEO" areas, which ask for topic, description and key words. My web person said it is not necessary because the search engines already pick everything up. Is this correct? Help!

Everyone's answered the AIOSEO question, so nothing more to add there.

I have just noticed your sig link appears to be using the default wordpress permalink structure though, and for added benefit of SEO, I would recommend to change that.

Go into your permalinks settings and select custom structure, and use this: /%postname%/

This will enable you to actually title your URL's with words, and not just random numbers.

Put a keyword in there, and hey...it can only help your SEO efforts versus have random numbers in there. =)

[CikaPero]

There are some excellent tutorials about SEO in WordPress, like this one
WordPress SEO - Yoast - Tweaking Websites

I found suggestion about changing permalinks the most valuable.

[theentry]

Originally Posted by CikaPero

There are some excellent tutorials about SEO in WordPress, like this one
WordPress SEO - Yoast - Tweaking Websites

I found suggestion about changing permalinks the most valuable.

Or you can alternatively try the plugin from Yoast.. it's still in beta but it rocks!