Change SEO titles and descriptions in WordPress

WordPress itself has no SEO title or meta description field. Your theme builds the title tag from the post title, and an SEO plugin adds the boxes for both. Where you paste each change from your On-Page Mapping depends on which plugin your site runs.

To see which one you have, open any post. A Yoast or Rank Math icon at the top right of the editor, or an AIOSEO Settings box below it, names the plugin. If you see none of them, follow the no-plugin steps.

Yoast SEO

To change the title and description:

1. Open the post or page and click the Yoast icon at the top right of the editor.
2. Click Search appearance.
3. Paste the new meta title into SEO title and the description into Meta description.
4. Click Update.

The same fields sit in the Yoast SEO meta box below the editor. The bar under each one turns orange or red when the text runs long.

From Yoast: How to write meta descriptions and The snippet preview

Rank Math

To change the title and description:

1. Open the post or page and click the Rank Math icon at the top right.
2. In the General tab, click Edit Snippet.
3. Paste the new meta title into Title and the description into Description.
4. Close the preview and click Update.

The bar under each field turns green at a good length and red when it's too long or short.

From Rank Math: SEO meta tags and The General tab

All in One SEO

To change the title and description:

1. Open the post or page and scroll down to AIOSEO Settings below the editor.
2. On the Appearance tab, paste the new meta title into Post Title and the description into Meta Description. Versions before AIOSEO 5 call this tab General.
3. Click Update.

From AIOSEO: Set the SEO title and description for your content

No SEO plugin

Without a plugin, your theme prints the title tag as the post title, a separator and your site name. To change it, change the post title, which in most themes also changes the H1.

There's no meta description field. WordPress's own guide points you to an SEO plugin from the plugin directory, or to adding the tag to your theme by hand.

From WordPress: Search engine optimization and wp_get_document_title

Change the H1

In most themes, the title you type at the top of the editor is the page's H1, and Heading blocks in the body start at H2. WordPress notes this can vary by theme or page template. None of the three plugins changes the H1.

To change a Heading block's level, select it and pick a level from the block toolbar. The Outline tab of the Document Overview lists every heading on the page.

From WordPress: Heading block

Change the URL

To change a post or page's slug:

1. Click the gear icon at the top right of the editor to open the sidebar, on the Post (or Page) tab.
2. Click the current Slug and type the new one into Permalink.
3. Click Update.

You can't change a slug while Settings > Permalinks is set to Plain. When you change a published post's slug, WordPress redirects the old address with a 301. It doesn't do this for pages. For pages, use Yoast SEO Premium's redirect manager, Rank Math's Auto Post Redirect setting, or AIOSEO Pro's redirection manager.

From WordPress: Page and post settings sidebar and wp_old_slug_redirect

Add image alt text

Select an Image block and fill in Alternative text in its settings. That text applies to that post only. To set alt text once for every future use of an image, go to Media > Library, click the image, and fill in Alt Text.

From WordPress: Image block

Hide a page from search

To noindex one post or page, open its plugin panel and go to the Advanced tab:

• Yoast SEO: set Allow search engines to show this content in search results to No. Only editors and admins see this tab by default.
• Rank Math: tick No Index under Robots Meta. The tab appears in Advanced Mode only.
• AIOSEO: turn off Use Default Settings under Robots Settings, then tick No Index.

Then click Update. Without a plugin there's no per-page switch. Discourage search engines from indexing this site in Settings > Reading hides your whole site, so leave it unticked.

From Yoast: How do I noindex URLs? From Rank Math: The Advanced tab From AIOSEO: Showing or hiding your content in search results

Check it worked

Run the live page through the free Meta tag checker. It shows the title, description, H1 and robots tag the page serves now. If it still shows the old ones and your site runs a caching plugin, clear its cache and check again. When the change is live, tick Mark done on the page's row in On-Page Mapping.

Related guides

• Update titles and meta descriptions on your platform
• Publish to WordPress