The team here at Never Settle is happy to announce that we just put the finishing touches on a new double plugin release for WordPress SEO which I believe has a lot of potential for helping out folks who use the WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin in combination with custom fields (via Advanced Custom Fields or some other custom field framework).
The Story
The idea for this project was born when we were working on a large build which used Advanced Custom Fields to handle a lot of the content architecture for the site. We are also big fans of the Yoast SEO plugin and were using that for SEO management, but we were frustrated by two things:
- First, the fact that the Yoast keyword and content scoring statistics were no longer accurate, and thus not very useful, since they didn't include the content in those custom fields.
- And similarly, the way that the Yoast meta descriptions are generated from the main post content area meant that any post that didn't have a custom, manual meta description would be left without a meaningful, unique description. For the large volume of content we were working with, automation of descriptions was a must.
Surprisingly we couldn't find anything which solved the problem we were facing; it was up to us to vanquish the dragon of SEO-impervious custom fields! Andrew, our Technology Architecture Expert, pounded out some custom code to get us up and running for the project we were working on, but we knew that we ultimately wanted to build that functionality into a plugin, both for internal use on future projects and for others who were/are facing the same problem.
Look What we Made!
Today, that effort has finally reached fruition in the double release of NS Custom Fields for WordPress SEO (free version available in the WP plugin repository) and NS Automation for Wordpress SEO (extra-powerful premium version available in the NS store).Here's a simplified breakdown of the two versions and the main things that come with each:
CAPABILITY
Include custom fields in the Yoast content analysis – hurrah for accurate scoring! - 3 Custom Fields, unlimited automation
Supports pages, posts and custom post types - With custom fields, with automation
Specify different custom fields for pages, posts and custom post types, with automation
Generate meta descriptions from custom field content, with automation
Create multiple fallbacks for fail-proof unique descriptions if custom field is empty, with automation
Thanks for reading; if you get the chance to take the plugin for a test drive or have encountered a scenario where it would be useful or could be with modification we'd love to hear your input!
Also keep in mind NS offers a 30-day money back guarantee for our plugins, so if you think that the premium version could help you out you can totally give it a shot risk-free.
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