I am working on a SEO project for a client who wants her blog posts to rank better in the search engines. When she first started blogging I shared my previous post, SEO tips for bloggers, with her but as the site grew we needed to fine tune her SEO efforts. One of the things were recently did was add unique meta tags for each blog entry.
We customized her Movable Type setup to include a unique meta description tag for each blog entry. When the blog was new, we added both meta keywords and meta description tags to the Header template but all that did was put the same keywords and description tag on every blog entry. As the blog grew the tags didn't reflect the content on the individual pages so it was pointless as far as SEO goes.
Here's a quick tutorial on how to use Movable Type's custom fields to add a unique meta description tag to your blog entries.
We customized her Movable Type setup to include a unique meta description tag for each blog entry. When the blog was new, we added both meta keywords and meta description tags to the Header template but all that did was put the same keywords and description tag on every blog entry. As the blog grew the tags didn't reflect the content on the individual pages so it was pointless as far as SEO goes.
Here's a quick tutorial on how to use Movable Type's custom fields to add a unique meta description tag to your blog entries.
- Go to your MT Dashboard and click PREFERENCES > CUSTOM FIELDS.
- Click NEW FIELD to add a new custom field.
- Choose ENTRY from the SYSTEM OBJECT dropdown menu.
- Type the words Meta Description in the NAME field.
- Choose SINGLE-LINE TEXT from the TYPE dropdown menu.
- Expand the EXAMPLE TEMPLATE CODE drop down and copy the generated code which should look like this:
- Click the SAVE button.
<mt:If tag="entrydatameta_description">
Meta Description: <mt:entrydatameta_description>
</mt:If>
- Choose DESIGN > TEMPLATES from your MT Dashboard.
- Click HEADER in the Template Modules section.
- Add a meta description tag and include your new custom field. It should* look like this:
- Click the SAVE button and PUBLISH your site.
*Note: I removed "Meta Description:" from the generated template code above because I don't need the name of the field to display as part of the actual description.
<meta name="Description" content="<mt:If tag="entrydatameta_description"><mt:entrydatameta_description></mt:If>
- Click CREATE > ENTRY from your MT Dashboard.
- On the right hand side of the page, click the DISPLAY OPTIONS dropdown menu.
- Under FIELDS check the META DESCRIPTION check box and click SAVE. (You will now see the custom field we just created for your meta description right under the body of your post.)
- Enter a description for your entry, click SAVE, and that's it!
If you are like me and your site is made up of both blog entries and pages, you can create another custom field to display a meta description on your pages too.
- Follow the steps 1-7 above, with the exception of number 3 and 4. Instead of choosing ENTRY you would choose PAGE. Instead of naming your new custom field Meta Description, name it Page Meta Description.
- Tweak your code with some IF Statements so if you create an Entry, it calls the Custom Field for the Entry, and if you create a Page, it calls the Custom Field created for the Page:
- Click SAVE and PUBLISH your site.
<meta name="Description" content="<mt:If tag="entrydatameta_description"><mt:entrydatameta_description><mt:Else tag="PageDataPage_meta_description"><mt:PageDataPage_meta_description></mt:If>
I am Liberation Iannillo, a web designer and social media consultant based in New York City. I work with authors, artists, publishers, and other creative professionals who want to promote their projects online and attract new creative opportunities. 
Need a website design jumpstart? Schedule a free 30 minute phone consultation with me and get over the hurdle of getting started on your website. 
