SEO Framework Plugin Settings
Last Updated on 22nd September 2023 by Ajmer Singh
Are you looking for a step by step guide on SEO Framework? You are at the right place.
I will cover and explain all the settings one by one without any confusion.
And if you are a newbie, I will also tell you the settings that I use on my website for the best SEO results.
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Let’s start,
SEO Framework Plugin Settings & Configuration
SEO Framework is the fastest SEO plugin available in the WordPress directory.
Some plugins like Yoast, RankMath etc. are taking a lot of resources in the background to run – resulting in slowing down your wordpress dashboard.
It is also named Auto Description because it generates meta descriptions automatically.
To start with the SEO framework, you have to install and activate this plugin from the WordPress directory.
Also, you have to install the extension manager plugin from their official website.
I will explain later in the post why you need their extension manager plugin.
1. Install & Activate
Go to plugins – add new – search SEO Framework – install – activate.
After installation, click on the SEO button – SEO settings.
These are the total number of settings available that we need to configure.
2. General Settings
Layout
SEO Bar Settings
Display the SEO bar in overview tables: Enable
Display the SEO Bar in the SEO Settings metabox: Enable
Use symbols for warnings: They show colours for issues but if you have difficulty seeing colours then you can enable this box for showing symbols instead of colours.
Counter Settings
Display pixel counters: Enable
Display character counters: Enable
Performance
Enable search query alteration: In the Database
Enable archive query alteration: In the Database
Altering the query in the database is more accurate, but can increase database query time.
Altering the query on the site is much faster, but can lead to inconsistent pagination.
It can also lead to 404 error messages if all queried pages have been excluded.
Canonical
Scheme Settings
If your website is accessible via both HTTP and HTTPS, you may want to set this to HTTPS if not detected automatically.
Secure connections are preferred by search engines.
If it is not selected automatically then select https.
Link Relationship Settings
Some search engines look for relations between the content of your pages.
If you have pagination on a post or page or have archives indexed, these options will help search engines look for the right page to display in the search results.
It’s recommended to turn these options on for better SEO consistency and to prevent duplicated content issues.
Add ‘rel’ link tags to posts and pages: Enable
Add ‘rel’ link tags to archives: Enable
Add ‘rel’ link tags to the homepage: Enable
Time stamps
Timestamps help indicate when a page has been published and modified.
I am using the first format.
Exclusions
Nothing to change here. If you can enable this setting for posts or taxonomies then they are removed from search engines like Google.
3. Title Settings
Title Separator: select your style of the separator.
Strip HTML tags from generated titles: Enable
4. Description Meta Settings
Automatically generate descriptions: Enable
By enabling this option a description can be automatically generated for every page.
5. Social Meta Settings
General
Social Meta Tags Settings
Output Open Graph meta tags: Enable
Output Facebook meta tags: Enable
Output Twitter meta tags: Enable
Output oEmbed scripts: Enable
Social Title Settings
Remove site title from generated social titles: Disable
It’s your choice to have the site title enable or disable when shared on any social media.
Social Image Settings
Output multiple Open Graph image tags: Disable
This enables users to select any image attached to the page shared on social networks.
I have featured images on every post, so I don’t need this option.
Social image fallback URL: Add the image URL that you want to display when shared on social media.
Theme Colour Settings
Theme colour: Leave as default.
Site Shortlink Settings
Output shortlink tag: Disable
Facebook Integration Settings
Facebook App ID: Enter if you have any.
Facebook Publisher Page: Enter your Facebook page URL.
Facebook Author Fallback Page: Enter your Facebook profile URL.
Twitter Integration Settings
Twitter Card Type: Select summary or summary with a large image. I personally prefer a summary with a large image.
Tweets with images are grabbing attention.
Card and Content Attribution
Website Twitter Profile: Enter your Twitter username
Twitter Author Fallback Profile: Enter your Twitter username
oEmbed
oEembed Settings
Use Open Graph title: Disable
Enable this option if you want to replace page titles with Open Graph titles in embeds.
Use social image: Disable
LinkedIn displays the post’s featured image in embeds. Enable this option if you want to replace it with a social image.
Remove author name: Disable
Discord shows the page author’s name above the sharing embed. Enable this option if you find this undesirable.
Post dates
Some social sites output the shared post’s publishing and modified data in the sharing snippet.
Select the option you want to display i.e. published time or modified time.
6. Home Page Settings
General
Meta Title: Enter your Homepage title.
Meta Description: Enter your Homepage description.
Additions
Meta Title Additions: Enter your site title.
Add Meta Title Additions to the homepage title: Enable
Meta Title Additions Location: I prefer right but it’s your choice.
