How to add or edit your website’s metadata for search engine optimization.
Jump to the Step-by-Step Instructions
Defined as data that provides information about other data, metadata can be useful on the web for telling search engines explicit information about the content of any web page.
What metadata your website presents to search engines can be controlled by you. You can elect to use either auto-generated metadata or metadata you explicitly define for the pages and products across your website.
Auto-Generated Metadata
Overall, what metadata is provided for each page in your website is controlled by the Automatically Generate Page Metadata setting at MAIN MENU > SETTINGS > SETTINGS CATEGORIES > STORE SETUP > CMS > Automatically Generate Page Metadata. If set to YES, then the metadata for your site will be generated for each page according to programmatic best practice patterns using data you enter in various key demographic settings.
Best practices for major search engines are used in order to auto-generate metadata for your website where none has been explicitly defined.
Explicitly Defined Metadata
Explicitly defined metadata for products is configured and managed using fields on each product’s catalog admin page. Information about that setup can be found on the Insert New Product help page.
For non-product pages, the Meta Data CMS Feature, or metatools, in your admin gives you the ability to explicitly override auto-generated meta data for your site’s non-product pages.
If the Automatically Generate Page Metadata setting is set to YES, the AutoPrint system will autogenerate meta data on pages across your site from data you enter about your company when setting up your website.
Best practices for major search engines are used in order to auto-generate metadata for your website where none has been explicitly defined.
Here are instructions for how to explicitly define your own metadata for pages (not products) on your website. Information about using explicit product metadata can be found on the Insert New Product help page.
Step-by-Step Guide
To override the metadata presented for any non-product webpage on your website:
NOTE: Consult SEO best practices or an SEO expert when defining and adding your own meta information.
Select Meta Data from the CMS Features section of the Storefront CMS menu or visit
admin.yourdomain.com/settings/edit-meta-data.html?cms
To add your own explicit metadata for a page (or to define your preferred default metadata) click the Insert New button.
If default meta information has not yet been defined for your site, the first time you click Insert New you will be required to first add the default meta information before you can add any meta information for a specific page. Tokens, defined by values surrounded by curly brackets {somevalue} will replace the specified value from your settings. See the ex. in the Page Title input field.
If default meta information already exists, the Insert New Meta Tag window will provide a field at the top to specify the template for which your specified meta information is designed.
After filling in the fields, press either SAVE button.
From where does the metadata for the different types of content in my website come?
By default the Automatically Generate Page Metadata settings is enabled for all new websites. In this case, product pages and all other pages on your website will use search engine optimization best practices and data you add to your settings to programmatically generate and present to search engines fallback meta information.