Changing meta description on WordPress Premium plan?

  • misunderstooddisciple · Member ·

    I’d like to change the meta description of just my homepage. I have my blog posts at the top of my homepage, and Google seems to be filling in the meta description with whatever the text of my most recent blog article is.

    To be clear, I’d only like to change the homepage meta, not each blog post. When the blog posts show up in google search results, their meta is good, so I wouldn’t want to do something that overrides the meta description for every page.

    Can this be accomplished on the wordpress Premium plan?

    The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

  • julinedossantos1 · Staff ·

    Hello,

    On the WordPress.com Premium plan, you can set a summary, also known as an “Excerpt”, for your homepage. However, it is essential to note that Google may not necessarily use this summary as your page description in search results. Google’s decision will be influenced by algorithms that evaluate various factors, including the relevance of the summary to the search term.

    If you need guidance on adding an “Excerpt” to your pages, follow the instructions at this link: https://wordpress.com/support/excerpts/.

    Still, it’s crucial to understand that “Excerpt” and meta description are two distinct elements. While the “Excerpt” represents a brief summary of the content of your post or page, the meta description is an HTML element used by search engines to understand the content of your page.

    If you want more granular control over your WordPress.com site’s meta descriptions, you’ll need to upgrade to a Business or Commerce plan. More information: https://wordpress.com/plans/
    Doing so will give you access to advanced SEO tools and the possibility of installing specific plugins.
    For more details, you can refer to: https://wordpress.com/support/seo-tools/#front-page-meta-description.

    I hope this information is helpful to you.

  • misunderstooddisciple · Member ·

    I see where I can add an excerpt to a new page, but is it possible to add it to the Homepage itself?

  • julinedossantos1 · Staff ·

    Yes, you can add an excerpt to your homepage.
    For that, you need to edit it:

    • In your dashboard, click on Pages.
    • Select your Homepage.
    • Under the settings on the right side of the editor, click on Excerpt.
    • Type a short description of the content to help your visitors understand what the content is about in just a few sentences.
    • Click Update to save your changes.

    Let me know it worked

  • misunderstooddisciple · Member ·

    Hmm. No actually I don’t see that anywhere under settings. There’s really not much listed.

  • julinedossantos1 · Staff ·

    I am really sorry.
    I did several simulations, and I didn’t understand why this option was not appearing.

    I’ll tag the WordPress.com team to help us out.

  • aleone89 · Staff ·

    Hey there,

    Happy to help you with this.

    The meta description for the site is: Music, Myth, and Magick as this is what is set via Appearance > Customize > Tag line, and this is where this would be changed.

    Google is opting to use use the post description as there’s more content to go by for the search terms, rather than the tagline.

    I’d recommend increasing the tagline content to 150 characters, and allowing Google to re-crawl the site.

    I hope this is useful information. :)

  • julinedossantos1 · Staff ·

    I remembered that having the Annual Premium plan, you can request help through the chat: https://wordpress.com/support/live-chat/

  • The topic ‘Changing meta description on WordPress Premium plan?’ is closed to new replies.