WordPress SEO: Optimizing Your <title>
August 19, 2008 2 Comments
Often times, the <title> tag is overlooked when creating a theme. This tutorial will help you optimize the <title> tag for your specific needs.
I’m a huge fan of optimizing my <title>, but it takes some work to do it.
In any thing I create or modify, I always have a separate title.php file because I normally have 10-15 lines in the file for my <title>.
Edit: Use this to include the file: <?php include(‘title.php’); ?> in your <head> section of the header.php file.
Here is what I use,
<title><?php
if(isset($_GET['author_name'])) :
$curauth = get_userdatabylogin($author_name);
else :
$curauth = get_userdata(intval($author));
endif;
if(is_home()) { echo 'My News Site.'; }
elseif(is_single()) { the_title() . ' - My News Site.'; }
elseif(is_date()) { echo 'Site Archives - ' . get_the_time('M Y'); }
elseif(is_category()) { echo single_cat_title() . ' News - My Site'; }
elseif(is_page()) { the_title(); }
elseif(is_search()) { echo 'My News Site Search: ' . $s; }
elseif(is_tag()) { echo single_tag_title('My Site Tag: ',true); }
elseif(is_author()) { echo 'Site Author - ' . $curauth->display_name; }
else { echo "Sorry, page not found."; }
?></title>
Then, to simple include this file in your theme, use <?php include(‘title.php’); ?> where you would normally have the <title> and it will show up as planned.
The reason I do this for my <title>’s is because the default method used in WordPress has never been satisfactory for me. Additionally, and primarily, I have seen far better SEO results because of this.
WordPress Hacks 