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How To SEO

The Squirrly SEO Patterns List

Take a look at the COMPLETE LIST OF PATTERNS available in SEO Automaton – and learn more about what each one of them does.

{{date}}Displays the post/page’s publishing date.
{{title}}Adds the published title of the post/page.
{{page}}Displays the number of the current page (i.e. 1 of 6)
{{parent_title}}Adds the title of a page’s parent page. (according to how it’s set up in Page Attributes)
{{sitename}}Adds the site’s name. (as it’s set up in Settings > General > Site Title)
{{sitedesc}}Adds the site’s description. (as it’s set up in Settings > General > Tagline)
{{excerpt}}Will display an excerpt from the post/page – as it appears in the excerpt field in WordPress for that particular page/post.

If NOT customized, the excerpt will be auto-generated, displaying the first lines of text from your post/page.
{{excerpt_only}}Will display an excerpt from the post/page – as it appears in the excerpt field in WordPress for that particular page/post.

As opposed to the {{excerpt}} Pattern, there’ NO auto-generation for {{excerpt_only}}; if the excerpt field is NOT customized, {{excerpt_only}} will NOT display anything.

! Additional info: If the excerpt field is not enabled/visible on your Page and Post dashboard, you need to enable it via Screen Options. Keep in mind that some themes may lack to create this field on Page.
{{tag}}Includes the tag(s) that is/are assigned to the post in the post description.
{{category}}Displays the name of the category that’s assigned to that post/page. If the post/page is assigned to multiple categories, the names of the categories will be comma-separated.
{{primary_category}}Adds the name of the primary category that is assigned to a post/page.
{{category_description}}Includes the description of the category that is assigned to a post in the post description (as it’s defined in Edit Category > Description field)
{{tag_description}}Adds the tag’s description (as it’s defined in Edit Tag > Description field)
{{term_description}}Adds the term description.
{{term_title}}Adds the title/name of the term that’s assigned to the post. 

! Additional info: In WordPress, terms refer to the items in a taxonomy. (read more about it here)
{{searchphrase}}Displays the search phrase. (if it appears in the post)
{{sep}} Places a separator between the elements of the post description.
{{modified}}Every post has the date it was modified registered in the database. This pattern replaces the publication date of a post/page with the modified one and displays it.
{{name}}Displays the name of the Author assigned to that post. (as it appears in Profil > Display Name Publicly as: section in WordPress)
{{user_description}}Adds the biographical info of the Author assigned to that post to the post description (as it appears in Profile > Biographical info section in WordPress)
{{currentdate}}Displays the current date.
{{keyword}} Adds the post’s keyword to the post description. (this information is retrieved from the Squirrly SEO Snippet)
{{currentday}}Adds the current day.
{{currentmonth}}Adds the current month.
{{currentyear}}Adds the current year.
{{product_name}} Adds the product name for the selected WooCommerce product.
{{product_price}} Adds the product price for the selected WooCommerce product.
{{product_price_with_tax}}Adds the product price with tax for the selected WooCommerce product.
{{product_currency}}Adds the product currency for the selected WooCommerce product.
{{product_brand}}Adds the product brand for the selected WooCommerce product.
{{org_name}}Adds the name of your organization as set in Squirrly’s Rich Snippets.
{{org_description}}Adds the description of your organization as set in Squirrly’s Rich Snippets.
{{org_logo}}Adds the logo URL of your organization as set in Squirrly’s Rich Snippets.
{{org_url}}Adds the URL of your organization as set in Squirrly’s Rich Snippets.
{{org_phone}}Adds the telephone number of your organization as set in Squirrly’s Rich Snippets.
{{customfield(field_name)}}Adds the custom field data based on the current post ID. More details here.
{{customfields(field_name|array_key)}}Adds the custom field data based on the current post ID. More details here.

If the custom field is a WP hidden field and you still want to see it in the patterns list, add this line in wp-config.php file:

 add_filter('sq_show_hidden_patterns', true);

Patterns & Automation

Learn how to use the Patterns in Squirrly SEO Automation

How To Add Your WordPress Site To Google Search Console

Google Search Console (GSC) is a free tool that allows website owners to monitor and analyze their site’s presence in Google’s search results.