Social
Open Graph Title: Homepage title
Open Graph Description: Homepage description
I prefer the same title and description on every social site.
Twitter Title: Homepage title
Twitter Description: Homepage description
As I said, I prefer the same title and description on every social site.
Robots
Robots Meta Settings
Apply ‘noindex’ to the homepage: Disable
Apply ‘nofollow’ to the homepage: Disable
Apply ‘noarchive’ to the homepage: Disable
Noindex your homepage simply means removing your site from search engines like Google.
Homepage Pagination Robots Settings
Apply ‘noindex’ to every second or later page on the homepage: Enable
If your homepage is paginated and outputs content that’s also found elsewhere on the website, enabling this option may prevent duplicate content.
7. Schema.org Settings
Structure
Breadcrumbs: Enable
Breadcrumb trails indicate page positions in the site’s hierarchy.
Using the following option will show the hierarchy within the search results when available.
Sitelinks Searchbox: Enable
When Search users search for your brand name, the following option allows them to search through this website directly from the search results.
Presence
Authorised Presence Options
Output Authorised Presence: Enable
The authorised presence Schema.org output helps search engine users find ways to interact with this website.
About this website
The website represents: A person or Organisation
In my case, I am the only one that manages this site. But if you are representing an organisation then select that option.
The organisation or personal name: Enter your name or Organisation name.
Website Logo
Website logo: Enable
Logo URL: Submit the logo URL that represents your website.
8. Robots Meta Settings
General
Advanced Query Protection: Enable
Some URL queries can cause WordPress to show faux archives.
When search engines spot these, they will crawl and index them, which may cause a drop in ranking.
Advanced query protection will prevent robots from indexing these archives.
Apply noindex to every second or later archive page: Enable
Indexing the second or later page of any archive might cause duplication errors.
Search engines look down upon them; therefore, it’s recommended to disable indexing of those pages.
Specify aggregator copyright compliance directives: Enable
Some search engines allow you to control copyright directives on the content they aggregate.
It’s best to allow some content to be taken by these aggregators, as that can improve contextualised exposure via snippets and previews.
When left unspecified, regional regulations may apply. It is up to the aggregator to honour these requests.
Maximum text snippet length: Unlimited
Maximum image preview size: Thumbnail or Standard size
Maximum image preview length: Full video preview
Indexing
These options most likely prevent indexing of the selected archives and pages.
If you enable this, the selected archives or pages will urge to be removed from search engine results pages.
Recommended: No index your Tags and Author pages to prevent issues with duplicate content.
Not recommended: No index your posts and pages or the entire website.
Following
These options most likely prevent links from being followed on the selected archives and pages.
If you enable this, the selected archives’ or pages’ in-page links will gain no SEO value, including your internal links.
So not recommended to enable any of the options.
Archiving
These options most likely prevent caching of the selected archives and pages.
If you enable this, bots are urged not to create a cached copy of the selected archives or pages.
Not recommended to enable any option.
9. Webmaster Meta Settings
Enter your verification code of different search engines where you want your site to appear properly and control different parts of it.
Just click on the [?] and you will be redirected to the verification page.
10. Sitemap Settings
General
The sitemap is an XML file that lists indexable pages of your website, along with optional metadata.
It helps search engines find new and updated content quickly.
Output Optimized Sitemap: Enable (This type of sitemap is processed quicker by search engines)
Sitemap Query Limit: 1000 (Consider lowering this value when the sitemap shows a white screen or notifies you of memory exhaustion.)
Robots.txt
The robots.txt output is the first thing search engines look for before crawling your site.
If you add the sitemap location in that output, then search engines may automatically access and index the sitemap.
Add sitemap location to robots.txt: Enable
Metadata
The modified time suggests to search engines where to look for content changes first.
Add ‘<lastmod>’ to the sitemap: Enable
Ping
Ping Settings
Pinging or Notifying search engines of a sitemap change is helpful to get your content indexed as soon as possible.
Use cron for pinging: Enable
This speeds up post and term saving processes, by offsetting pinging to a later time.
Prerender optimised sitemap before pinging via cron: Disable
Only enable prerendering when generating the sitemap takes over 60 seconds.
Notify Google about sitemap changes: Enable
Notify Bing about sitemap changes: Enable
Style
You can style the optimised sitemap to give it a more personal look for your visitors. Search engines do not use these styles.
Note: changes may not appear to have an effect directly because the style sheet is cached in the browser for 30 minutes.
Select the options according to your preferred choice.
11. Feed Settings
Content Feed Settings
Sometimes, your content can get stolen by robots through the WordPress feeds. This can cause duplicate content issues.
To prevent this from happening, it’s recommended to convert the feed’s content into an excerpt.
