Genesis Framework SEO Settings

Search engine optimization, or “SEO,” is a critical strategy for making sure that your website is properly indexed by the search engines that people use to find your content online. All major search engines, including Google, Yahoo!, and Bing, use algorithms that rank and return search results based on how well your website is optimized. The Genesis Framework includes built-in SEO tools that make it easy for you to optimize your website and make sure that users can find your content online.

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Access Genesis Framework SEO

Go to Appearance > Customize > Theme SEO Settings to access the settings.

If you don’t see this option in your WordPress® Customizer, you might have a third-party SEO plugin active.¹ The Genesis Framework recognizes most popular SEO plugins (EX: Yoast) and disables Genesis SEO settings when any of those plugins are active.

You will now see all the Genesis Framework SEO settings that can be configured for your site, as described below.

The settings available here are global settings, but some of them can be overridden within individual posts or pages.

1. Document Title: The document title settings determine how the site name and page/post names appear in search engine results and in the browser tab.
2. Homepage: The homepage-specific SEO settings determine how the homepage name appears in search engine results and in the browser tab.
3. Document Head: The document head settings allow you to re-enable default WordPress tags in the document head that the Genesis Framework has disabled.
4. Indexing: The indexing settings allow you to choose whether or not to allow search engine robots to index specific archive pages on your site.
5. Archiving: The archiving settings allow you to choose whether or not to allow search engine robots to archive specific archive pages on your site.
6. Open Graph: The open graph setting adds support for basic open graph tags which help social sites to read post information and fetch a featured image to display when your content is shared. This option is disabled by default.

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Document Title

1. Add site name to document title on inner pages?: Check the box to add your site name to the <title> property on each page of your website. A page’s <title> is used as the clickable title that displays in search engine results and in the tab at the top of the viewer’s browser window.
2. Document Title Separator: Enter a character or a string of characters to separate the site name and the page/post name. The default character is an en dash “-“.
3. Document Title Order: Select whether to add your site name to the left or right of the page/post name.
   • Additions on left: This will add the site name to the left of the page or post name. Example: Site Name – Page/Post Name
   • Additions on right: This will add the site name to the right of the page or post name. Example: Page/Post Name – Site Name

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Homepage

1. Primary Title H1: Choose the text that should be set as your homepage’s primary <h1>. The homepage is the primary content heading and important for search engines to interpret your page’s content and structure and return appropriate search results (along with the <title>).
   • Site Title: Select this option to use your site title (the site name) as the primary <h1>.
   • Site Description (Tagline): Select this option to use your site description (the site tagline) as the primary <h1>.
   • None: Select this option to set neither property as the primary <h1> and use custom text. To add custom text, you’ll have to either edit a php file or use a text widget on a widget-enabled homepage.
2. Homepage Document Title: Enter a title for your website’s homepage. This title displays in search engine results and in the tab at the top of the viewer’s browser window. Leave this option blank to use your site name as the title. This setting affects the home page title only; it does not change the site name or the text appended to page titles in the Document Title section.
3. Add site description (tagline) to document title on home page?: Check the box to add the tagline to your homepage title. It will display as “Site Title – Tagline” using the separator defined in the Document Title section.
4. Meta Description: Enter a brief, clear description of your website. This is the text that displays beneath the title when your website appears in a list of search engine results.
5. Meta Keywords: Enter a list of keywords or short phrases (separated by commas) that people might use to find your website through search queries. You can enter common search terms or misspellings that might help users find your website. Note that most popular search engines give very little (if any) consideration to these keywords, so make sure that your site title, description, and content are well-written with appropriate keywords as well.
6. Apply noindex, nofollow, and/or noarchive to the homepage: Search engines use programs called “crawlers” that regularly scan the web for new pages, analyzing content and exploring links to help build large, comprehensive search indexes. Select any special instructions for how you would like these crawlers to handle your homepage.
   • Apply noindex to the homepage: Select this option to exclude the homepage from indexing. If you select this option, your homepage will not appear in any search results at all.
   • Apply nofollow to the homepage: Select this option to tell crawlers not to follow any of the links on your homepage.
   • Apply noarchive to the homepage: Select this option to prevent search engines from creating an archive copy of your homepage.

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Document Head

WordPress places several tags in your pages that have no SEO value and can slow down your website. The Genesis Framework removes these tags to optimize your website for speed, but gives you the option to re-enable them as needed for specific plugin functionality or other nonstandard requirements.

1. Adjacent Posts rel link tags: Select this option to enable relationship link tags in the document <head> for your web pages.
2. Include Windows Live Writer Support Tag?: Select this to add support for Windows Live Writer if you use software that supports it.
3. Include Shortlink Tag?: Select this option to include a shortlink tag if you use a third-party service that requires it.

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Indexing

Select the locations where you want to apply noindex. At least one archive should be indexed, but indexing multiple archives can result in duplicate content indexing for which search engines might give lower SEO scores. For most sites, either the home page or blog page serves as the primary index, which is why the default is not to index categories, tags, authors, dates, or searches.

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Archiving

Select the locations where you want to apply noarchive. If you select any of these options, those locations can still be indexed, but they will not be archived by search engines.

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Open Graph

When enabled, the following open graph tags will be output on your site:

• og:title
• og:description
• og:image
• og:image:height
• og:image:width
• og:image:alt
• og:type
• og:url

More information on the Genesis Framework Open Graph settings can be found here.

Which image will be displayed when sharing content on social sites?

1. Posts and Pages:
   • The featured image assigned to the post or page will be displayed.
   • If there is no featured image attached to the post or page, the default image set here will be displayed.
   • If there is no featured image attached to the post or page and there is no default image set here, the site icon will be displayed as a 512px square image. The site icon can be added in Appearance > Customize > Site Identity.
   • If none of the above are present, no image will be displayed when sharing posts or pages on social sites.
2. Archive pages (like category and tag pages):
   • The default image set here will be displayed.
   • If there is no default image set here, the site icon will be displayed as a 512px square image. The site icon can be added in Appearance > Customize > Site Identity.
3. Author archive pages:
   • The author gravatar will be displayed as a 512px square image.

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