The data provided by GSC is going to help you determine how you can improve your site’s performance.

We strongly recommend adding your WordPress site to GSC because you’ll be able to make more informed decisions in the future.

Here are the steps you need to follow to submit your site to Google Search Console:

  1. Go to Google Search Console.
  2. Add the URL of your website exactly how it’s displayed in your browser bar, including the “/” at the end. If your site uses http:// and https://, or multiple domains such as yoursite.com and www.yoursite.com, you need to add each URL as a separate property. When it comes to www or non-www, be sure to specify the preferred domain from the Site Settings section in GSC.
  3. Verify your site. In this step, you’ll need to choose one of the verification methods suggested to you. Until you confirm the ownership, you won’t be able to use that site in Google Search Console.

And that’s it.

The data collection for your property will start as soon as you’ll add it in your GSC account – even before you verify it.

Squirrly SEO WordPress Plugin and The New WordPress Gutenberg Editor

Update 1 August:

Squirrly SEO is now fully compatible with the Gutenberg Editor. Read all about it in this article.

Why We Moved The Live Assistant Below The Editor

As you already know, the live assistant is being displayed on the right side within the classic WordPress editor.

To make Squirrly compatible with Gutenberg, we had to move the live assistant below the editor, which is something that some of you were not that thrilled about.

We get it – it’s kind of a pain to scroll down every single time to check if you’ve optimized your page correctly. Due to the fact that the Gutenberg blocks are displayed on the right side where our live assistant was, our only choice was to move it below.

We are now currently working on a progress bar that we can show so you’ll see at all times how optimized the page you’re working on is.

WordPress Gutenberg Editor

You’ve most likely already heard about the new WordPress update which will bring quite a drastic change to the WordPress editor we’re all used to.

WP 5.0 is going to introduce the Gutenberg editor that will use blocks to create different types of content.

WordPress Gutenberg Editor

If you’re familiar with visual editors such as Divi, then it will be easy for you to adjust to Gutenberg.

As of right now, WordPress users can download the new WP editor in the form of a plugin, test it out on their sites, and send their thoughts and feedback regarding the experience.

Even if you install the plugin, you will still be able to switch to the current visual editor and use Squirrly without any issues.

WordPress acknowledged that the current editor works wonders when it comes to creating written content. However, they also realized that the experience was not that great when it came to building pages and posts that required a mix of visual elements.

Squirrly SEO and WordPress Gutenberg

Over the last few months, we’ve worked quite a lot on making Squirrly’s live assistant compatible with the visual editors that the majority of Squirrly SEO users had installed on their sites.

Because the WordPress Gutenberg editor is similar to these types of builders, the live assistant may have a hard time picking up the content optimization from the blocks.

When WP 5.0 is going to be released, Gutenberg will become the default editor. This means that we need to rethink the way we integrate Squirrly in order to make it compatible with the new update.

For now, we plan to wait until Gutenberg is a stable editor. If we start making adjustments now, then they will probably stop being effective when other changes will be released.

We’re definitely open to your feedback and your thoughts about this major update, and if you get a chance to test it out, feel free to let us know what you think.

How to Connect Google Webmaster Tool with Squirrly SEO

If you set the Webmaster Tool for the first time you need to follow the steps from How to set the Google Webmaster Tool.

If google says you need to verify your website again, follow these steps:

  1. Login to Webmaster Tool and select your website
  2. Go to the Google Settings menu


  1. Select the Verification Details
  2. Select the HTML tag and copy the Webmaster Code

  3. Go to your dashboard and add this code in Squirrly > Settings > Measure your Success

Enjoy Squirrly!

How to Get the Google Analytics Tracking Code

If you already set the Google Analytics Tracking Code before and you need the tracking code later, follow these steps:

  1. Go to Google Analytics and select your websites.
  2. Go to Admin section from your website panelGoogle Webmaster Tool Admin Section 
  3. Select the desired Property on which you want to track the traffic and select the Tracking InfoGoogle Webmaster Tool Tracking Info
  4. Now select the Tracking code submenu:Webmaster Tool Tracking Code 1 
  5. You will be redirected to your Tracking codeWebmaster Tool Tracking Code 
  6. Now you can paste the code in Squirrly at Tracking Tools section
    Analytics Tracking Tools

 

 

Learn how to set How to set the Google Webmaster Tool

Enjoy Squirrly!

