Installing and configuring the All In One SEO Pack for Wordpress

Basic Search Engine Optimization is pretty simple.

If your website is running WordPress, even more so. It is as easy as installing a plugin.

My plugin of choice is the "All In One SEO Pack" plugin with many features and options. So many options even, there are more than you likely need.

I'm going to walk you through the basic configuration for the "All In One SEO Pack" plugin. This will set some defaults, with the option to adjust the SEO for each page on your website.

Why is it important to add SEO functionality to your WordPress installation?

By default, WordPress does NOT add description information, does NOT offer the ability to enhance the title, does NOT offer any options for Open Graph.

In the search engine results, the description there reflects the description you have configured on your webpage. What you see for a description in the search engine results is very, very short. Additionally, by default, the first content available on your webpage is what the search engine uses for your description. If at the top of every one of your webpages, you have text that (for example), has your Company name, address and phone number - this is what would show on the description for ALL of your webpages in the search results. Definitely not what you want.

The title of each of your web pages on your site is exactly what Google will set as your title. You might want to add additional options. For instance, your webpage might be titled: "The 5 important rust prevention methods for your car". And without an SEO plugin, when Google indexes this page, this is what will show as the title.

You might prefer that the title looks like: "The 5 important rust prevention methods for your car. | Car Tips - The best car tips online!"

With an SEO plugin, you can add this last part automatically.

Open Graph - this is essential if you want to share your webpage on Facebook, LinkedIn, etc, and you want to control not only the title and text but also the default image shown on the other sites. You might have a great header image that goes along with the story on your webpage that you are sharing, but Facebook keeps showing your logo. Alternatively, you might not want to show the header image, but you want to show a different image inside the story - or even a picture not on that webpage at all.

Installing the "All In One SEO Pack" plugin

Installing the "All In One SEO Pack" plugin is very straightforward.

Log into your WordPress installation as an administrator.

Scroll down on the left-hand side until you find plugins. Mouseover, then click on Add New.

In the search box to the right of "Keyword" type: "All in one".

Wait a few seconds, and the search results will populate.

We are looking for the "All In One SEO Pack". 

Click on "Install Now"

Click on "Activate"

Note: If the Install Now and Activate method doesn't work for you as described, you likely need to update WordPress!

In the dashboard, mouse over All In One, click on "General Settings".

This will bring up the General Settings page for the All In One Pack plugin.

For the most part, most of the settings here are great, and will immediately begin adding SEO to your site.

Scroll down to "Content Type Settings". This is where you will enable the All In One SEO Pack for the types of content. By default, pages and posts are enabled. If you have any additional page types, you might want to include them here.

Scroll down to Advanced Settings.

Enable:

• Autogenerate Descriptions:
• Use Content For Autogenerated Descriptions:
• Never Shorten Long Descriptions:
• Redirect Attachments to Post Parent:

Scroll to the bottom, and click on "Update Options".

On the dashboard, under the menu for All In One, click on "Feature Manager".

Click on "Activate" for the following:

• XML Sitemaps
• Social Meta
• Robots.txt
• Bad Bot Blocker

After activation, the Feature Manager should look like:

The menu options available for "All in One SEO" are increased.

Click on "XML Sitemap"

In the XML Sitemap options, make the following changes:

• Schedule Updates: Weekly
• Enable Sitemap Indexes: UNcheck
• Post Types: Only Posts, Pages (if you have additional page types on your site, enable here)
• Taxonomies: UNcheck all
• Exclude Images: Enable

It should look like:

Scroll to the bottom, click on "Update Sitemap".

Underneath the All in One SEO options, click on Social Meta

Inside the "Home Page Settings", enable "Use AIOSEO Title and Description"

The available options will change. You can set your Site Name here if you like.

It will look like:

Scroll down to Facebook Settings

In the options for "Enable Facebook Meta for Post Types", enable any additional page types if needed.

Scroll to the bottom of the page, and click on "Update Options".

Putting the All In One SEO Pack into action

Create a new page, or edit an existing page. Here is where you will get to use the new SEO options.

I'll use this tutorial for my screenshots.

Before I typed this line, I saved this tutorial, then scrolled to the very bottom below the editor. I have the following SEO options, as will you.

You can see the text that will be displayed, along with a preview.

Next, I am going to switch to the "Social Settings" tab. I can select the image I want to use when sharing. I also have the option to test the page with Facebook to see how it will display.

NOTE: If you are sharing on LinkedIn, your image needs to be AT LEAST 1200 pixels wide, otherwise it will not be used.

In the Social Settings screenshot below, you can see the title and description. I've also selected my image to be used when sharing.

Using the Facebook Debugger, you can see how Facebook will share your post. You will need to be logged into Facebook as well.

And here is how it looks according to Facebook:

Looking at the HTML markup, you can see all of the SEO and Open Graph markup provided by the All In One Pack plugin.

As you can see, this is pretty easy stuff.

If you have questions, just ask me.

If you'd like me to configure this on your website, or just look your site over - contact me.

Either message me here on LinkedIn, or use my contact form on my website at: https://dr7media.com/contact/.