Overview
Search engines read your page content, but they also read a set of hidden fields called metadata — the title, description and keywords of each page. These are what appear in a search result, so they are worth writing deliberately. Everything below is editable from your website administration; nothing requires code.
Where the fields live
Metadata exists at two levels. Page values apply to a single page; site values apply to the whole site and are used for any page that leaves its own field empty.
- Page title, description, keywords and page address — in the left-hand menu open Pages, select the page, then open More Options.
- Site title — Settings > Site Details.
- Site description and site keywords — Settings > Special Features.
- Social sharing title, description and image — Pages, select the page, then Social Tools.
After changing any of these, publish your site. Metadata is written into the published pages, so an unpublished change is not visible to search engines.
Site title
The site title is the first and most visible line of a search result, so it should say precisely and concisely what the site is about.
- Include the keywords you want to be found for.
- Keep it to roughly 5–8 words — longer titles are truncated in results.
- Drop filler words such as "and", "the", "a".
- Do not repeat the same keyword.
Page title
Each page can have its own title. If you leave it empty, the page falls back to the page name combined with the site title. Give important pages — services, products, contact — a title of their own rather than relying on the fallback.
Description
The description is a one-sentence summary of the page, usually shown underneath the title in a search result. Keep it compact, around 30–40 words, and make it informative rather than promotional.
If a page has no description, the site description is used. If there is no site description either, the search engine picks a fragment of your page content instead — which is rarely the sentence you would have chosen.
Keywords
Keywords carry far less weight than they once did, and the major search engines largely ignore the keywords tag. Some smaller engines still read it, so the field remains available.
- Choose keywords that genuinely relate to that page's content.
- Put the more important ones first.
- Vary them between pages rather than repeating one list everywhere.
As with the description, a page with no keywords of its own inherits the site keywords.
Page address
The page address is part of the same More Options panel, and it also matters for search. A short, readable address containing a real word — /services rather than /page-3 — is easier to rank and easier for a visitor to trust.
Changing the address of a page that is already published changes its URL, so any existing link to the old address will stop working. If you need to change it, consider adding a redirect from the old address so visitors and search engines are sent to the new one.
How your pages appear when shared
Social networks and messaging apps do not use the search description. They read their own set of fields, which you set per page under Social Tools: a sharing title, a sharing description and a sharing image.
If you do not set a sharing image, no preview image is attached and the link will appear as plain text. For pages you expect to be shared, setting one is worth the minute it takes.
Canonical addresses — handled for you
A canonical address tells a search engine which address is the official one for a page, so that the same content reachable by more than one address is not treated as duplicated.
Your site does this automatically. Every published page carries a canonical address pointing at itself, using your site's own domain. There is no setting to configure and nothing you need to add — it is worth knowing about mainly because SEO guidance elsewhere often tells you to add one by hand, and here you do not have to.
A note on what metadata can and cannot do
Good metadata makes your pages more attractive and more accurately described in results. It does not make a search engine index your site, and it does not control how quickly that happens — a new site can take weeks to appear. If you want to tell Google your site exists rather than waiting, submit your sitemap in Google Search Console.