Easy steps to change the posts order in WordPress Blog

You can ether install a plugin like https://wordpress.org/plugins/custom-post-order/

or add the next lines in the function.php file from your wordpress theme.

add_filter ( 'posts_orderby', 'custom_posts_order', 99, 1);
function custom_posts_order( $orderby) {
   if (is_category()){
     return 'post_modified DESC';
   }
}

 

custom post order

I’ve changed the custom order from ‘post_date DESC’ to ‘post_modified DESC’ to have the latest modified articles in front.

Notice that I’ve added the category condition  ‘is_category’ which will change the posts order just for categories and not  for tags or other terms.

Hope this helps.

Next read: Installing Squirrly SEO Plugin on a new site

Install squirrly seo

google webmaster tool

How to set the Google Webmaster Tool

Why should you use the Google Webmaster Tool

Google created Webmaster Tool as a way to connect your site to their server.
It is the fastest way to tell Google that your site is ready for ranking, and what has your site feed. Google uses this tool to notify you (through email) about the crawling errors, or SEO errors in your site.

How to add your site in Google Webmaster Tool?

1. First, you have to connect to https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/home, and sign in (or create an account, if you don’t have one)google webmaster tool

 

2. Now add your site in webmaster by clicking the “Add a site” button.

3. Choose Alternate Methods to validate and choose HTML Tag.

google_webmaster1

 

4. Google will ask you to validate your site, and it will give you a code like this one.

<meta name="google-site-verification" content="dsa4nIUAyAAjnd0GUX9OpP7yJ2ecwUBHywpOaWakK1g" />

google_webmaster2

5. Add that code in Squirrly > Settings > Google webmaster and click “Save settings”.

google_webmaster5

 

6. Go back to the webmaster tool site, and click “Verify site”. You should receive a confirmation message.

google_webmaster4

Now that your site is connected, you can submit your sitemap.xml. Learn how to do it.

google sitemap

How to Submit Your sitemap.xml

How to Submit Your XML Sitemap File with Squirrly’s Sitemap Settings

articol

Why Do You Need an XML Sitemap?

Google crawls your entire website to find links, so as to eventually index them. To prevent the waiting time involved (the whole process can take days or even weeks), Google added the “Submit a sitemap” feature in Webmaster Tool.

Where Is My XML Sitemap?

Once you activate the sitemap.xml setting from Squirrly, you will find the sitemap at http://yourdomain/sitemap.xml.

For activation, go to your WordPress dashboard > Squirrly > SEO Settings > Let Squirrly SEO optimize this blog. You’ll have to switch the XML sitemap setting to Yes.

xml sitemap

You can also find your sitemap at Settings > Permalinks – in case you are using custom permalinks for your blog.

If not, then your feed link will be like this: http://yourdomain/?feed=sitemap. 

If you’ve already created an account in Webmaster, go to Google SiteMap List and add sitemap.xml in the sitemap area.

If not, click here to learn how to set it up.

Then, click “Submit Sitemap” button and that’s it.

After you submit the XML file to Google, the verification process usually takes 20 to 30 minutes. You will now see the indexing stats.

If you want to index a specific page in Google, go to Google Bot and add your page there. Click the index button and Google will crawl your page in the next 5-10 minutes. You don’t have to do this for all your posts.

Squirrly uses your sitemap.xml to add all your feed information:

  • Posts
  • Pages
  • Categories
  • Products (if you have an e-commerce site)
  • Custom post types
    Squirrly will automatically exclude the password protected posts.

How to Tell Google You Published New Posts

In the same SEO Settings panel, scroll down to the XML Sitemap for Google section, where you will see a Ping option. Switch it on and Squirrly will inform Google and Bing about your new posts.

xml sitemap

So, as you publish new content, Squirrly will automatically add it to your XML sitemap and send it to search engines.

NOTE! Squirrly will ping your new post only once, rather than each time you update its content, to prevent it from causing ranking problems.

To check the traffic to your website, don’t forget to add your site to the Google Analytics account.