Adding a backlink below the feed entries will also let the visitors know where the content came from.
Convert feed entries into excerpts: Enable
Add a link to the source below the feed entry content: Enable
Allow indexing of feeds: Disable
SEO Framework Extension Manager
The extension manager provides some extra features that enhance the performance of this plugin.
1. Focus (Premium)
This extension helps you to focus your content on a few well-targeted search phrases, significantly increasing your chances of ranking on the first page.
After defining the subject of the page you’re writing, Focus rates your page on various SEO principles.
These principles include subject density, linking, and more.
They help you to see how well you’ve increased your chances of being ranked higher.
2. Articles (Premium)
With the Articles extension, your posts are understood better by search engines.
For news articles, it allows them to be displayed prominently within Google’s search carousel.
For blog postings and investigational reports, it improves search presence for recurring visitors.
All this is achieved via structured data with Articles, without a hassle.
Articles automatically fetch all inferred information from your pages and output the structured data in a hidden machine-readable script on your page.
When search engines find this script, they’ll process it.
3. Honeypot (Premium)
WordPress allows visitors to interact with your website easily. Unfortunately, it’s too easy.
Because WordPress’s comment system is open and known, it attracts unwanted comments.
These comments are often automatically inserted to share backlinks via meticulously crafted text templates that can fool anybody.
Websites with spammy content are seen as low-quality by your visitors and search engines alike.
Now, you could waste your time moderating the comments manually… or, you could use Honeypot, which does that in less than a thousandth of a second.
4. Cord (Premium)
Manage third-party services for your WordPress website with ease.
Activate the extension, fill in the connection keys, and you’re done.
Cord supports the Google Analytics and Facebook pixel services.
For these, you require a “Google Analytics” and “Facebook for Business” accounts, respectively.
5. Local (Premium)
For most businesses, local listings are a must.
Once listed, a potential visitor can then find more about your business directly from search engines.
A local listing within Google will also be placed up front and sometimes above all other search results.
With the Local extension, you can list your local business departments in Google and other search engines.
This extension is for your business, if:
- Your business is physically established in one or more locations.
- You want to inform search engine users nearby about your business before they enter your site.
- You want your business to be easily found on specific keywords, like “Italian Restaurant”.
- You want your business website to have more authority and search presence.
6. AMP (Free)
The Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) project is an open-source initiative.
Its primary goal is to create fast-loading pages, that are served directly from Google’s servers.
To integrate AMP into WordPress, use Automattic’s AMP plugin to get started.
After the AMP plugin by Automattic is activated, you can start using the AMP extension.
7. Monitor (Premium)
Maintaining a WordPress website isn’t easy. Before you start, you must find a suitable theme, useful plugins, and then set them all up.
Now, you might not be wary of your website’s issues and plugin’s conflict with the theme or each other.
This is where the Monitor services comes in.
The Monitor extension looks at your website as a real visitor would–directly from SEO frameworks servers.
Without WordPress’s obstruction, it checks if all the basics have correctly been set up.
Like other web inspectors, Monitor looks for common website errors.
Unlike other web inspectors, it compares found data to your WordPress environment, with a two-phase check.
The first phase happens on SEO frameworks servers, where they crawl several URLs on your website to find common issues.
All information they find is sent back to the Monitor extension.
The second phase happens in your dashboard, where the information is compared to your WordPress environment, like SEO settings.
This cooperation creates personalized information like no other inspector could.
8. Incognito (Free)
Unlike other SEO plugins, The SEO Framework allows you to remove the annotations mentioned above easily through filters.
This extension uses those filters to disable the annotations.
9. Origin (Free)
Within WordPress, you can easily upload and manage your media. This media, for example, an image, is often placed inside the post content.
WordPress creates a new page as a placeholder for each attachment.
These pages are not beneficial for most websites, because your visitors won’t see the initially intended context.
These pages are also harmful to SEO, as there’s often no content attached.
With Origin, all attachment pages will redirect your visitors to the best page available. Albeit the original content, or the plain attachment itself.
10. Title Fix (Free)
WordPress themes have final control of the title. Far too often, theme authors opted in for “pretty” titles, rather than semantic titles.
This created various issues.
That’s why I recommend selecting an SEO-optimized theme like Themify Ultra.
Is this extension for you?
If you notice your page titles aren’t what you set them to be, then yes.
Otherwise, this extension won’t have any effect.
When the extension is active, it automatically looks for the title in your page’s source and overwrites it when found.
Wrapping Up
SEO Framework is one of the recommended SEO plugin for wordpress users looking for speed as well as performance.
I switched to SEO Framework and found it helpful. What are your thoughts?
Let me know in the comments section.
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